You May Kiss the Duke

by Charis Michaels

  Something about the meeting in Wrest’s dark, filthy townhome made them crave daylight and fresh air, and they’d elected to walk the distance to Belgrave Square. Stoker had tucked Sabine tightly against him and she’d held fast to his arm, but they did not speak, not really. More than penury at the old duke’s house, they’d encountered an alternate history of Stoker’s entire life. The whole of which had been recounted in one afternoon. So much talking, so many revelations, so much to think through.

  And so they had walked in silence, and when they reached Belgrave Square, Stoker had sat behind the bedroom desk and began writing letters. Sabine had offered tea or even brandy, but he’d declined. He’d wished, she sensed, to be alone, and she left him for her own work.

  When the sun set, he’d asked if she would join him out of the house for dinner—in a café or the dining room of an inn—and she had agreed. They settled on a public house not far from Belgrave Square, where the food was bland but fortifying and a little band of musicians entertained the room and removed the opportunity to talk.

  When they returned home, Sabine hadn’t asked his preference for sleeping alone; she’d simply changed into her night rail and climbed into his bed. He’d scooped her up at once, burying his face in her hair. Sabine’s heart had soared. Her body strummed in anticipation of the passion and emotion that would, surely, invigorate their lovemaking.

  But alas, no. After his first commanding gush of enthusiasm, Stoker seemed to take stock of himself and his passion, to steel himself, and then to gingerly undress Sabine and reverently, placidly, make love to her as if she was a fragile paper doll.

  Sabine had been crestfallen and almost, almost, called him out on it, but she’d worried the revelations from his father had been enough burden for one day. It would have been overwhelming, she was afraid, to hear his wife heap on demands about the way he gave and received love in their bed.

  She awakened in the morning, anxious to make progress with her own investigation. She would use the day to call on Regent Street and visit the young chemist, Dr. Birdall. There was more to learn there now that she understood the gunpowder plot. Considerable days had passed since she’d lurked about him in his laboratory or in the pub, eavesdropping about his work in explosives. He would not remember her; perhaps she could approach him. She was motivated to learn everything she could about the London network before finally making a journey to the Dorset coast to have a look at the Isle of Portland.

  After she visited Dorset, she hoped her investigation could feel complete enough to be presented to the police, and she could wash her hands of it.

  Stoker teased about how she would spend her time when she’d finally given the authorities the mural of damning evidence to which she’d devoted months of her life. She was a cartographer, she reminded him, not a detective. Besides, the thrill of vengeance against her uncle had waned considerably since she’d fallen in love with Stoker. His daily struggle to put all of his terrible past behind him had affected every part of her life.

  Now her investigation meant only one thing to her: ousting Dryden from Park Lodge so she could return to her home, look after her mother, and restore her father’s body of work. And if she could continue to publish her travel guides—who could say, perhaps a rural England edition?—even better.

  But thinking about returning to Surrey meant speculating about a future with Stoker there. Would he consider life so far from the ocean? Would Park Lodge be equal to this Portuguese villa he’d been endeavoring to buy? If not, would he consider taking her with him when he sailed on to find the home of his dreams?

  Sabine could not say. And she would not ask. She could tell him of her plans for her own life, she could suggest openness to compromise, but only he could declare his intentions.

  Quietly, Sabine slid one leg from their warm bed, hoping to disappear from the room without waking him. Stoker made a lazy sound and crept a hand beneath the covers and caught her wrist. She went still, heart pounding, and waited. If he yanked her back, if he rolled her beneath him, if he made love to her in the same way he had kissed her yesterday in the alley, she would be delighted to postpone her morning in Regent Street to toss about in bed with him.

  However, if he embarked on another of his light touch, gentle kiss, half-asleep sessions, she was afraid she’d have to beg off on threat of the day’s pressing schedule and the lateness of the hour. She might even claim she had a headache.

