by Karen Ranney
“I’m not worried about what your duke can do to me, Simons.”
“Then are you concerned about what he can do to Lady Sarah?”
Douglas stilled. “What could he do?” he asked.
“You have been out of England for some time, Mr. Eston. Have you heard of the Matrimonial Causes Act?”
Douglas shook his head.
“What His Grace has made happen, he can ensure is undone. If you will not cooperate with the agreement, if you will not furnish the diamonds as quickly as he wants them, he will ensure your marriage ends.”
“You’re jesting,” Douglas said, even though it was all too obvious that Simons wasn’t. “Wouldn’t that require Sarah’s cooperation?”
Simons’ look was pitying. “Do you think she would refuse to cooperate if commanded by her father?”
Unfortunately, Douglas wasn’t all that certain what Sarah was feeling. Passion was one thing, but was that enough to keep her linked to him? Was it enough to turn her back on her past, her upbringing?
“She would have to prove your adultery, Mr. Eston, but trust me, a number of women could be persuaded to come forward with tearful renditions of how you misled them. While it’s true there are a number of other conditions, please be assured that His Grace could provide them.”
“He would do that? Wouldn’t divorce ruin Sarah’s reputation?”
Simons smiled. “Do you think he cares, Mr. Eston? Sarah had one duty, to marry for money. She failed in that.”
“Tell him he’ll have his diamonds in less than a week.”
Simons bowed carefully and respectfully.
“I hope, Mr. Eston, that nothing interferes with your delivery of the diamonds. His Grace, as I said, is not a patient man.”
Simons melted away, the perfect servant.
Douglas unclenched his fists and turned to the furnace. The structure looked a little like a pyramid, broad at the bottom and tapering to a triangular top. The large base would provide for a deep firebox; the blaze must be equal to that a blacksmith would use to forge iron. He’d experimented for months before determining exactly the right range of temperature to cure the diamonds. Even that process had taken a considerable amount of time.
He’d not lied to the Duke of Herridge about making the diamonds larger. However, he’d not correctly gauged the duke’s impatience or desperation. The man wanted results, and he wanted them immediately, and he didn’t seem the type to listen to rational discourse on the subject.
As for the other, could he actually persuade Sarah to divorce him? Would she? Could the Duke of Herridge actually destroy his marriage?
Douglas had walked into the lion’s den himself, convincing himself that the lion was no more fearsome than a tabby cat. Unfortunately, the Duke of Herridge was a lion in truth. If Douglas was devoured, the only person who should be blamed was himself, for not knowing enough about the ruthlessness of the nobility.
“Well, was your journey to Scotland successful?” Alano asked from behind him.
Douglas turned.
“Kilmarin is quite a sight,” Douglas said. “I’m sorry you weren’t with us.”
“I had my own share of discovery right here,” Alano said, sitting on the stack of bricks next to the furnace. “That Mrs. Williams of yours is a firebrand all right. Ignores me as if I’m a wall.”
“That can’t have pleased you,” Douglas said. “Given your reputation with the ladies.”
“She just needs a little extra persuasion.”
“I’d rather you didn’t try to seduce the female staff at Chavensworth.”
“It’s not the staff. It’s that one annoying woman,” Alano said, frowning.
Douglas bit back his smile. He knew only too well what it was like to be at the mercy of one lone woman. Women might act defenseless, but they had their own kind of armament. A hesitant glance, a tremulous smile. And tears. Good God, but he could handle anything but tears.
“Perhaps you could tell Mrs. Williams that we’ve returned,” Douglas said, giving Alano a reason to seek out the housekeeper. “Ask her to prepare an early dinner for us.”
He glanced toward the west, where the sun was beginning to set, orange streaks heralding its passing.
Alano stood. “I could do that.” He eyed Douglas carefully. “What’s got you snarling mad?”
Douglas shook his head, deciding not to confide the Duke of Herridge’s threats. “I’m going to need to see my solicitor,” he said. “I think I’ve gotten myself into a spot of trouble.”
Alano didn’t speak for a long moment. “Is there anything I can do?”
He glanced at Alano. “You’ve always been a friend, Alano, and I’m grateful for that.”
Alano smiled, but his eyes were worried. “You’ll let me know if I can help?”
Douglas nodded, then looked back at the observatory. “You’ve done plenty. Thanks to you, we’ll have hundreds of diamonds for the Duke of Herridge.”
Alano’s mouth twisted at that thought, but his expression soon turned to a smile when he remembered his errand, and his excuse to see Mrs. Williams.
Douglas watched him follow the path toward Chavensworth, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and his passage accompanied by a whistled tune.
He occupied himself in the observatory, removing the silk fibers from the mature frames and feeding the smaller diamonds. An hour later, Douglas closed up the observatory and went back to the house using his own path.
The moon was an opalescent disc hanging among the scattered diamonds of the night sky. He was attuned to night, in a way he’d never understood, finding it friendlier, somehow, than stark daylight. Yet night had never been his friend, at least not as a child. Night meant hunger and cold, and being afraid.
He was no longer a child but a man who’d made his own way. He’d learned to think deeper thoughts than those focused simply on how to survive. He’d learned to ponder the imponderables of his existence.
