by Darcy Burke
“Arden’s like a sister, you know that. I’d do anything for her.” Richard cuffed James’s arm. “What about Lady Melisandre Andrews then? A wallflower like her surely won’t go about insulting your family, no matter how wonderfully unconventional they are.”
“Lady Melisandre would last two minutes in this house. The first time Korianna starts experimenting with black powder again, she’ll be running for the hills.” And that wasn’t even mentioning Korianna’s habit of “pruning” the potted plants as target practice for her pistol, despite Elinor’s protests.
“Fair enough,” Richard agreed. He leaned back in the chair, clasping his hands behind his head, elbows out. “I believe we’d arrive at an easier conclusion if you told me who you think is worth considering.”
James let out a frustrated sigh. “How am I supposed to protect Miss Loren, catch Sauveterre, and find a suitable bride by the beginning of the Season? There’s simply no time.”
Unless...
This was either the best idea he’d ever had, or the maddest.
“What if I marry Miss Loren?”
Richard startled, losing his balance. The chair slammed against the desk, almost toppling him off of it. He barely managed to right himself. “This is the same Miss Loren we’ve been discussing, yes? You did not just magically produce one of her relatives out of thin air, did you? Because otherwise there’s no way under the sun that Ellie’s going to go for this.”
“She’ll be my wife. Elinor’s opinion is inconsequential.” He pursed his lips together, pausing for a moment to think. Before he’d known of the threat to Miss Loren’s life, he’d dismissed her as unsuitable—even though being around her had been the best few days he’d experienced since Louisa’s death. It had seemed selfish before to ask his family to undergo social scrutiny simply because he wanted to continue spending time with her.
But now she was in danger, and she depended on him to protect her. It didn’t matter what the ton thought when compared with saving a woman’s life.
“I need a way to keep watch on her, even when I’m forced to attend these God-awful parties,” James said. “My marrying her ensures she’ll be protected. Wickham won’t touch her when she’s my wife, and the Runners will afford her the same privileges of a peer. Even this Sauveterre, whoever he is, must know that the consequences of killing a duchess will be so much worse than a mere governess.”
“Ah yes, the whole ‘marriage to get a better day in court’ defense,” Richard quipped. “You’ll make your ancestors so proud with that one. Most people marry for money or a better position in society, but not you, Jim. You’ll marry only to protect a chit’s life.”
Richard was having far too much fun at his expense.
“Is this a ludicrous idea?”
Richard shrugged. “Unexpected, yes. Ludicrous, not entirely. You’re the bloody Duke of Abermont. I’d imagine you could marry a guttersnipe and eventually even the gossip-mongers would accept it.”
“It’s the eventually that concerns me.” He didn’t want to take Miss Loren from one fire and drop her into a conflagration. In Society, the time passed like sand in a broken hourglass; every minute an eternity. “But God, how I dread more months of balls. I’d avoid the whole bloody Season if I could.”
For decades, the Clocktower had used the shroud of high society events. Vauxhall had plenty of secluded avenues perfect for hand-offs, while a night at Covent Garden provided sufficient distraction for him to slip away to the cloakroom and meet with an informant.
Richard snorted. “Your invitations will decrease if you marry your governess, so you might actually escape that torture.”
“A definite point in Miss Loren’s favor,” James mused. The large number of parties he’d be expected to attend would diminish if he were no longer considered eligible marriage material. “You know, while I don’t agree with Elinor’s original principles for choosing my future wife, I do have to admit her logic is sound. I could maintain my cover and devote more time to the Clocktower.”
Richard smirked. “I suspect your future wife will want you to spend time with her.”
“Yes, of course,” James muttered, trying to play it off as though he’d thought this notion through, instead of concocting it in the wee hours of the morning.
Eying him suspiciously, Richard pulled his chair closer to him. “Please tell me you didn’t conceive this idea as a tactical strategy, without any thought to the woman you’d actually be pledging your troth too.”
