One Night to Remember: Wicked Dukes Club #5

by Ridley, Erica

  His family had never been rich, but they had always believed in each other and in him.

  “Have you always wanted to be a duchess?” he asked, thinking of her list. “Or a countess or a marchioness?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “No. For so long, I was too worried about today to think about tomorrow. That all turned on its head when Cole inherited a dukedom. Suddenly there was a future to worry about. All I can do is make the best choices I can.”

  Giles wanted a happy, loving marriage like his parents had. Joy and contentment for thirty-five years and counting.

  “Have you considered,” he asked carefully, “the possibility of a love match?”

  “Love doesn’t buy bread.” Felicity’s dark eyes were haunted. “I refuse to raise a family in poverty, and I intend to lift as many other children up from that mire as I can. I’ll marry whichever man whose advantages can create the most good.”

  Giles handed her a plate of fruit in silence. He did not find fault with her goals to improve children’s futures. He shared them. They were just following two different paths to do so.

  The big heart he admired so much was the reason she would never let herself see him as anything but a temporary diversion. He could offer love, but she was not seeking it. He lacked the high society pedigree required for his name to be added to her list.

  Yet he could not help but wish there was some way to convince her to see him as something more.

  “I wish you’d let me work on Baby,” she said as she popped a grape into her mouth.

  He finished off the last apple slice. “You’ll never work on Baby.”

  “I saw you race,” she said. “I could help.”

  “I won,” he reminded her. “Handily, you might recall.”

  “But wouldn’t it be splendid to leave your competitors behind in an even bigger cloud of dust?” she insisted, brown eyes sparkling. “I could shave at least thirty seconds off your time.”

  “No one would know.” He lifted his pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket. “Most timepieces don’t display seconds.”

  “You would know,” she said confidently. “The only reason you aren’t saying yes is because it would wound you to admit that the Curricle King might have missed a trick or two.”

  A slow smile threatened to take over his face. There was indeed a trick or two that it would wound him not to take advantage of. And it had nothing to do with races on Rotten Row.

  “Very well,” he said. “But a favor for a favor. Right here. Right now.”

  Her eyes widened in alarm. “W-what kind of favor?”

  “I’ll neither ask for your hand nor for your virginity,” he assured her. At least, not without her enthusiastic consent.

  Her frown deepened. “Then what do you want?”

  A chance.

  He stood up and held out his hand. “A waltz.”

  “A waltz?” she repeated in confusion as she placed her hand in his.

  He pulled her to her feet and led her to the center of the soft grass.

  She could not invite him into her world, like he’d invited her into his, but perhaps here among the trees and the birds and the flowers, they could create a private world to share with each other.

  He began to dance.

  She fit in his arms perfectly. As though they belonged together beneath the dappled sun. As though their entire lives had led to this moment, to this space, to the joy of each other's arms.

  “You can waltz,” she said in surprise, then blushed. “I didn’t mean—”

  “You did mean,” he said with faux sternness. “Almack’s isn’t the only place with music, you know.”

  “You’re right,” she said softly. “I can feel the music in my soul, right here in the park.”

  He’d been referring to Vauxhall, but her quiet admission grabbed him by the heart. There was music all around. The rustle of leaves, the babble of a stream, the warble of a starling.

  Like her, he could feel it in his soul.

  He wanted her to be proud of him, wanted her to be happy with him. Not just in occasional stolen moments, but for—

  “I should go,” she said with reluctance. “I’m to have a fitting for a new gown.”

  “All right,” he said, and meant it. But his lips had other plans.

  She was already in his arms; close enough to kiss. All he had to do was close the distance between them.

  Nothing on this earth could keep his mouth from hers.

  Her tongue tasted like sweet red grapes and her skin smelled of springtime. With every kiss, her lips became more familiar and more impossible to resist. It was as though their mouths belonged together, their bodies, their hearts.

  How could he convince her that what she felt was important, too?

  Chapter 8

  Felicity tucked a fresh rag into the waistband of her trousers and returned to her task of reseating new wheels. Now that Giles had allowed her to tinker with his most treasured possession, she was determined to prove herself worthy of his trust.

  They were alone in his smithy, working on each other's carriages in a companionable silence intermittently broken by a technical question or a teasing comment about the other’s obsession with cast tapered sleeves or the like.

  Felicity couldn’t remember passing a more delightful morning in quite some time.

  When her brother had unexpectedly inherited, his reaction had been the exact opposite of hers. Cole never wanted to lay eyes on a forge or a slitting chisel ever again.

  It wasn’t that he believed himself above hard work, now that he possessed a title. He’d had to work harder than most to make top marks at Oxford, and he applied that same diligence and energy to both the House of Lords and his tavern.

  To Cole, entering a smithy felt like failure. It smelled of poverty and angry tears and made his stomach twist with remembered hunger.

  But Felicity did not remember the time when they’d lived with their parents in a tiny cottage outside London where the meals were simple but could be counted upon, along with the hugs and the smiles and the laughter.

  To her, the smithy had meant warmth and camaraderie and a place to belong. It had meant being useful, being needed. “Little Felix” was a favorite, which only made her love the other lads all the more. They were the first home she could remember. The first time she had family other than Cole to count on.

