You May Kiss the Duke

by Charis Michaels

He made a noise of frustration and kissed her harder, ignoring the wind and the mess and everything but her lips, but Sabine opened her eyes, catching a glimpse of flying parchment.

  “Stoker, your letters,” she said, pulling away.

  He followed her with his mouth. She kissed him once more, a firm smack, and then pressed him upright. “Look, your papers. Are they not important?”

  He looked at her through half-lidded eyes, blinking as if he’d been slapped. She pointed to the dervish of papers flying from the bench.

  While he blinked himself back to consciousness, Sabine leapt from the bench and began to pick up the dancing paper. Her fingers trembled and her insides were molten, throbbing need. She swore quietly, trying to pounce on one letter after the other.

  Behind her, Stoker mumbled something bitter and tried to push up. “Ow!” he groaned, grabbing his wound.

  “You’ve overdone it,” Sabine scolded, darting after flying paper.

  He made a grunting noise and dropped back on the bench.

  “I hope you can make sense of these,” she said, looking down. “They’ve been completely scrambled, but I think I have them al—”

  She stopped mid-sentence and squinted at the paper in her hand. Her eyes flew over the words and froze on one sentence. Her rib cage grew tight. She drew the paper closer to her face to read it again.

  She looked at Stoker.

  “This letter mentions the Duke of Wrest,” she said. “Yes, right here. ‘His Grace Saul Newington, The Duke of Wrest.’”

  She turned back to him. “Has the duke begun to plague you again about your paternity? Why didn’t you tell me? Are you looking again into his claim?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Then what of this letter?” She tried and failed to scan the illegible scrawl on the wrinkled sheet of parchment.

  “That letter is from my investigator,” Stoker said, trying again to stand. He winced in pain but pushed on.

  “Oh yes,” Sabine said faintly. “You’ve investigations unfurling at every turn. Forgive me, I forget there is the certain matter of your missing ship and the attack. I am—” She stopped and began again. “I am accustomed to only considering myself.”

  “I like that you look after yourself, Sabine. Despite my worry. You should consider yourself above all.”

  Sabine would file that away to consider later. Now she shook her head and waved the papers at him. “But why would your investigator mention the old duke?”

  “Because,” Stoker said, “my man uncovered more than the brig and crew in Portugal. He believes he’s found my attacker. A paid mercenary.”

  “You mean someone hired another man to kill you?”

  “Well, someone hired another man to try to kill me.”

  “Oh yes, I keep forgetting how invincible you are,” she mumbled. She was rereading the letter. “But why haven’t you told me of this?”

  “Sabine, I haven’t seen you.”

  “For this, you should have summoned me to you,” she insisted, but in her head, she thought, I should have gone to him. I should have gone to him days ago.

  Stoker was quiet for a moment, watching her. “Apparently, the would-be assassin has been found, and after a rather costly negotiation, the hired man revealed who wanted me dead. Would you believe it was the old duke?”

  “No,” Sabine marveled. She dropped her hands, pressing the letters into her skirts. “The Duke of Wrest tried to have you killed?”

  Stoker shrugged. “I was as shocked as you. The duke was named by the assassin out of thin air. I’d never mentioned Wrest’s previous contact with me to the investigator, and the mercenary is an Italian, someone who’s been following me for months.”

  “But why would he try to have you killed?” Sabine asked, scooping up his hat and cane and thrusting them at him.

  “Another attempt to get a piece of my fortune, I assume. The duke’s overtures to me had become very petulant and demanding. I had finally stopped taking delivery of them. At the time I thought him half-mad and entirely pathetic, but I never dreamed he would have a thirst for blood. My God, when I think of the danger I put you in when I asked you to look in on him.” His expression twisted into a scowl.

  “But what of the danger you’re in now?” she asked, waving the letter.

  He shrugged. “I believe my invincibility has already been referenced.”

  “Do not joke!” she said.