  It pained her to avoid him; in fact, she wanted nothing more than to lie with him. But she could not tolerate the civilized . . . hesitancy that pervaded their lovemaking since they’d left the ball. The contrast between their first time and the following nights was so stark, they almost seemed like different activities. Last night he’d benignly convened with her (really, there was no other word) with more of the same. And now he wanted her again.

  Better than nothing at all, she reminded herself, but she held her breath, waiting to see what level of “refinement” he would invoke in these early-morning hours. When he began to slide a faint, gentle hand up her arm, Sabine had her answer. She bit her lip, wondering if she could doze through another softly pressed ministration. When he slid a second hand beneath the covers to ineffectually massage her hip, like a groom polishing the side of a carriage, she tugged her wrist from his hand and stood up.

  “Stoker,” she said, “I can’t.”

  He sat. The look on his face was pure horror.

  “Wait,” she said, “do not panic. It’s not what you assume.”

  “Ah . . . how could it be any other?” A harsh laugh. “Please don’t explain. You are weary. Or busy. Or disinclined.”

  “I am not weary or busy or disinclined,” she said. “I don’t like the way you touch me.”

  And now he was on his feet. He stared at her across the bed. “I knew it—”

  “That is, I don’t like the way you’ve touched me here, in this bed. I loved it at Denby House during the ball, and every time we’ve kissed, including yesterday in the alley.”

  “What? Wild and unchecked?”

  “Yes,” she said resoundingly. “Wild and unchecked. That is what I like. Have you enjoyed this . . . other?” She pecked a curled finger at the bed, pointing at it like it was infested. “This tickle-touch . . . chaste . . . slowness? Because I cannot believe that you do. Not when you are so masterful at the other.”

  “I love any opportunity to touch you,” he said cautiously.

  “Right. And I enjoy the closeness of you and the weight of your body . . . but that is quite all I enjoy. The other is not bad so much as . . . boring.”

  “Boring?” His voice cracked.

  “And unsatisfying,” she said, looking away. “If I’m being honest.”

  “Unsatisfying?”

  She swung back. “Surely, you have noticed.”

  “I am working so very hard to not manhandle you.”

  “But I want to be manhandled, don’t you see?”

  “You cannot.”

  “I can and I do, and you are capable of thrilling me so thoroughly. When you do not, all I can think of is . . . that I wish you would.”

  “Sabine, I could damage you. I could—”

  “You won’t.”

  He made a scoffing noise, “You have no idea.”

  “Would you believe that this very statement—you have no idea—is exciting to me. Doesn’t the promise of . . . whatever ideas I don’t yet know excite you?”

  He stared at her a long moment and then turned to the wall. He pulled his nightshirt over his head, revealing his muscled back and half of the serpent tattoo. Sabine almost sighed out loud. She wanted to launch herself at him. But this would only confuse matters; she’d only just rebuffed him. He was clearly in no mood. Besides, her passion was not in question; this must come from him.

  “I am not prepared to discuss this with you,” he said. His morning jacket was draped over a chair, and he shrugged into it.

  “No one is wearier of talking about sex than I am, Stok
er. But it seems unfair to both of us not to force out some . . . preference. It would be one thing if I felt you were incapable of satisfying me in a wilder, less refined way. But we both know that you are so very up to the task. In fact, I think we are of the same mind on the topic.”

  He walked to the window and moved the curtain, looking out on the autumn color tingeing Belgrave Square. It would rain today; she could smell it in the air. An otherwise perfect day to pass the morning in bed. Was she a madwoman to criticize him? Too demanding? She sighed, wishing her friends were closer so she could ask them.

  Sabine bit her lip and ventured, “I’m going to the Royal Polytechnic Institute in Regent Street today. Would you come with me?”

  “No,” he said shortly, biting the word. Sabine was not accustomed to terseness from him, and she felt her stomach drop.

  “I’ve business with my brig,” he said. “It should arrive today or tomorrow.”

  And it will take you away from me, she thought, fighting back tears. She could not accuse him of this. She could not order him to love her.

  She was so very weary of giving orders. She just wanted to be swept up and carried away.

