His Duchess at Eventide

by Wendy Lacapra

  Everything. His deepest secrets. “Let us start with the name of the ship you captained?”

  “My ship is no longer. My crew perished. I did not.”

  She inhaled sharply. A ship’s crew perished—but the ship’s captain survived? The wound to his honor would be keen. The wound to his reputation? Shattering.

  That much, at least, Cheverley had been spared.

  “You were court-martialed, then?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  Odd. She had not read about any recent court-martials.

  “I’m told to expect honorable discharge,” he finished.

  “Then the Admiralty believes you did everything humanly possible to save the ship.”

  “It doesn’t bring back my men.”

  “No.”

  Intrigue hung about the captain like a scent—tempting, cajoling.

  If he fascinated her as much as she fascinated him, she could not say, but he chose his words as carefully as Emmaus laid rabbit traps. Even his silences were calculated.

  “I believe it is your turn, Captain.”

  “Tell me something about your husband.”

  “Speaking of Lord Cheverley is hard”—especially to the captain. Not speaking of Chev to the captain? A betrayal. An admission the captain had stirred something inside that made her very, very aware of him. As a man. She stepped back. “I grieve my husband. I grieve the past we might have had, and the future we will never see.”

  “You and your husband were parted for far longer than you were wed.”

  As if that made a difference. “I take it you have never been married.”

  “What makes you think so?” he asked.

  “A day. A year.” Thirteen years. “In love, time stands still. Anything—everything—can bring Cheverley close to my heart. Last night, for instance, a mere line from a song sliced open the wound.” Enough. She inhaled with a tremor. She intended to lure the captain into his own revelations, not drive herself to tears. “My turn.”

  “You asked of my family.” He paused. “My mother and sibling are dead.”

  The disbelief lacing his voice kept her from chiding him for choosing her question. The shock had been recent. “I am very sorry.”

  The captain cleared his throat in acknowledgement. “Let us speak of happier things. Tell me how you met your husband.”

  “How I met my husband?” she repeated, surprised.

  “Why not?”

  She couldn’t think of an answer why not. “I usually question sailors about Cheverley, not the other way around.”

  “Would you rather I ask something else?”

  “No,” she sighed. “Which version of how we met do you prefer? I could tell you the story he would have told you. Or, I could tell you the ducal version.”

  “I prefer your version.”

  Her version? She didn’t have one. No one ever bothered to ask.

  He folded his arm behind his back and leaned against the rock, disappearing entirely into shadow. “Why did you choose Lord Cheverley?”

  “I didn’t choose Cheverley. Cheverley chose me.”

  “Still, you could have refused.”

  That made her smile. “I’m not sure anyone ever refused Cheverley.”

  “He was arrogant, then?” He did not share her amusement.

  “No,” she answered. “Not exactly.”

  “I am not sure I understand.”

  Strange, conversing with a man she could not see... The experience contained echoes of another night, long ago.

  “You still have not told me how you came to meet?”

  “If you are seeking a light, buoyant tale,” she replied, “you will be disappointed.”

  “Perhaps I merely seek to listen.”

  To listen. How long had it been since anyone listened?

  She’d hadn’t allowed herself to think of that year. Of her father’s death and her introduction to the bewildering, crowded city. Of the wretched loneliness. Of the grueling work. Of the nights she’d escaped to the public assembly rooms and danced with abandon. Her only hope? A few, elating moments of forgetting.

  “First,” she replied, “you must know something about my past. My mother died when I was a child. My father was a farmer—though not of any consequence. And, when I was fifteen, Parliament passed an act of enclosure on behalf of our absent landlord. The loss of the right to pannage rendered father incapable of paying rent. He lost the farm.”

  “So, your father was a pig farmer. And yet you married the son of a duke.”

  “Well”—she raised a brow—“I’m back raising pigs, aren’t I?”

  With help, this time. No matter what her troubles, she refused to take for granted the means to pay for help.

  “I am certain that is a disappointment.”

  “A disappointment?”

  “Had your husband lived, you could have been a duchess.”

  She scoffed. “Why does everyone assume I married Cheverley in some bid to be rescued by wealth? Cheverley wasn’t heir when we married. I did not marry him because I was poor. I did not marry him because I was alone.” She backed up against the rock by the captain’s side. This hurt too much to stand.

  “Why did you marry him?” he asked quietly.

  “I married Cheverley because I was in love. Because Cheverley chose me, and I simply couldn’t refuse.” The rock was cold against her back, and its rough edges bit into her arms. But it was the captain’s proximity that discomfited. “Truth for truth,” she said. “And, after all that, you owe me a big truth. A monumental—”

  “I have been in love, too.”

  Her heart stopped.

  “But,” he continued, “I’m afraid it is too late.”

  Her heart broke for the young woman he had loved. Her heart broke for him. “What was she like?”

  “She was beautiful. Mysterious. An enigma. I thought”—he snorted—“I thought she believed I was her hero.”

  “What did she believe?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure I ever thought to ask.” He paused. “What did you believe about your husband?”

  How could she answer that?

