He took one more step forward, crushing her skirts. His perspiration-glazed chest met her silk bodice. When she would have slipped away in retreat, his hands flattened to the gentle curve of her back, splaying to keep her where he wanted her. The cold gold and glass of her mourning brooch was a shock to his chest.
He ignored it.
Ignored her scandalized inhalation. Her raised brows. Ignored her black mourning gown. Their ugly past. Everything and everyone but them and now. This moment. Her in his arms. Nothing between them.
“Look me in the eye, Duchess,” he urged, “and tell me I offend you. Tell me my touch disgusts you. That I am unworthy of you. That you hate me.”
Her eyes widened, her expression stricken. She shook her head. “Please, Mr. Ludlow. This is highly improper.”
“Tell me,” he repeated, the vehemence in his tone shocking even him. He did not know what he sought to gain or why it mattered. Hell, he did not even know what he was trying to prove. All he did know was that this morning, she had kissed him, and his whole bloody world had imploded when he had left her behind on that bed.
As he had walked away, he had been beset by the thought of what could have been. He could have been her husband. He could have made her happy. He would have always been the man who loved her above all else. And her tentative, tender kisses had struck him like a blade to the gut. So very dangerous.
They had not been the kisses of a woman who had been repulsed by him. This he knew.
“Tell me, Ara,” he said again, using her name this time, her true name. Stripping the barriers of rank and class. Bringing them back to when they were a simple man and woman, beneath the enchanted branches of a centuries-old forest.
“You must not call me that,” she said weakly.
“Why?” He searched her expression, searched her gaze, for an answer. “Why, damn you? Does it make you remember?”
Her eyes glistened now, so blue and vibrant they looked as if they had come from the brush of a master artist. “What would you have me remember?”
Everything. Every. Damned. Thing.
He would have her remember laughter and kisses, holding each other beneath a blanket of stars. The firelight bathing their bodies in a glow. The way he had felt inside her. He could not parse it in mere words, and if she needed to ask, any traces of the Ara he had once known were forever gone.
“Nothing. I would have you recall nothing, for that is what we were to each other then, and that is what we must be to each other now.” He released her, setting her away from him and turning on his heel. Disappointment opened like a broken dam to release its torrent and flood him. He could not get far enough away from her fast enough.
His body returned to him then. His jaw ached. His scar burned. His skin itched. Fucking hell, why had he been forced to accept this godforsaken assignment? He should have known he could never remain impervious to her. That the bitterness haunting him would taint all he saw, thought, and touched. That remaining at Burghly House with her would be his ruin.
Ara watched his broad back as he stalked away from her. There was precious little resemblance to the young man she’d known in the rippling muscles and barely leashed power she could not seem to stop admiring. Beneath the fine trappings of a gentleman, he hid the body of a warrior. He was somehow even larger without his clothes to detract from his magnificent presence. There was nothing to hinder her view of him now.
When she had first come upon him sparring, bare-chested and graceful, she had momentarily forgotten her ire with him for using her ballroom as if it were a pugilist’s paradise. But then she had forced herself to recall how insignificant he had made her feel that morning. How small and foolish and unwanted.
How he was still the same man who had made her burn for him only to abandon her all those years ago. Not a blessed thing had changed. Anger, pure and raw and sudden, struck her.
“Do not turn your back on me,” she seethed. How dare he? How dare he return and disrupt her life, hold her in his arms when she was vulnerable, and make her long for him once more? And then to strip half-nude and engage in a pummeling match with one of his men in her ballroom?
He ignored her, stalking to his discarded shirt and waistcoat, no doubt to belatedly make himself decent. If only the notion did not cause a swift spear of regret to course through her. Her heart beat a rapid staccato, a molten bolt of heat sliding through her body and settling between her thighs. Old aches returned. Needs she had not revisited in all the time that had fallen between them.
Calm down, you fool. This man is not for you, and he never was.
