Anything But a Duke

by Christy Carlyle

  “I need to speak with Miss Ashby.” He glanced around, his gaze skimming each of them. “Privately.”

  Bess and Dominick moved past him into the hall, so that only Grace remained, standing between the two of them. She looked from Aidan to Diana, and then let out a weary sigh.

  “This is most unusual,” she said with more understanding than Diana expected. “But I will ensure that you have some privacy and tell the others we’ll hold off dancing for a quarter of an hour. Will that do?”

  When neither of them answered, Grace exited the sitting room and pulled the door closed behind her.

  “I met a Lady Josephine Brook today.” His voice was strained, raw. “She is my half-sister.”

  They were the last words Diana expected to hear, and she approached immediately to lay a hand on his arm. “The name on the envelope? How did you find her?”

  “She found me.” He stared down at his boots a moment before meeting her gaze again. “My father is an earl and my mother was his servant.”

  “You’ve found your family,” Diana said quietly. She was glad he had answers, and yet heartbroken that he’d endured so much and grown up without a family.

  “What I’ve found is that I’m no longer as concerned with where I came from as with what the future holds.” His gaze was lit with warmth, and though he spoke with his usual confidence, there was a raw intensity in his tone. He reached for her, stepping closer until they were bodice to waistcoat. “You know that I can’t marry Grace Grinstead.”

  “Can’t you?” Diana found that the nervous anticipation of seeing him again was nothing compared to the rush of pleasure that poured through her veins like warm treacle when he was this close. “She will be disappointed.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Grace,” he said firmly. “I want to talk about us.”

  Diana moved a bit closer and wondered why she’d ever thought she could resist him and the feelings he stoked in her. “I thought I explained everything.”

  “Do you trust me?” When they were so close his trouser legs brushed the bell of her skirt, he reached for her. Sliding a hand around her waist, he held her very much as he had the night they’d met.

  “You know that I do.”

  “Then believe me when I tell you that I’ve realized what’s important. Those goals you think I was clinging to don’t matter to me at all.” He bent closer and said quietly, intently, “Diana, a future with you is what I want. You matter to me.”

  “But I’m not what you n—”

  He lifted a finger and pressed it to her lips. “You are what I need.”

  Diana scooted an inch closer, savoring the heat of him. “You’re certain?”

  One ruddy brow lifted and his mouth tipped up in a smile. “I intend to show you how certain every single day.” The smile ebbed and his mouth turned down. “That is, if you’ll allow me to.”

  She lifted a hand between them and wrapped her fingers around one of the buttons of his waistcoat. Her mind had quieted, and she knew only one thing for certain.

  “I’ve confessed all,” he said softly. “But you must tell me what you want.”

  The words were there on the tip of her tongue, bursting to break free, but some last threads of resistance held her back. “I spoke to Dominick about all of this,” she told him with a smile.

  “What did you tell him?” He leaned down and nuzzled her cheek.

  “I told him I was fond of you.”

  “Fond?” He pulled back and chuckled. “That’s it? You describe your pneumatic device with more enthusiasm. And what did you tell him of my feelings for you?”

  “I said you admired me.”

  “Too tame, Miss Ashby.”

  “He’s my brother. I didn’t want to be too explicit.”

  “But here, now, it’s just you and me.” He wrapped his other arm around her, pulled her an inch closer, and stepped one leg forward so that his thigh pressed between hers. “You can be very explicit.”

  “You did say you love me. I am recalling accurately, am I not?”

  “I could repeat it again, if you like.”

  “Could you?”

  “Mmm. We could make it a daily ritual.” He slid a hand up her back and stroked a delicious trail back down again. “I love you, Diana.”

  He bent his head. Diana licked her lips, starving for the taste of him. But after just brushing her lips with his, he pulled away.

  “What will you say when I repeat the words every day?” He tipped his head and cast her a mischievous smile. “It seems to beg some kind of response. I’m curious what yours would be.”

  Diana held the words on the tip of her tongue a moment longer. Then she couldn’t hold them back anymore.

  “I love you, Aidan Iverson.” She sealed the words by bouncing onto her toes, slipping a hand around his neck, and pulling him down for a kiss. She was so relieved to have him in her arms that she sighed against his mouth and kissed him again. And once more.

  “Do you think it will get repetitive?” he teased, as he trailed hot, openmouthed kisses down her neck. “Me telling you. You telling me.”

  “Perhaps,” Diana told him on a gasp when he ran his tongue along the dip at the base of her throat. “There are times when actions speak louder than words.”

  She felt him smile against her skin.

  “You’re such a clever woman.” He lifted his head and stared down at her, a question in his eyes. “Shall we start now?”

  “A quarter of an hour isn’t much time at all.”

  He reached a hand down to cup her bottom and sighed. “And a practical woman too.”

  “Then we should join the others?”

  “We should,” he agreed, and then pressed a quick kiss to the tip of her nose. He lowered his arms, but immediately clasped her hand. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop touching you even once we’re in the ballroom. Will it scandalize everyone terribly?”

  “Probably.” Diana chuckled, and her heart felt lighter than it had in days. Years. Perhaps ever.

