Ranleigh snorted and held Archie still as she did her best to break free of his embrace. “I didn’t welcome your advances because you’re a cold-hearted, calculating bitch, Lydia, and for no other reason.”
Her lovely face grew stonier and uglier, and Archie smacked Ranleigh’s chest. “Let me go, you fool,” she muttered. “You’re making it worse!”
“Well, that’s not what everyone will think once they hear this story,” she said, giving him a blinding smile. “I’m so glad I stopped by.”
With that, she turned and flounced away, leaving a horrified looking butler dithering in the doorway. Ranleigh waved the fellow away, and the door was closed with a quiet snick.
“What the bloody hell are you playing at?” Archie shouted furiously, pushing at Ranleigh’s chest and then stumbling as he finally deigned to let her go. “You know what she’s going to do now, don’t you?”
Ranleigh reached for his drink again and levelled an enquiring look at her. “Do tell,” he said, quite unruffled as he took a sip of port, regarding her placidly.
“She’s going to ruin you. She’s going to say we’re having an affair!”
“We are having an affair,” Ranleigh replied, so damned nonchalant that she wanted to throw something, preferably at his head.
“They think I’m a man!” she all but screamed.
Ranleigh nodded, unperturbed as he sat back down and crossed his legs. “Yes, but you’re not. A point that could quite easily be clarified… once we are married.”
Archie gaped at him, astonished that he’d use this situation against her.
“Oh, you… you….” She couldn’t think of anything bad enough to call him for the moment and so just glared in fury while she put her mind to it. “How could you?” she settled for after realising she was too angry to think straight. “If you believe you can blackmail me into marriage—”
“I’m doing nothing,” Ranleigh said. “It’s Lady Lydia who’s going to ruin my reputation and make accusations.
“You’re not trying to stop her!” Archie shot back at him.
“No,” he admitted. “Because marrying you is the only thing that matters to me, and I think it matters to you too, more than you’ll admit, at least. I think you want it as badly as I do. I think you’d face anything to be with me, but there is something stopping you. Something you believe to be insurmountable—”
“That’s because it is insurmountable, you insufferable, pig-headed …. duke!”
“I’ve never heard my title used as an insult before,” he replied, smiling a little. “And nothing is insurmountable. I refuse to accept that. I won’t accept it.”
Archie clenched her fists, blinking and digging her nails into her palms to stop the tears from falling. “Well, you’ll just have to, because it is. It’s unfixable, even for you, you wretched man. Why do you have to be so bloody faithful, you’re like some brainless dog who’d follow his master off a bloody cliff?”
Ranleigh got to his feet and Archie backed off, aware of the look in his eyes. She was too slow though and, in a moment, she was in his arms once more. “Well, that wasn’t terribly flattering, my love,” he said, just a little reproach in his voice.
Archie laughed, exasperated. “It wasn’t supposed to be.”
Ranleigh’s face grew serious and he raised his hand to her face, stroking her cheek with the back of one finger. It was a reverent touch, so tender it made her heart hurt. “I’ve searched my whole life for you, Archie,” he said, quietly. “Do you have any idea how damn lonely I’ve been?”
She blinked hard, her throat growing tight as she remembered what she’d thought on first meeting him, how the loneliness had shone in his eyes. It had been obvious to her.
“Yes,” she said, the words thick with emotion. “Yes, I know.”
He nodded, accepting that. “I love you,” he said, his expression fierce. “And I can’t bear the idea of my life without you in it. I’ll die, Archie. I’ll be a bitter, lonely old man. Don’t condemn me to that just because you won’t trust me with a secret.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” she whispered, feeling the weight of the truth crushing her. “Even if you could get the charges dropped, the scandal—”
“What charges?” he demanded, and Archie gave up. There was no point in fighting it any longer. Perhaps then he’d let her go, when he knew. Either way, he’d see for himself it was impossible. Perhaps there was a chance he was powerful enough to get her free, but… but when he knew he wouldn’t want her.
