You May Kiss the Duke

by Charis Michaels

“Because of the dowry money.”

  “We both know this is a lie. Tessa and Willow have told me that you were the richest man in the partnership at the time of our marriage.”

  “Just to be clear,” he said, “I’m still the richest.”

  “High time for another tattoo.” She smiled. “Take the shine off that respectability.”

  “I will never be respectable.”

  She laughed with incredulity. “Why not? Joseph Chance is a former serving boy who is running for Parliament. He’s every inch the respected statesman.”

  “Joseph was not—” Stoker stopped and looked down at the newspaper on his lap.

  “Oh yes,” Sabine said sarcastically, “your terrible past. Your courtesan mother and the brothel and your life on the streets.”

  Stoker looked up and crossed his arms over his chest. Sabine blinked at the new shape and breadth of his muscled arms. He said, “Never let it be said that Sabine Noble is overly sympathetic.”

  “My name is Sabine Stoker, actually. And I should like to know why you did it. Come on, then, it’s only fair. I told you why I agreed to marry.”

  “Ah, you told me some part of why. I know the tattoo wasn’t your only reason.”

  “Oh, and now you would have me say more? Fine. I agreed to marry you because you seemed to pass no judgment on my miserable situation—you didn’t even appear shocked. You took remarkably creative initiative when you stuffed Sir Dryden into the cupboard. And you were available.”

  “Available?”

  “Right time, right place. So fortuitous.”

  “I am the fortunate one,” he said quietly, “marrying you.”

  “Stop,” she said, but she felt a flutter of warmth shimmer in her belly. “You don’t even know me. We never see each other—” He opened his mouth to interrupt but she spoke over him.

  “I’m not complaining,” she said, “God knows I would not complain. This was our agreement. But you are present now, and we are having this conversation, and I’ve shared my part—twice, in fact—and now it’s only fair that you share yours.” She leaned across the bed, a bridge over his legs, propping herself on her hand.

  Stoker breathed in, either to brace himself or make some pronouncement, she couldn’t say. He rubbed his jaw and the back of his neck. He shook his head slightly.

  A proper woman, Sabine thought, her heartbeat suddenly very loud in her ears, would drop the matter. A proper woman would have shied away after his first evasion. A proper woman would not be inching closer to his half-naked body, forcing him to reveal bold truths.

  Perhaps I am not a—

  Well, I’m not so much improper as tenacious.

  “I’m tired,” he tried.

  “You don’t look tired to me.”

  “At any moment I will drop into a deep sleep.”

  “It’s far too bright in this room for sleeping.”

  “You’re holding me captive in this bright room to interrogate me, and I feel threatened.”

  “You know no threat, from me or anyone else,” she said. “You are impervious to threat. But I am beginning to believe you had no wish to marry me at all, you saw no benefit, and you did it only out of pity.”

  “It wasn’t that.”

  “Then why?”

  “You want me to tell you?”

  She cocked her head in frustration and stifled the urge to demand, Say it.

  “Fine,” he said. “I did it because I had grown weary of saving women.”

  “What?” Sabine sat up.

  “And children,” he added. “And every other victimized soul I stumbled upon. Or who stumbled upon me. You were my swan song, so to speak.”

  It was not what she expected to hear. And not simply because it made no sense. His answer had absolutely nothing to do with her.

  “Explain,” she said, scooting closer to him on the bed.

  He let out a heavy sigh. “You know Bryson and Elisabeth Courtland?”

  She nodded.

  “I met this couple—well, I met Elisabeth—because she was actually an old friend of my mother’s.”

  “Your mother the prostitute?”

  “My mother the prostitute, yes. Never let it be said that you mince words, Sabine.”

  “Well, perhaps she was, but I’m certain there was more to her than her profession.”

  Stoker looked at her carefully. It was as if no one had ever suggested this notion to him. Sabine shrugged. “I am more than a travel-guide writer. I am more than an amateur smuggler hunter. I am also a compassionate nursemaid, for example.”