“Mr. Ludlow,” she called after him, holding fast to her anger lest she allow other, far more dangerous feelings to rule her. “I am speaking to you.”
“You are berating me, madam.” His motions jerky with his own wrath, he stabbed his arms into his shirt. “I have told you once, and I shall tell you again. I am not your bloody servant to be ordered about. If you wish to play the tyrant, do so with your butler or your housekeeper or a goddamn footman.”
Something inside her broke.
Perhaps it was her sanity.
Perhaps her patience.
Perhaps it was simply her, fragile as a porcelain teacup that had been thrown against a stone floor. She was in thousands of shards. Her husband had been murdered. Her life was in chaos. She was in danger. The man she had once loved had returned a cold and angry stranger.
And she was running. Her skirts were clenched in her fists, lifted high. Her feet were moving. Connecting with the polished parquet, hurling her through the air. With an animalistic cry torn from the very deepest, darkest recesses of her being, she launched herself onto his back.
Her abdomen collided with his rigid spine, knocking the air from her lungs in a rush. She looped her arms around his neck, holding on. He grunted, barely flinching beneath the weight of her assault. Of course he didn’t. The man was a mountain. But she did not care.
“I hate you!” she shouted at him, wrapping her legs about his waist when her arms threatened to give way in spite of the impediment of her heavy skirts. “I hate you, Clayton Ludlow. Do you hear me?”
He said nothing, remaining still and stiff as the trunk of a tree. His only reaction was the bob of his Adam’s apple against her arm as he swallowed and the thump of his pulse. This was not what she wanted. She wanted him angry. She wanted him to say something. To hurt the way she did.
She wanted him to break.
“I hate you,” she whispered again, pressing her face between his shoulder blades and inhaling his scent, laundered fabric and the tang of male sweat and the musky deliciousness of his soap. His shirt was wet. Her cheeks were wet. Her own shoulders were shaking. Tears, she realized.
She was crying again. Shaking. Sobbing into his back, holding on to his neck as though releasing him would send her careening over a cliff. And maybe it would. Never had a more hopeless jumble of confused emotions crashed through her.
His large hands landed on her stocking-clad knees, gently forcing her to release him from her hold. Next, he grasped her arms and pried them from his neck, bending until her feet touched the floor once more.
With the same cagey finesse he had displayed during his sparring match, he spun around to face her, his expression thunderous. His handsome face was all sharp angles and harsh edges. His dark eyes blazed. The angry scar bisecting his cheek was pulled taut. “Strike me.”
The two stark words were not what she had expected.
She dashed at the tears blurring her vision, swiped the wet trails from her cheeks, and stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“You hate me,” he said calmly, as if he didn’t stand before her with his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a distracting swath of his huge chest. As if she had not just leapt upon his back like a feral cat. “Perhaps it would do you good to relieve some of your anger, Your Grace. Your husband was murdered. You are at the mercy of a vicious band of killers who would make you their next victim. And now here I am, the bastard
who once dared to defile you with my touch. Slap me. Punch me. Kick me. I care not. I will not feel it anyway.”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I cannot do that.”
“Assuage your guilt, madam.” He took her hand in his, closing his fingers over hers and exerting enough pressure to force her to make a fist. “I will show you how to hit. You would do well to know how to defend yourself.”
His hand over hers, warm and large and familiar in a way that made her ache, was almost her undoing. “I do not want to hit you, Mr. Ludlow.”
“Yes, you do.” His lips quirked into a derisive half grin. “Else you would not have leapt on my back. You hate me, do you not?”
No. She did not hate him at all.
She wanted to hate him. Needed to hate him.
But all she truly wanted to do was kiss him. Dear God. This could not be happening. Her lips parted. Her gaze dropped to his mouth. The air seemed to catch fire around her. Or mayhap it was just Clay. Resisting him was so much easier when he did not touch her. When he was not half disrobed before her.
She tried to respond. Nothing emerged from her. Not a whisper of sound.