“What charges, Archie?” he repeated, anguish in his voice.
She took a deep breath and looked him in the eye.
“For killing my husband.”
***
Ranleigh swallowed, staring at her, and then he pulled Archie close, holding her against his chest and stroking her hair.
“My poor, poor, darling. However have you borne it?”
She pushed away a little and looked up at him, disbelief in her eyes.
“D-Did you hear what I said?” She said clutched at his arms. “I killed him. On purpose. I murdered him, Ranleigh… I….” She fell against him, sobbing, and Ranleigh picked her up, carrying with him as he moved to sit them both down.
For a while he just held her, letting her cry, until she was calm enough to talk to him again.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
She gave an incredulous bark of laughter. “Now you give me a choice?”
His smile was sweet and rueful. “You always had a choice, Archie. The problem was you didn’t believe it was a choice.”
She shook her head and stared at him. “I killed him.”
Though his tenderness was hard to comprehend after what she’d just told him, he held her close, achingly tender as she leaned into his touch. “What happened? Did he… did he hurt you?” His voice was soft and even, yet she could hear something else there, emotions forcefully held in check.
Archie sat very still. She’d not allowed herself to think about the events of that day for a long, long time. It was taboo, as if it wouldn’t be true if she refused to remember it, but it was true, and no amount of denial would change that.
“Tell me everything, love. Please.”
She looked up and saw the desire to help, to understand, and knew she owed him the truth. All of it. From the beginning.
“My father died when I was seventeen,” she said, the words too loud somehow in the quiet that had grown between them. “It was unexpected. He was always so strong, so fit, doing the work of three men with ease, but… then he was gone. In the space of a few minutes my world fell apart. There was no one else. No other family. I tried to keep the farm going, but it was too much for me alone. There was this man, a neighbour’s son. After the funeral he would come and help me now and then, when he had time. He was… kind.”
Archie swallowed, wondering how she could ever have been that naïve, that blind, but she had been, and no amount of railing at herself for her own stupidity could change the past.
“He was older than me, perhaps thirty, but he was fit and good-looking, and he’d never married. It was impossible to do all the work by myself. I was lonely and frightened of what would happen. It was so hard to keep it all going, but things carried on like this for a month or more, and then he suggested that if I married him, he could help me run the farm. He’d sell his own place, which was smaller, and move in, and I’d be… safe,” she said the word with a little huff of laughter. What a fool. “I didn’t want to marry him, but I was afraid. I couldn’t keep things going by myself and I couldn’t lose the farm. My father would have been devastated, and it was all I had.”
“So, you agreed?” Ranleigh’s voice was soft, but his breathing was shallow; she could feel the tension singing through his large frame.
Archie nodded.
“It was clear within an hour of the ceremony that he’d only wanted the farm. He despised me. He called me a freak and told me if I didn’t dress appropriately, he’d have
me locked up.” Archie swallowed hard, determined not to cry again. She would get this out, she would tell Ranleigh everything and then… then he’d see. “The wedding night was… not pleasant.” The desire to laugh at those words was palpable.
“My darling,” Ranleigh said, the words thick as he pulled her close. “Darling, Archie. I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault,” she said, fighting to stay calm, burying her face in his neck and allowing him to comfort her. She looked up, still unable to believe he wasn’t repulsed by her, by what she’d done. “You don’t hate me?”
Ranleigh stared at her, looking as though he thought her quite mad, which was strangely comforting. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said, succinct if nothing else.
Archie let go the breath she was holding. “The next morning, I was terrified. I didn’t have much in the way of clothes, but I did have one dress, so… I put it on. When I went downstairs, he just laughed at me. He said I was ugly and deviant, and that he’d get me locked up anyway, so he didn’t have to look at me.” Archie was breathing hard now, unable to face Ranleigh, because the look in his eyes would break her. He was very, very still. “He told me what would happen to me in an asylum, told me I’d be there until I died. He was ranting, so angry, and I… I didn’t know why. I didn’t understand why he hated me so, when he’d been so nice before.”
