The Duke's Deceit

by Sherrill Bodine

  “I could do with something a bit stronger!” He threw the rude words into the room, eyeing Lottie as a boorish employer might a recalcitrant servant.

  “Would you care for brandy, Sir Robert?” Mary inquired coolly, grateful to have an excuse to rise to her feet.

  He reached out to lock one hand about her wrist; she froze in rigid indignation, hardly knowing what to do. He was getting bolder with each meeting. If only Richard were present, or Uncle Ian, she amended hastily.

  “We need to talk, Mary. About your father’s debts.”

  Why had she never noticed before how cruel he appeared when his mouth curled in this cross between a sneer and a smile?

  “I’ll fetch Sir Robert’s brandy,” Lottie gasped with round-eyed fear. “I shall be but a moment.”

  Mary extricated her hand and sat as far from him as possible, busying herself with her own dish of tea.

  “You realize, Mary, all your problems could be so easily solved. You can’t have been blind these months to my feelings for you.”

  The oily, coaxing tones were almost amusing. First he intimidated her, now he was pretending an attachment. What could the man want? No debt was worth being leg-shackled to a person she despised.

  “Marry me and set all to rights,” he urged in a hoarse voice.

  She put her tea down and clasped her fingers together in her lap to cover their betraying tremble. “Sir, you forget, I am promised to another!”

  Her retort merely made him smile and sway closer. “He doesn’t even remember you. God’s blood! I was only gone a fortnight! Your affections can’t have been engaged so quickly.”

  The touch of his fingers brushing her cheek brought such a lurch of revulsion that she feared she would become ill.

  “Sir Robert—”

  He stopped her croak. “Mary, you know we belong together! Just think of your father’s dream. If we marry, your lands will merge with mine. This Richard can’t offer you that! But I can give you the horse farm your father wished for!”

  As if he could see into her heart and feel that uneven catch in her breath at mention of her father, he pressed his slight advantage. Before she quite realized what was happening, he held her shoulders cupped in his wide palms.

  “Cry off from this ridiculous entanglement. It’s false and you know it!”

  She sensed the instant her guilty expression gave her away by his sudden painful grip and the stunned widening of his cold gray eyes.

  “What’s really going on here?” he demanded harshly, yanking her into a cruel embrace.

  “My sentiments precisely.” Richard’s lazy drawl, laced with steel, sliced into the tension-filled room.

  Sir Robert dropped his hands abruptly, and she swayed to her feet, away from him.

  Richard filled the parlor doorway, with Lottie’s frightened face just visible beyond him in the dim front hall. Mud caked his hessians, and the wind had stroked his hair into tangles across his brow. His eyes were dark as ebony.

  “Byron, it seems you always appear at the most inopportune moments.” Arrogance clearly stamped Sir Robert’s coarse features. “Mary and I were discussing affairs of the most personal.”

  Stunned by Sir Robert’s audacious claim, she took a slight step back and held her breath. Richard shrugged, almost carelessly, she thought, and strolled toward them. He pinched her chin familiarly and turned a smile of deadly friendliness upon Sir Robert.

  “I see. You were discussing Mary’s father’s debts to you. Really, sir, you needn’t fear. There are no secrets between my betrothed and I.” His hand stole about her waist, staking his claim upon her in no uncertain terms. “Do you have the notes with you?”

  Sir Robert’s stunned face showed clearly that he was as shocked by Richard’s actions as she was. “I don’t carry them about with me!”

  “Then let us arrange a time when you will. Say five days from now. At one in the afternoon. We will meet here and discuss the situation. Like gentlemen.” Contempt dripped in Richard’s final words.

  The close, rose-scented air of the cozy parlor sparked with the tension between the two men. Lottie looked from one to the other, as if a duel might be fought then and there. Unable to bear it a moment longer, Mary stepped between them, throwing what she hoped was a beguiling smile up into Sir Robert’s scowling face.