“Say something, Duchess.”
How she wished he would call her Ara again. Her name in his sinful voice was enough to melt her. “I…”
“Mama?”
That small voice, so familiar and beloved, turned the forbidden passion swirling through her into ice. Tugging her hand from Clay’s grasp, she whirled about to find her son had entered the ballroom without her even hearing the door click open. He stood, hesitant and small at the threshold, sending a questioning glance between her and Clay.
He looked so much like his father, wearing a serious expression, lanky and dark-haired and far too tall for his age. Why, he was only seven years old, and it would not be long before he was taller than she.
“Edward,” she said, rushing toward her son. Rushing away from Clay and the unwanted way he made her feel. “Why are you not with Miss Argent?”
“You told me you would read with me this afternoon,” he said, frowning at her.
So she had. What was the time? Somehow, in the whirlwind of the day, she had lost her wits. She was not ordinarily so distracted. This she blamed upon Clayton Ludlow as well. “Of course I did, and we shall do that. What would you like to read, darling? More of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?”
But her son, an intelligent boy, was not so easily distracted. “Mama, why does Mr. Ludlow want you to hit him?”
She blinked, grateful he had apparently not entered the room in time to see her full ignominy as she pounced upon Clay’s back as if she were no better than a wild animal. Her cheeks went hot. What was wrong with her? She had a reputation to maintain. She was a widow. She had a child. She could not allow herself to become ensnared in the same madness she had once fallen headlong into with Clay.
“I wish to teach the duchess to defend herself, Your Grace,” came the low rumble of his voice behind her before she could answer.
“Because of the bad men who killed my father?” Edward asked.
The bad men? Her heart froze. She had not spoken to her son of the circumstances surrounding Freddie’s death. What use had a child for such information? It would only haunt him, give him nightmares, and fill him with more fright than he already possessed.
“No,” Ara denied hastily.
“Aye,” Clay said, hunkering down before her son and meeting him at eye level. “Because of the bad men. It is best to be prepared, Duke. It is my duty here to keep you and your mama safe, and part of keeping her safe means showing her how to fight off anyone who would wish to do her harm.”
That was not what he had been about with his little demonstration. Or was it? Had she read too much into his actions and his words? Did her proximity to him rob her of the ability to conduct coherent thought?
Either way, it mattered not, for she did not wish Edward to know anything more about what had befallen Freddie than necessary. There need be no talk of dangerous men or killers or her defending herself. How dare Clay reveal such damning information to her son? It was not his place.
Her lips tightened. “Mr. Ludlow, that is more than enough of troubling thoughts. Edward, we ought to adjourn to the library so we can continue our reading.”
“No,” her son said. “I want Mr. Ludlow to train me as well so I can defend you. I must act in Papa’s stead now that he is gone.”
Her heart gave a pang at the sincerity in his boyish voice. Guilt hit her anew at the deceptions she had perpetrated. Edward had lost the only father he had ever known, and Freddie had undeniably been a wonderful, doting papa. But here before her son stood the father who had sired him, neither knowing their true relationship to the other. No one had ever known the truth except for Ara and Freddie. Even Percy, for all that he knew Freddie was not Edward’s father, had no inkling of the true identity of the man responsible.
She could confess everything now. Here. Perhaps she should.
But the words would not form on her tongue. No, she could not be yet another earthquake in her son’s already fragile world. He needed stability and reassurance now. He needed solidity and love, and the last thing he needed was to be informed that the man he had loved as his father for his entire life had not, in fact, shared his bloodline.
“You are a brave lad.” Clay was telling Edward, clapping two enormous hands on his thin shoulders. “I will teach you everything I know. How does that sound?”
“You will?” Edward beamed.
Clayton Ludlow spending a prolonged amount of time with Edward could not be productive in any fashion. Ever. Clay was far too wily and intelligent, and Edward was not far behind, though he was a boy. He had a knack for observing those around him and listening. Sometimes she forgot just how much he saw and heard.
