Her Deceptive Duke (Wicked Husbands Book 4)

by Scarlett Scott

  He cocked his head, a new light entering his eyes. “Surely you are too young to recall your country’s civil war.”

  That was where he was wrong. When it came to war, no age was too young to recall. War ravaged and terrified, it robbed and pillaged and killed, and for as long as she lived, she would never forget the sound of cannon fire rumbling in the distance or the fear that at any moment, enemy soldiers could tear into their home and take everything they had.

  “My father’s farm was in Pennsylvania, about an hour’s ride from a placed called Gettysburg.” The words that emerged from her own mouth startled her. As a practice, she did not speak of the war. Many years had come to pass since that desperate, terrifying time—a lifetime, it seemed. Why then, would she rip open this vein before the callous Duke of Leeds? She didn’t know, but as she searched his gaze, she found herself wanting to unload her past, wanting him to understand her, just the smallest bit. “Have you heard of it?”

  He inclined his head, his expression hardening into grim angles and sharp lines. “I have.”

  Of course he would have, she supposed, being a well-versed man of the world. Gettysburg had had seen three deadly days of ravaging battle that would never be forgotten. “I was but a child of four when the battle was fought there. I will never forget the sound of the guns, endless and rumbling in the distance. When I heard the cannon, I understood for the first time what fear truly is.”

  “Georgiana.” The duke’s tone had gone rough with an emotion she couldn’t quite define.

  She glanced down at the patterned carpet, away from him, lost for a moment in the turbulence of the past once more. Her father had been enlisted, and they had not known whether or not he fought in the battle. Rumors had swirled that the Confederates were winning, that they would sweep through Gettysburg and ravage the surrounding countryside. She, her mother, and her brother, who at eight was too young for conscription, along with some elderly hands had been the only occupants of the farm. Her mother had kept Georgiana and her brother in the root cellar until word of the Union victory had finally reached them.

  Words could not adequately express the horror of those days. Inevitably, thoughts of her brother Arthur filled her with melancholy, for like Mama, he was no longer with her. But she said none of that to the indecipherable man before her, for she had revealed too much, and she did not wish to give him any further ammunition against her. Nor did she wish to appear weak in any way.

  “I was six years old when it ended, old enough to understand,” she finished instead, jerking her head back up to face him. “The war was inescapable. After it ended, my mother took me to Washington City to see the Grand Review of our victorious army, and I will never forget that day, catching sight of General Sherman at the head of his men. Mama held me on her shoulders after I nearly lost her in the throng.”

  She trailed off in bittersweet memory, recalling that it was one of the last happy memories she had of her mother. That winter, Mama had grown ill, and she had never recovered. By the following spring, Georgiana had not been witnessing a joyous parade as she had the year before, but the lowering of her mother’s coffin into the earth. Arthur’s had followed a month later.

  “I stand corrected.”

  His deep voice jolted her back to the present. She frowned down at him. “I’m sorry?”

  “His name.” Leeds continued to give Sherman slow, affectionate strokes. The kitten’s eyes had begun to grow drowsy, making slow blinks. His face was pressed against the duke’s chest. “It’s an excellent one.”

  She swallowed against another rushing tide of emotion and fell deeper into his gaze. So deep that she didn’t even realize he had taken her hand until he tugged. His left hand cradled a now-sleeping Sherman while his right clasped hers.

  Georgiana would have wrenched away from his grasp, but there was something about his touch, his fingers entwined with hers, the softness around his ordinarily cynical mouth, that ensnared her. She could not let go. Instead, she found herself clinging to him. To this fragile hope that the brief glimpses of warmth she saw within him were real, and that they could perhaps one day develop into something more.

  That one day, they could have a true marriage.

  Was it what she wanted? When had procuring her divorce from him ceased to be foremost in her thoughts and desires? Her heart thumped. Too much, her body seemed to say, far too soon. But then he gave another tug to her hand, and she folded herself primly at his side, taking great care that not even the billow of her skirts touched his trouser-clad thigh.