What is the meaning of life?
He didn’t know the answer, but he was closer today than he had been years earlier.
What did he want from life?
To matter to someone. To scratch his name on the rock of existence and have some traveler a hundred years hence marvel that he’d been there. To care, and to love, and to experience all that he could know, see, do, taste, feel, and be.
Philosophy, now that was something to twist a man’s mind. Not as much as love, but it would do in a pinch.
Chapter 27
Sarah stood, walked to the pier glass, and surveyed herself in the mirror. She looked like a walking shadow. Her nightgown was black, her wrapper was black. Her hair was black. Her face, neck, and décolletage were stark white, causing her lips to appear even more brightly hued than usual. Slowly, she removed the pins from her hair, watching her reflection the whole time. There was no sign of the woman she’d been a month ago. Yes, the physical form was the same, but the look in her eyes had changed. There was sorrow there, and something else, knowledge that hadn’t been there before Scotland.
Time would heal all wounds. That was what everyone said, wasn’t it? That, and she should simply remember the good times and not dwell on death. She didn’t want to go through her life with this hole in her heart, but she was all too afraid that it would be with her forever.
But so would Douglas.
She fluffed up her hair, then went to her vanity, where she sat and began to brush the tresses free. Finally, she pushed her hair back so that it fell off her shoulders. Did she look too young to be having thoughts of seducing her husband?
She stood and faced the door, dared herself to walk through it. Even more, to travel the short distance to the Duke’s Suite and her husband.
She must have been truly courageous after all, because she opened the door without hesitation.
He removed his boots, then his shirt, and finally his trousers and undergarments, walking into the bathing chamber barefooted. This room was more luxurious than the chamber at Kilmarin. H
e was surprised at how quickly he’d come to enjoy—and perhaps expect—luxury.
He stared at his image in the pier glass. Tonight, he looked like a workman with streaks of black across his forehead and cheeks. He washed with icy water and dried with a length of toweling, scrubbing at his head until his hair was nearly dry.
He left the bathing chamber to find Sarah standing in the middle of the Duke’s Suite.
For the longest moment, she simply stared at him, her gray eyes widening.
He looked away, not to avoid the intensity of her stare, but to mitigate its effect on him. He walked toward the bed. The maid had pulled down the counterpane and turned down the sheets.
“Are your diamonds all right?”
“Everything is fine,” he said, sitting on the mattress and draping the sheet over his lap, feeling curiously like an untried boy with randy thoughts. Or a bridegroom.
“What is this?” she asked, picking up the slender notebook he’d left on the table beside the chair.
He stilled, keeping himself from racing across the room and pulling it from her grasp. Sooner or later, she was bound to discover it. Sooner or later, she was going to find out. Better now. Better when their marriage teetered on the brink of dissolution.
She smiled at him quizzically, but he didn’t say a word. Nor did he speak when she opened the book and began to read its contents. At first she frowned, but then she started glancing at him repeatedly, as if seeking either his reassurance or his confirmation.
“What is this, Douglas?” she asked, as prettily as if she were noticing a button loose on his shirt or inquiring as to part of the process of making diamonds.
He clasped one hand to the back of his neck and tilted his head back, his gaze on the ceiling. He breathed deeply once, then again, letting the second breath out slowly, gaining time.
“It’s where I write those things I learn. So that I don’t forget.”
“Is it so important to know how to address a duchess?” Her brow furrowed.
“I know little of the nobility,” he said.
At her silence, he knew she was waiting for more of an explanation. “I was born without anything to call my own,” he said. “I didn’t have a house like Chavensworth. I had only heard of Kilmarin in tones of awe. I made myself what I am. And I’m proud of that, but I don’t have a lineage like yours. I’m not a Tulloch of Kilmarin, and I’m not the offspring of a noble. I am simply Douglas Eston.”
She didn’t answer him. Instead, she sat and studied her hands with great deliberation, as if surprised to see them attached to her wrists.
“Chavensworth has never been mine,” she said. “It’s been my burden, my responsibility, perhaps. But I can’t inherit it because I’m a woman. I’ve always known that.”
“But you’ve also been a Herridge from Chavensworth. You grew up knowing that everything around you belonged to a family that could trace its lineage back six hundred years. You have a title that you can never lose because of your birth. Or marriage.”
She looked at him, but he didn’t allow her to speak.
“I lied to you once, when I told you I had a happy childhood. I didn’t. I was made an orphan at the age of eight. I stole and begged for enough food to eat. I was hungry as a child, for food, for knowledge, for something better than I had.” He smiled. “Do you know how I met Alano?” he asked. “I was robbing him.” He looked down at the floor. “Alano was determined to rescue me.” He glanced at her. “And he did. He taught me to read and bought me books. I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s as if someone gave me whiskey and I was drunk on learning.”
He studied the ceiling. “You think I don’t sound like a Scot? You should have heard me then. No one could understand a word I said. Alano was all for making something of me, so he taught me manners, first, then how to dress, how to act properly.”
