Endymion took a step after her. Voil, one arm laden with ledgers, stopped him.
“I wouldn’t do that just now, if I were you, Pendeen. I suspect duke season is about to open in Cornwall and, this time, both our tarrywags are in danger.”
Chapter Eleven
Fool!
She’d always been a fool when it came to Endymion de Waryn. She’d joined in every perilous, reckless adventure he and his brothers embarked on simply to be in his company. At times, she’d subverted her superior competence in those things in which only boys or young men were expected to excel. Young men’s pride being easily bruised.
Even in securing his hand in marriage, she’d gone against what she knew to be right, and she lived with the guilt of it every day. With him there—in Cornwall, walking the corridors and rooms of Gorffwys Ddraig—remembering the past, fear added to her guilt.
Rhiannon paced the confines of the duchess’s sitting room. Her sodden clothes clung to her, a physical manifestation of the emotions broiling within her. Her feet squished uncomfortably in her half-boots and left damp marks on the thick blue and green Aubusson carpets. She’d had these rooms redone by Adam after her father’s death. The furnishings were Chippendale, of cherrywood with silk upholstery. She loved her chambers, but now the pale blue walls closed in and made it hard to breathe.
He’d betrayed her. He’d sent his friend digging for information about her management of the estate. According to Tall William, His Grace was in search of money, money gone missing from the estate.
How dare he!
“Have you resolved to sleep in those clothes, or may I have them fill your bath and perhaps hold off for another day the pneumonia you intend to succumb to?” Beatrice Smith stood in the door between the sitting room and Rhiannon’s bedchamber, slightly bemused, but greatly understanding of the madness to which an arrogant man might drive a woman.
“He remembered, Bea.” The words came out in a rush, for Rhiannon had to talk to someone about the turmoil in her head. “He remembered what happened that night in the ruins when they took him.” She fisted her hands in her soaked skirts.
The lady-turned-maid crossed the carpets and took Rhiannon by the hand. “What did he remember? Tell me whilst we do something about these clothes and your bath.” She led her into the bedchamber where the copper hip bath sat before the fireplace, filled with steaming water.
“Why did you ask me about my bath when you’d already had it filled?” Rhiannon asked as she worked her way out of her wet carriage dress.
“One likes to allow one’s employer the illusion of control from time to time,” Bea said as she spread a large bath sheet and Rhiannon’s heavy flannel robe over the screen. She helped the duchess out of her clothes and allowed her to settle into the comfort of the bath before she returned to their previous conversation.
“What precisely does His Grace remember?” Bea finally asked.
Rhiannon sank beneath the water long enough for the hot water to warm her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Bea set to work washing her hair and waited. After a deep breath, Rhiannon related the events of Endymion’s reaction to entering the tower for the first time since that fateful night. Her maid and friend listened in silence, punctuated from time to time by brief cessations in the washing and rinsing of Rhiannon’s hair.
The silence continued when Rhiannon left her bath and sat before the fire wrapped in the bath sheet for Bea to brush out her hair. For the nonce at least, they each kept their peace about the duke’s returning memory and all it implied. Once she’d completed the task, the maid helped Rhiannon into her robe and summoned the footmen to remove the bath. When they were alone again, they settled into chairs on opposite sides of the hearth.
“The marquess did go to the mines,” Bea suddenly said. “He confirmed what I already knew. The hopper’s collapse was no accident.”
“How did you know?” Rhiannon tucked her feet beneath her in the chair.
Beatrice smiled sadly and tilted her head.
“Your friend?”
“He sent me word late last night.”
“Yes, well, I suspect His Grace was not nearly as concerned about the attempt on my life as your friend. He took me away from the house on some silly excuse to allow Lord Voil to pilfer my ledgers. He suspects I am stealing money from the estate.”
“Have you told him the truth? About the money? About your suspicions?”
“Of course not.”
“Perhaps you should.”
“If I knew of a certainty it was only Captain Randolph, I would, Bea. How can I tell him I also suspect his Uncle Richard may be involved?”