  Stoker barked out a laugh but continued, watching her closely. “Yes, well, Elisabeth Courtland was kidnapped as a girl and my mother helped her escape a dreadful situation. They became . . . friends. My mother’s only reasonable friend. And when I was ten or eleven and took to the streets because I could no longer tolerate life inside the brothel, my mother sent me to call on Elisabeth, who was a charity crusader and niece to an esteemed countess in Mayfair. It was the one piece of useful advice my mother, God rest her, ever gave me. For weeks I followed Elisabeth. I was bored and curious and a little dazzled. I eventually approached her. A collaboration ensued.”

  Sabine wrinkled her brow. “A street boy and a wealthy Mayfair maiden. What a collaboration.”

  “She was a friend at first.”

  “A very unlikely friend,” said Sabine.

  “Elisabeth is very unlikely.”

  Sabine nodded and looked at her lap. She’d seen Elisabeth Courtland on two occasions, both happenstance encounters around London, but they had never spoken. She was older than Stoker, although only by ten years or so, and she was still very beautiful, despite being a married matron with three children. She obviously regarded Stoker as a member of family. Still, Sabine felt a twinge of something unsettling. Stoker always spoke of her with such clear fondness, almost reverence.

  Sabine nodded. “Go on.”

  “Elisabeth’s life’s work is saving young girls from prostitution. Her charity aims to stem the tide of helpless, unwitting girls from being scooped up into this life. But her organization has always operated the way all charities do—through proper channels. She works with the church and the government. Because of the limits of traditional charities, she always felt her work was incomplete. She was powerless to actually physically extract entrenched girls from this life. And that is where I came in. I was from the streets, I knew every street and dark alley, I knew the dens of iniquity, and the lavish courtesan townhomes. The lawless underworld had been my home for as long as I could remember. I was also fifteen and seized by a restless energy that was well suited to knocking down doors, spiriting away girls into the night, fighting, conning, setting things ablaze—whatever it took. And so, working together with Elisabeth, I began to raid brothels on behalf of her charity.”

  “And by raid,” asked Sabine, “you do not mean you approached these establishments formally and led the girls away? You did not negotiate with whomever was in charge? You literally stole them?”

  He nodded. “We stole them. I organized a band of street boys and we began sneaking into brothels, rescuing these girls, and delivering them to Elisabeth’s care.”

  “Did she pay you for this work?”

  “No.” He looked a little offended. “We survived on righteous fervor and the sheer thrill of it. I raided ten, twenty, fifty brothels in those early years, removing hundreds of girls. Young girls, old girls, grateful girls, girls who were belligerent and who I had to toss over my shoulder and haul away screaming. I rescued small boys and old men and dogs and—it simply became a habit, really. Once you begin seeking out injustice to liberate, you find that injustice seems to flourish everywhere you look. There was always someone else to rescue.”

  “But you were educated, Stoker. You went to university. I know you did not raid brothels and rescue these girls forever.”

  “Well, I stopped with you, didn’t I?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  Sabine considered this
. Should she somehow be offended that he placed her rescue on the same level as that of prostitutes?

  No, she decided, she was not offended. She had been just as desperate as anyone else, trapped with an oppressor and unable to find her way free.

  He went on, “Elisabeth saw potential in me beyond muscle and cunning, and forced me to sit for tutors. When I excelled at lessons—I was pathetically desperate to please her—she discovered a university that would take an unrefined but promising blighter like me.” He exhaled loudly. “And she forced me to go. So you asked if she paid me to rescue the girls. Not in money. Only in opportunity.”

  “Surely, you are grateful.”

  “Surely,” he said.

  “But that was years ago,” she prompted.

  “Yes, that was years ago. But since I met her, I had never stopped stumbling across people who required my help in some way. Girls in subjugation. Widows beholden to cruel landlords. Children in workhouses with unthinkable conditions. Slaves in every port in the world. Entrapment. Blackmail. Terrorizing. Advantage taken at the cost of another. The strong dominating the weak.” He sighed as if it pained him to tell the story. “Joseph says I have a ‘heroism affliction.’ God knows it’s not that. The things I have seen and done?” He made a noise of misery. “I’m no hero—I’m . . . I’m trying to save a mother who had no wish to be saved, trying to change a boyhood that has already come and gone.” He made a bitter laugh. “I’ve never said that out loud. I’m not sure I’ve ever thought it.”

