DukeAndEnchantress_PGolden-eBooks

by Golden, Paullett

  “A new beau? No! Why didn’t you tell me? Is it the marquess then?” Charlotte turned to him, as beautiful as ever against the backdrop of the ocean.

  “Not the marquess. I had hoped she would tell you herself. I hate to ruin the surprise, but it seems I already have, however inadvertently. The beau in question is Duncan Starrett.”

  She frowned. “The colonel’s son? Are you positive that’s a good match for her? You don’t suppose he’s a fortune hunter, do you? And what about all of her protests about being too young?”

  “She’s promised not to do anything rash as long as I agree to let her see him. All his visits will be chaperoned. While I don’t think he’s made any professions of love, she has agreed to wait until he returns and after her eighteenth birthday before accepting him, should he propose. I hope you won’t disapprove of the match. I’ll already have Mother to contend with, but I can delay that unpleasant conversation for at least two more years. I’m only pleased she’ll marry for love and not duty. After all, if I had married for duty alone, I might be sitting here with a stuffy daughter of a duke who has terrible breath and a hatred for music rather than sitting here with you.” Drake squeezed her shoulder.

  “Are you saying you married for love?” She scoffed in exaggerated disbelief.

  “I might have done.” He smiled when she blushed at his response. Clearing his throat, he asked, “We are set up in the guest quarters for the night, separate rooms, of course, but I thought, perhaps, you might consider sneaking into my chamber?”

  She tensed beneath his arm, making him feel self-conscious for asking. When she didn’t say anything in response for a lengthier bout of silence than he cared to sit through, he tried for a more persuasive tactic.

  “Frankly, the rug burn on my back and knees is paying its toll. It’s been a full week of the most wondrous time I’ve ever spent in my music room, but I’d like a bed. Wouldn’t you? We’ve never shared a bed before. Not to mention….” He cleared his throat again. “I’d like to wake up at night to find you next to me, see you there when I wake up. If you’re not opposed to the idea, we could resume that arrangement when we return home. My chamber or yours, I don’t care. What do you say?”

  He couldn’t see fault in his request, even if it was abnormal to share a bedchamber like commoners, but by Jove, he wanted to be with his wife, not sneaking about in hidden rooms as they’d done for a week. All signs seemed to indicate she wasn’t as stodgy as his mother when it came to tradition and decorum, but so much of Charlotte’s behavior was difficult to read, even now, sometimes passionate and other times haughty.

  “I don’t know. I want to, but I’m not altogether decided I’m ready,” she admitted.

  “Why not?” he demanded to know.

  Her cheeks turned rosy, and she hid her face against his shoulder. “You’ll think I’m silly if I tell you.”

  “Try me,” Drake dared.

  She sighed and leaned against him, her bonnet tilting sideways, the ribbons tickling Drake’s nose.

  “I’ve fallen a little in love with someone else,” she confessed.

  He didn’t move. The world stopped. Even his heart stopped. He heard nothing but silence around him, the world frozen in place by her words.

  “And I’m not confident,” she continued, “how I feel about you, Drake.”

  Drake couldn’t breathe.

  Her words smothered him. Here he sat, hopelessly in love with her, and she loved someone else? Who? She was never around anyone other than him, was she? He thought of the times she and her sister had explored the wilderness park on the estate, the time she had gone on a picnic with her family and Sebastian, all the times he hadn’t been around, but instead had been holed up in his music room or fencing with Winston. Had she met someone else?

  When he didn’t respond, she said, “I’ve fallen a little in love with a man I call The Composer. When he smiles, he has two irresistibly handsome dimples. He listens to me when I talk, understands how I feel, has the most brilliant ideas of his own, and oh, when he makes love with me, Drake, oh, I hear the music of heaven. We’re one soul joined together.”

  She sighed and nuzzled closer to him.

  Exhaling as the earth reset its spin on its axis, Drake pushed her bonnet out of his face and tried to make sense of her words.