  The night they met, every woman—eligible or not—had taken note of Chev, Hurtheven, and Ashbey the moment they entered the public assembly rooms. She’d only seen Chev—his blonde hair ruffled, his curls falling askew just-so over one eye, poet-style.

  Chev’s swagger had amused, but Chev’s focused admiration? That had been sweetness that left her craving more.

  Always more.

  When they finished their second dance—all pink and panting—he’d met her gaze with an intensity that still caught her breath. She’d led him into the alley behind the assembly rooms, where the air was cool and the concealment complete.

  “Would you like me to kiss you?” he asked.

  “Would I have led you here if I did not?”

  “You are surprisingly bold,” he murmured, “for a blushing young maiden.”

  Impatient, she’d gathered him into her arms. “And you’re surprisingly solid...for a toff.”

  He brushed her lips with his in a tender, careful kiss.

  Not what she had expected. “You surprise me—”

  “Chev.”

  “Chev?” she queried.

  “My name. Cheverley.”

  “I’ve never heard that one before.”

  “My Christian name, actually.”

  “Even good friends do not call one another by their Christian names, Chev.”

  “They do if the Christian name is preceded by ‘Lord.’”

  “As in Lord Cheverley?”

  He nodded. “Though I am merely a second son.”

  Merely? She’d never even met a proper baron. The most rarified gentleman of her acquaintance was a barrister whose wife sometimes purchased meat from her father.

  The titled were shadows from another world. A world with awesome, terrible power...

  “Have I silenced you with my consequence
?”

  “Second sons can be called ‘Lord’?” she managed to ask.

  “They can if their fathers are dukes.” He’d leaned close to her ear. “Are you impressed?”

  “Do I look impressed?”

  “I can’t see you. But you don’t sound impressed at all.” He ran his fingers down her cheek. “It’s dashed attractive.”

  “I’m not trying to be attractive.”

  “That is exactly why it works. Is there anything I can do to impress you?”

  “No,” she’d replied truthfully. She did not like the aristocracy. She especially did not like dukes. She was about to tell him. Then, he laughed, and everything changed.

  His laugh. Good God, his laugh. It rumbled in her belly. It made her come alive.

  “Kiss me again, Chev.” What could a short dalliance hurt? “And do try and give this one a bit of effort.”

  “What’s your name, vixen?”

  “Penelope.”

  “Miss Penelope...”

  She’d liked that. Miss Penelope. In fact, she’d gone a little gooey inside.

  “I choose you, Miss Penelope.” He kissed her again. Hotter. Lingering. “Do you choose me?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ve stolen all my words.”

  “Mmmm.” He tightened his hold. “You, Penelope, are the embodiment of words I’ve never understood.”

  “What words?”

  “Enchantment.” He’d kissed her forehead. “Quite possibly, love.” He kissed her temple. “Would you marry me—?”

  “My goodness, you must be mad. Of course not!”

  “Let me finish. Would you marry me if I court you properly?”

  “Still no, you goose. I don’t belong in your world. You do not belong in mine.”

  “Why does everyone dwell on impediments? If I don’t belong in your world, and you don’t belong in my world, we’ll simply invent a new one.”

  Foolishly, she allowed him to court her, falling further and further under his spell, knowing no one had the power to invent a new world, knowing all anyone had was the broken mess their parents gave them.

  And then, she’d discovered she was with child, and she’d wanted to give that child his shiny new world.

  When she told him about the baby, Cheverley had whooped as if he was thrilled. In that moment, he’d sparkled. She changed her answer to yes.

  Yes to love, to transformation, to the new world he promised.

  She teared.

  “Lady Cheverley?”

  “It was unwise to come here.” She sniffed. “Unwise to speak of the past.”

  “Are we finished trading truths, then?”

  “What more could you possibly want to know?” If the song played last night had opened a wound, the captain’s questions sliced open a vein. “Cheverley was brilliant. Infuriating. He made everything seem possible. And, if it weren’t for Thaddeus”—she pushed away from the stone—“I would dearly wish we never met.”

  That night, in the darkness, every instinct then had told her to run.

  She hadn’t listened.