“I’ve thought about her.” He’d thought about Miss Loren a little too much. He ached to run his fingers down her tantalizingly soft skin, kiss her luscious lips.
“If you’re willing to take the societal risk, and you trust her, then I say to do it.” Richard stood up, going to the tiny peephole in the wall and looking out. He turned back around to face James again. “Look, Jim, I believe in your judgment, even when you don’t. I’ve never met a more skilled interrogator than you because you understand people. Their thoughts, their motivations, their actions. If you think Miss Loren is worth your time, then I will defend her to the death.”
James clenched his teeth. This family had already seen too much bloodshed. “Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.”
“One thing, though.” Richard held up his hand. “Can I be there when you tell Ellie?”
“Absolutely, bloody, not,” James groaned. “I’m going to have my hands full already. The last thing I need is you needling her.”
“I don’t needle,” Richard objected. “I banter. There’s a difference.”
James narrowed his eyes. “The answer’s still no.”
Richard let out a loud sigh. “You’re a killjoy, my friend. But congratulations, nonetheless.” He skirted out of the room before James could tell him nothing was certain yet.
As James reentered the library, he prayed that Miss Loren was as loyal as he believed. Otherwise, the Clocktower’s very foundations might crumble before his feet.
Chapter 8
As the clock struck nine that evening, Vivian paused outside the door to the library. She ran a hand across her skirt, smoothing out the wrinkles from sitting on Thomas’s bed as she read him his bedtime story. Should she have changed her dress? She’d never bothered to change after dinner before. After all, her meals were always taken with Thomas, not the rest of the family.
She did not know the etiquette for sudden partnerships with dukes to prevent one’s death. Most likely, a practical appearance would be preferred, in case one had to flee suddenly.
She patted her chignon and prayed that she looked acceptable. She wouldn’t wish for beautiful, for at twenty-four she was close to spinsterhood. Her mind had always been her best feature. Age hadn’t dimmed her intellect; rather, she’d grown wiser.
Or at least she’d considered herself wiser until she’d scurried off to work here at the bidding of a murderer.
Vivian gulped down the lump of dread building in her throat. No point in worrying now. Her course of action had already been laid in. “Full speed ahead!” Papa had always claimed when he began a new business venture; that saying was one of her few memories of him.
She’d pretend she was ferocious. She was a Loren, and Lorens never gave up.
She pushed open the door to the library, somewhat taken aback by the sameness of the room. Somehow, she’d expected it to appear different when she entered at the duke’s request, and not a snooping burglar. But no, there were the supple red leather armchairs, the mahogany low table with Lyrical Ballads, and the dark cherry paneled cabinet with the silver crescent moon handles pushed up against the rich coffee-colored back wall. A gray stone fireplace broke up floor-to-ceiling dark mahogany bookshelves on the far left wall, a stodgy portrait of one of Abermont’s ancestors centered over the top of the mantel.
Vivian toyed with the simple locket charm she wore around her neck with a white ribbon. Evan had given it to her for her eighteenth birthday, and the ends of the ribbon frayed. She ought to change it out, b
ut she couldn’t bear losing one more thing that connected her to him.
Abermont was probably used to women who wore huge rubies and pearls. Emeralds probably, for they were expensive too. Well, she couldn’t be anything more than what she was now—a governess. There was no point in trying to be anything different. Or in thinking that anything more could come from this partnership with Abermont. That was her old fanciful mind talking, from when she’d been younger, before her cousin had kicked them out of Trayborne estate.
Abermont was late. She ought to take advantage of his absence to choose her seat strategically. She could sit in one of the armchairs, thus avoiding close contact with Abermont. But would he think her closed off then? She didn’t want him to think she didn’t appreciate his offer of assistance, because oh, she did. For the first night in six months, she’d slept soundly, knowing that he’d manage everything in that powerful, commanding way he had.