  Leaving them had been hard. Not just because she’d had to go from Little Felix to Lady Felicity, but because she’d had to learn to navigate an entirely new world.

  Swage blocks were easy. Minuets were hard. Embroidery was impossible.

  But she’d tried her damnedest, and somehow, she’d muddled through. High Society was her new home now. She had to remember that.

  “Want more lemonade?” came Giles’s voice from the other side of the shop.

  She leaned an elbow on the tug stop. “What happened to the lemon tarts I ordered?”

  “Kitchen’s that way.” He gestured toward the far door, then dropped back to the felloes. “Make a double batch. I’m peckish.”

  She laughed under her breath as she tested the security of a nut flange. The last thing Giles would expect was for her to take him up on his offer, and march into his kitchen to whip up a batch of fruit tarts.

  He did expect her to do every bit as expert a job, when it came to spoiling Baby, as he and his father had done before her. His faith meant more to her than a thousand sonnets.

  Not that she was in the market for love poems, she reminded herself. Just because she felt as much at home in Giles’s smithy as her own did not mean it was ever going to be her home.

  It just meant she had to enjoy every minute of their time together because she’d never again have moments like these to share.

  She couldn’t even enter her own brother’s tavern without destroying her reputation in the process, much less pursue an eyebrow-raising friendship with a coach smith.

  Even if he could waltz like an angel and gave kisses more tempting t
han the devil himself.

  Giles poked his head over the footrest. His handsome, irresistible smile made her pulse flutter anew. “I really am peckish.”

  “And I’m really not making lemon tarts,” she said with arched brows.

  Truth was, she didn’t know how. If she did, she’d be tempted to bake a dozen every day, just to have an excuse to spend more time with him.

  He tossed his apron onto the closest clear surface. “Come on. Let’s go get some tea.”

  Her pulse leapt. Go…in? Inside his private quarters?

  Felicity’s stomach growled right on cue. Whether she was hungry for tea or more of Giles’s drugging kisses remained to be seen.

  Probably both.

  She placed her apron beside his and followed him to the rear door.

  Tea was not courtship, she reminded herself. Tea was something everyone drank. It meant nothing at all.

  Even if the butterflies in her stomach begged to differ.

  She followed him down a stairwell leading to a pretty, private residence facing the opposite street. It was clean, orderly, homey, just like his shop.

  Unlike his shop, neither customers nor young apprentices were likely to wander in off the streets.

  Here… anything could happen.

  “I like your rooms,” she said shyly.

  “Do you?” he asked with obvious surprise. “I feel like it’s missing some frescoes and gilt, and humble marble flooring.”

  “It’s missing lemon tarts,” she reminded him. “You can’t eat marble flooring.”

  “I’ve never tried,” he told her with wide eyes. “Does Almack’s serve that with a little salt, or a dollop of French sauces?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be cooking?” she grumped. “Mix some gold dust in my tea.”

  “I knew there was something I meant to pick up at market.” He kissed the tip of her nose, then led her to a sunny parlor with a large window and cozy chairs. When she was settled, he rang a bell pull.

  A fresh-faced maid immediately appeared. “Yes, sir?”

  Felicity blinked. She shouldn’t be surprised Giles had a maid. Who else would be fixing his meals and pressing fresh trousers for lady colleagues? He was far too busy to deal with such minutia himself. His time was better spent in carriage houses and on racing tracks.

  Besides, Cole’s list of approved suitors exclusively named men richer than Croesus, and they were all Giles’s clients. If what her brother was paying him was anything to go on, Giles could afford a far more extensive staff than half the fortune-hunters at Almack’s.

  No wonder his home was far more elegant than she’d imagined.

  “Just realizing untitled men can live comfortably, too?” he asked dryly.

  Her cheeks heated.

  “In my defense,” she explained, “I’ve never known any who did. First I was incredibly poor and had nothing, and then I was incredibly rich and had everything. I never had a chance to experience having some of the things.”

  “I don’t have ‘some’ of the things,” Giles said as he settled into a comfortable sofa to her left. “I have all the things I care about. The things I appreciate most cannot be purchased.”

  A man who already had everything had no need for anything—or anyone—else.

  There was no room for her. Not in his house, not in his smithy, not in his life. She should be glad. It should make walking away all the easier. And yet the thought of doing so ripped a hole in her chest.

  She bit her lip. “Is there nothing else you want?”

  Rather than answer, he looked away. The maid was just arriving with a tray laden with tea service and sandwiches.

  “Allow me to pour this time,” Felicity said.

  Giles held out a palm in acquiescence.

  “Pour fast,” he warned, “else I might eat all the sandwiches while you dally.”

  “A lady never dailies when it comes to tea,” she assured him.

  Indeed, they didn’t speak another word until every crumb was gone.

  “You’re not the only one who started with little and ended with a lot,” he said as he collapsed back against his chair with a sated sigh.

  Her heart thumped. The stiff-necked denizens of the ton would consider anything less than a palace to be an unfortunate hovel, but Felicity intimately understood how Giles felt. She just hadn’t realized they shared that, too.