  “It was lovely to see you again. I shall look forward to your next visit, when all will be set to rights.” She hoped her mild dismissal would diffuse the situation. A certain glint in his eyes warned her a heartbeat before he captured her hand, lifting it palm up to his lips.

  “I am, as always, your devoted servant, my dear Mary,” he murmured with deliberate warmth.

  Annoyed more than revolted, she refused to react. Only after Lottie shut the front door behind him did she turn slowly to confront her supposed intended.

  His long mouth twisted sardonically. He crossed the room to stare out the window as Sir Robert rode away. “You may not want my help, Mary, but I insist on giving it. That is not a man I want my future wife to be indebted to.”

  His concern burned through her to multiply her treachery tenfold. “I can’t allow it, Richard.” She had to protest. “Besides, I don’t see any way out of it.”

  “Of course there is!” He took a step closer. “Two mares are about to foal. They should bring a pretty penny, for their lines are good. Not the bloodlines we will have once Wildfire sires—” His genuine laughter, the first she’d ever heard, rang through the parlor. “Wildfire! My stallion’s name is Wildfire!”

  His delight suddenly made him look like a young boy.

  “Do you remember anything else?” she laughed with him, caught up in his joy.

  Pacing the square faded oriental carpet where only the threads of blue still held their hue, Richard rubbed long fingers at his temples.

  “Your uncle reminds me of a man named Jeffries. Now I remember he taught me to ride. Taught me everything I know about horseflesh. He was killed. In the colonies.”

  Shaking his head, he stopped, a furrow of pain marring his brow as he turned back to her. “That’s all I can remember. But it’s a beginning.”

  He stepped in front of her, placing one caressing hand on her shoulder while the other lifted her chin between a thumb and forefinger. “Soon I’ll remember everything. I look forward to that, Mary. Particularly I look forward to my memories of you.”

  The shock of his touch on her face was as powerful, no, more so than it had been the first time. It suspended rational thought; every feeling ceased except the hot stirrings through her veins and the heavy load of guilt around her heart. It was a lethal combination to her burdened soul, his touch and the vulnerable questing gaze with which he searched her face, as if she were a precious puzzle he must solve.

  She knew exactly what she was—a liar and a cheat!

  Moving away from his silken hands, she swallowed, a difficult task considering the tightness of her throat.

  “Yes, soon all your memories will return. I, too, look forward to that day.”

  It was becoming a habit to stand at the upstairs window to observe Mary undetected. She was preparing for her morning ride. Of late, he’d stayed away. His sleepless nights were forming the pattern of his days. The dark hours found him, wide-eyed, staring at nothing as he forced inroads into his blank mind, searching for any faint memory. He was beginning to see a path, the faintest lightening in the blackness. He sensed that patience was not a virtue he’d ever possessed, but he practiced it now with Mary. He desired her. But for unknown reasons he felt compelled to keep his distance. The kiss, the few touches between them had produced feelings that did not match his fuzzy yet oddly distinct recollections of his intended bride. Had the accident altered him in some way, or perhaps her, so that whatever was between them had grown and ripened?

  A wave of i
mpatience with his recalcitrant mind drove him down to the kitchen. Mayhap Lottie could help him.

  He found her with the sleeves of her blue merino dress rolled up to her elbows, and she was covered with flour. It flew around her plump hands as she kneaded bread dough, it clung in a white film to her heaving bosom, and specks of it dotted her rosy cheeks.

  “Lottie, where has Mary gone off to?” Propping one shoulder against the small fireplace mantel, he watched with tightly reined impatience as she stared up at him, her rosebud mouth uncharacteristically drooping.

  “She’s off to the pond,” she answered slowly, wiping her hands on a fluffy blue cloth. “Why are you asking?”

  “I thought I’d join her and bring a picnic. Can you help me?”

  For an instant he saw a kind of panic on her face. Then her kind eyes softened, and her lips curled up in their usual response. “Yes, I’ll help you.”