It was just so blastedly wonderful to no longer be the only one looking for Evan’s killer.
She instead chose the pair of red and beige brocade sofas drawn in front of the fireplace with the low table placed in between. If she was going to work with the man, she needed to learn how to sit next to him without her mind muddling. Vivian fidgeted, tapping her foot against the carpet. Impatience picked at her. She poured herself a cup of tea from the sterling silver pot on the low table, and sat back down on the sofa.
When Abermont entered the room, she popped up from her seat, executing a hasty—albeit highly flawed—curtsy to him. “Your Grace.”
Instead of returning her greeting with his usual perfunctory nod, Abermont waved his hand dismissively. “We needn’t hold to such proprieties. In truth, I’ve never liked being curtsied to. Makes me feel rather uncomfortable.” He smiled, making her heart thump precariously. She’d shared her secret with him, and now he’d let her in on a confidence too—much smaller than hers, yes, but it was more to bond them together.
She nodded. “Very well.”
Abermont poured himself a cup of tea, adding cream and a lump of sugar. “I’d far prefer brandy in the evening, but I figured you’d like tea.”
She lifted her cup. “That was thoughtful of you, Your Grace.”
He sat down next to her, crossing one long leg over the other. “Please, James. Your Grace was my father.”
James. A perfect name for him. Somehow at once steadfast and intriguing.
“Vivian,” she said, though it felt so intimate to call each other by their first names. Partners, indeed.
“Well then, Vivian, I’ve set the wheels in motion for investigating your brother’s death. I have personally promised a substantial reward if they turn up information on Sauveterre’s location. I’m also looking into why your brother was targeted.” He spoke with the same calmness as when he received her report on Thomas’s progress. As if he hadn’t opened up a new avenue for her. As if this wasn’t the greatest gift he could have possibly given her.
“Thank you.” Though those two little words were a small outpouring of her gratitude, she couldn’t make them sound less effusive. While he was nonchalant, she was a bleeding heart torn open in front of him.
“I’ve also increased the number of patrols by my guards, so you are sheltered here. That said, do not venture outside the gardens. While you may visit the stables, I’m sorry to say that any trail rides must be reconsidered.” Abermont—James— gave her a sympathetic smile.
She nodded. While she’d miss riding, she wasn’t sure she’d even feel secure in the gardens. These precautions made her feel safer, but Sauveterre could be anywhere.
“Now I have a matter to discuss with you.” He leaned in, holding her gaze. “It’s of a bit more intimate nature, though.”
Tingles shot down her arms, flooding her fingers, when he said “intimate.” She gulped for air, the room suddenly hotter than it had been a moment before. The fire in the grate had already burned out; she could not blame it. Nor could she look away from him.
She’d thought that one moment in the garden was a chance encounter, as much in her mind as the many nights spent dreaming of his touch. What it would feel like to have his muscular body atop hers, the glide of his lips along hers, the pine and leather scent of him overwhelming everything else.
Then he held her gaze, his gray eyes like the most turbulent of waves crashing down upon her and rendering her helpless to swim back to the shore. She wondered what he saw. Her hair was not golden, but instead the color of straw. Her chin was too sharp. Her nose was crooked.
Yet this man, with his aquiline nose and strikingly black hair and that extraordinarily capable way in which he solved every problem, stared back at her with the same deep interest.
She blinked. The world around her crackled back to life. It had been just a minute or two, but in that short span of time she felt things shift.
And she did not have any idea how to proceed.
But James was, as she’d come to expect, in control of the situation. He continued as though nothing had happened. “I think I’ve come up with a solution that will allow me to make sure that you are kept secure, while also solving a predicament of my own. You see, the Season is about to start, which means every vulture with a daughter of marriageable age will be lined up to snare my time. The very last thing I want is to be the most sought-after bachelor in London.”
“I see,” she said, but she didn’t see at all. What did this have to do with her problem? And not to seem ungrateful, but why were the duke’s marriage woes on the same scale of importance as her life?
