The Dissolute Duke

by Sophia James

  Lost in sensation. Adrift. Satisfied. Crying. Her tears hot on her cheeks and brushed away softly by a husband who had astonished her.

  She heard the thundering of her heart inside her head, a languid lethargy in her limbs, the weight of Taylen and the heat of him drawing energy away.

  Still joined. She could feel him twitch, the thick engorgement inside. Sweat ran through all the places between them.

  ‘Thank you.’ His words, caught between deep breaths.

  Smiling, she closed her eyes, unable to say more, tears drying tight against her cheeks. She wanted to stay here just like this in the silence, wrapped inside each other’s skin, the sun slanting across the room in a yellow curtain of light.

  Heaven.

  ‘I always wondered why my brothers were so … happy being married. Does everyone feel this?’ She had to know, had to understand.

  ‘No. My parents hated each other with a passion.’

  ‘So they sent you away?’ She watched him, his body bare in the light, the edges of the marks on his back creeping round on to his ribs. One finger traced a scar in wordless question.

  ‘On occasion. And when I was here they ignored me,’ he said, watching the ceiling, and Lucinda knew from the tone in his voice that the things he was thinking had been stored inside him for a long, long time.

  ‘Lady Shields’s maid said that you were in hospital in France?’

  ‘In Rouen. My grandmother hurt me when we were on holiday there. I had asked one of her friends if I could live with them, you see, and she found out and was furious. But it was only after my uncle came to pick me up a good month later that I understood the true meaning of … brutality.’

  He whispered the word, softly, anger leaving him stiff and motionless. ‘My mother’s brother decided I needed lessons in … obeying him and took such tutorship to heart.’ He looked at her then full in the eyes, the torment of memory bright and fierce.

  ‘I was twelve years old and my parents had both died the previous summer. Twelve is no age to fight back, you see … and I couldn’t. He … he …’

  Shaking her head, she placed her fingers on his lips as if to stop what he might say next. ‘I love you, Taylen. I love you because the things you have been through have made you who you now are. Strong. Certain. I think I must have always loved you, even then, when we first met, even without the memory of it.’

  A single tear traced its way down the side of her face and he kissed it away before covering her lips and taking all that she said inside of him. Again.

  Tay watched her as she fell asleep, lost safe in the arms of dreaming. Her lashes were long and curled, the tips dipped in lightness and even in slumber her dimples were still apparent. Three years of waiting for her and he had ruined it with his stupid truthfulness.

  He slipped away from her body and sat on the bed, the blood of sacrifice easily seen on the top of his thighs.

  How could she love him after the things he had told her? How could she find it in herself to do that? Maybe now it was possible in the first flush of passion, but tomorrow when the truth settled? What might happen then?

  Every confessed word had been wrong and heavy and he swallowed twice, guilt rising with anger as he fumbled with the drawer to one side of his bed and extracted a hundred pounds.

  Hers for the bargain.

  He placed the notes carefully upon the counterpane and did not look back again as he stood to collect his garments and leave the room.

  In the morning he rode to the home of Lance Montcrieff’s wife a good five miles from Alderworth. He had installed Lance’s widow in one of his smaller estates since his friend’s death when she had been ousted from her home by the heir and had visited her a number of times since returning to England a month and a half ago. He knew that Elizabeth Montcrieff wanted more from him than he could give and part of the reason he needed to see her this morning was to put an end to the hopes of any type of relationship between them.

  Lance had loved his wife, well and truly, and Tay knew that his friend would have wanted his family to be settled and secure. Without any other relatives to help her, he felt she was his responsibility.

  The butler took him straight through into the library and he was greeted almost immediately by Elizabeth.

  ‘I did not know you were coming this morning, Duke.’ The velvet in her voice was smooth. On her lips was the lightest of colour. The heavy perfume she favoured filled the air between them.

  ‘There is a chance of leasing a town house in London, Elizabeth. It is central and there is a school just around the corner suitable for the girls. I think you would be happy there with the chance of more society and a wider group of people to talk to.’

  She watched him intently. ‘I hear that your wife has arrived at Alderworth. It is the only topic of conversation one hears at the moment around here.’

  Her brown eyes were resigned, her smile calm. She was not a woman given to histrionics and she was sensible enough to understand he did not wish for tears.

  ‘I am sorry if I have given you any cause to think there could have been something more between us …’

  ‘You have not, Duke. You have been most circumspect and generous.’

  ‘It was Lance’s final wish as he died. He made me promise to look after you, but life has changed and my wife is …’ He stopped. What was Lucinda to him? A mother for his child? Or much, much more?

  Her hand came down across his own. ‘I understand. You have helped me with a home and a living, Duke, and for that I shall be for ever grateful. You have done your duty ten times over.’ Unshed tears banked in her eyes. ‘I could not have wished for a more thoughtful man in the face of my own loss and loneliness. I hope her Grace knows what a treasure she has in you.’

  He smiled at her words. ‘My lawyer says that you have not touched the money I deposited into your account.’