  She backed from the room and trudged upstairs.

  Dr. Jarius Birdall of Regent Street’s new Royal Polytechnic Institution told Sabine that he could offer ten minutes, and ten minutes only, of his valuable time, as he was expected in an important meeting. (And, by the by, female tourists generally kept to the shop and tea rooms and were not known to approach faculty.)

  She smiled sweetly and thanked him, lucky even for ten minutes. Her question for him—How might her father blast the limestone outcropping from an otherwise fertile field in Dorset?—had been rather weak. She’d invented it on the spot when she’d come upon him outside his office. He, in turn, showed weak interest. It wasn’t every day that a pretty girl with a strange dog asked a stupid question of a man of little authority. Ten minutes was likely more than most people of any gender received.

  “Limestone detonation is not an undertaking that one man, alone, with no training, can accomplish,” he told her in his cramped, acrid-smelling office. “Your father should seek out any of several mining companies with offices right here in London and negotiate a price for the explosives and a crew to manage it.”

  “That sounds expensive,” she mused. “Are there no men who could be hired to work alone? For example, could my father simply hire you?”

  “That depends,” Birdall hedged, considering this, and Sabine gingerly opened her notebook and dabbed her pen, waiting for him to think out loud or rattle off stray facts—anything new she could learn about how the charcoal of Hampstead would meet the sulphur and saltpeter from Mr. Legg’s boat to become gunpowder.

  At her feet Bridget stood at attention, sniffing the air. The dog would truly miss this investigation when it was over. There was virtually no subterfuge or stealth involved in cartography. Thank God.

  Ten minutes later Sabine had a page of notes about the amount of each chemical compound required to make gunpowder and the way they were combined. She was just about to ask him if such an operation could take place in, for example, a barn or even out of doors, when the door to Dr. Birdall’s office opened and in walked the last man on earth she expected to see.

  Her uncle, Sir Dryden.

  He stood distractedly in the doorway, tapping rain from his hat and stomping mud from his boots.

  “Entertaining females in the office, Birdall?” asked Sir Dryden with irritation. “I came all the way from Surrey for this meeting.”

  The sight of Dryden struck Sabine with a throat-closing gush of fear. Her heart lurched, stopped beating, and then leapt into a mad spring. Unwelcome tears burned her eyes and she fumbled with her pen and notebook.

  Not now, she begged, I am so close.

  And then she thought, He will kill me. When he recognizes me and learns my purpose, he will not hesitate to kill me.

  She looked frantically around the room. There was no escape. The windows were sealed, and they were three floors up. The thick stone walls would conceal her screams. One glance at Birdall proved that he was as frightened of Dryden as she was.

  Sabine pressed her notebook closed and blinked back the threatening tears, bracing herself, preparing for the firestorm that would follow when Dryden caught sight of her. She checked her dog. Bridget had never met Dryden and she was frantically sniffing the air, assessing potential threat.

  I swear, she thought, if he lays one hand on my dog . . .

  When Sir Dryden finally turned his attention to the small office, Sabine raised up in her seat, fear momentarily overshadowed by pride. On instinct, she flashed him a smile. She was careful to keep her expression serene and confident—Dryden’s least favorite.

  “My God,” he spat, “what are you doing here?”

  “I moved here after my marriage, Uncle, or don’t you remember? I’ve made London my home these past four years. What are you doing here?”

  He made a dismissive noise and said, “I owe no explanation to you about my whereabouts. What are you doing in the professor’s offices?”

  To Dr. Birdall he said, “Why in God’s name would you let my estranged niece in the Institution?”

  Dryden looked back to Sabine, his gaze lighting on her notebook. “What are you taking down? Let me see that. Don’t try to hide it.” He slapped a bony hand on the notebook and Bridget let out a low, warning growl.

  Sabine clasped the edge of the notebook, trying to slide it free. “Research. For my travel guides,” she said. Bridget’s growl changed to a bark, responding to the distress in Sabine’s voice.

  “The devil it is. Let go,” he demanded and yanked the notebook from the desk to flip it open.