  “Are you saying you did not do it for the girls, but for yourself?” Sabine asked. She’d never been more rapt. She scooted closer.

  “God knows why I did it,” he said. “All I know is, when you begin busting through walls and knocking heads as a very young man, it’s difficult to simply stop. I have the strength, I have the skill, I’ve seen virtually every evil known to man—seen the very depraved source of it and seen desperate people do desperate things to survive. Most important, I’ve come to know that putting a stop to most evil is simply a matter of strength and confidence. The larger dog compels the weaker to piss off. I am good in a fight. Why shouldn’t I deliver helplessness when I see it?”

  “But you haven’t . . . enjoyed it?” said Sabine. “Not once? Have you not known some sense of righteousness or satisfaction from standing up on behalf of these people?”

  He let out a deep breath and lay back on the pillow. “I’m tired, Sabine.” He rolled his head to the side and looked at her with half-lidded eyes. “So bloody exhausted. Just because I know how to vanquish petty evil does not mean I have the energy to do it forever. As I’ve said, it changes nothing, for me.”

  “And so why not simply . . . stop? God knows you’ve done enough. You’ve done more than most people do in ten lifetimes.”

  “I did stop. I stopped with you.”

  She laughed at the simplicity of his answer. “Why did my predicament qualify as permission for you to cease being . . . being a hero?”

  “Because the thing required to save you was such a very great departure for me. It felt like . . . enough.”

  “Freeing me from a cupboard and locking my uncle inside was enough?” she asked.

  “Marrying you felt like enough.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Because I am so terrible?”

  It felt a little wrong to say this, considering Sabine knew she was not terrible at all. She’d not given much thought to suitors or marriage before her father died, but she knew that when the time came, she would be reasonably easy to marry off. She was pretty enough, if you liked strident, bold, wildish girls; she was well-dowried enough, and she was clever. She was not, perhaps, biddable and pliant, but she could offer intelligence and self-reliance in exchange.

  Stoker didn’t answer, and she tried again, “Marrying me felt like enough because you said you would never marry?”

  “Yes,” he said, sounding a little cornered. “I felt like I could give myself permission to stop being a . . . oh—is vigilante the wrong word?”

  “You seem far too rich to be a vigilante,” she said.

  “Whatever I was, I felt like I could stop, because I was doing this thing I’d sworn never to do. Marry.”

  “But you did anyway.”

  “Yes, but only in a manner. As you well know. Our ‘arrangement.’”

  “And was it enough? This convenient marriage we have? Have you spent the past five years feeling absolved from saving anyone, ever again?”

  He did not reply but looked away. After a moment he gave one quick nod.

  Now Sabine felt indignant. She felt childish and maligned and . . . indignant. She was not someone’s penance. She was not a healing broth that one ate despite how terrible it tasted.

  She asked, “So you’ve simply stopped? You’ve seen the guano venture through to the end and . . . done whatever else it is you do when you sail around the world, and you’ve ceased rescuing people?”

  “I have,” he said simply.

  Sabine thought about this. She considered his demeanor each time they met for their rare, brief encounters. Had he seemed fulfilled and carefree? Had he seemed happy?

  No, he had not. He seemed as glowery and brooding as ever.

  She narrowed her eyes and asked, “And has your retirement been the liberating, revitalizing thing that you hoped it would be?”

  He opened his mouth and then closed it. He shifted his position in the bed. Finally, he said, “I have been very busy. When Cassin and Joseph left the partnership, someone had to do the work of two absent men.”

  “But the guano is depleted. You’ve sold it all. You’ve made enough money for ten men. That was a year ago, wasn’t it? Since then have you been so fulfilled?”

