Regency Romance: The Duke’s Ever Burning Passion (Fire and Smoke: CLEAN Historical Romance)

by Charlotte Stone

  “We would if we could,” Julia said so solemnly that Jane sputtered into a fit of giggles that had even Julia grinning. It made her look like a young girl on the brink of adulthood again, instead of a wise sage. “If we did take him, I promise we would make sure he always thought of his parents fondly.”

  “How kind of you,” Catherine replied, charmed at the sight of her sister, her sister-in-law and her baby snuggled together while the duke watched, a half smile on his face.

  “I never thought you cared much for babies,” Shep interrupted, directing his observation at Julia.

  She raised an eyebrow at him but did not speak. That was answer enough in her opinion, but both Jane and Cat stepped in immediately.

  “She loves babies!” Jane insisted. “She is so good with George.”

  “I tell Ben all the time that we must find something else for Nanny to do because Julia is so often with George,” Cat added. “Why, sometimes she begs me to let her rock him to sleep.”

  “She begs you?” Shep asked incredulously. “Pardon me, but I must have heard you wrong. I did not know that Julia was capable of lowering herself to beg for anything she wanted.” Shep, of all people, should know that she was willing to beg. She had been willing to beg for him. But in the end it had not mattered. “And I certainly cannot picture her rocking a baby to sleep.”

  Cat smiled kindly at him. She was certain there was something more than a childhood friendship between them. Something had to explain the animosity the otherwise carefree Shep showed Julia. “I can assure you I speak the truth, as does Jane.”

  “Yes, well.” Julia tried to maintain some dignity and smoothed her skirts. “If you would just have another baby like I have asked, then all would be right in the world.”

  Cat hid her blushing face. She had grown bolder since marrying her husband, but there were still limits to that boldness.

  “But you are going to get married, Julia,” Jane said as she looked at the woman she now considered a sister as well. “And then someday you can have babies, and George will have a playmate.”

  The room went still. Everyone but Jane was aware of the marquis’ offer and the pressure Julia was under to take it. To Jane, Julia’s future husband was imaginary and would show himself in good time. She did not know that Julia’s mother had already picked the man. The idea of doing what was necessary in order to beget children with the marquis made Julia feel a little sick. She could not talk about this here. She did not want Jane to become jaded, to see what the world was like for a woman of her station. She wanted Jane to remain open and free, believing the best in the world, believing in fairy tales.

  And she certainly did not want to have this discussion with Shep. Once, she had been sure he would be the man in the picture Jane had painted. She had once imagined what it would be like to hold a child with his green, feline eyes and her dark hair. But the dream had crumbled for reasons that left her feeling despondent.

  She murmured her excuses as quickly as politeness would allow, kissing Jane on the cheek, and exited the room.

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  6

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  “That will never happen again.” …

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  CHAPTER SIX

  A Kiss of Folly

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  In his dream, Shep paced a darkened hallway at Cunningham. He could hear the harshness of his breath, feel his heart beat wildly in his chest, taste the drink a servant had pushed on him. It was so very real. Even knowing it was a dream, it felt so real.

  And then there was a scream, so loud and wild and keening, like that of an animal, not human at all. A scream one would hear on a battlefield, a scream of someone whose horse was about to roll on him. Someone was dying, he realized. Someone was dying, and it was not some anonymous soldier. This scream belonged to his wife.

  In his dream, or rather his nightmare, Shep had no concept of time, no idea how long these screams would go on. It was not altogether different from the night of the actual event, where he sat rocking back and forth in a chair down the hall from Rosemary’s room as she screamed and screamed. That night, he had not believed she would die until the moment she stopped screaming. No matter how often he demanded to be allowed in the room, the doctor and the midwife refused him. Rosemary’s screams went on and on. Eventually, those screams had dulled, like a knife that was no longer useful and that was scarier than the screams themselves. There was no wail of a baby.

  The overwhelming guilt that he had put his wife in such a position by taking his rights as husband engulfed him. She was not strong enough. They should have known better. He should have known better.

  Suddenly, he was awake, aware that his wife had died a year ago, and that the bed he was currently sweating and dreaming in was at Pritchford Place. He was trembling all over, and Rosemary’s screams echoed in his ears. Even after she had passed on, he waited hours to see her so that she was clean and perfect and still and dead when he finally touched his hand to her cold one. He had not cried then. He could not. Everything inside him, every emotion, was trying to break free and yet it was all stuck inside of him. It had all remained stuck until Ben had shown up at Cunningham and offered to have Shep come stay at Pritchford Place.

  It was true that quitting Cunningham had lessened his nightmares. He had not had one in many days, but that also may have been because he often went to bed thinking of what he could have said differently in an argument with Julia to best her. She took up so much of his thoughts he sometimes felt guilty that he did not think more of Rosemary.