“No, he most certainly will not,” Ara interrupted, her tone a trifle more stinging than she had intended. But there was no help for it. Her territory was being invaded more by the day, and she did not like it. She needed to take a stand, as much for her own sanity as for Edward’s wellbeing. She pinned Clay with a glare. “My son will not be engaging in fisticuffs at your direction, sir. He has no need of such worries. I am safe here at Burghly House under your protection. He is safe here. Is that not right?”
Clay threw a look at her over his shoulder, his dark eyes assessing. “Would you not rather he be prepared, Your Grace? Your safety and the lad’s safety are hardly trifling matters, after all.”
“Yes, Mama,” Edward added. “I need to be certain I can protect you. Papa would want that. Mr. Ludlow will show me all I need to know.”
Ara’s gaze flicked from Clay to their son. Dear heavens. The similarities between them were more apparent than ever. Devastatingly so. Her heart clenched painfully. “How do you even know of such matters, Edward?” she demanded.
“The servants speak when they think I am not listening,” he told her without preamble and without a hint of remorse. “I understand more than you think me capable of, Mama. I am nearly a man fully grown.”
“In good time, Your Grace.” Clay gave Edward’s hair a playful ruffle, and Ara’s heart broke then and there. “You have a deal of growing yet before you become a man, I should say. Though you are well on the way, and I am sure your mother could not ask for a better son.”
Clay was so tender. So gentle. So very good with Edward, who had always been awkward and quiet. “No, I could not ask for a better son,” she agreed past the lump in her throat. Past the guilt and the fear threatening to crush her. Fear Clay would look into the face of his son and see himself. Fear all her carefully crafted lies would one day fall down around her like so much dust. “But that does not mean I wish for him to engage in violence in my name, Mr. Ludlow.”
“I want Mr. Ludlow to teach me,” Edward insisted, his stubborn streak making an appearance. “I do not want to lose you, Mama, for you are all I have left in this world.”
Oh, my darling boy. If you only knew.
“Come here, my love.” She sank to her knees alongside Clay, doing her utmost to ignore his big, burly presence, and opened her arms to their son. Edward launched himself into her in that unselfconscious manner that only children possess. She hugged him tightly, burying her face in his mop of unruly dark hair. “You will never lose me, Edward. Do you understand? No matter where we are in the world or how much time has passed, I shall always be in your heart.”
Aware of Clay’s gaze on her, she glanced up to find him watching her, intent.
“I want to learn, Mama,” Edward said into her bodice, hugging her tight with his skinny arms.
Clay raised a brow, as if daring her to defy him, and how she wished she could read the emotions glittering in the dark depths of his eyes. “I will teach you, lad.”
Chapter Ten
Eight years earlier
He had not come to court her.
She had waited. And waited. Then, she had waited some more.
A week had passed since she had last seen Clay. Since he had given her his promise. And he had not come to call at Kingswood Hall. Not on Monday or on Tuesday. Not Wednesday when the sky had been lit with a brilliant sun. Nor Thursday when a thunderstorm ripped through the countryside. Friday and Saturday had passed, leaving her with Sunday and no choice but to find him.
Each day with the exception of the day of the deluge, she had found an opportunity to slip away to their meeting place in the forest. Each day, she had been as disappointed as the last.
Mama had gone to pay a visit to her sister, leaving Ara unattended for the afternoon and evening. Perhaps even through the night if she grew fortunate and Mama decided to say on with Auntie Charity as she often did. Ara had seized her chance, knowing it may well be her last.
And now, here she stood, before the massive hewn doors of Brixton Manor, the country seat of the Duke of Carlisle. She had slipped away from her chamber without notice, saddling up her favorite mare and making the journey on her own. Her mare was tethered to a tree in the sprawling woodland that abutted the park, and she had walked for some distance on damp ground, much to the peril of her boots and hem.
Nobody's Duke (League of Dukes Book 1) Page 10