James’s steady gaze never left her face. “So I believe you can help me as I’m helping you. I want you to become my duchess.”
Vivian blinked. She must have heard him wrong. The Duke of Abermont could not have proposed marriage to her. She wasn’t his peer. She wasn’t even the peer of his steward. Men who were one step away from royalty did not enter into matrimony with governesses, and certainly not governesses who had admitted to spying upon them.
James looked at her expectantly, as if he considered his request a logical one. She’d misunderstood him, then. A rational man like him would never consider such a preposterous request.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” She hated how breathy her voice sounded. How hopeful. Still she clung to the foolish illusion that the duke saw her—really saw her, as if the breadth of her soul could be conveyed in a week’s worth of conversations.
“I asked if you’d marry me,” he said, enunciating each word with such pristine pronunciation she knew there could be no mistake.
The drumming of her heart slowed. Every muscle in her body seemed to become tighter with this confusion. She knew now she’d heard him correctly, but how was she supposed to respond? Marshaling her wits, she closed her mouth. She couldn’t think of anything to say, anyhow.
He pursed his lips. He’d expected an immediate acceptance. He was duke, after all.
“I want you to be my duchess, Vivian.” Abermont made a sweeping motion with his hand to the garden. “All of this could be yours too.”
While she loved Abermont House dearly, this could never be. How could she possibly belong here, as part of the family she’d betrayed with her reports to Sauveterre? In the home Sauveterre would know to search for her?
Her, a duchess! The concept was insane. Unless, of course, he was insane too.
“Are you mad?” The question popped out of her lips before she could stop it.
His brows furrowed. “Most assuredly not.”
She swiftly jumped to the next most reasonable explanation. He was punishing her for her duplicity. “Then this must be some sort of awful joke. You’re bamming me, Your Grace, and I do not find it amusing.”
He directed a reproachful glance at her. “I asked you to call me James.”
“And I never asked to be the brunt of your teasing.” She launched herself up from her seat, running to the door. But there was no one listening in the hall.
“What are you doing?�
�� He eyed her quizzically.
“I’m looking for your sisters. Or Thomas.” She scowled at him. “I should have known you wouldn’t help me, after what I’ve done to you.”
“No one else is here.” James stood up. He crossed the room swiftly, his strides devouring the space between them until he was right beside her.
He laid a hand on her arm, and suddenly everything was warmer around her. Softer, in a sense. How could she possibly be objective when he was so near? She was lost in the way her stomach flip-flopped, in the speed of her own beating heart.
“I’ll find Sauveterre, Vivian, and I will do everything in my power to make sure you aren’t harmed.” He spoke with the utmost seriousness, as if he was making an earnest pledge he’d take with him to the grave. “When I agreed to work with you, I meant it. What I am suggesting is the natural extension of our partnership.”
He angled her head closer to his, and her breath caught in her throat as she waited for him to say those magical words again.
I want you to be my duchess.
Her heart panged for a life she’d never dared to consider possible. A life that shouldn’t be possible. But when James watched her like this, his eyes so kind and blastedly gentle, she found herself doubting whether social mobility was really such a catastrophic notion.
“I don’t understand,” she said. How little accustomed she’d been to not understanding things. She’d always been considered remarkably quick-witted, perhaps to her detriment since she’d never caught the eye of a suitor before.
But Evan’s death had changed that. Now the act of living, carrying on through grief, perplexed her.
James walked back to the sitting area, and she followed him. They sat down on the same settee, on opposite ends. “Marriage is like an equation. You and I are both variables. You need someone to protect you from Sauveterre, and I need a wife before the start of the Season.”
She blinked. While she knew the rich treated matrimony more as alliances than pairings of the heart, she’d never heard it explained in such a...commercial fashion. Hardly the impassioned proposal she’d always dreamed of receiving.