  “There you are,” he said, a smile curving his beautiful mouth for the first time since he had entered the morning salon. “Precisely where you belong.”

  At his side?

  She was holding his hand as if they were not strangers thrown into a marriage neither of them wanted. As if there had never been any lies or hurts between them. Lord, what a fool she was to sit here, basking in his presence as if it were something she required.

  Feeling peevish and uncertain of herself, she withdrew her hand from his. “Who are you to decide where I belong?”

  Instead of withdrawing his hand, he allowed it to linger on her lap. Through the layers of her skirts, he found her thigh and squeezed with gentle intent. “Your husband.”

  His touch, intimate enough to nearly graze the apex of her thighs where she yearned for more of his clever touches the most, and his possessive pronouncement sent a shock of pure, molten need straight to her core.

  She would have gasped aloud had she not sank her teeth into her lower lip in a most vicious fashion, and she would have turned to him and kissed him had she not averted her gaze to the floor yet again, where Lady had decided to snuggle into her makeshift bed and nurse her darlings. They crowded round her instantly, mewling, crawling atop each other, attempting to garner the best placement.

  “You have not been much of a husband,” she observed before she could stop herself, still unwilling to look at him. The sight of his handsome, raw masculinity and strength cradling that fluffy kitten was too much for her resistance to withstand.

  “Perhaps I wish to rectify that.”

  The breath rushed from her lungs. She stiffened. “What if you cannot?”

  For as much as she felt drawn to him, she also felt the need to save herself. To keep her heart from getting hurt. The ugly, awful realization struck her then, with the force of a wallop across the face. She could love him, if she let herself.

  She must never, ever let herself.

  “Georgiana.”

  Her name in his dark, wicked voice made her throb in places she had not known existed until today. She gripped handfuls of her silken skirts, staring down at Lady and her kittens, refusing to acknowledge he had spoken.

  “Georgiana, goddamn you, look at me.”

  There was something in his tone—perhaps a tinge of desperation, perhaps one of fierce, all-consuming need—that made her give in. She turned her head and met his gaze, exasperated. Hungry. Confused. “What do you want, Kit?”

  “You.”

  His single-word response landed between her thighs as a pulsing, vehement ache, became a trill down her spine, made her heart beat in double-time, her lips part in surprise and anticipation. She felt the reverberation of his confession in every part of her, all the way to her tingling fingertips and her toes.

  She gathered her senses, shook her head. “I cannot give you that.”

  “You can,” he countered. “I wish to be your husband in more than name, Georgiana.”

  “No.” She refused to believe it. To believe him. This was more cruelty on his part, a callous joke he played to enjoy watching her squirm. Or perhaps his motives were more nefarious, and he wished to see if he could make her weak for him before rejecting and denying her. “I cannot give you that, not now. Perhaps not ever.”

  “Yes, you can.” His blue gaze was bright, direct, unwavering upon hers. “We are inextricably bound. It stands to reason that we could—should, even—turn to each other
. For comfort, for solace, for pleasure. What we shared earlier is just the beginning. There is so much more.”

  Pleasure. That lone word did wicked things to her, lighting a fire that would not be doused by common sense. She could not look away this time, no matter how much she wanted to. He was serious. Despite all of her suspicions, despite their past, despite his coldness, she believed him. Georgiana wanted to say something meaningful, to answer him in kind. But fear paralyzed her tongue, and she could not say any of the things dancing through her mind. Instead, she sought safety.

  “Sherman ought to be returned to Lady so that he can have his repast,” she told Leeds quietly.

  “Of course.” He gently collected the slumbering kitten and returned him to her arms. The ginger care of his touch surprised and pleased her against her will. “Think upon what I have said.”

  As if she would be able to think of anything else. Who would not want more of the wicked sensations he’d unleashed within her in his chamber? Her body yet hummed with awareness. As she accepted the kitten, his eyes burned into her. Wordlessly, she returned Sherman to his mother, grateful for the distraction. She watched the kitten burrow his way into the pile of wiggling, purring fur, gave Lady a head scratch, and then rose to her feet.

