The Duke of Morewether’s Secret

by Amylynn Bright

  He must be losing his mind but he was wracked with guilt. “I’ll come and check back in with you later tonight.”

  Lucy stared at him with clear blue eyes that filled her face. “Promise?”

  His chest felt unusually tight, but he squeezed her hand in reassurance. He left her with her instructor looking forlorn and lost and even smaller than she had yesterday.

  His plan changed then and there. He would send her to school and the country, but he’d make sure not to forget about her. He’d be a part of her life.

  But first he needed to repair things with Thea. He couldn’t get sidetracked with his progeny just now. He left the females to get to know each other while he thought furiously how to win back his wife.

  Chapter Twenty

  The butler heaved a sigh. “Your Grace.”

  “Good afternoon, Collins.” Christian made a point of tingeing his voice with an extra note of joie de vivre. “Is my beautiful wife at home?”

  The servant did not stand aside and allow him entrance. “Her Grace is not receiving.”

  “I suspected as much.” Christian forced a smile he hoped conveyed he wasn’t especially concerned he was still not welcomed into the house. Ladies had been angry at him before, but he’d never cared much. Then again, he’d never had any stake in a relationship before, either. “Please give her these.” He handed over a bouquet of outrageously expensive orchids and tulips along with a carefully penned note.

  Once the door was closed and locked to him once more, Christian went back to his carriage waiting at the end of the walk. He withdrew a picnic basket, a cushion and a bottle of good wine, then sent the coachmen back home. Instead of setting up camp on his planter by the front door again, he elected to move to the side garden underneath her bedroom window. From his new vantage point, he could see the comings and goings through the front door, as well as keep an eye on her bedroom. And the garden had the additional benefit of obscuring him from the passersby on the street. He wanted to prevent gossip if possible.

  He read while there was still enough light. Then, as darkness fell, he was heartened by shadows passing by the second floor window as he ate his supper of cold chicken and cucumbers and later, he was certain he heard her voice through an open window.

  “Thea,” he called, “I’m still out here. I’m not going away.” The shadow paused and he continued, “Please let me explain.” She moved away from the curtain. “You can’t ignore me forever, wife.”

  As the sun peeked over the horizon, the time had come and gone for patience. Time was running out. Their ship for Greece was leaving in a matter of hours. Back to the front, he banged with the knocker. Once. Twice. Finally a drowsy Collins opened the door.

  “I’ve had enough of this.” Christian used his most ducal authoritative tone as he pushed past the butler and into the entry hall. “Go fetch my wife this instant. I will wait in the parlor.”

  “But Your Grace —”

  “No buts. Go. Now.”

  “But —”

  “If you’re not back here with my wife in five minutes, I’m going to fetch her myself.” He stalked into the front parlor. He immediately noticed that vast emptiness of the room. All her rescued art work was gone. The tables and pedestals sat bare without even a ring of dust to indicate anything had ever sat there. He turned on his heel only to find the butler standing in the doorway looking pained.

  “I can’t fetch her, Your Grace.”

  “I’m no longer interested in what my wife’s wishes are on the matter.”

  “It’s not that. She’s not here.” Collins clasped his hands behind his back as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

  “What do you mean? Go get her.”

  “She’s left the house.”

  What? “I’ve been here practically the entire time.”

  The butler looked sheepish. “I am aware. Still, she is gone.”

  Christian had a sinking feeling. “When?”

  “Several hours ago, Your Grace.”

  Had that even been her shadow he was talking to on the other side of the window? “I never saw her go. How did she leave without my knowing?”

  Collins looked at the carpet. “Through the kitchen and out the back garden. It was all rather clandestine.”

  “I can imagine.” Was she really that angry? Damn it. He glanced around the parlor again. “She took all her things with her?”

  “The crates were removed earlier.”

  While he was interviewing Miss Honeysett. He pushed past the butler and climbed the stairs, with the servant in tow. “Which is her room?” He pushed open each door along the landing until he came to the likely one. It was empty save the flowers he’d brought earlier. They’d been stuck in a vase and placed upon a bureau. They looked sad and desperate in the lonely room.

  “Where did she go?”

  Collins’s eyes lit up in shock. “To Greece, of course. She had tickets.”

  No, they had tickets. “What time is it now?”

  Collins leaned back and glanced at the hall clock. “Five till seven.”

  “Bugger.” Christian raced down the stairs and out the door. He paused for an instant on the walk, realizing he had no transportation other than his feet and the docks were too far to travel to at a run. Out on the street, he flagged the first hackney and swung himself into the seat. He offered the driver triple his fare if he’d get him there immediately, but traffic had other plans. The driver did his best to negotiate the tradesmen traffic and the crowd at the market, but it was useless.

  When he arrived at the berth which had housed the Persephone days ago, it was empty. Someone official with a ledger and a scowl informed him the ship sailed at high tide. He’d missed her by little over an hour. Before panic set in, he marched to the harbor master’s office and inquired about another ship. With the political unrest in the Mediterranean, it had been difficult enough to book transportation aboard the Persephone. Now he faced even more obstacles.

  Damn it, damn it, damn it.