Archie closed her eyes and only then realised she was trembling, her body shaking as she clutched her arms about herself. As she thought back to that day, it was like looking at someone else. Seventeen. She’d been little more than a child. She had been a child, for all the experience she’d had of life, and of men. Eight years ago. Eight years in which she’d faced desperation, poverty, and the constant fear of being discovered, yet she’d carved out a life for herself. But always, in the background, was this.
“It’s a relief,” she said, her shoulders sagging as she leaned against his chest. “It’s a relief to tell you. No matter what happens now. It was eating away at me, something dark and festering inside.”
Ranleigh held her to him, rocking her like a child, and when he spoke his voice trembled with emotion. “There’s nothing dark in you, Archie, not the merest shadow. Only a terrible memory of something that was not your fault.”
Archie swallowed hard. He was too good, this man, too perfect. She knew she couldn’t have him, fate wouldn’t let her. She’d learned not to trust in good fortune. It was rarely what it appeared to be.
“What happened next?”
Archie bit her lip and reached for Ranleigh’s hand. Their fingers twined together, and she held onto him, as if he was anchoring her to this safe place, not letting her disappear back into the void in which she’d existed. His thumb stroked over her skin and she focused on it, allowing the words to come.
“I lost my temper. I accused him of having lied, of using me, and he… he just laughed and laughed. I was so angry. I told him that I’d tell everyone what he’d done, I’d tell our neighbours, Mr and Mrs Randle, who had always been kind to me. I thought they’d believe me, maybe help me.”
Ranleigh’s grip tightened on her fingers as her breathing became more erratic.
“He hit me.” It took her a moment to carry on, to force her unwilling mind to remember when she’d spent every second of the past years doing her utmost to forget. “He hit me, and he kept hitting me, and I knew… I knew it wouldn’t stop. Either he’d keep his word and send me to the asylum, or he’d keep hitting me, every day, for the rest of my days, until he went too far and there were no more days to come.”
Archie took a moment to wipe her face on her sleeve, though she’d not realised she’d even been crying. “He tripped over the hearth stone and I managed to get away from him and ran across the kitchen.” The images scrolled behind her eyes, too vivid, too fresh as the words rushed out now, faster and faster. “I picked up a skillet. It was so heavy it was hard to lift over my head, but I did it, and when he came for me again, I hit him.”
She paused, turning to look at Ranleigh now, to see if there was horror in his eyes, but there was only sorrow and rage.
“It was the strangest thing,” she whispered. “Everything was so quiet. He just stood there for a moment, and then he fell. He dropped like a stone and his head hit the floor with such a crack. I knew he was dead. There was blood on the floor and …” Archie stopped, blinking as her vision blurred. “I remember days later I was horrified at how calm I’d been, once he was still. I changed out of the dress and put it on the fire, and then I packed my belongings and all my father’s savings, my mother’s jewellery, anything of value and as much food as I could carry, and then I left.”
“Where did you go?”
Ranleigh’s voice trembled and she turned to smile at him, finding his eyes full of tears. She put one hand to his cheek, and he turned into it, covering it with his own hand and kissing her palm.
“I don’t honestly remember in the first days. I was so terrified I just walked and walked, avoiding villages, avoiding people. I’d taken my father’s gun, and I’m a good shot, so where I could I got a rabbit or a pigeon. I just kept going, until I met a couple of young men. At first, I was terrified, certain that they’d see through me, but they didn’t. I was just accepted as one of them, without question.”
The words were full of as much astonishment as the realisation had been then. It had been so easy.