  “Are you talking about me, Charlotte? Or is there another dimpled composer making love to you I should know about?” Oddly, he felt jealous of himself.

  “In a way, but you’re Drake, and he’s The Composer. I’m falling for one but uncertain about the other. You see, you’re altogether a different person outside of the music room. I know it sounds silly, but it’s true. Inside the room, your smile is genuine, and your eyes are soulful. Outside of the room, you leer at me. You’re sardonic with a wolfish smile that threatens to either make a joke of me or devour me, maybe both. Drake is recklessly impulsive. The Composer is patient. I want to be with the man in the music room, not the lusty wolf. Does that make sense?”

  He laughed. He laughed so hard he had to remove his arm from her shoulders and double over, nearly in tears. When he looked back at her, eyes twinkling at her in merriment, she scowled at him.

  “See. You’re Drake right now. Mocking me. If I told The Composer, he would understand. You do nothing but laugh at me and think I’m silly.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “The world is a joke to you, but have you noticed you’re the only one laughing?”

  The words took a moment to sink in before he sobered. “I’m not laughing at you, my darling. I’m laughing at the strangeness of being considered two people. You do know that I am The Composer you claim to adore, don’t you? I bury that part of me deep inside because no one would respect me if I weren’t what they expect me to be, but that is who I am. Don’t you see that? Can’t you see through the illusion to the real me?”

  He rested his elbows on his thighs and steepled his fingers, perching his chin on his fingertips. “I want you to understand something, Charlotte. No one, not even Sebastian, has seen my private self. Only you will ever see the real me, but you have to love all of me, not just the private side. The public face isn’t a complete farce. It’s me, as well. You can’t fall in love with part of me and not all of me. You have to love the whole picture, even the wolf. No matter what happens in our lives, I will always wear the public mask. You have to accept that. Can you? Can you see your composer and me as the same person? Can you love us both as one?”

  Never had he thought of himself as being two different people, a façade for the world and his true self with his music, but he knew she was right. Oh, he wished she would say she loved all of him, for this would forever be who he was, a man who kept his soul private while he entertained the world with a mask.

  The longer he waited for her answer, the more it sunk in that he wouldn’t get such an admission from her. She didn’t know if she could love all of him. Maybe it was enough for now that she loved the real him, the side he had once feared to show her. In time, maybe, she would learn to love all of him. He could hope, for if she couldn’t, it wasn’t really love.

  He smiled at her then, a deep and genuine smile full of all the love he felt for her.

  “Ah, there you are,” she smiled, relieved, and touched her hand to his face.

  He leaned over and kissed her, putting into the kiss his truest self, willing her to see him, all of him, and love him.

  When they returned to the castle to join Hazel, his mother, and Mary, the remainder of the afternoon enjoyed a festive atmosphere with a game of charades and a feast fit for a king. Only his mother retired early to her room, leaving the four remaining guests to enjoy the fireworks on the cliffside.

  As they stood under the night sky, watching the exploding colors sparkle against the backdrop of stars, Drake wrapped his arms around Charlotte, leaning her back against his chest. He knew without a shadow of doubt that he lo
ved her more than he would have ever thought possible. She knew his true self and understood his soul and was even a little in love with him.

  He whispered against her ear as the sky filled with booms and rainbows, “Have you decided? Will you stay with me tonight, my love?”

  She nodded against his cheek. “I will.”

  Chapter 23

  Several days after Lizbeth’s wedding to Sebastian and the departure of Aunt Hazel, Charlotte and Drake arrived in the ducal carriage at Winston’s estate.

  Drake had arranged for her a surprise, but he hadn’t yet given anything away except that it would be held in Winston’s grand ballroom and had been arranged, at Drake’s request, as a belated wedding gift from the Prince of Wales himself.