  She let Aidan lead her to the sitting room door, but he stopped short and turned back.

  “We’re forgetting something very important,” he told her with a frown.

  “Are we?”

  Aidan released her hand and dug in his pocket. Then he got down before her on one knee. “We never quite did this last time, did we?”

  “You know my answer, Aidan.”

  “Do I? You know I’m a man of business. I like the details.” He reached for her hand. “And you deserve this to be done properly.”

  Diana grinned.

  “Will you be mine, Diana Ashby?” He offered her a small band of gold, inset with a string of tiny diamonds.

  The words were so raw. No negotiating terms or thoughts of what they might exchange in this bargain. Just an offer of belonging, and a promise of love.

  “Yes, I will be yours.”

  His smile said she’d given him the moon and stars and everything in between. He got to his feet. His hands shook as his slipped the ring on her finger, and his mouth trembled when he kissed her.

  “Did you expect this when I saved you in the Belgravia mews?” Diana whispered when he lifted his head.

  “I knew you were beautiful, fierce, and utterly unforgettable.”

  “I feared I’d never see you again,” she confessed. “Now I know I don’t want to be without you.”

  He looked at her as he always did, as if she was the most interesting woman he’d ever seen, as if he didn’t want to take his eyes off her. But now there was something else. Contentedness. She felt it too.

  Being in his arms felt right, but having him as her own felt like a gift.

  “You never have to be without me, love. I’m right where I belong.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  May 1846

  Mayfair

  “Have you seen my wife?” Aidan quizzed the crew of workmen who were converting his billiard room into a workshop and laboratory for Diana. The space was larg
e enough and had a sufficiently high ceiling to allow her to work on larger prototypes and stack raw materials several feet high, if she so desired.

  When the three men grumbled and shook their heads, Aidan made his way down the hallway and was befuddled by the absence of servants. Usually there was a maid or butler about, especially this close to the dinner hour.

  His day at the office had been long, tedious, and full of meetings with men who blustered too long and had very little of interest to say.

  In short, he wanted to see his wife.

  “Diana!” he shouted, not caring which of their neighbors heard him.

  “Aidan.” She approached from the opposite end of the hall, a smile on her face, and the evening post clutched in her hand. He scooped her into his arms and kissed her before she could tell him about the post. He didn’t care who’d billed them for what service or which invitations they’d received from the Tremaynes or Huntley or one of his Lyon’s Club cronies.

  She kissed him eagerly, hungrily, and Aidan sidestepped with her into the study, kicking the door shut with the toe of his boot.

  “I missed you,” she told him, “and I—”

  He kissed her again and she laughed against his lips.

  “Is this one of those you’ll-kiss-me-every-time-I-interrupt-you moments?”

  “No,” he said, dipping his head to kiss her cheek, her neck, the spot just below her ear. “I’ve simply missed you too and haven’t had my fill of you yet.”

  “You’ll want to hear this news,” she said, waving one of the letters in her hand.

  “Tell me.” He didn’t want to let her go, but he could hear the eagerness in her voice and didn’t wish to stifle that either.

  “I think you should read it for yourself.”

  With a long-suffering sigh, Aidan released his wife and took the letter she offered. He frowned as he read and then both brows winged up.

  “He’s invited us to dine at his home,” she told him.

  “So I see.”

  The letter was from Lord Archibald Lockwood, and Aidan didn’t feel an ounce of the interest he expected to feel upon seeing the old man’s name embossed on the missive’s letterhead. Aidan had followed news of the burgeoning industrial exhibition with interest and even privately advised several inventors to submit their designs for inclusion in the exhibition. He’d encouraged Diana to do the same. A few of the men whose devices he’d invested in had been selected, and Aidan had contented himself with being involved in the project in that small way.

  Now Lord Lockwood had invited the Iversons to dine at his Sussex country house. What a difference a few months had wrought.

  “He says he wishes to speak to you about the exhibition and discuss my newest invention,” Diana said as she came to stand beside him, her backside resting next to his against the desk. “Someone must have spoken to him about me. And you.”

  Lockwood’s letter was almost opposite in tone from the one Aidan had received in response to his inquiry long ago. In that reply, Lockwood had been arrogant, insulting, dismissive. The letter Aidan held in his hand now was almost fawning. The question was, who’d taken it upon himself to turn the old man in their favor?

  Aidan let his mind sift the possibilities, then cast the letter aside to move and stand in front of his wife.

  “Shall we accept his invitation?”

  “You’d consider refusing?” She sounded shocked.

  He understood her confusion. This exhibition had once mattered to him so much that he was willing to marry a woman for the blood in her veins and how far back she could trace her family history in Debrett’s. He winced to think of how mercenary he’d been, how he’d let ambition cloud everything else.

  But his heart was full now. Love had changed him. Diana had changed him. And loving her made everything he’d sought, everything he’d achieved, worthwhile. He had a home. He had belonging. The hunger had abated.

  Except when it came to his wife, and she was the reason he wished to accept. “I think we should go,” he said decisively.

  Lockwood’s letter implied not just an opportunity for Aidan, but for Diana too. Perhaps one of her inventions would be featured in the exhibition. That would make him happier than sitting on a committee and enduring a series of mind-numbing meetings with pompous noblemen.