  She saw him swallow hard. “I’ve been looking for some property in which to invest. To put down roots. I want to build a house. I . . . I believe I will feel more settled when I have a proper home. I’ve not had one, not really. It’s why I was in Portugal when I was attacked. There is an eighteenth-century villa for sale in Cabo de San Vicente.”

  She stared at him. Slowly, she began to shake her head.

  He offered, “You’ve said you seek the same thing. For a home. To return to Park Lodge.”

  Park Lodge could not be further from her mind. Even the investigation and the smugglers and seeing her uncle imprisoned felt like an afterthought.

  Sabine took a deep breath and looked away from his face. She stared down at the crisp sheets of the bed, over to the dog, out the open window. She could think of fifty questions to ask him, but perhaps he’d said enough. He’d never been so vocal, not remotely, in their four-year association. Her mind spun with all he’d shared. Had she expected him to say, I married you because I fancied you? No. She didn’t suppose she had expected that. She’d asked the question with no expectations so that she would not be disappointed.

  She looked back. He watched her with curious reservation. His expression suggested he wanted some response, but he was afraid of what she might say. Stoker afraid of her? If so, she understood the sentiment.

  She was suddenly desperate to change the subject. She looked again at his tattoo and asked, “Did it hurt terribly? When you got it?”

  Stoker’s eyes narrowed and he hesitated.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  Slowly, he said, “It was not the most comfortable undertaking. I don’t really remember. I was not entirely sober at the time.”

  “Do they use a . . . knife?”

  “Needles,” he said. “Hundreds of needle pricks that push dye beneath the skin.”

  Sabine scrunched up her face. “Needles . . .”

  The thing she said next could be blamed on impulsiveness or impetuousness or pique or any number of unaccountable reasons, but the truth was, she said it because she wanted to. It had suddenly become all she wanted. Even their incredibly personal conversation, as fascinating as it had been, fell away to make room for this.

  “May I touch it?” she asked. She released the dog to the f
loor.

  Across the bed, Stoker went very still. His half-lidded eyes opened wide.

  Sabine raised her chin. The instinct to flinch or flee the room did not even enter her mind.

  Stoker said nothing but extended his hand to her with careful slowness. She watched him reach out, realizing suddenly that she had touched him, really touched him, so few times. When they’d married, they’d barely shaken hands. When she’d discovered him on the Dreadnought, staffers had conveyed him to the wagon; when she’d gotten him home, footmen had put him in the bed and Harley had tended to him. There was the incident in her study, but that had felt less like touching and more like transporting. She’d fed him for a week, but they had been separated by the length of a spoon.

  What she asked now was touching for the sake of touching. Whether it was years of latent curiosity, or his openness when they spoke, or simply his bare arms and chest spread before her—she did not know and did not care. She wanted her brain to shut down for five minutes and simply . . .

  She ran four fingertips along the surface of his forearm, the motion of smoothing down an imaginary sleeve. His skin was warm, and she felt tendons and muscles twitch beneath her touch. The dark pattern of the tattoo was risen ever so slightly, barely discernable through the dusting of hair on his arm.

  “Was it painful for days?” she asked softly.

  His voice was a rasp. “I don’t remember.”

  She glanced at him. His eyes had not moved from her face. She looked back to his arm. When her fingertips reached the large bone of his wrist, she slid her hand back up. At the pit of his elbow, she extended her index finger and traced the coiling serpent around his biceps, under, over the top again, under again. The buckles of muscle in his arm felt like knots of thick rope. When her finger reached the widest point of his biceps, she stretched out her hand. Her hand spanned less than half of his arm.

  “Dr. Cornwell was correct,” she whispered. “You are improved today.”

  The truth was, he seemed hardly sick at all. The bandage around his torso had been wrapped fewer times, and the dressing on his wound was considerably smaller. He was warm and muscle-hard and tightly coiled. He seemed like an animal that had been sleeping but was now very much awake. She gave his biceps a small squeeze, testing the hardness. The latent strength mesmerized her. She was intrigued by the hair on his forearm, the smooth skin of his upper arm, the rock of his shoulder.