  Charlotte couldn’t imagine what the prince would have helped Drake arrange or why it would need to be held in a ballroom at someone else’s estate, but she assumed it must be extravagant. Her excitement, part nerves and part anticipation, bubbled over during the ride to Winston’s estate.

  When the carriage pulled up and the footman rushed over to set out the steps and open the door, Winston came out to greet them.

  “At last, I have the pleasure of meeting the Duchess of Annick! Drake has spoken often about you, and I’ve been remiss not to travel to Lyonn Manor to meet you,” Winston said, bowing to Charlotte as she approached.

  She inclined her head politely and offered him a gloved hand. Winston wore casual riding attire, much to Charlotte’s surprise, hardly appropriate dress for hosting entertainment.

  As if reading her thoughts, Winston said, “I’m only here to greet you both and meet the lady who has stolen my best mate’s heart. My home is yours, Drake.” He bowed, waved his hand towards the house, and waited until Drake cupped Charlotte’s elbow to walk past the host before Winston turned from them and walked around the house, presumably towards the stables.

  How odd, Charlotte thought. What sort of surprise would Drake have arranged to send the host retreating from his own house?

  A stout and jovial butler waited for them at the front door, leading the couple to the ballroom before shutting the doors behind them. Charlotte was even more confused when she walked into the room. Two chairs separated by a small table with a refreshments tray faced a stage decorated like a Turkish house with a faux courtyard, complete with carved wood lattice windows, colorfully decorative rugs, matching throw pillows for furniture, and a fig tree.

  Drake directed her to the chairs, offering her to take a seat. When she did, eyeing him with suspicion, he merely smiled in return and poured them each a glass of wine.

  “What is this?” she finally asked.

  “Wine.”

  She scowled.

  He raised his glass to hers and turned his eyes to the stage. “Wait and see. It’s not a surprise if I tell you.”

  She didn’t have to wait long before she heard music. Charlotte scanned the room, shifted in her chair and craning her neck to see where the music came from, but all she could assume was the music came from behind the stage, an orchestra hiding behind the scene.

  Oh, the music was gloriously dramatic! Cymbals crashed, triangles dinged, violins played. Charlotte still didn’t fully understand what was going on, but she looked at Drake with barely contained excitement. He smiled again and swirled his wine.

  The stage remained empty, but the music continued for another five minutes. And then, as Charlotte began to wonder why she was forever staring at an unchanging stage, a young man walked from behind the set, pausing in the faux courtyard and looking towards the Turkish house.

  Tears stung her eyes as the young man began to sing in German about a woman named Konstanze. The young man sang an aria about his desire to find his beloved who had been abducted by pirates and sold to the Pasha. Before long, an older man joined the stage, plucking fake figs from an equally fake tree and singing his own aria.

  Drake had arranged a private showing of an opera for her.

  An entire opera, complete with opera company, orchestra, and set. She saw no difference in the opera performed before her and one performed in London other than they were sitting in chairs in a ballroom in Northumberland rather than in a box at the King’s Theater in London.

  For the entirety of the first act, she looked from the stage back to Drake, still in awe that he had arranged this and done so just for her personal enjoyment. By the second act, her eyes never left the stage, completely enthralled by the lives of the captive Konstanze and her maid Blonde who were enslaved by their captors, trapped in a Turkish harem and hoping to be rescued by their true loves.

  Charlotte held her breath with anticipation when the hero found his Konstanze, furrowed her brows with worry when the two heroines and two heroes were caught by the guards, laughed with amusement at the bits of humorous dialogue, especially between the head guard and Blonde, and fell hopelessly in love with Belmont’s desperate attempt to break into the house and rescue his betrothed.

  Charlotte wondered if she were locked inside a house, captive, would Drake find a way inside to rescue her? Would he scale the walls, ascend by a hand-tied rope ladder, appear in disguise, or whatever else it might take to rescue her from the confines of her cage? If he could arrange this show exclusively for her, decidedly, he would stop at nothing for her happiness.