  She flew around the kitchen, filling a basket with leftovers from yesterday’s luncheon and, seeing his longing look, two still-warm apple tarts.

  She hummed while she worked, an odd, off-key, tuneless humming, that nonetheless cheered him. It stopped abruptly when he picked up the basket to go.

  “Richard, Mary’s a good girl. Truly she is.”

  He paused, and gave her a smile of rare compassion. “Mary is quite safe with me, I promise you.”

  It dawned on him, as he rode away on Wildfire, the basket carefully balanced in front of him, how odd Lottie’s choice of words had been. He might have lost his memory, but there still existed a code of honor which dictated that one did not ravish his intended. He certainly had no intention of forcing himself upon his future bride. He simply needed to understand her and their relationship more clearly to pick his way through the darkness. Today was a day for beginnings. A greater understanding would grow between him and Mary, and that would lead to his answers. Then he could forge a new path.

  He found Mary on a lovely sloping bank above a clear waterfall splashing over the rocks strewn in its bed, which formed the pool about ten feet below. A willow tree rustled in the wind, bending its long branches in a curtain around her. Instinctively he knew that this was a secret sacred childhood place.

  She’d taken her boots off and now sat with her arms wrapped around her bent knees and her rich heavy hair hiding her face.

  “Mary.”

  At the sound of her name she sprang up. When she recognized him, the shock in her wide fawn eyes shifted to something that suddenly made the sun too warm upon his skin.

  “Richard, what are you doing here?”

  “Bringing you a picnic.”

  He delighted in the rush of color washing her translucent cheeks and the lights of pleasure shooting through her cornflower eyes. He would always be able to gauge his betrothed’s moods by her enchanting blush. As enticing as Mary appeared, as the sunbeams coming through the overhanging tree dappled gold lights into her fall of auburn hair, she was not a woman who he would have thought could wield this kind of power over him. Instinct seemed to be returning first.

  How else could he know that what he was feeling at this precise moment was absolutely new?

  She helped him spread out a cloth and unpack the basket. Her manner was playful as she set out all the goodies Lottie had packed. But some abstract sense, coupled with a newly recovered instinct, told him that her playfulness was born of apprehension. He was noticing it more and more when they were together. In order to banish it from this day when he was determined to forge a new beginning in his assault against his closed mind, he began to talk.

  Although he was rather limited, considering that his mind was like a babe’s hatched fully grown only days ago, he touched on subjects that he knew were dear to both their hearts: horses and the land. One thing led to another, until their ideas and opinions tumbled over one another, bringing to life new thoughts and plans, and feelings.

  No one thing broke through, suddenly unlocking 68 his mind, but he did discover what lurked beneath Mary’s undeniably lovely exterior. Goodness, as Lottie had said. Wit. And an honesty he found utterly irresistible.

  His eyes traveled from her fingers, sticky with apple tart, up the graceful arm to her softly rounded shoulder, on to her appealing face. To his surprise, he found a shadow clouding her eyes.

  “Mary, what’s troubling you?” He couldn’t resist asking.

  She rested her chin on her fist and gazed solemnly to where he sprawled on his side, his head on his curled arm.

  “Richard, we must talk.”

  “I thought we had been,” he said, holding her in a lazy gaze as he stretched contentedly.

  “Yes, but there is something of great import we must discuss at once.” A thread of great anxiety in her voice caused him to sit up so that he could look directly into her eyes.

  What she saw seemed to confuse her. “You are feeling quite well now, aren’t you?” she asked with a particularly plaintive note.

  The constant nagging headache he’d been experiencing until this lovely day suddenly reappeared behind his eyes and he blinked, bringing his fingers up to rub his temples. “Yes. Except for this blasted headache that appears for no reason.”

  At his words her cheeks drained of their rosy color. “Oh, no! Here, let me lay a cold cloth on your forehead. It really is quite soothing.”

  “No, Mary, I…”

  Ignoring him, she scrambled down the bank, clasping her own white handkerchief tightly in her fist.