  “You haven’t always lived here?” she asked in surprise.

  “I used to live there.” He gestured back toward the entrance. “On the other side of that door is another set of rooms, above the original smithy. That’s where my parents live.”

  Felicity blinked. That meant Giles’s “rooms” spanned half the block.. and his parents’ rooms spanned the other half.

  “How did you afford it?” she asked.

  Not a question one asked in polite society, but she and Giles were not currently in polite society. They were two people who had once intimately known the value and loss of every half-penny.

  “Racing,” he answered simply. “As it turns out, the risk-taking business is far more lucrative than the horseshoe-plating business.”

  This did not surprise Felicity at all. Not anymore, that was.

  When she and Cole attempted to join society, they had both been appalled at the staggering sums wagered for no apparent reason. I say my dog has bigger paws than your dog. The next person who walks through the door will be wearing a feathered cap. I bet my ancestral home that the next card I turn over will be the Jack of Diamonds.

  Cole had never wagered a farthing until he was invited to participate in the races. Coddled aristocrats might know everything there was to know about purchasing fine thoroughbreds and fancy coaches, but Felicity and Cole knew what it meant to be the ones taking care of them.

  Her brother wasn’t nearly the whip or the daredevil that Giles was—Cole only accepted dares he was certain he could win—but if the offer to race for money had been made to them twelve years ago, back when their long hours at the smithy was the closest they could come to securing any kind of a future…

  She and her brother would have made the exact same choice Giles had.

  A knife twisted in her chest as she wondered how different things might have been if she’d met Giles as equals, rather than as the titled sister of one of his aristocratic clients. Instead of running a charitable foundation funded by well-to-do philanthropists, she might be up to her elbows in axle grease, teaching boys and girls alike how to maintain a carriage. Instead of marrying a marquess, she’d…

  She reached for Giles’s hand. “I…”

  Before she could continue, a white-haired woman with bright blue eyes burst into the parlor with arms laden with brown-paper parcels.

  “Biscuits for the lads,” she announced, then stopped dead at the sight of Felicity. “And I suppose this is the reason why I also brought lemon tarts?”

  Felicity leaped to her feet to dip an elegant curtsey. When she realized she was still wearing trousers, she switched to an awkward bow halfway through.

  “You baked lemon tarts for me?” she stammered in the hopes of distracting their visitor from whatever disaster of bent limbs Felicity had just performed.

  “Oh, heavens no,” the woman laughed. “I’m a terrible cook. These are from the bakery down the street. Obadiah sends his regards, by the way. His wagon has never been in better condition.”

  “Felicity,” Giles said, “meet my mother. Mother, this is Felicity.”

  A lonesome stab of longing flashed through Felicity’s heart. A deep yearning to be something more than a mere guest. To share Giles’s home, his shop, his life. His wonderful mother, with her lemon tarts and warm, friendly smile.

  “I won’t interrupt for long,” Mrs. Langford said, her knowing eyes twinkling. “I just wanted to bring biscuits for his little helpers.”

  He kissed her cheek and reached for one of the parcels.

  Mrs. Langford moved it out of reach. “None for you, sir. The biscuits are for y
our young apprentices, and that’s final. If you’d like a lemon tart…” She handed a string-tied parcel to Felicity. “Then you’ll have to work out your transaction with the lemon tarts’ rightful owner.”

  Giles’s mouth fell open.

  The marvelous Mrs. Langford took the chair to Felicity’s right. “May I have one?”

  “You may have three.” Felicity placed them in Mrs. Langford’s palm, charmed. How she would love to have a mother like this! “Please say you can stay for Second Tea? You seem like a woman who must possess unlimited amusing stories about embarrassing anecdotes in Giles’s past.”

  “Do I ever,” Mrs. Langford agreed, popping a lemon tart into her mouth. “And I would be delighted to share every last one of them with you. First, there was the time at the Peerless Pool, when he—”

  “Mother…” Giles began in warning.

  Mrs. Langford waved his interruption away. “Oh, very well. It’ll have to be next time, my dear. I’m afraid I cannot stay long.” Her tone lowered as she turned to her son. “Might you come by soon… to…”

  “Yes,” he said quickly. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  Felicity’s smile faltered. The mirage shimmered and popped. Something was up, but their lives had nothing to do with her. That was not her family. This was not her home.

  She didn’t belong.

  Chapter 9

  “Colehaven!” cried a sea of voices, followed by an equally exuberant cry of, “Eastleigh!”

  The sounds of laughter and clinking glasses filled the Wicked Duke tavern as its denizens cheered the arrival of the pub’s owners and erstwhile namesakes. That the infamous “wicked dukes” were now happily married did not detract an iota from their charm.

  This Season marked the tavern’s ten-year anniversary. At first, London hadn’t known what to think when two dukes purchased a property near the Haymarket and opened its doors to all walks of life.

  Was it a fashionable pub? Not to the aristocrats who prized exclusivity and privilege above all things. Was it a popular pub, despite the absence of certain high-in-the-instep prigs? Absolutely.