  ‘I have not needed to. Everything has been provided for me here. But now …’ She hesitated. ‘Now I think I will repair to London and see what that town has to offer us. You have been more than generous and I will always be grateful.’

  ‘Nay. It was Lance’s share.’

  She shook her head. ‘I know the real money did not come in until after his death when you diversified into other areas. I am certain that you know that, too.’

  Elizabeth Montcrieff had never looked so beautiful to him, a woman of honour and integrity. He hoped that she would find what it was she needed from London and that somewhere in the future he might bring Lucinda to meet her.

  ‘There is one more thing,’ he said as he turned to leave. Reaching into his pocket, he extracted the ring Lance had worn in Georgia and handed it to her. ‘This should be yours.’

  He laid the gold in her palm. LM. The initials of his first real friend. But now he had another. The thought came from nowhere, but the truth of it was undeniable.

  Lucinda.

  Suddenly exhaustion overtook everything. He wanted to be away from this house and out in the open again, feeling the wide space of freedom over his head and the chance of redemption in his heart. He couldn’t go home, not just yet. He needed the hope of Lucinda’s words for a while longer, unspoilt by the consideration that must blossom when she had time to think about all that he had told her.

  Saying goodbye to Elizabeth, he rode for the village to buy a drink.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘His Grace has been called away to one of his other properties, your Grace.’

  Mrs Berwick gave her the information as Lucinda came down to the dining room for breakfast.

  ‘Did he say when he would return?’ Lucinda kept her voice even and controlled, though her hand shook as she helped herself to bacon and eggs.

  ‘No. He did not. Sometimes it is a few days before he is back, but this time …?’ The housekeeper left the question unanswered.

  ‘I see.’

  And she did.

  Taylen Ellesmere had run from Alderworth as fast as he had been able to even with her
ill-given exclamation of love. It was the blood. Her blood. Her virgin blood of pure deceit. He had been trapped into a marriage, beaten by her brothers and forced into years in a far-off land with no hope of return and all because of lies. She knew that now, the proof of it on the bed sheets and in the soreness between her legs. He had never touched her there.

  It was her husband who had held her neck still after the accident and made certain that the damage was not worse. She remembered that, too, the paleness of his face above her as he had strained to keep her immobile, the cold rain streaming down upon him and shattered glass in all of the broken and damaged lines of his skin.

  Every single thing he had told her family had been true about the lack of relationship between them and she had sacrificed him because of it.

  Only an heir. She understood the words now as she had not before. An heir from the only wife he was ever likely to have and all because of her lies. The notes on her bed when she awakened came to mind, spread out beside her. It looked a lot when counted in falsehoods.

  But other thoughts also surfaced. The secrets that he had shared with her last night were not easy or small truths, the gift of confidence surprising and humbling. He had laid his soul at her feet even as anger had marked his eyes, brittle, shameful fury stained in green and he had not turned away when she said that she loved him.

  One hand strayed to her stomach. Please let his seed take. Please, please let a child grow.

  She prayed for that with all her heart. She wanted him back. She wanted to tell him that her lie had been sorely mistaken and that she was sorry. She wanted to hold him against the hurt of his youth, in her arms away from the loss of an innocence that should have been safeguarded.

  But he would not come and the only companion left to her was the unkempt dog who followed her back to her room.

  ‘I am not certain if you are allowed in here,’ she said in the lowest of voices, for she had already seen the animal being shooed out a number of times today. Kneeling, she offered her hand to him and he sidled over, his tail fixed as it always was between his legs.

  ‘Are you hurting?’ The query had her placing her fingers upon the matted hoary coat and wondering what other care the animal had missed out on. Perhaps he was more like his master than she had originally thought, tossed out from home and beaten.

  She reached for one of her brushes and began to try to untangle the knots. Surprisingly a coat that was both lighter and longer began to emerge, the dog looking more and more presentable with each stroke.

  ‘Like a swan,’ she said to him and laughed as he lay down, his body comforting against her own. ‘If you were mine, I should call you Swan.’

  The sudden and unexpected sounds of feet moving along the corridor outside made her stiffen as the door-handle turned. Her husband appeared, dressed in his riding cape with a hat in hand.

  His eyes went to the dog, a frown lingering as he called to the animal. It stood instantly and walked across to stand beside him, the bony ridge of its back prominent.

  ‘He followed me in here.’ It was all that Lucinda could say, banal and hackneyed, she knew, but her tongue was tied and she could not decide how to greet him, a stranger who had been a lover and was now back in the guise of a man who looked … unknown.

  Confusion and ire surfaced and as he came closer she scrambled upright. A strong perfume was evident on his clothes.

  ‘Thank you for last night, Lucinda.’

  Another flush of red crawled up into her face. If he would not castigate her over her mistake, then surely it behoved her to mention it.

  ‘My memory was faulty after the accident in the carriage. I believed that you had … enjoyed more than I wanted to offer.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now in the light of yesterday I can see that I was mistaken in my accusations.’ She made herself hold his glance. ‘It cannot have been easy to have had your reputation so unkindly maligned and for that I apologise.’