  “This is a cause to celebrate,” she told him, “so I’ve asked the servants to prepare a table for us in the conservatory.”

  He was hungry, but it wasn’t for an elegantly arranged four-course meal in the conservatory.

  “How long until dinner?” Aidan slipped a finger inside the square neckline of her day dress and pulled Diana closer. She laced her arms around his neck and smiled.

  “Long enough, I think.”

  “Excellent.” He stroked low inside her bodice, reaching his fingers down until he found the peak of her nipple.

  She let out a delicious gasp and reached down to ruck up the skirt of her gown, spreading her legs so that he could step between. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d taken her on his study desk, but he was more than happy to add to the number this evening.

  When she reached for the opening of his trousers, it was his turn to gasp. She stroked him eagerly through the fabric, and he bent to take her mouth.

  Someone rapped on his study door and Aidan groaned miserably against Diana’s lips.

  “Ignore them,” he begged her.

  “It’s probably one of the workmen. They promised to come and report on their progress before they finished up this evening.” She pushed gently at his chest and then lowered herself from the desk, her body sliding enticingly against his.

  Aidan sucked in a deep breath and tried to stifle his urges while he helped her settle her dress.

  She fussed with a few strands of loose hair as she made her way to the door. Aidan took his eyes off her long enough to notice that some of the post had fallen onto the carpet. He bent to retrieve the letters and noticed one small, neatly constructed envelope with an address written in an elegant looping script.

  The name Josephine stood out, and he grabbed at the envelope, tearing eagerly at the seams.

  Aidan,

  I hope you don’t mind me addressing you as such. If we ever meet again, please do call me Josephine. We are family, after all.

  I believe you will already have received a note from Lord Archibald Lockwood. I understand through various sources that you were quite keen on participating in the industrial exhibition being planned by Prince Albert in the coming year. Based on your experience and knowledge of industrial devices, you seem a perfect fit to advise in such a matter, but I understand that Lord Lockwood was not initially receptive to that proposition.

  He is now. A few words were little enough to offer on your behalf, and I am glad if I have assisted you in any way.

  Our father has passed on. If you would ever wish to call at Wyndham House, you will be welcomed.

  Your sister,

  Josephine

  Diana had urged Aidan to invite his sister to their wedding, but Josephine had not come. Now he understood why.

  He’d once thought his tendency to refuse the help of others was smart. A means of protecting himself. Now he saw the selfishness in it and the folly.

  “What is it?” Diana asked as she approached and noticed the note in his hands.

  “My sister. She’s the one who spoke to Lockwood.”

  “That was very kind of her.” She stepped closer and rested her hand over his. “I’d like to meet her. It sounds like we owe her our gratitude. Do you think perhaps we should invite her to visit?”

  “Yes, let’s do that.” All the old hurts had faded with time. He still mourned Sarah and wondered about his mother, but all the old resentments seemed anemic now. His happiness with Diana was the belonging he’d always sought. Still, he’d spent years searching for his family. Now that he knew he had a sister, he wanted to welcome her into his life.

  Diana’s love was as boundless as her imaginatio
n. He needed to follow her example.

  He hooked her arm around his and began to lead her toward the door, but she pulled him back.

  “I thought we had time before dinner to . . .”

  Aidan chuckled and turned to pull her into his arms. “Do we still have time?”

  “I want us to make the time.”

  “Mrs. Iverson,” he said as he pressed the study door closed and nestled her back against it, “you’re the cleverest woman I’ve ever known.”

  “So you married me for my mind?”

  He bent and reached for the hem of her gown, tugging the fabric higher and pressing kisses against her hip, her waist, her breast as he slid the skirt up to her waist. “That was one consideration, certainly.”

  “What were the others?” Diana nipped at his bottom lip.

  He groaned when she began to kiss him in earnest, stroking him with her tongue.

  When he lifted his head, he told her, “You are kind, driven, and quite skilled at using an umbrella as a weapon whilst screeching like a banshee at brutish men in back alleys.”

  “That was a battle cry,” she insisted as she worked the buttons of his shirt free and slipped her hand inside to feel the warm, muscled ridges of his chest. “Like an Amazon.”

  “I stand corrected, love. Forgive me.” He nuzzled her cheek and then trailed openmouthed kisses down her neck.

  “You’re forgiven.”

  He stilled, lifted his head, and cupped her face between his hands. “Thank you, Diana.”

  “I told you that debt is forgiven.”

  “Not just for that night in Belgravia, but last night, and this one, and every bit of bliss you’ve given me since we met.”

  Diana bit her lip, and tears welled in her eyes. “Thank you for being as stubborn as I am.”

  He laughed. Then she chuckled too. They were pressed so closely together that he wasn’t sure if the reverberation of joy in his chest was her laughter or his.

  When her hands dipped low to the edge of his trousers, he let out a little hiss of pleasure.

  “You know, love,” he whispered, “I rather liked your Amazon cry.” He cupped her breast and stroked his thumb against her through the fabric. “I wonder if I could draw one out of you again.”