An ache grew in his chest, and he idly rubbed the place where his heart beat. Good Lord, he was besotted. When she came into his view, he could think of nothing but her. He could almost smell her perfume, though he stood on the other side of the street. He knew how her lips would curve as she smiled at him, how her soft arms would feel as they embraced him.
Bloody hell. He was happy.
Uncertain how he felt about the unfamiliar emotion, he made his way across the street.
“Good afternoon, Lady Caroline.” Mrs. Denworthy came forward to greet them with a smile on her face.
Caroline smiled back at the reed-thin woman. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Denworthy. I’ve come about a new riding habit.”
“Worn out another one have you?” the seamstress teased, her deep dimples creasing.
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” she replied good-naturedly.
“I have a lovely shade of blue that would look wonderful on you,” the dressmaker said. “Let me fetch it.”
As Mrs. Denworthy disappeared into the back room, Marie went over to look at the ribbons spilled across a table. Caroline meandered through the familiar shop, touching a muslin here and a radiant satin there. How she loved the different materials and colors! Had she gone on to have a Season in London, she had no doubt she would have gone overboard and ordered a dress in every possible hue and fabric.
A whisper-thin silk in a soft shade of rosy peach caught her eye. She carefully rubbed her fingers across the fabric, captured by its beauty and femininity.
“That shade was meant for you,” Rogan said from behind her.
Startled, she whirled to face him and found him even closer than she expected. “Rogan, what are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” Without a care for anyone who might be watching, he dropped a soft kiss on her lips.
“Rogan!” Heat washed through her cheeks, and she glanced around. No one was in the shop but the two of them and Marie, who pretended intense interest in a silver ribbon.
Rogan laughed. “Come now, love. Everyone knows we’re married.”
“Still, such things aren’t done.”
He leaned closer, then chuckled as she craned her head out of reach. “I do them. However, if you feel more comfortable pretending we don’t like to touch each other, I can play along.”
“Rogan, how can you voice such things?” Scandalized, yet excited despite her better judgment, she turned back to the pinky peach silk. “Do you like this color then?”
“As I said, it’s perfect for you.” He came up beside her and caressed the material mere inches from where her own fingers did the same. “Perhaps a night rail?”
“Out of silk? No, this was meant for a grand evening dress, I’m sure. I’m perfectly content with my regular nightclothes.”
He brought his mouth close to her ear. “I’m not.”
Heat shot through her. Dear Lord, how could he say such things here? Now? Her pulse skittered madly as she considered what else her bold and passionate husband might do in full view of the public. “Behave,” she whispered as Mrs. Denworthy came back with the blue velvet for her habit.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Hunt,” the seamstress said. “Have you come to help your wife choose a new riding habit?”
“Yes,” Rogan said, approaching the modiste with that charming smile of his. “And a few other things as well.”
“Rogan, no,” Caroline hissed.
He merely sent her a look that told her he would do what he wanted, no matter what her protests.
“I am pleased to assist you in any way I can,” Mrs. Denworthy gushed.
“A ball gown,” Rogan said, then pointed to the rosy peach silk. “Made of that material and suitable for a bride.”
Mrs. Denworthy sent Caroline a look of feminine approval. “You have exquisite taste, sir.”
“There might be a few more dresses I will want made for my wife,” Rogan continued. “Perhaps you can show me something…?”
“Of course!” Had her arms not been full of material, Mrs. Denworthy would no doubt have clapped in glee. “Such a generous husband you are, Mr. Hunt.”
“Why, thank you.”
“We will need to measure, of course. Do let me fetch my assistant.” The dressmaker disappeared into the back room again.
“Rogan, what are you doing?” Caroline demanded in a low voice. “I simply came here for a new riding habit.”
“You’re a beautiful woman,” her dangerously handsome husband said, flashing her a charming grin. He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “You deserve beautiful things.”
“I must agree,” said a woman in a voice like aged paper. “I have never seen you looking so well, Caroline.”