  She would not make the same mistake again.

  ~~~

  Red dots gathered once again, blindingly bright.

  Loss.

  It hung in the air. Moved with the shifting winds. Whistled within the unheard, ancient tones resonating from the stones.

  His monster had a face, a name—Calypso.

  Penelope had her monster, too—his absence. A wraith-like silhouette that had sucked the air from her life like a hungry storm. And, if there had ever been a chance he might atone, that chance had passed.

  She was angry at the captain and she was angry at him.

  So angry, she practically frothed.

  “It’s late,” she said, brushing her check roughly with her palm. “I will be missed.”

  He held out his arm.

  She brushed past him—as if he’d needed more proof of her disdain.

  Earlier, when he stepped forward, she’d stepped away. And, when he came into the light, she’d stared at his shoulder in discomfiting silence, as if she couldn’t bear to look at his injury.

  She held Cheverley in contempt. She wanted nothing at all to do with Captain Smith. He could not argue with either choice.

  She strode toward the circle’s edge. “You needn’t escort me,” she called over her shoulder.

  He ran to catch up. “Nonetheless,” he said, breathless, “I intend to see you safely home. Would you slow down, please? I know you cannot bear to look at me, but—”

  She stopped abruptly. He did not. They collided and she, quite literally, fell into his arms. The jolt weakened his knees as he lifted her body to his. Years broke away like spinning discuses, landing with jarring thuds.

  Where was he? Who was he? When was he? Past and present collided, but all that remained was her heat.

  “Oh,” she said in distress. Then, “oh,” and “oh” again, both in entirely different tones.

  She inhaled. Then shuddered.

  “I have the worst impulses,” she said. “I refuse, do you understand?”

  He did not.

  “I refuse to—oh, it’s no use.” She worked her hands beneath his coat and balled his shirt in her fists. “The seams are all wrong. But it’s not like I can just tell you, can I? That would be entirely improper and completely inappropriate.”

  She set her brow against his breastbone.

  “You even smell like him, not that I can remember what he smelled like because that would make me sound mad, but your scent makes me confused, and hot, and longing, and I’m fairly certain his did as well, but that could have been the fact we were sixteen and sixteen is entirely too young to know better and, oh, blast, I can’t, I tell you! I just cannot do this—”

  “Shh,” he soothed. Tentatively, he rested his hand against the small of her back.

  “No! Not shh! It’s terrible. A complete muddle.” She splayed her hands against his chest. “I’m still bold and you’re still impossibly hard but you aren’t a toff—and I’m me and you’re not you and I’m—well—I am going mad, aren’t I? That’s the only explanation.”

  “Shh,” he repeated, crumbling inside.

  “Stop shushing and just—” she grabbed his wounded arm and wrapped it around her waist. Then, she placed her hand on his nape, curled her cheek into his neck and sighed. “There. Now. I will shush. This is right.”

  This was anything but right.

  He hadn’t intending on asking her questions. They’d been a betrayal of trust, considering. And a gross impertinence.

  But he’d wanted to know, needed to know, had she loved him? Did she love him?

  Could she love him once again?

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “That helps,” she replied.

  “Helps make you feel better?”

  “No. It helps to make you you, not him.” She sighed. “Chev never apologized, you see.”

  Fuck. He hadn’t. Had he?

  He hadn’t apologized. Not for bringing her into a world that despised her. Not for underestimating his father’s rage. Not for leaving her to fend both for herself and their child alone.

  He told her he had a duty and asked her to trust that he’d return.

  And she had trusted. Hope had long since passed. Still, she waited.

  “And I do not really wish I never met Cheverley. It’s just that, well...”

  “Loss hurts.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I know.”

  “You do, don’t you? You’ve been in love. And—bother it—if you are you, and I’m me, then we shouldn’t be—”

  “I thought you said you were going to shush.”

  She sniffed again. “I don’t want you to think badly of me.”

  He could barely think at all. “You are weary, my lady.”

  “Weary, yes.” She snuggled closer “So weary sometimes I ache all over. But I’m not a lady. Not really
.”

  She was definitely a lady, just not, at this moment, his.

  And he wanted her to be his.

  Her breasts crushed against his chest and she traced those circles he remembered so well against the top of his spine.

  Christ. Blood pooled in his groin. Temptation.

  Torture.

  His cock would fill. Then came despoiling, humiliation.

  Tu es impuissant. You are helpless. Tu ne peux pas te controller. You have no control of yourself.

  Instinct—born of countless assaults—demanded he thrust Penelope aside.

  “Don’t.” She held him tighter. “Please don’t pull away.”

  The red dots began to coalesce.

  “Penelope,” he whispered through clenched teeth. Pen.

  If he could tie himself to the mast of her name, the whispers would not kill him.

  Chapter Nine

  PENELOPE RESTED HER head against the captain’s chest. His warmth was as solid as the stones, and her body responded by releasing, for a few blessed moments, her cares.

  It was as if she’d been taken out of time, out of body. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t him. This was a meeting of two lost souls in an ancient, mystic place, a brief sojourn amid the chaos of life. Around them, the moon shadows danced with the mists, above them, a vast sky, glittering with celestial jewels.

  Then, he withdrew. The chill rouged her cheeks.

  He searched her face, his expression severe in the soft moonlight. She had no answers for questions he might ask, no truth to trade. All she knew for sure was that something inside her, something that had been buffeted and tempest-tossed, was suddenly still and quiet.

  Anchored.

  He bent down and kissed her temple—hot lips against a cool brow.

  She whimpered.

  “If we do not return,” he said gently, “you will be missed.”

  The enchantment was slipping away. The shadows grew longer. The jewels muted, transforming back into plain stars.

  She grasped his cheeks as if in holding onto him, she could hold to the magic. She raked her fingernails through his stubbly beard.

  Penelope.

  Had he said her name again, or had she just imagined it?

  She wanted to hear him say it. She loved the way it sounded on his lips—like a spreading vine, living thing. She stared at those lips, doused in darkness.

  “Penelope.”

  A vine, yes, with tendrils that pulled her in.