“You will have to tell him eventually, Rhiannon.” Bea’s slip in decorum only confirmed the maid’s grasp of what was to come.
“It is all about to explode around us, Bea.”
“It always was. You have merely done your best to delay what must happen. You’ve kept him safe all these years. Perhaps it is time he returned the favor.”
“He will not see it that way.”
Bea shrugged. “Make him see it.”
Rhiannon gave a short, bitter laugh. “No one makes His Grace do anything.”
“According to Lord Voil, you have made His Grace do a great many things in the few weeks since he arrived in Cornwall.”
“He will never forgive me when it all comes to light. Between the secrets I’ve kept and what your friend is determined to discover, the truth may well destroy all of us. What then?”
“Unlike you, when it does, I can leave Cornwall,” Bea said with a matter-of-fact sadness that spoke volumes.
“What about your friend?”
“He has more than proven he has no gift for forgiveness.” Bea rose and brushed out her skirts. “He has sacrificed enough on my behalf.” She pulled a folded parchment from the pocket of her brown kerseymere gown. “He sent you this. Perhaps, in light of what His Grace has already remembered, you may want to do as he suggests whilst the duke is still in your thrall.”
“In my… Ohh, go to bed, Beatrice Smith.” Rhiannon flung a small cushion at her friend’s retreating back. She crumpled the piece of parchment and shoved it into the pocket of her robe. She didn’t want to think about the threats on her life now. Not when the threat to her heart was far greater.
In her thrall?
A vivid image of his kiss, his hands on her body, his lips on her breast, suffused every nerve in her body with the shivery sensation of arousal. Her breath quickened. Her breasts grew heavy and sensitive. Not even in her darkest lonely nights, when erotic dreams of him in her bed were her only comfort, had she ever experienced what he’d given her under the Cornwall sky. Had the entire day been a heartless ruse? A way to keep her away from the house? A way to lower her guard so he might do as he pleased with no more care for her than he’d shown for seventeen years?
He’d married beneath himself; everyone said so. Her father had started as a mines manager in Yorkshire. When he died, he was the wealthiest mine owner in the north of England. His money could not buy his place in society, nor clean the soot of the mines from his hands, but it had bought his daughter the title of duchess and a husband of noble blood. His grandchildren would be heirs to a dukedom.
“Sorry, Papa,” Rhiannon murmured. “I do not think noble grandchildren are in the cards.” She drew up her knees, wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her cheek atop them. Her hair, nearly dry, fell around her face. She lifted the heavy locks and pushed them back over her shoulder.
From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a rather singular visitor.
The large black mastiff padded around from behind her, a white handkerchief in his mouth.
“What on earth are you doing in here, Turpin?” she asked as she took the handkerchief from him and rubbed behind his ears.
“He is determining if it is safe,” a deep voice replied from the vicinity of her dressing room.
Her heart caught and then broke into a clumsy canter. She
clenched her hands until her nails dug into her palms. “It is certainly safe for him, Your Grace,” she said when certain of the steadiness of her voice. She did not look behind her. She simply continued to rub an ecstatic Turpin’s ears.
Her husband came around her chair and sat on the tea table in front of her. “And what of his master? Is he safe?” She could not help but notice he wore neither trousers nor shirt beneath his heavy blue brocade banyan. His hair was still damp from his bath.
“Don’t you mean my master, Your Grace? As master of Pendeen, I suppose you are entitled to have your lackey break into my private study anytime you wish.” She fought to keep the bitter edge from her tone.
“No man is your master, Rhee. I pity the one who tries.” He took her hand between his. “And my lackey is cowering in his chamber in the hope of preserving his tarrywags from the wrath of the duchess’s Manton.”
Rhiannon had to laugh at the picture Endymion painted. Poor Lord Voil.
“I should have asked you,” he said quietly as he ran his thumb across her knuckles.
“What?” She raised her head to afford him a full scrutiny.