  More impediments. The only vessel going that direction was a trade ship, small, creaky and miserable.

  He slammed his hands in his pocket and trudged home, eschewing a cab in order to walk and think. It was a long, long walk, but he had nowhere else to be.

  Once again Christian found himself banging on a giant oak door.

  “Tell Harrington I need to see him.” He shoved past this footman, one who wouldn’t dream of shutting the door on his face, and headed for Thomas’s study.

  “Right away, Your Grace.”

  Christian slammed the door to the room behind him and threw himself into a huge leather chair to wait. He knew the minute his friend arrived because everywhere he went he was preceded by an enormous beast of a dog, sometimes two. The great drooling thing made straight for Christian and propped its head on his knee, fuzzy jowls smearing God-only-knows-what on his trousers.

  “Gak.” He shoved the dog’s head away, but the canine was not dissuaded in his greeting.

  “Lucifer.” Thomas said the dog’s name in warning.

  The Newfoundland looked balefully at Thomas, then lumbered across the room and climbed onto the sofa and was snoring in minutes.

  “She left me.” It was Christian’s turn to be baleful.

  Thomas nodded knowingly as he dropped on the sofa next to the dog. “She still hasn’t talked to you yet? I’m impressed.”

  “No, I mean she left me. On a boat. For Greece.”

  Thomas’s jaw dropped open. “When did this happen?”

  Christian’s head hit the back of the chair with a leathery thud. “This morning. She took our honeymoon ship. Sneaked out of the house while I was waiting outside, like a complete idiot.”

  Thomas stared at him with the snoring dog next to his thigh. He opened and closed his mouth several times, starting to say something then changing his mind.

  Still lying against the chair, Christian turned his head to look at his friend. “If she comes back it won’t be for mon
ths. If. It’s not as if Greece is only as far as Bath.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “How could I have been so stupid? How? I should have demanded to see her instead of waiting for her to come to her senses. I thought if I let her make the decision, if she saw that I was serious about us, about how much I loved her, she’d come to her senses sooner. I couldn’t bully her, or so I thought.”

  Thomas shrugged as he stood and rang the bell pull. The butler entered immediately and was sent for whiskey. Returning to the sofa, he lifted the dog’s head and settled back into the cushions. “What are you going to do?”

  “Well, I’m going to go get her. What choice do I have?”

  “Sure, sure.” Thomas nodded thoughtfully. “What about the little girl?”

  Dammit. It had only been a few hours since his resolutions, and already he’d forgotten about his child again. He exhaled loudly through his nose. “I’ve hired a governess. I’ll enroll her in school but for now she’ll go to the estate in Yorkshire.”

  “Do you think it was the girl or Veronica who set Thea off?”

  It was Christian’s turn to shrug which caused him to slosh a bit of the whisky on the silver tray during his pour. “Imagine if it was you and Francesca. If a woman like Veronica showed up at your wedding, how would Francesca have reacted?”

  Thomas made an exaggerated shudder.

  Christian pulled a face. “Exactly.”

  “As for Thea, do you have a plan for her?”

  An idea occurred to him as if dropped directly from heaven. He paced the carpet and drank deeply from his glass, thinking it through quickly, getting more and more excited about the prospect. “You’re going to take me.”

  “What? No.”

  “Yes.” Christian clapped his hands. “You can sail me there. With your skill and fast boat, we’ll probably catch up to them first.”

  “I can’t take you.” Thomas shook his head definitively. “No.”

  “Of course you can. You have to.”

  “It’s impossible for me to leave now; certainly not for several months at a time. No, I’m sorry, I can’t.”

  “You have to,” Christian repeated.

  Thomas only continued to shake his head, but said no more.

  “I can’t believe it. After everything I’ve done for you, you refuse me this?”

  His friend tilted his head to the side and gave him a quelling look. “To what, exactly, are you referring?”

  “I … I … I let you marry my sister.” It was the only thing he could think of because the whole argument was absurd.

  A giant snort burst from his friend. “All right, you ass, I’ll give you that one. Still, it’s hardly worth what you’re asking.”

  “We’ve been best friends since school. You have to do this for me.” It was a genius plan, and Christian was prepared to beg if the shaming didn’t work.

  “No. Just stop.” Thomas laughed. “There isn’t anything you can say that’s going to convince me to leave my family for so long.”

  “It’s an adventure. Think of it like that. We haven’t had an adventure in ages.” Christian made an expansive gesture causing the dog to lift his eyebrows, although his interest wasn’t enough to lift his head from his master’s lap.

  “I’m having plenty of adventure these days, and it’s only going to get more exciting. I can’t leave. We haven’t told anyone yet, but Francesca’s expecting. She’ll be fit to burst before we’d get back. There’s no way I’m leaving her.”

  Christian flung himself in the chair back in the chair. “I understand. Of course I do. Family is the most important thing.”

  “I’m sorry.” Thomas stroked the dog’s ear thoughtfully. “So what will you do? It’s not like there’s a boat leaving for the Ottoman Empire every day.”

  Christian groaned. “There’s a merchant cargo ship. It’s a godforsaken, rusty tub of a thing, and the captain’s probably a pirate, but I think I can convince him with a mountain of sterling to leave in a little over a week. I’ll manage it somehow.”