“Lady Jayton.” Caroline gave a curtsy to the elderly marchioness, who had just entered the shop with six servants to tend to her needs.
Lady Jayton sent a shrewd glance at Rogan. “I expect you are the cause of the becoming blush on my goddaughter’s cheeks, young man.”
“I can only hope,” Rogan replied, bowing. “I have heard much of you, Lady Jayton.”
The marchioness gave a wave of her hand. “Piffle. Pay no mind to gossip, sir, and you will be the better for it.” She raised her snowy white brows at Caroline. “And you, child. Have you no kiss for your godmother?”
Obediently Caroline came forward and brushed her lips against the old woman’s creased cheek.
“So,” Lady Jayton said, “you’ve married at last, my girl. I regret not being able to attend your wedding, but I have only just returned from the continent.” She cast a knowledgeable and appreciative glance over Rogan, taking in every detail from top to toes. “A fine specimen indeed, despite his pedigree.”
Rogan scowled but held his tongue.
“We are well suited,” Caroline replied demurely.
“And married some days ago. Hmph. That settles it then. A week from Thursday, don’t you think?”
“A week from Thursday?” Caroline asked as Mrs. Denworthy came back up front, her assistant trailing behind her.
“Thursday next. A dinner in your honor. Small party, no more than twenty, at Jayton Hall.”
“A dinner in our honor?” Panicked, Caroline glanced at Rogan.
He stepped forward. “We’re honored, Lady Jayton, but—”
“Excellent. It’s done then.” The marchioness raised her brows at the dressmaker. “Bring me a chair, Cecelia, and see to my goddaughter’s needs. I do believe she will require quite a bit of fashionable new attire. An evening dress, for instance?”
“Quite right, Your Grace,” Rogan agreed, abruptly siding with the most powerful peeress in the parish.
“You’ll need something new for the dinner party,” Lady Jayton said when Caroline opened her mouth to protest yet again. “Humor an old woman, girl.”
“And your husband,” Rogan chimed in.
Caroline knew when she was defeated. Despite her misgivings about attending any kind of social event, she knew she could never refuse her godmother. No one swayed Lady Jayton once she had made up her mind.
At least it was only a small dinner party at Lady Jayton’s familiar estate.
She turned to the seamstress. “Mrs. Denworthy, it seems I require an evening dress.”
“A dinner party.” The duke frowned and reached for his ever-present glass of water.
“Papa, you must help me.” Caroline paced around the parlor. “I haven’t been out in society in years.”
“Hmm. Lady Jayton. No one refuses her invitations.”
“I know that!” Caroline plopped onto the settee and twisted her fingers together in her lap. “But you remember what happened at my come-out ball.”
“I do.” The duke sighed. “Do you want me to talk to her? Perhaps if I explain to her that you do not go out in public—”
“We can’t do that.” Shaking her head, Caroline rose to pace the room again.
“Why the devil not? I daresay my consequence equals Jayton’s, as does my daug
hter’s.”
“But not Rogan’s.”
“Ah.” Her father regarded her with a knowing smile. “You don’t care what Lady Jayton thinks of you for refusing her invitation, but you don’t want your husband to suffer for it.”
“Lady Jayton holds a lot of influence in the area,” Caroline admitted. “Her cachet would assure that Rogan’s business would flourish.”
“True. And that’s one of the assets you bring to the marriage, Caroline. Your social standing.”
She sent him a bland look. “I thought it was a fortune. Or was that a horse?”
The duke cast a warning glance her way. “You both brought things of value to the marriage. Yes, you brought wealth and a horse and your pedigree. And Hunt brings strength with which to protect you when I am gone.”
“Oh, Papa.” She tried for a teasing smile, but her heart clenched as she looked at his tired, lined face. “I don’t need protection.”
“Yes, you do,” he asserted, his dark eyes fierce. “Hunt will see to it.”