  “Georgiana,” Kit called her name again, but she could not look at him. He was her Medusa now, and if she looked upon him again, she would turn. But not to stone. Instead, she would turn into a weak-kneed, wide-eyed naïf who was only too eager to accept his sweet seduction.

  She could not surrender to him. Not any more than she already had.

  It would be folly.

  “I believe I am needed elsewhere now, and I must take my leave,” she called over her shoulder like the coward she was. “Monsieur Cotillon needs to review the menu, and Mrs. Drake wishes to have a word with me about…the cleansing of the rugs in the library. Good day, Leeds.”

  With that, she hurried from the room. As she fled him, he called after her.

  “You can run from me, Georgiana. But I will catch you. Also, the rugs in the library were just cleaned following the relocation of your brood of kittens. Be warned: I know prevarication when I hear it.”

  Drat the man for being so observant, but one supposed that came along with the territory of a spy. She shivered and kept going, girding her heart along the way.

  it woke from deep sleep, body tensed. Years of training and conditioning could not be completely lost in a few months of civilian life. When he was unconscious, lulled into the dream-filled terrors of slumber, he was a finely honed killing machine, prepared to mete out justice at the slightest sound. A pin dropped on the carpet. An inhalation. A creak in the floorboard. One misplaced footfall.

  And that was how he knew he wasn’t alone.

  Someone lurked in the darkness. He forced himself to feign sleep-breathing as his hand slowly crept beneath his pillow. Since his return to London, he had been waiting for an ambush. If not by Ludlow, who, oddly enough, appeared to be on the same side as he, then by another. The bastard who had double-crossed him would not stop until he was dead. Or until Kit ended his unknown enemy. Whichever happened first.

  Kit would do his damnedest to ensure it wouldn’t be him. He had too damn much to live for. Vengeance would be his, and the man who had attempted to murder him would live to pay for his sins.

  Perhaps this was the day.

  A soft exhalation left the assailant’s mouth. A floorboard creaked as the intruder approached his bed. His fingers found the cold, hard hilt of his blade. Another breath sounded, nearer this time. It was short, rapid, shallow, suggesting a bout of nerves.

  Kit’s eyes were adjusted well enough to the inky darkness that he discerned a figure looming over him, hesitating, it seemed, mired in either lack of courage or indecision. The Kit he had become in his convalescence knew a moment of compassion for the shadow, who was in all likelihood an untried youth tasked with a man’s profession.

  Killing was not for the faint-hearted.

  He slid the blade from beneath his pillow, preparing himself to strike first. Being on the defensive would put him at a severe disadvantage in the lack of light. A quick blade to the gut would be sufficient to take down his opponent. It would be a lingering death rather than a quick bleed out, but he had neither time nor inclination to exercise compunction with someone about to attempt to murder him.

  Another step brought the would-be assailant closer. Kit tensed, preparing for action. His gaze found his mark, where he would sink his blade to effect optimum damage. He would need to lay the fellow low, for he still was not up to full strength, and he was not certain how a battle to the death in the dark would go for him otherwise.

  The lamps flared suddenly to life, and a pistol was cocked. Blinking into the brightness, Kit realized—with not a bit of disgust—that he need not have fretted over a fight to the death. Clearly, his spy senses were far more diminished than he had realized, for just beyond his would-be murderer stood the not-butler, pistol in hand, lamplight bathing him in an otherworldly glow.

  “Drop your weapon,” Ludlow barked. “Now.”

  Damn his hide.

  How miserably, awfully, horribly fucking lowering. Not only had he not heard or sensed the presence of a third person in his chamber, but he had just been rescued by the last bloody man in Christendom that he would have wished to become indebted to. The man who was in love with his wife.

  As his eyes adjusted to the light, Kit noted the intruder was precisely as he had suspected, a lad of indeterminate years—no more than fifteen or sixteen—frail of build and pale of complexion. He held a sinister-looking blade loosely in his thin, almost girlish hand. But he rather looked as if he would sooner drop the thing and cast up his accounts than do any damage with it.

  “Drop the fucking knife of I’ll end you,” the not-butler demanded, his voice devoid of any emotion.