He folded his arms, leaned one shoulder against the carved headboard. “I learned Spanish first, from Alano, then French, and a few other languages as well. The more I traveled, the less I sounded like myself, until I could talk without an accent—or much of one.”
“Why are you telling me this? Do you think I’ll be repulsed?”
He smiled again. “It’s not a repulsive story, for all that, Sarah,” he said. “It’s proof that a man can make of himself what he wants.
“I decided that I wanted to be more than an alley rat, stinking of salmon. I wagered at first, finding that my luck at the tables was better than it should have been. The first time I lost all my money, I learned that I could be as much a fool as anyone. So I began to buy from one town and sell to the next, becoming little more than a peddler, with my wagon and my wares. I learned what people wanted and gave it to them. I learned that I was fascinated with all things odd and unusual. I learned that I was better suited to the role of merchant than adventurer.”
“Is that why you hesitate when you speak, sometimes, as if you’re searching for the right word?”
“You rob the words from me, Sarah,” he said softly.
Her hands were folded on her lap, and she studied him with solemn gray eyes.
“I’ve been advised that there’s something called the Matrimonial Causes Act. That it’s possible to have a marriage dissolved.”
“Is that what you want, Douglas?” she asked in a very small, very composed voice.
A knock on the door interrupted his answer.
Sarah stood, opened the door, and remained motionless as two maids and a footman delivered their dinner. She waved them away when the footman would have set up a table, and closed the door after them.
Slowly, she turned to face him.
“Was what happened in Scotland all a ruse, then? Did you feel nothing for me?”
Did she have any idea how sensuous she looked, standing there attired all in black? Black was the color of mourning, true, but it was also the color of night, of sin, of secrets whispered by lovers, and soft, moaning sighs. She was exquisite in black, a creature with a creamy complexion and a mouth that hinted at bruising kisses.
“That’s an absurd question,” he said, pulling back the sheet to reveal his growing erection.
“But you don’t want to be married.”
His wishes weren’t important here, but hers. Before he could say that, his queen of the night, his specter of darkness, his enchantress, fled the Duke’s Suite without another word.
She’d failed dismally at seduction. She’d failed so horribly that she was almost in tears when she’d reached her room. She didn’t run back to her chamber, exactly, but the journey was certainly quickly done. She closed the door behind her and sagged against it.
She should begin a mental inventory of Chavensworth’s linens. Keeping a proper tally of the sheets, pillowcases, mattress covers, lengths of toweling, cloths, and rags was an ever-present problem. After so many months of checking and rechecking the numbers, before and after laundry day, she knew exactly how many of each item she should have. Or if that didn’t suffice to take her mind from Douglas, perhaps she should simply scour her memory for anything her mother might have said about Kilmarin and about a man named Michael.
Anything but think of how hideously she’d just shamed herself, just when he was thinking of ending their marriage.
Dear God, what did she do now?
Perhaps it was just as well he’d hurt her. It was a lesson for him, was it not? He should begin to tamp out any feelings he had for her. Lady Sarah could accede to her father’s demands and find herself without a husband without any appreciable loss of dignity. Would such an act ruin her in polite society? He doubted it. She was, after all, a duke’s daughter, and society seemed created for such people.
He doubted she’d even miss him.
She’d lain in his arms and welcomed him into her body.
The act of a woman who knew what was expected in marriage.
She’d wept in front of him and clutched at him as if she’d be bereft if he were gone.
The act of a woman lost in a f
og of grief.
This marriage had been a gift. A present, perhaps, from a suddenly beneficent Almighty. Remember that time on the Nile when you nearly drowned in the floods? Or the bite from the spider in the Africa savannah? Do you recall when you were certain you’d lose a toe or two from frostbite in the Alps? And when you were robbed by pirates in the Caribbean? For all those adventures, for all your suffering, I’m granting you a boon, a precious one at that. Here, into your keeping, is the daughter of a duke, a sweet lass with eyes the color of fog and a nature just as impenetrable. She’s a beauty, she is, but she’s also her own woman. She’ll not take lightly to being given as a gift. You’ll have to woo her until you’ve won her.
She’d been dressed for seduction, and he’d been frozen by his pride.
Just what sort of idiot was he?
“Open the door, Sarah.”
She stood in front of the door and stared at the pane. He sounded angry.
“Sarah.”
“I think we should both retire for the night,” she said.
“Exactly my thoughts. Open the door.”
She jerked it open, but the words she was about to say vanished when she saw him. He only wore a shirt, nothing more, and the shirt was left unbuttoned.
“Come in,” she said, throwing open the door. “Quickly, before any of the staff sees you.”
“I’ve worn my shirt,” he said, beginning to smile.
“Yes, but your derriere is quite visible, Douglas, not to mention…”
“Other parts?”
She frowned at him, but that didn’t dim his smile.
Pulling her wrapper closed, she turned around and walked in the opposite direction. The terrace was as good a place as any to retreat, and she did so, waiting for him to join her. He didn’t.
Finally, she returned to the bedroom to find that he had dispensed with the shirt and was standing there as unadorned as one of the statues in the Greek Garden.
Oh, he was fascinating, and so much better constructed. His body was warm and alive, and tanned in places that shouldn’t be tanned.