Startled by his vehemence, she tried to laugh it off. “I suppose he will. The two of you are so alike.”
Her father gave a grunt of disbelief. “You said Lady Jayton’s dinner party was a small one.”
She nodded. “About twenty people.”
He gave a dismissive wave of his hand, but the gesture lacked his usual vitality. “You will attend, of course.”
She paced again, tangling her fingers together. “What if the same thing happens? What if I contract a fit of vapors and embarrass my husband?”
“You didn’t do that at your wedding,” he pointed out.
This brought her agitated pacing to a halt. “You’re right.”
“I deliberately kept the guest list small,” the duke said. “I suspect that part of what bothered you last time was the terrible crush of people. That won’t happen at a small dinner party.”
“Perhaps.” She bit her lower lip in concentration, then cast her father an amused glance. “If it comes to be too much, I can always plead the headache.”
He chuckled. “That’s my daughter.”
With a harsh wheeze, his laughter turned to coughing. His eyes widened, watered. His face reddened as he bent forward in his chair, still coughing.
“Papa!” She flew to his side, kneeling beside his chair. She laid a hand on his back as his body continued to wrack and shake. “Papa, what can I do?”
He waved a hand in the general direction of the water glass. Caroline snatched it up and handed it to him. He nearly dropped it. She closed her fingers over his and guided the wavering glass to his mouth so he could take a sip, bracing one hand on his back.
He continued to cough, though with less intensity. She sat beside him, calmly guiding the water to his lips while inside her nerves vibrated with fear. Her father was dying, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Slowly the hacking receded, and he drew several shaky breaths. She offered him the glass again, but he shook his head and pushed it aside with a trembling hand. As she replaced it on the table, he fell back in his chair, closing his eyes as he struggled to take breath after breath.
“Papa, is there anything I can do?”
“Fetch Kerns,” he rasped, too spent to even open his eyes. “I need to rest.”
Knees weak with fear, Caroline scrambled to her feet and raced for the door, flinging it open and sending a nearby footman for the butler. Then she hurried back to her father.
He lay as she left him, his skin unnaturally pale, his lips dry. Fear gripped her by the throat as she tentatively touched her fingers to the side of his neck.
His pulse throbbed, weak but steady, beneath her touch.
She sighed with relief, so overcome she nearly burst into tears. His eyes slowly opened, and he managed a tiny smile.
“I’m not going…without a fight,” he whispered.
She took his hand in both of hers, unashamed of the tears that lingered, unshed, in her eyes just as Kerns hurried into the room.
“Lady Caroline, is he…?”
“He’s weak,” she said, gently placing her father’s hand on the armrest. “Please take him to his room.”
“Very good, Lady Caroline.” Kerns signaled, and two footman came forward to assist him with the duke.
Caroline stood back and watched the servants help her father to his feet. One shaking step at a time, he made his way toward the door. As he passed her, he sent her what he no doubt intended to be a reassuring look.
She watched him leave the room, supported by servants. Her father, once so robust and commanding, had become a shadow of his former self. He’d lost a lot of weight, reducing his once-powerful frame to near skeletal. His hands tended to shake, and his dark eyes looked sunken in his face.
But when she looked into those eyes, she saw the spirit of her father there, vital and strong and determined to fight.
She held that image in her mind as the shell of the Duke of Belvingham was all but carried from the room by his loyal retainers. He was slipping away from her little by little. And there was nothing she could do about it.
Rogan perused the letter that had just arrived via messenger from Gabriel Archer. The missive contained basic facts about Randall Althorpe, though Archer assured him he had barely scratched the surface of the matter. This was just what he had pulled together over the last couple of days—well-known details about Althorpe’s life. Now, Archer conveyed, they needed to determine which aspects were truth, and which were fiction.
Rogan shook his head in admiration as he scanned the lines. Althorpe had done a good job of keeping his reputation free of any taint. In fact, if the information Rogan now held was to be believed, Althorpe should be nominated for sainthood.