“I should have asked you about the money, about why you keep two sets of books.”
“But you didn’t. You assumed I took the money or squandered it and used my accounting skill to hide the frivolous purchases of a silly woman.”
“I… ” He shook his head. “I forgot, Rhee. I forgot who you were, the kind of girl you were. Being here, being here with you has helped me to remember. If someone has tricked you or if the management of the estate ran away with you, tell me. I’ll understand. I need to know where Pendeen’s money has gone. I can help you find out.”
The brief splash of warmth she’d experienced at his attempted apology disappeared like smoke doused with a bucket of iciest water. She snatched her hand free and flounced out of her chair. He had the audacity to appear surprised, affronted even, the great looby.
“Pendeen’s money? Your money. You want to know what your country wife did with your money,” she declared, standing in the middle of her bedchamber, arms akimbo.
“I didn’t say—”
“Didn’t you?” Her mind went blank and the leash she’d held on so much demeaning information about the dirty coal miner’s cit daughter who had married so far above her station snapped. “You are sadly misinformed, Your Grace. Pendeen’s money is my money. By the time your grandfather and my father arranged our marriage, your father’s older brother had nearly bankrupted the dukedom with his gambling debts, breach of promise suits, and foolish investments. His Grace was in danger of losing everything not entailed. Surely you wondered why the duke allowed you to marry the daughter of a wealthy coal miner.”
“I had no idea.” He stood and took a step toward her. “I didn’t know anything about the dukedom. I don’t remember anything about our havey-cavey marriage, if you’ll remember. I was half dead in borrowed clothes and I don’t remember a damned thing.”
“Count yourself fortunate, Your Grace. I remember every havey-cavey moment, including the one where you were so disgusted by your lowborn bride you cast up your accounts after bedding her.” Every bit of hurt and shame she’d bottled up over the years came roiling to the surface. She needed to guard her words. She wasn’t certain she had the ability to do so.
“You are hardly in a position to complain, madam,” he snapped and stormed back to the door from whence he’d entered her bedchamber. He stood braced in the doorway, as if the door frame might keep him from coming after her. “Apparently, your father dangled your dowry under my grandfather’s desperate nose and purchased my title and pedigree for you in the same fashion he would purchase a fine horse.”
“Then my father was a poor shopper. The only portion of the horse I ended up with was the arse!”
A high-pitched whine filled the stunned silence that followed her words. Turpin stood between them, looking from Rhiannon to Endymion and back. He dropped onto the floor and rested his head between his paws with a heavy, put-upon sigh. Rhiannon opened her mouth to speak when she heard a deep rumble of laughter that sent strange tingles of anticipation to the most sensitive parts of her body.
Endymion was laughing, truly laughing, from the place deep inside where people so often hid who they were when no one was looking. She was looking. And hearing. And feeling. What had she said to evoke such utterly out-of-character behavior? He recovered quickly, though his face remained relaxed and an odd smile played about his lips.
“You and Voil are in agreement. He has informed me I am a horse’s arse on more than one occasion.”
“Recently?”
“About an hour ago.”
“He is far more intelligent than I credited.”
“For a lackey.”
Rhiannon snorted. “For a lackey, yes.”
“You are beautiful, Rhee, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he said, his eyes fixed on her in a way that made her stomach flip over and over again.
“Doing it too brown, Your Grace,” she replied as he took several languid steps toward her. His feet and legs were bare beneath the banyan. He’d done it deliberately, damn him. He’d laughed at himself, the last thing she’d expected him to do. Then he’d made her head spin with flattery, flattery so sincere it almost made her believe him.
He stepped closer. So close, his feet touched hers and his breath stirred her hair. He gathered a handful of her thick, dark curls, raised them to his face and inhaled, then rubbed the locks against his cheek. The sharply drawn lines of his face stood in stark contrast to the gentle whirls of her hair. His expression was taut, as if some unseen current lurked beneath his skin. She wanted to be afraid or even angry, but her foolish body refused to cooperate. He was tall and broad and powerful, and far too male to be denied. And, God help her, she did not want to deny him.