  “I’m not worried about it, Sabine,” he sighed. “When I think back to the afternoon I was attacked—and my memories are blurred—the man lured away my crew, occupying them elsewhere. He paid a sham estate agent to lead me down an isolating road. I thought I was being shown a private estate for sale. Instead, I was ambushed. It was an amateur mistake for me to be so taken in, but Portuguese is not my strongest language and I was caught up in the idea that my future happiness rested in this coastal mansion—whatever it was. Buying a big house on a high cliff was perhaps the most civilized undertaking on which I’d ever embarked. I’d let down my guard because that is presumably what civilized people do. I nearly died for my error, but it won’t happen again. I am now . . . aware. Hilltop mansion or no. I’m not worried, and you needn’t worry, either.”

  Sabine thought about this, thought about this civilized house he meant to buy in another country. There was so much yet to discuss. But he was limping toward the path. She looked down at the letters in her hand.

  “If there is no worry,” she said, “then we must seek out the old duke immediately.”

  “No, we must not,” he said levelly.

  “Not to accuse him, of course—not yet, at any rate—but to discern how guilty he may . . . look? How desperate or calculating. I wonder if he knows you survived?”

  “My investigator and I are doubtful he knows I washed up in England.”

  “But what is your plan?” asked Sabine, following him down the garden path. “A man who hires an assassin is as guilty as the murderer himself. The duke should be prosecuted.”

  “My plan is to sail my investigator home on my recovered brig. When he’s in London, we’ll take the matter to the police.”

  “So casual,” she said softly, “about an attempt on your life.”

  He shrugged. “I still draw breath, and the Duke of Wrest is not my first enemy, Sabine. Perhaps my convalescence altered my perspective, but I’m not set on vigilante justice like you are. My years of score settling are over. If the statements and evidence found by the investigator hold true, the case will be easy enough for the authorities to manage. He’s a pathetic old man.”

  “He is truly doddering and his station is quite humble,” she said, falling in step beside him. “I am shocked he had the wherewithal to hire a mercenary, to be honest.”

  “I have seen desperate old men do terrible things in service to their vices all over the world,” he said. “I’ve no doubt.”

  They walked in silence for a moment, and then she said, “I’m not set on vigilante justice, by the way. I simply cannot risk accusing Dryden and then having the charge dismissed or shoved to the side. I’m a woman, don’t forget, and Sir Dryden has cultivated his respectability and aplomb for years. He will challenge any charge brought by the police. He will play Lord of the Manor. The more obviously, plainly guilty he appears, the better chance I have. That’s my entire goal. To be taken seriously, and for Dryden to be obviously, plainly guilty.”

  They walked on a moment, the leafy path giving way to the green grass and the road ahead.

  After a moment she asked, “What is your goal, Stoker?”

  He did not answer until they’d reached the edge of the park. Finally, he said, “I’ll not achieve any goal until I’ve healed, will I?” He winced a little.

  That’s no answer, she thought, but she’d pressed him enough. She simply said, “No. I suppose you will not.” She laced her shoulders beneath his arm because—well, why shouldn’t they walk home arm in arm? She found she could not not touch him.

  He stiffened
briefly and missed a step.

  “Stop,” she said. “Seriously, Stoker, you must stop.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The problem, Stoker thought, with touching Sabine, was that once he touched her, he did not want to let her go. Ever. Not to walk home (or in his case, limp home) from Belgrave Square; not to instruct servants to carry a summons to the doctor, which she had insisted on; not even to eat bloody supper, an endeavor he’d waited five long days to experience in her company rather than across the tray from Harley.

  Now that she was finally back, elaborating on her findings at Hampstead kiln, all Stoker wanted to do was upend his tray and reach for her.

  Instead, he stared at his food. He answered her questions about explosives and charcoal and how she might discover what they, along with barrels and wagons and the Isle of Portland, had to do with her uncle’s illegal smuggling business. Her dog, blessedly absent from the gardens, now sat beside his bed and begged for scraps from his plate.