  As he sat up in bed now, he actually grew a bit angry. Julia demanded space in his head and she always had. Had that not been one of the reasons he had pushed her away?

  But alone in the room that had been his every summer at Pritchford Place, he could admit, perhaps for the first time, that it was not Julia’s fault that he could not stop thinking of her. He was unwilling to consider it more than that, not now, not just after waking from a nightmare with his dead wife’s screams still in his ears. No, he would consider the problem of Julia and his own responsibility, his own feelings, in the morning.

  One thing he knew for certain was that he was not going to sleep any longer tonight. He found some breeches and put them on quickly for modesty’s sake and added a loose shirt that clung to his sweating skin. He did not bother to button up because he didn’t think anyone would be around in the dead of night. His plans were to find a deadly dull book that might lull him into a dreamless sleep in the library. Somehow he would find a way to numb himself tonight.

  Julia tossed and turned all night. She hated that Shep was here and that old memories were flooding back, detesting the power he had over her. Must he poke and prod at her with words? Moreover, she could not stop thinking about the marquis’ upcoming proposal and how much she dreaded the idea of being in his presence, let alone marrying him, let alone lying beside him.

  She knew she could be a vain woman, and she did not believe in false modesty. She knew she was beautiful. During her first several seasons, many young men had come her way, to dance, to flirt, but also to seek her out for a possible betrothal. She had been cold and cruel and cutting, still smarting from what had recently taken place with Shep. No one knew it was because her heart was broken and she could not imagine marrying any man now, since the man she loved and thought loved her as well, had scorned her. And so her reputation had grown to that of the Ice Queen or Lady Julia the Cruel. Men lost interest or feared her. Her heartbreak, which had lasted several seasons, had translated into intimidation. And she had been afraid of those men as well, afraid that she could care about one of them the way she had for Shep, afraid of a new broken heart. But there were consequences to those decisions.

  Now, she was left with the awful marquis.

  She sprung up from the bed, her thoughts making her too agitated for sleep. Her thin summer shift clung to her sk
in, so she grabbed a robe. She still was not fit for company, but it was the middle of the night. She hardly expected to run into anyone. Even the servants still slept. She would find a book in the library and then scurry back to bed, quiet as a mouse. But just as she was leaving her room, she spotted the box filled with the letters. Against her better judgement, she grabbed one to read, lighting a candle to take with her as well.

  So in front of the giant wall of books, gathered by her father, grandfather, and all the men before them, she read another letter from Shep. She knew it was only hurting her to relive their relationship, but she could not help herself now that he was here again.

  30 September 1816 Oxford

  Dear Julia,

  I feel so foolish that I squandered a chance for a brief moment of happiness with you. If only I had been truthful with you last summer about our kiss, instead of sending you that awful letter asking you not to speak of it again. No wonder you did not want to see me. I am so sorry to have hurt you. You must know that I wrote it because I could not imagine that you returned my feelings. To think that you do…

  To be perfectly frank, when I drew you near for that kiss, I never expected you to return my affection. In fact, I expected another slap. But to feel your arms wrap around my neck as you pressed your lips shyly to mine was such exquisite torture.

  But then I lost confidence. I worried over your brother and your family. I wrote you that awful letter that caused you to withdraw from me completely this summer and it is by no fault but my own that we lost a chance to be together these past months. Oh, if only I could see you now…

  I missed you all those weeks, thinking you were not mine to miss.

  Thank you for your honesty in your letter. I can see that it is not easy for you to express how you feel. I shall treasure your vulnerable words as I know you show them to no one but me. But, Julia! To know that you do share them with me, that you do think of me, as I think of you… Is this what bliss is?

  And if it is as you say, that every time you showed me disdain the brief moments I saw you this past summer, you were only covering up your affection, then I shall remember each cutting remark, each time you raised your eyebrow with such cynicism, with an aching heart that is full of admiration and care for you.

  Write to me soon. Please.

  Yours,

  Shep

  “What are you doing here?”

  Shep was shocked to see Julia, her hair in a braid down her back, dark against her white shift and robe, the length of her neck bent over some piece of paper in her hand.

  She raised her head slowly to look at him with eyes full of emotion. Was that the gleam of tears? She never allowed anyone, him especially, since everything changed between them, to see her true feelings. “I live here. I can go where I please.” Casually, she wiped a hand down her cheek. “Goodnight then.” Before she could stride off, he was taking steps nearer to her.

  As he walked closer, the candles she must have lit when she entered flickered in the dim light. “What are you reading? A letter from your sweetheart, the old marquis?” He knew exactly what he was doing, goading her because he felt guilty over thinking of her after having a nightmare about his dead wife. But he could not stop himself. He had never been able to help himself when it came to Julia.