“They were good-hearted and invited me to travel with them, and… and I realised they thought I was just like them: a young man out to make a name for myself. We travelled together all the way to London, and we even shared lodgings together for a few weeks, though that was the most stressful time of my life, ever,” she said, smiling a little. “But, for the first time, I felt like I was who I was supposed to be. One of them was a painter, he was an apprentice in a big studio and he introduced me to Rupert. Through him I met Erasmus and they were so kind, they helped me, and I was happy. Despite everything, despite what I’d done, I was free, and I determined to make the most of it, for as long as I could. I always knew, though, that it would catch up with me. I knew that.”
She could hear the resignation in her voice, and she knew Ranleigh heard it too.
“I have to pay for… for what I did.”
“Damn that,” he said, his voice fierce. “For God’s sake, Archie, it was self-defence. A man like that would be well known for having a temper. You could have said he attacked you. Your neighbours would have backed you up, surely?”
Archie smiled, looking at him with adoration and tracing a finger over his lips. So soft. “You’re remarkably naïve,” she said, not meaning it as an insult, just a fact that he knew nothing of the life she’d led. “But you’ve never experienced anything of the sort. Why should you? You’re a man, and a duke, no less. They wouldn’t have given me a chance, Ranleigh. I was a woman, what’s more a woman who was known to dress as a man and had done so since childhood. At best I’d have been committed as he’d threatened to do, more likely I’d have been swinging from a rope. If they catch up with me, those are still my only options.”
“No,” Ranleigh said, holding her tighter still. “No. I won’t let it happen. As you say, I am a bloody duke, and you’ve not yet any idea of the power I can wield if I put my mind to it. If I say this will go away, then it damn well will.” There was fury in his eyes, his body thrumming with tension. “You listen to me, Archie. I’m glad you killed him. I’m bloody glad, and so should he be, for if he was still breathing, I’d tear him limb from bloody limb.”
Archie stared at him, disbelieving.
“Just like that. You don’t care what I’ve done? You don’t care that I was married, and I killed my husband? It doesn’t matter?”
“Of course it matters!” he said, making her jump as he almost shouted the words. “My God, Archie, when I think of everything you’ve gone through, how much courage it must have taken to survive, to keep going and make a new life… I’m in awe of you, of everything you’ve done, and that you’ve
done it and remained such a remarkable… wonderful….”
His voice broke and Archie felt a blush creep over her, rising from her neck to the roots of her hair. “Pack it in,” she said, flustered. “I’m nothing of the sort.”
“Yes, you are,” he said firmly. “I say you’re extraordinary and lovely and utterly perfect, and you can’t argue because I’m a duke and I outrank you, so there.”
“So there?” She snorted at that, not sure which bit to take exception to first. “What are you, six? And is that like the I must let you win because you’re a duke, rule?”
“No,” he said, his expression grave. “It’s much more serious, and you risk reprisals if you argue with me.”
Archie sighed and gave up, leaning against him and closing her eyes as he held her tight. He was too good to be true. Everything about this was too perfect. It was everything she’d never dreamed of because she hadn’t dared. In truth, she still didn’t. She was exhausted, bewildered, and too frightened to even begin to hope, but… Ranleigh knew.
He knew everything.
Her darkest secrets had been laid before him in all their gory detail, and he hadn’t run away screaming or demanded she be locked up. He was still here, still holding her, still wonderful. It couldn’t possibly last, but damned if she wouldn’t hold onto it for as long as she could.
Chapter 18
“Wherein unicorns and a dozen impossible things.”
Ranleigh took Archie to his bed and held her tight while she slept, though he never closed his eyes. Terror gripped him. For all that he’d been adamant that there was no danger to Archie, that he’d never let anything hurt her again, fear had wrapped itself around his heart and wouldn’t let go.
Every time he closed his eyes, he could see some faceless bastard with Archie in his grip. A younger, smaller, less confident Archie, who had yet to discover just how hard and cruel the world could be. His throat grew tight and it was hard to breathe. Archie stirred in her sleep, perhaps aware of his distress and he forced himself to relax.
Duke and Duplicity (Rogues and Gentlemen Book 15) Page 19