  Thankfully, Sabine seemed to have set aside the topic of the Duke of Wrest, although he was not so naive as to believe she’d forgotten it. It had never been his intent to conceal from Sabine what the investigator had learned. When he’d said the conversation had “gotten away from him,” it had not been a lie. The list of things he’d not intended in the garden were legion. He’d not intended to scold her about her ramblings in Hampstead. He’d not intended to translate her own feelings into his terms. And then of course, there was the thing he intended least of all.

  He’d kissed her. Again. After he’d spent five days vowing to get a handle on his control. No matter how she provoked him. No matter how his desire for her raged. Because kisses, as he knew, led to other things, all-consuming, violating things, and he would never, ever violate Sabine. He would not be a source of distress or shame or pain in her life; and his ferocious lust would not be the end to the brief meetings they had always enjoyed or the simple knowledge that she existed somewhere in England, not hating him.

  If these stopped, if she shut him out, he would embrace the demons of his terrible boyhood and wild youth and stop making any effort to be a gentleman. He would simply allow the memories and fears to consume him.

  And no one wants that, he thought cynically, acknowledging his penchant for melodrama. Perhaps there would be no consumption, but there would be wretchedness, nightmares, and hopelessness. For the time being, she kept it all at bay.

  Stoker passed another haunch of chicken to the dog and tried to keep up with the conversation. Sabine had set aside her own tray and now tacked pieces of parchment to his bedroom wall, explaining that she’d prepared the parchment as an evidence mural. Now securely hung on the bedroom wall, they could digest the evidence together. He admired her organization and artistry but also felt a heavy weight roll from his chest. She was back, back in his room and back in his life. For now, at least. If he could manage not to scare her away again.

  She’d headlined the mural, “Known Facts Regarding Dryden, Smuggling, and Barrier Island Maps,” and used sketches and notes to form a representative path of what she’d discovered so far, with dates, places, names, and suppositions. There were arrows and question marks, newspaper clippings darkened with underlined text.

  Her devotion to this research astounded him; hours and days and her considerable talents all brought to bear. When she’d mentioned her challenges as a young woman bringing accusations against an older relation, he’d wanted to remind her that she was married to a wealthy man who would happily call down the undivided attention of law enforcement, or he could put another investigator on the case. He could also simply travel himself to Surrey and pound on Sir Dryden’s door and demand to know what the hell he was doing. But he dared not interfere with her work or usurp the satisfaction it gave her. No one would be more thorough or effective than she.

  “The key missing piece is this Phineas Legg of Portsmouth,” she said now. “He owns a small fleet of ships. According to the sailors on the Dreadnought, it was on one of this man’s vessels that they sailed.”

  Stoker nodded and tried not to stare at her mouth. Was it redder since their kiss? Had his whiskers abraded her cheek? Had he marked her? His mouth watered, remembering the kiss. She seemed to have some misguided curiosity about it. Thank God she was too innocent to know where kissing led.

  He’d succumbed today because—he succumbed today because he’d wanted it so bloody much. He’d wanted it since she’d left his bed five days prior. He had become a vessel of desire for her, and when she had, remarkably, unbelievably, seemed to want the same thing? He gave in. Restraint was an afterthought; no, restraint was forgotten, and he took and took and took.

  yes For perhaps the first time in his life, he wanted and seized in the same glorious moment.

  It was a kiss. Well, it was several kisses. He told himself that, of all the dark, dangerous paths to sex, kissing (for kissing’s sake) wreaked the least amount of havoc.

  She was curious, he thought. Most young women came of age fantasizing about a kiss. Why she would transfer this fantasy on to him, an enigmatic man twice her size, damaged, churning with lust, he could not fathom. But the only thing that exceeded Stoker’s desire for Sabine was his possessiveness of her. And the thought of any other man putting his mouth on her made him consent to the kiss. Just once more. Lest she endeavor kissing with any other man.

  If nothing else, he had taken fastidious care to keep his hands at his sides. The assault was to her mouth alone, a brief taste of what she believed she wanted.