  Oh, how she had misjudged him for so long. Her heart soared. Throughout the final act, she cast Drake a few more glances, seeing only beside her the man she had come to love. She wasn’t positive when it happened, when she fell in love, maybe on the cliff at Dunstanburgh, perhaps on the music room floor, maybe right here in this moment, but she loved him.

  When the opera concluded, she clapped feverishly for the singers. The small orchestra stepped out from behind the stage, still holding their instruments, and bowed to her. Drake stood up next to her and applauded.

  “Did you enjoy Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail?” Drake asked as the singers and musicians departed by the side door of the ballroom.

  “The Abduction from the Seraglio? Oh, I loved it Drake! It was humorous and dramatic all at once,” she exclaimed.

  “And I was under the impression this whole time that you didn’t favor comic opera. I seem to remember you telling me that once,” he said, waving a footman stationed behind them at the far end of the ballroom.

  “I don’t remember, but I may have said it to antagonize you,” she admitted.

  Drake whispered something to the footman who promptly left through the same side door as the singers and musicians. Still standing, he turned to her and held out his hand.

  “May I have this dance, my love?”

  “Dance? Whatever are you talking about? We can’t dance by ourselves, and besides, there’s no music!” She laughed at him and remained seated.

  Drake kept his hand held out to her, undaunted. A quartet of violinists returned to the ballroom then and struck up a minuet. As soon as the music began to play, he arched an eyebrow.

  “There’s still the problem of the dance, Drake. We can’t dance with only two people,” she scolded.

  He snatched her hand from her lap and said, “Leave that to me. I’m leading, after all.”

  And sure enough, he worked out the minuet so that they danced it together, promenading and twirling without the advantage of other dancers. Charlotte couldn’t remember laughing quite so much before except when they had first attempted to play the harpsichord together.

  As they danced, Charlotte had such a brilliant idea she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. She would host a soirée in honor of an anonymous new composer. If she invited the right people, they should come quite far to hear the debut, and certainly they would come if she invited the prince. It would be a testament to her hosting skills and to her love for her husband.

  Would Drake allow it, though? Even if the music was to be debuted anonymously? And did she
have the courage for such a bold move? The soirée would have to be perfect for if one aspect went wrong, she’d be a disgrace along with the Annick name. If he could arrange an opera for her, surely, she could arrange a soirée for him.

  That evening she nestled against Drake’s chest. They were snuggled in his bedchamber, where she had slept every night since her sister’s wedding.

  “Drake?” she said, her fingers twirling the hair on his chest.

  “Hmm?” he murmured, his lips against the top of her head.

  “What would you say to my hosting a soirée with musical entertainment? An evening of music. We could turn the Red Drawing Room into a performance hall for the event, just like we talked about.” Charlotte wasn’t at all optimistic this conversation would go as planned. But why should he not want to debut his music?

  “Sounds splendid, my love. Mother won’t like it, but she can stuff a stocking in it for one evening. Would you be playing the piano by chance? I would love to see you play. You think you don’t have skill, but you do, far more than you realize. You’re a natural, Charlotte. You could play one of the Mozart sonatas you so enjoy.” He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him, kissing her forehead.

  “I would consider playing, yes, if we played a duet. Could we?” She inched upwards so her head rested on the pillow next to him. He turned on his side to face her, still holding her.

  “It will surprise everyone to see me with a violin, but if it’ll entice you to play, then I promise to consider it.” Drake trailed a finger down her bare arm.

  “We could play the duet you wrote. You know, the one I like the most,” she said, hesitantly, looking at him from beneath her eyelashes.

  He frowned and leaned away from her. “No.”

  “Please, Drake. It’s time people heard your music, time they know what a skilled musician and composer you are. I’d like the entire evening’s concert to be only your music. I want to invite a soprano to sing the opera you started but never finished. I want to invite a quartet to play some of your older works. I, especially, want us to perform the duet and the piece for four hands.” She pleaded.