  “She’s taking down notes on our compound, Birdall, you fool!” Dryden said, shouting over the sound of the barks. “What have you told her?”

  Dr. Birdall was standing now, looking nervously between Sabine and Sir Dryden and the dog. “She said she needed advice about blasting limestone from her father’s farm.”

  “Her father is dead,” said Dryden. “She has absolutely no need for this information, unless—”

  He narrowed his eyes on Sabine, studying her face, her posture, the clutch of her hands. He squinted at the dog.

  “Birdall?” he said quietly. “Get out. Take the dog.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, get out. Take the dog and lock the door behind you. I will attend to you in a moment. But first I must clear up some confusion between my niece and myself.”

  The younger man reached cautiously for the dog, and Bridget let out a vicious string of barks, baring her teeth. The professor drew back, edging away, and hurried out the door. Dryden slammed it shut and flipped the lock, spinning back to Sabine.

  “What do you think you’re doing, you meddling presumptuous bitch!” Dryden hissed. He slapped the heel of his hand between her eyes and drove two fingers into her nostrils. When he had a secure hold of her face, he jerked, giving her no choice but to stagger up. The pain and humiliation were immediate, and Sabine cried out, grasping his wrists with both hands. Bridget barked and barked.

  “You think you can interfere with my business? A forgotten housewife, living alone in the cellar of glorified carpenters? You think I don’t know? I look in on you each time I’m in London. I could snap your neck, and no one would even care.”

  He shoved hard, unhooking his fingers, sending her reeling. She collided with a bookshelf, knocking heavy tomes to the floor like apples from a tree. Sabine stooped to pick up a book.

  She would throw it at him, she thought, trying to remain practical and defensive; she would use it to deflect him. He grabbed the book before she could get a proper grip, wrenching it free and drawing back to strike her in the head.

  Sabine anticipated the blow and ducked just in time, sending him careening into the shelf, dislodging a second harvest of books.

  Dryden swore and recovered himself, searching the s
mall office for her. She had scrambled away, ducking behind a chair, searching the legs for a handhold so that she might heave it up. She would chuck it at him. She would—

  “Let me tell you what will happen now,” he said. “First, I will kill this dog.”

  “No,” Sabine gasped, lunging for Bridget. When she stooped, Dryden grabbed her by a handful of hair and steered her downward, face against wood, to the desk.

  Sir Dryden leaned very close to her ear. “You will return home with me to Park Lodge. Won’t your mother be pleased by the visit? You will remain under lock and key until my business with the professor is finished. Then, we will discuss how you learned about it, what you know, and what you intended to do with the information. It is an understatement to say that I am shocked to see you here, but I am not disappointed.”

  Bridget’s barking had reached deafening levels. The dog was maddened at the sight of her mistress under attack. She would not bite him unless Sabine gave the command, but she barked to bring down the Institute walls.

  “Who,” Dryden said over the sound of the dog, “have you told?” He resettled his hand and so his thumb pressed into a soft spot of her neck.

  “Go to hell,” Sabine choked.

  “You would threaten me? Even now?”

  “I will fight you until death,” she said, fumbling her hands along the surface of the desk, feeling for some weapon. She felt a handkerchief . . . spectacles . . . the sharp point of a letter opener. Yes! Sabine rejoiced and walked her shaking fingers around the knife-like shape, searching for the handle. She moved slowly, trying not to draw attention; meanwhile her vision swam; she gasped for breath.

  “Who knows about the gunpowder?” Dryden repeated.

  “No one,” said Sabine, homing her focus on the letter opener. The strange position disrupted her dexterity, and her trembling caused her to fumble it away. She swore and cast around, trying to recover it. Seconds ticked by. Dryden would not be satisfied with pinning her down forever. She let out an exaggerated sob, remembering how this thrilled him. He laughed and increased the pressure on her throat. Sabine saw stars but floundered on. Finally, after an eternity of glacially slow fumbling, she recovered the letter opener and squeezed the handle.