  Meanwhile, he gripped the bench with enough force to crack the stone, and rational thought had dissolved. He floated in the taste and smell of her.

  Was it any wonder they’d gotten nowhere in their discussion of the smuggling or even how long he would remain in Belgravia?

  No, he thought wearily, setting his tray aside, it was no wonder. The dog leapt to the bed and availed herself of the uneaten chicken.

  “Stoker?” Sabine called from across the room. “Did you hear what I said? You’re certain you can recall no knowledge about this man? Phineas Legg in Portsmouth?”

  “No, nothing,” Stoker said, forcing himself to keep up. “His fleet must be very small, indeed, because I know of most shippers in London and the ports along the South Sea.”

  Sabine crossed out a note on her mural. “I’ve not had the time to travel to Portsmouth to look in on him. He was meant to be my last stop before venturing to the Isle of Portland itself.”

  Stoker thought of Sabine traveling to the Dorset coast to look in on a nest of smugglers, and his stomach turned. Naturally, she would not limit her investigation to London. He cast around, trying to think of a strategy that would keep her safe until he was well enough to travel with her. He thought of the maritime vendors and sailors he knew from Portsmouth . . . the dock masters . . . and—

  “Bryson Courtland,” he said, sitting up in bed.

  “What?” She turned from the mural.

  “I’m just thinking that we might apply to Bryson about this shipping man in Portsmouth. Bryson is one of the most respected shipbuilders in England.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to bring injuries to the attention of Bryson?” Sabine said, glancing at him. “Or that is, you mentioned protecting his wife, Elisabeth Courtland? We cannot approach him without alerting her, I’m certain. And the Courtlands do not even know me. What time or interest would they have for my revenge plot against a cruel uncle?” She turned back to the mural.

  Stoker frowned, confused by her resistance. After a moment he said, “I wished to conceal my injuries from them when I was on death’s door, but now that I am—” he paused, looking for the correct word “—going to survive, it’s rude of me to not send some word. Elisabeth’s feelings are wounded when I am in London and I don’t call.”

  “Oh yes,” murmured Sabine to her mural, “Elisabeth.”

  “How would you feel,” he went on cautiously, “if I send them a note and explain my recovery here in London
? I could ask if we might interview Bryson on a confidential topic related to shipping? I can vow for their complete and total discretion. And his support in whatever we may need.”

  “I don’t need support,” she said, still facing the wall. “This investigation is my own. Mine.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her she would require considerable support when her investigation moved from observation to action, but her tone gave him pause.

  He tried again. “You’ve used my support, or at least my knowledge, and see what we’ve managed to deduce? But look at me, Sabine. I’m back in bed. Today has proved that I’m unable to even walk to the garden without paying the price.” He shifted in bed and winced. “I’m a very weak lieutenant, indeed, and I detest myself for it. Can you . . .” He paused, almost losing nerve. This was too important to bungle. Bryson could help with information, but the Courtlands could also help protect Sabine. He couldn’t believe he’d not thought of it sooner.

  He started again. “I would consider it a personal favor if you would allow us to include them in your investigation.” He watched her shoulders tighten as she scribbled notes on her mural. “It kills two birds with one stone. I cannot, in good conscience, remain in London much longer without sending some word. Elisabeth would never forgive me.”

  Sabine said, “I doubt that.”

  “Sabine, what is it?” he asked. “I—your hesitation is beyond my ability to interpret.” He waited, but she did not turn.

  He pressed on. “You will like them, I promise. They have asked to meet you for these past four years. They have begged for an introduction. The reality of my marriage to a woman they do not know has been a . . . sore spot. The tension was avoidable when you and I lived separate sort of lives. But now that we are friends . . .”

  And now he did lose heart. Sabine had stopped writing, stopped breathing. Slowly, she turned.

  “Is that what we are?” she asked. “Friends?” She leaned against the mural.

  He swore in his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Because if we call on the Courtlands, they will wish to know. It will be their first question.”