  “Everything will work out. I’m certain of it.”

  “Says the man whose wife breeds devil dogs.”

  The drooling monster in question lifted his sleepy head and woofed.

  The ship was out far enough in the Atlantic that Thea no longer saw land. No green hills or giant bridges. Not even the dingy smoke which hung over London. She wouldn’t be missing the crowds or the traffic or the smells of town. She felt the draw of home, of Santorini. She almost felt the sand warm on her feet and the warm water of the ocean lapping against her legs.

  So if she wanted to be home so badly, why in Zeus’s name was she standing on the deck of the ship with tears running down her cheeks?

  Because you’re stupid.

  She’d fallen in love with the worst possible man and convinced herself, against every instinct she possessed, that he was different. She was a hopeless fool. At least no one at home ever had to know what a horrible mistake she’d made.

  She had weeks on board ship to get over him. She could cry and scream and sleep and cry some more and no one would ever know. By the time the ship landed, she’d be right as she ever was, prepared to take care of her family, and she’d never think about her husband again. Apparently, there was no getting out of it. Christian had set a pretty trap, and she’d danced right into it. Dervished actually.

  Still, she couldn’t figure out what he got out of the union. Her mother had warned her that men of his ilk looked for the conquest. Was that what she had been? Even though the solicitor had educated her on the fact everything she owned was now technically Christian’s, it hadn’t seemed as if her were after her money. Maybe it was the antiquities she’d amassed. No, that didn’t feel right either.

  It didn’t matter. She’d left him. An enormous bribe to the captain of the Persephone had convinced him to leave the London dock with no husband and no questions asked.

  By the time she landed back on English soil with her brothers, she wouldn’t care anymore. Yes, she’d be his wife because she lacked a choice in the matter, but in name only.

  The note he’d sent with the flowers fluttered in the breeze. She’d read it over and over until it was memorized and yet she still couldn’t let it blow over the rail.

  She should let it go, send it flying over into the sea.

  Maybe when she’d fallen out of love with him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Christian untangled his legs from the sheets and threw his arm across his eyes to keep out the sliver of light that inched up the length of his bed. His blasted head was killing him. Was it always so hot in his room? He extended his leg and thrust it out from under the covers, wiggling his toes and testing how he felt about getting up. No. Not yet.

  The remainder of a dream still clung to the outside of his consciousness. He closed his eyes and willed himself to go back to sleep. Thea lived in his dreams. The smell of her perfume and the silky feel of her hair … If he lay there quietly enough he could slip back into her arms. Slow and steady breaths, that was the secret.

  “Are you finally awake?”

  Christian sat straight up in bed at the female voice. Looking wildly around, he spied Lucy sitting in a chair across the room. It was she who’d cracked the curtain. The chair had been angled to get the light, and the feet of the chair were surrounded by books.

  “Bloody hell.” He gasped for breath. “What are you doing here?”

  “Reading.” She indicated the book in her hand and said the word in a manner that suggested her father might be an idiot. Or still drunk. How was it all the females in his acquaintance had the ability to talk to a man as if he were an imbecile?

  “What are you reading?”

  “Christopher Marlowe. I tried some Francis Bacon earlier, but he does go on and on. I reread A Midsummer Night’s Dream first because it’s my favorite. Which is your favorite Shakespeare?”

  “You read Francis Bacon?” Who was this child? He sat fully in the bed, his sh
irt and trousers hopelessly wrinkled from sleeping in them. He peered at the girl. She sat in the chair with her legs tucked underneath her, long blonde hair surrounded her face and clung to the upholstery behind her giving the illusion of a slightly manic fairy.

  She shrugged and wrinkled her nose. “I tried his essays. I didn’t really understand what he was talking about. I like Marlowe though.”

  “I have a child that reads Bacon?” He scrubbed his face with his hands and wondered if her intrusion into his private suite of rooms was a dream, or rather a nightmare. He pulled at the skin of his face and cast her a weary look over the tips of this fingers.

  “I didn’t read the Bacon. I told you. It was complicated.”

  “Um hum.” He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and scrunched his toes in the carpet. First the right foot, then the left, finally both together. There was a ritual to be observed the morning after a blind drunk.

  “What is your favorite play?”

  “I don’t know.” Talking was not a part of the ritual.

  “I’m reading Dido. I quite like it.”

  He stopped his feet and looked at the child whom he barely knew, actually didn’t know at all. “Dido? Queen of Carthage? Isn’t that a bit grim?”

  “I do like the bloody ones,” she said with a bit too much enthusiasm. “Macbeth. Titus Andronicus.”

  Christian shook his head. “If you say so.”

  “I do. The comedies are my favorite, but George always did put on excellent fight scenes.”

  He sighed and levered himself up. He grabbed the bedpost until the dizziness passed. “Who’s George?”

  “The theater manager.”

  “Um hum.” He needed to relieve himself, but there was a girl in the room. He was working out the logistics of the situation when it occurred to him there was a girl in the room. “What are you doing up here?”

  Lucy’s eyebrows flew up. “Reading. See.” She showed him his own books from his own library.