  He smiled, his skin creasing at the corner of his eyes, an outdoor man, a man who did not bother too much with the fripperies of fashion. ‘My reputation was maligned a long time before you added to it. What do you remember?’

  ‘Running into your room. You were reading and naked. I remember that clearly. Machiavelli in Italian? I thought you had kissed me?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I also think you might have touched me.’ She raised a hand and placed it across her breast. ‘Here.’

  ‘That, too.’ His right hand joined hers, cold from the morning outside. She shivered and his other fingers drew a line down her cheek. ‘I touched you like this,’ he offered, ‘and like this,’ he added, cupping the flesh under her bosom. Even through the material of her gown her blood began to pump.

  ‘And I wanted you to?’

  He nodded.

  ‘You must have hated me then, after my brothers told you I had said that you ruined me?’

  Only for an heir. Only for an heir.

  ‘I do not hate you.’

  ‘But the payment you left on the bed. Is that only what this is?’

  He stopped her questions simply by holding her against him, tightly bound, his jacket sprinkled with rain and wet.

  ‘Last night … the things I told you …’ He stopped, holding her close with the dog around their feet. She could not see his eyes or his face, but she could hear the beat of his heart against her ear.

  When he did not speak she began to. ‘Everyone has their secrets, Taylen. I ran away with a man when I was seventeen. Emerald, my brother’s wife, stopped me before I boarded a ship and married him. It would have been a huge scandal if anyone else had known.’

  ‘But they did not?’

  ‘My brothers hushed it up and nothing else was ever said. I saw him again about five years later and thanked the Lord that I had been caught.’ ‘That bad?’

  ‘He became a dandy, a man who enjoyed puce waistcoats and powdered hair. I doubt he thought of anything else at all. Then when I was twenty-two I fancied myself in love with another swain who turned out to be married already and just wanted a … dalliance. He was Italian, you see, and had not mentioned his family circumstances.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘My brothers never liked him and they sent a runner to Rome. I cried for a week until I understood that it was my fault really that any of these things had happened. After that, until I met you, I was quite circumspect. And when you left after our wedding I was virtually a recluse.’

  ‘I wrote to you three times from Georgia, but you never replied. Did Cristo not give you my letters?’

  ‘He did, Duke, but all you talked about in them were the environs where you now found yourself and a duty message was not what I wanted at all. So I decided that it was in my best interests never to think of you again.’

  ‘You did not think I would come back to you?’

  Lucinda breathed out. Every day she had hoped it. Every day she had held her breath and wondered would it be this day that Taylen Ellesmere might come home. To her.

  The knock at her door had them both turning, however, as the butler appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Mrs Moncrieff is here, your Grace, and it seems that one of her daughters has gone missing. I have placed her in the blue salon.’

  ‘Thank you. I will come down.’ Anxiety covered Taylen’s words as he accompanied his servant from the room. Not knowing whether to follow or to stay, Lucinda hesitated and her husband was gone from her sight even as she tarried.

  Montcrieff. Was that not the name of Taylen’s partner in the gold mine in Georgia? Shutting the door behind her, she made her way down the stairs after them.

  In the blue salon she found a beautiful woman weeping in her husband’s arms, her head against his breast.

  ‘Emily has not returned from the Partridges and I sent a servant for her but there was no sign at all. When you came to me, Duke, I think she overheard that we might be leaving Tillings and going to London and she has made friends here
and did not wish to go.’

  She burst into noisy sobs and Lucinda could only stand and watch the spectacle like an outsider. The same perfume that had hung heavily on her husband’s clothes was in this room as well.

  She could see both the lines of guilt on his forehead and the familiar way the woman curled into his strength. Elizabeth Montcrieff wore his ring, too, she noticed, on the third finger of her left hand, the gold engraving glittering in the light.

  Betrayal? Every part of her body wanted to deny what she was seeing, but she could not. Turning back to her room, she raced up the stairs as if a ghost was on her tail.

  ‘I do not hate you.’ He had said those very words not ten minutes before, but he did not love her, either. Not enough. For all his fine words, perhaps he was a cheat. A man with as many mistresses as he had years still to live; so many, in fact, that here was one straying into their very home, a demi-wife with his ring on her finger to prove the commitment.

  She was glad for the key Taylen Ellesmere had given her and, locking her door against any intrusion, she tried to think of just exactly what she would do next.

  Elizabeth held him as she might once have held her husband and as Tay tried to disengage her grip he saw a quick flash of a dark dress.

  Had Lucinda come down the stairs behind him? Had she seen Elizabeth entwined about him and sobbing? Lord, if she had, she might imagine other things, too.

  With a real effort he moved away from Lance’s widow and poured her a brandy.

  ‘Drink this. It will help.’

  Thankfully she did swallow the draught without question and the tormented and hysterical crying stopped.

  ‘If I have lost her, too …’

  ‘You won’t have. Emily will have gone to one of her friends’ place to hide or to wait and see what you do as a result of it.’

  Hope flared in dark eyes. ‘You think she might have?’

  ‘I do.’