  It was then that Kit knew for certain that Ludlow did, without doubt, share blood with the Duke of Carlisle. For an icier, more emotionless, soulless bastard he had never met before or after.

  “Do not kill the lad, Ludlow,” Kit snapped. “Can you not see he’s afraid of his own bloody shadow?”

  “I ain’t afraid of nuffing,” the youth snapped in a decidedly Cockney accent, his chin quivering as he diverted glances between the not-butler and Kit.

  “In that case, you’re a brainless twat,” spat Ludlow, “for if there is anything you ought to fear, lad, it is a bullet lodged in the brain.”

  The lad’s spine stiffened, and Kit saw the moment he decided to tempt the devil and do something foolish. He took the choice out of the lad’s hands by delivering a sharp, quick blow to his wrist that made his fingers open and the blade clatter to the floor.

  “Damn it, Leeds,” hissed the not-butler.

  Kit ignored him. He did not wish for blood to be spilled today. What he wanted more than anything was answers. Definitive answers. “What was your purpose in coming here tonight?” he demanded.

  “Go fuck yerself,” the lad said sullenly.

  Ludlow strode across the chamber, glowering so ferociously that his scar took on a menacing, ominous quality. He pressed the barrel of his pistol to the lad’s head. “You may want to rephrase your response, you witless sot. Tell us why you’ve come or I’ll finish you here and now.”

  The lad closed his eyes. “Finish me then. What’s the diff’rence, any’ow?”

  “You little shit,” Ludlow growled. “You have until the count of three to say something worthwhile before you’re sporting a bullet between the peelers. One.”

  “Whatever you’ve been paid, I’ll quadruple it,” Kit interrupted, sensing that a different tactic—aside from Ludlow’s barbarity—may behoove them. “Give me the answers I’m seeking, and you will be amply rewarded.”

  The lad spat at the floor. “And I’m s’pposed to trust ye? Promise the world, won’t ye, and then see me tossed into prison or the river for me efforts.”

  Ludlow sneered, skewering
Kit with a glare. “That’s the difference between quality and regular folk. You think you can buy or talk your way out of anything, don’t you, Duke?”

  “Fancy gents’re all the same,” the lad said, his expression surprisingly mulish for a weaponless youth with a mountain of a man at his back and a pistol pressed against his skull. “Worfless, ye are. Ye can go and git buggered.”

  But Kit was undeterred. He kept his gaze trained on the lad, his mind focused upon what he wanted more than anything else: answers. “Who is it you’re trying to help, lad? A mother? Sister? Give us the information we need, and I will see to it that whoever it is, she will be aided as well as you.”

  The lad’s face changed, his mouth screwing up into a fine line of indecision. Until finally he apparently reached his resolution. He nodded. “Me sister. If ye promise to ‘elp ‘er, I’ll tell ye anyfing ye want to know.”

  “Tell us now,” the not-butler intoned, giving the lad a shove with the pistol barrel.

  “Patience,” Kit told Ludlow. “As you so recently told me, stuck birds don’t sing.”

  “’Ow much?” The lad demanded of Kit, his dark eyes never leaving Kit’s despite the not-butler’s rough treatment.

  “Two hundred pounds,” Kit said.

  “Your life,” the not-butler growled at the same time.

  Damn it, the bastard seemed determined to dog and undermine him every step of the way. He sent him a pointed glare before turning back to the lad. “Two hundred pounds,” he repeated. “Along with your promise that you’ll never again accept money to commit murder. The next bloke you try to stab to death in the midst of the night isn’t likely to be so understanding.”

  He was trusting his instincts on this matter. The youth did not have the look or air of a seasoned street criminal. His nerves had given him away from the first. Kit believed in second chances.

  The lad’s eyes bugged. “It weren’t ye I was meant to find. It were a bird.”

  Georgiana. Of course. The outside world was not aware that the ducal apartments had been overrun by a slavering pack of canines, and no one would have known that he now occupied the duchess’s chambers. His blood went cold. “You were sent here to murder a defenseless woman in her bed?”