No man was that clear of misadventure.
No, Althorpe’s reputation was so clean that Rogan knew a little digging on Archer’s part would no doubt produce some juicy tidbit of scandal. A woman, a gambling debt, cheating at cards, bad financial decisions. Something. The duke seemed utterly certain that not only was Althorpe a miscreant, but a murderer as well.
Now they just had to prove it.
Rogan looked up as he heard the front door open. “Caroline?”
“Yes.”
She came to the doorway of the parlor without removing her bonnet or gloves. The look in her soulful dark eyes had him setting aside the letter and rising from his chair, all in one smooth movement. “Caroline, what’s the matter?”
She sighed and shook her head, stripping off her gloves one at a time. “Papa. He’s getting worse.”
“I’m sorry.” He came to her and rested his hands on her shoulders as she fumbled with the ribbons of her bonnet. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No.” She gave him a sad smile that nearly broke his heart, then glanced down at her hat strings, which she had somehow managed to knot. “Oh, botheration!”
“Let me.” Gently he pushed aside her hands, then set about the task of unknotting the ribbons. She stood silent as a statue, so quiet that he could almost believe her made of marble.
Finally the knot gave. He glanced up in triumph, the smile on his lips fading as he watched one tear after another trickle silently down her cheeks. “Caroline?”
“He’s dying,” she whispered as he tugged the bonnet from her head. Her gaze clung to his, her beautiful dark eyes begging him to disagree with her. “He’s dying, and I can’t stop it.”
“I know.” He brushed the tears from her cheek with his thumb.
She turned her face into his hand, seeking comfort, then reached for him, gripping his coat blindly as the sobs shook her body. He cradled her to him, pressing her tearstained face into his chest as her grief swept over her.
He should tell her about Althorpe, the duke’s wishes be damned. About the poisoning. Perhaps it would make her feel less helpless.
But not now, not while she clung to him and wept with heartache.
There was time for that, he thought, burying his face in he
r dark hair. He would tell her. Soon.
Chapter 13
Lord Tennsley’s horse was a devil.
While she tied the ribbons of her bonnet, Caroline watched from her bedroom window as Rogan worked with the ill-tempered beast. His great patience with animals struck her as odd when compared to his strange and inexplicable furies. It was as if he were two people, one gentle and the other enraged.
Right now he coaxed Tennsley’s skittish gelding to come to him, his posture nonthreatening, his hands low, palms open. Tallow and Grafton stayed well out of the way, knowing that only a master of Rogan’s caliber could handle the unpredictable animal. She could almost hear the soothing Gaelic that he sang to the horse. There was great power in that melodic voice, in the softness of it, the unspoken offer of safety.
She knew, because he’d used it on her.
Her gaze drifted along her husband’s fine form. Dressed in a simple shirt and worn trousers for working with the horses, he presented a handsome picture.
The wind ruffled his ink-black hair and molded his shirt to his brawny chest and arms. She made a sound of pure feminine appreciation, hardly able to believe that such a handsome creature belonged to her. He shifted his weight as he worked with Odysseus, the muscles of his thighs and buttocks clearly defined beneath the formfitting trousers.
Realizing that she was staring at his rear end, she jerked her gaze away, her face flushed with heat. Her gown suddenly felt too constricting, and she took deep breaths to calm herself. What was she doing, lusting after her husband in the middle of the day? Hadn’t he made it clear that she didn’t arouse him that way? And even if he did feel attracted to her, she was incapable of going further than a kiss or two.
She turned away and reached for her pelisse. Her fingers shook as she swept the garment around her shoulders, and she forced herself to look down at the fastenings instead of out the window at her husband. Like the gelding, she, too, longed to succumb to the lure of Rogan’s call. His presence attracted her more than her fears repelled her. She found herself longing to feel his arms around her, his mouth on hers. She wanted to open her heart and let him lead her to new worlds she had yet to discover.
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