  She hid the paper behind her back and lifted her chin in defiance. He was close enough that he could have touched her if he wanted to, which he did not, he told himself. “That is cruel, even for you. You know I have no wish to marry him.”

  “It is you with the reputation to be cruel,” he told her, reaching quickly for the letter behind her back and grabbing it in his hand. They wrestled over it for a moment, as they had when they were children. But as soon as their bodies brushed, Julia surrendered. She never surrendered, especially to him. But what were her choices?

  He grinned at her. She so rarely let him win. “Let me see what the old man writes to you.”

  “Shep,” she cried in a voice he had never heard her use before. “Please don’t.” She batted her hands at his back, trying to reach for it, but it was no use with his height and he held her off with one hand. “Please,” she begged, tears in her voice.

  As he scanned the letter, he was shocked to see his own handwriting. Noting the date, he could suddenly imagine his younger self writing these words and feeling all that he had felt after their first kiss. “You kept this?” he asked in a hushed whisper, turning so swiftly that she was in his arms without either of them realizing it. “You kept my letter?”

  She closed her eyes and turned her face away from him, knowing he was too strong for her to fight off, knowing she did not want to fight him off. The last thing she would ever admit was that she had kept every one of his letters since she was twelve years old. “It was only an accident. I found it.”

  “You found it?” She could feel the rumble of the words in his chest against her own, making her very aware of the thinness of the material of her nightgown against his bare skin. Why had he not buttoned his shirt? “You are lying. You kept it.”

  She turned her head to look him straight in the eyes. “So what then? It serves to remind me of my own folly for trusting in you and believing in you.”

  Without thought, he dropped the letter he had crumbled in his fist to stroke her cheek instead. Her skin was even softer than he remembered.

  She closed her eyes at his touch, her body going liquid in his arms. She let out a breath just as he spoke. “You were not and have never been foolish. You are many things but foolish is not one of them.”

  But it was folly. He told himself not to touch his lips to her neck but he did, for only a moment, as she shook in his arms. They had each bared some of their feelings to one another, Julia by keeping the letter, and Shep by embracing her. Why stop now? If she thought it was folly to have kept the letter, then he wanted to do something foolish too. He felt dizzy as he pressed his lips to hers.

  For a moment, she went completely still, like the Ice Queen he teased her of being, but then it was as if the ice melted into him, her lips softening against his. She kissed him back, her arms creeping up around his neck, her fingers twirling in his hair. It was as if the past and the present were blending together beneath his eyelids.

  As he kissed her again, drawing her lip into his mouth, his hand cupped her cheek, his fingers in her hair, making a mess of her braid. His other hand held her at the small of her back, as closely as their bodies would allow. For one glorious moment, he had perfect clarity of thought that this was right, this was exactly right, before she pushed back, breathing deeply, chest heaving.

  “Let me go,” she whispered against his lips but one hand was wrapped around his neck, deep in the curls of his hair, the other pressed against the skin over his heart due to his unbuttoned shirt.

  He touched his nose to hers in an affectionate caress. “Is that what you really want?”

  He began to place tiny kisses to her cheek and then the corner of her mouth, coming closer and closer to her lips.

  She let out a moan. “Do not play games with me, Shep. Not again.”

  “This has never been a game for me,” he whispered in her ear, gathering her closer as his lips descended down her neck. Her nightgown was bunched in his hand as he pulled her impossibly closer. He did not want the moment to end. He had never wanted moments with her to end.

  But suddenly she went still in his arms, the hand in his hair moved, the hand on his chest pushed him away.

  “Yes, it has been. And you are the one who makes the rules.” She looked down as she spoke so he could not read her face. He let her go completely as it was clear that was her wish. She was shaking as she picked up the ruined letter from the floor, her nightgown pooling around her bare feet. She looked like an angel. And he wanted…

  “That will never happen again,” she murmured, her hair mussed from his hands, her face delicately flushed. Her fingers shook as she opened her mouth to rail against him. He expected a tirade. But she only closed her eye
s, touching her fingers to her own swollen mouth, while she stared at him. In the dim light, there might have been tears in her eyes. There was definitely regret and a terrible sorrow. “Never again, Shep. Do you understand?”

  Her voice had never sounded so weak. He barely recognized it. Before he could even apologize for his behavior, for hurting her, she fled.

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  7

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  “I do not know if it needs to be said.” …

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  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Man of Honor

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  It was easy for Shep to avoid Julia the next day, since he had promised Ben to help with the arson investigation. That was how he tried to think of it, as an investigation. It took the emotion out of it. He did not want to think of the pain Cat’s family endured, but especially what Cat had endured.

  The horrible mission also allowed him to focus solely on a task apart from Julia, since they had to seek out Jane at her home with her father. It left no room to remember what had happened the previous night. At least that was what Shep told himself.