“You always had the sweetest hair, Rhee. All these curls, and soft as a feather bed.” He touched the backs of his fingers to her temple and glided down her neck to the place where her collarbone peeked through her robe.
“What do you want, Dymi?” Rhiannon mentally scrambled away from the cliff’s edge that was her husband’s eyes lit with passion, his touch warm with desire. One misstep and she’d tumble over, and the landing could be her undoing.
“You, Rhee. Other than that, I haven’t the merest clue as to what I want. What I want. Not the Duke of Pendeen. Not the man who is trying desperately to hold to the little bit of control he has left for fear he cannot exist without it.” He caressed her shoulders, slid down her arms until he held her hands in his. “I’m so weary, and I don’t know why. I only know with you…in bits and pieces…I can become someone other than the man I have had to be these seventeen years.”
“Why me? I am nothing to you, Dymi.”
“You are the only thing to me. I am a stranger here. Nothing speaks to me. Flashes of memory, all horrible and mixed up and lonely. You are the only true thing I have left here. You are the only rest I have found in Cornwall.” His hands tightened around hers, as if she were a lifeline thrown to him in a stormy sea. “After this afternoon, I…I… I am rubbish at this, Rhee. I don’t know what to say or how to tell you how much I want to find my way back to you. Or even why. I just—”
The rigid, uncompromising duke was gone. In his place stood the man who’d dared everything to take care of his mother and brothers. The man who’d gone where passion led him, and she wanted passion to lead him now.
“Stop talking and kiss me, you horse’s arse.” Rhiannon fisted the lapels of his banyan and dragged him against her. Fortunately, His Grace did not have to be told twice.
He seized her beneath her elbows and crushed her in an embrace so powerful it took her breath away. His lips took hers in a fiery kiss, his groan so deep and dark it forced her to release his robe and curl her arms around his neck for dear life. His hands moved from her elbows around her back and wrapped themselves in her hair.
He caught her top lip between his
teeth, tugged gently and then suckled it. Then his lips burned a path of kisses and nips across her chin and down her throat to the vee bared by her robe. With one muscled arm around her, he lifted her feet from the floor and, with the other hand, loosen the tie of her robe.
Rhiannon ran her tongue around his ear and bit the lobe sharply. He flinched, groaned, and held her tighter. She reveled in the silk of his hair, its length a reminder of the wild boy she’d fallen in love with at first sight. Love? Oh no, this had nothing to do with love. He’d awakened a sleeping passion in her under the trees by the lake. She was no simpering lady. She loved the wicked sensations, the completely improper hunger his body unleashed in hers, and she wanted more. She held no hope he’d suddenly become the husband she’d dreamed of, but for now, she’d take the husband he’d decided to be. Whoever he was.
Liar! Foolish, foolish, girl!
Her eyes met his, and then they both lowered their gaze. He’d lifted her breast from her gapped robe and held it reverently. He pressed a kiss to the curved mound, whispering his lips across the edge of her tightly furled nipple.
“Tell me no, Rhiannon,” he spoke against her sensitized skin. “Send me away. It will break my heart, but I will go.”
She traced a path along his neck, down his chest and inside the confines of his banyan until her fingertip found the hardened length jutting against the silk folds of that garment. She bent her head to kiss the back of his neck and then touched her mouth to his ear. “It will break something, Your Grace, but I daresay it is not your heart.”
He raised his head and curled his fingers around her breast. “You are a wicked, cruel woman, Duchess,” he rasped, then kissed her until she lost the ability to draw breath, to think, or to admit what a truly bad decision she was about to make. She’d lived the last seventeen years for Pendeen. Tonight, she’d live for herself, and tomorrow she’d do what she did best—pick up the pieces and carry on without him.
“Take a wicked duchess to bed, Your Grace?” She tugged the tie of his banyan free.
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