  Balancing her bare feet on two flat rocks, she leaned over. Richard watched with pleasure the contours of her soft body revealed beneath the ugly ill-fitting clothes.

  Suddenly she tumbled headfirst into the pool. It took him a full second to react, his heart pounding as he leapt up. Her gasp of laughter reassured him.

  By the time he was at the water’s edge she was on her feet. Sunlight played across her creamy skin, her thick hair flowing across her breasts barely concealing what the thin wet fabric of her shirt so clearly revealed. In a moment her dark spiky lashes danced open, and her eyes met his. Temptation rose to taunt him.

  He waded in to her, the water lapping around his boots. Her skin was damp and cool beneath his fingers as he lifted her chin. Her back arched with unconscious grace, bending against the warmth of his hand.

  Without any conscious thought on their part, their bodies touched, and he welcomed her cool wetness, but it could not quench the sudden fire coursing hotly through his blood.

  “My sweet Mary,” he breathed before brushing her mouth slowly. Then again. He felt incredible pleasure in her response. As if embarrassed by his undeniably knowing gaze, she closed her eyes and sighed.

  He caught her breath in his mouth, pressing her soft lips to his in a full open kiss. He felt the pull of the water around them and this, coupled with her softly yielding sweetness, made him dizzy with pleasure.

  When she finally broke free of his embrace she was trembling, so he steadied her with hands at her narrow waist.

  “I’ve soaked you to the skin,” she whispered, a telltale blush staining her cheeks and flowing down her throat, disappearing beneath her nearly transparent shirt.

  Laughing huskily, he dragged her closer and lifted her from the water. “I need cooling down,” he drawled with deliberate meaning, and was rewarded with another of her delightful blushes. Today was a day of discovery after all.

  Today was a disaster, Mary groaned inwardly, as Richard set her carefully on the blanket. She was without shame! And a coward to boot! Everything she most despised. She must tell him the truth at once!

  But she couldn’t ignore Dr. McAlister’s dire warnings. And now Richard’s admission of pain proved that the moment was not at all ripe for her to unburden herself. After all, she must think of his welfare above all else.

  She gathered up bunches of her skirt and began to
wring them out, trying not to notice Richard on his knees before her. Determined to take the situation in hand, she dropped the hem of her ruined skirt and lifted her eyes to his face.

  “Richard, really we must…” Her voice faltered, as she realized her mistake at once. She should have continued to ignore him, for his mesmerizing eyes were lit with delight, and his long supple mouth was curled in a smile of such luxurious charm, she literally ceased breathing.

  “Another memory returns. I adore the way you lift your chin just so when you mean to be firm with me.”

  His hands meandered along her shivering flesh, catching her shoulders in gentle palms, and suddenly she was inside his embrace. Their mouths searched for and found each other with a caressing intensity that left her leaning limply against the hard muscles of his chest.

  She must stop. Stop this charade. Stop these feelings causing her to lose pace with her breath. Stop the needs spinning shocking delight through her veins, igniting embers of newly discovered desire. They had no place in her life. Particularly with this man, especially when all was revealed to him.

  It was that bitter truth which finally gave her the strength to push herself out of his arms.

  “We must stop,” she said in a husky little voice she hardly recognized as her own.

  “Yes…” he agreed, but his hands continued to stroke her hair down her back in a slow pattern that made her heart pound so loudly, she was certain he could hear it.

  “We must stop. It is late, and Lottie will need help with supper. Isn’t that what you were about to say, my sweet Mary?” he asked with a gentle kiss on her mouth, and a tender, almost wistful, smile.

  Unable to find the breath to utter a word, she simply nodded.

  He stood, pulling her up with him. When he turned away to gather up the basket, she had one brief moment to control the feeling that pierced her heart like a shaft. She feared it was already too late for her.

  The Duchess of Avalon sat quietly as Lord Frederick Charlesworth paced the library with long quick strides.