“Almsley,” Violet offered quietly, and somehow her providing Flowerpot’s name irked him and sent a fresh shaft of jealousy straight to the heart of him. Or at least to where his heart ought to be. “I was formerly betrothed to the Earl of Almsley. But I have decided I wish to marry Strathmore instead.”
“It would seem felicitations are in order,” Ludlow said. “When is the wedding?”
“As soon as possible,” he said before Violet could answer for them. “That is rather the reason for our appearance here, I am afraid. We shall need it to occur with as much haste as can be.”
“Strathmore,” cautioned Carlisle then, his expression going grim. “Tell me you did not…”
“Of course not,” he hastened to deny, though it was only partially true. He had not taken her maidenhead, but the liberties he had taken last night had been egregious with an unmarried lady, and he knew it. “But we need to wed as quickly as we can. Arden will be looking for me. He was keeping me at Lark House whilst he convinced Home Office to charge me with treason.”
“Treason?” Ludlow frowned, stepping forward, his expression going black. “Why the bloody hell would Arden suspect you of treason? You have been a loyal League member for fifteen years or more.”
If only the arsehole left in charge of the League had possessed similar vision, Griffin would not now currently be standing where he stood, wearing the same clothing he had worn since the day before when he had fled Lark House by holding a dinner plate-turned-dagger to Lady Violet’s throat.
He could say as much, but it sounded ludicrous, even to his own ears, and he had just lived it.
“Evidence incriminating me was planted in my home,” he replied instead. “Conveniently before Arden conducted a search based on the connection between Mahoney’s source known as The Gryphon and me.”
“Damn it all to hell,” Carlisle muttered. “Had I known Arden would go to such lengths, I would never have recommended him as my replacement.”
“Perhaps you can soon tell him what you think of his investigative technique,” he said grimly. “I absconded with his sister, and he will not take such an affront lightly. He will be out for blood. I do expect him to find me here, one way or another.”
Violet’s grip on his arm tightened at his words.
He covered her hand with his, hoping to impart some reassurance. In truth, he felt anything but sure about what lay ahead of them. All he did know was that marrying her was his best—and perhaps only—chance of beating Arden at his own game.
“It sounds like we need to do some reconnoitering,” Clay said. “Fortunately for you, we have someone in residence who may provide some additional insight.”
“My wife’s brother Cullen is in residence, newly arrived from Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin,” Carlisle added, “after being held there for some months because of evidence John Mahoney manufactured against him. He was familiar with Mahoney, so there may well be something he knows that can be of service.”
“Yes,” Griffin agreed bleakly. “By all means, then, let us do some reconnoitering. I fear our time is waning.”
Chapter Thirteen
The morning of Violet’s wedding had dawned dreary and gray, and not at all as she had imagined in all the days she had spent foolishly envisioning it. There was no sunshine, no calm assurance of having made the right decision, no comfort, no endless love, nothing joyful at all.
Indeed, the sky had opened before dawn to unleash a torrent of rain, as if in ominous portent of what was to come. And the rains had not relented. Not as she dressed with the aid of a lady’s maid and Carlisle’s and Ludlow’s wives, Bridget and Ara. Not as the nearby River Isis swelled, threatening to flood the roads leading to Harlton Hall. And not as she and Griffin exchanged vows in the ancient Harlton Hall chapel.
As Violet sat at her impromptu wedding breakfast, surrounded by kind people who had welcomed her into their lives without question and had hosted the celebration of her hasty nuptials with Griffin as if it were their duty, all she felt was…
Miserable.
Her emotions matched the day. Dreary. Grim. Sad.
A veritable feast had been prepared, and all on short notice. The domestics were bustling and cheerful, seeming to embrace the celebratory air of the occasion, and she was now the Duchess of Strathmore, her handsome husband seated at her side. All reasons to revel, surely.
This was what she had wanted, she told herself. She had not wished to marry Charles. Charles did not kiss her with passion. Did not make her feel wanton or weak with a mere look, a simple touch. Charles loved his plants far more than he could ever care for her.
No, there was no part of her, not even one whit, that wished she had wed Charles instead of Griffin. But there were regrets swirling within her, rising like flood waters compounded by rains that refused to relent.
She had worn a borrowed dress on her wedding day because she had but the one gown on her back, taken with her from Lark House in their flight. And though she remained in firm disagreement with her brother when it came to her new husband’s innocence, Lucien’s absence on her wedding day disturbed her. The same for Aunt Hortense.
Regardless of the circumstances or reasons, she had married before new acquaintances, with no family in attendance. Her sole wedding, and she had done something rash and foolish and reckless. Something her mother would have done.
Good God! She was not like Mama…was she?
Overwhelmed by the notion, by the sudden change in her circumstances, she rose abruptly between courses. All eyes turned to her, some curious, others pitying. Even the servants stilled in the act of completing the change of courses. Griffin’s blue gaze was probing and concerned, trying to see more of her than she wanted.
She kept her gaze averted, feeling as if her corset had been laced far too tightly earlier that morning. “Excuse me, if you please,” she mumbled, scrambling from the room and from the sea of strange faces.
Beyond the dining hall, she grabbed two fistfuls of her skirts, lifted them, and ran. As she began her flight, she heard the echo of Griffin’s voice, concern coloring the deep timbre as it echoed off the old walls of Harlton Hall. But she did not stop. She ran and ran and ran, down the hall, around a bend, down a flight of stairs, then up another.
She ran from herself. From her new husband. From the past. Most of all, she ran from the thought she had become her mother, so caught up in what she wanted, in her own selfish needs of the moment, she no longer cared about anyone else around her or how badly she hurt them.
She stopped when she reached a tower overlooking the sprawling lawns in an original part of the centuries’ old home, in a wing which had yet to undergo the tedious restorations evident in the other parts of the home she had seen. The tower’s windows were old and thick, with a crack splitting one of the panes. The walls were fashioned of stone and mortar, and the air smelled musty. Perverse creature that she was, this room comforted her. She liked it best. Perhaps because it reminded her of Albemarle, a place she had not returned to since Mama’s death.
With a deep breath, she sank to the stone floor in the drab slat of sunlight filtering through the clouds. Her corset tightened painfully, biting into her sides as she folded herself in half, borrowed skirts pooling about her. The dress, belonging to Bridget, was smaller about the waist than she could comfortably fit, and as a result, she had been laced into her corset with more vengeance than ordinary.
But she did not mind.
The pain felt good. It felt real. It reminded her she was alive, brought her back to herself. She inhaled and exhaled, tried to calm her frantically racing heart. And then, the unmistakable sound of footsteps reached her.
She braced herself for censure. For condemnation.
Charles would have been horrified by such a reaction, this she knew.
But not the man she had married. The Duke of Strathmore approached her slowly, almost hesitantly. Said nothing more than her name in that low, delicious rasp.
“Violet?”
&nb
sp; She glanced up, all the way up his lean form to his face, and he was so handsome standing there, looking as uncertain as she felt, she physically ached. In her heart. In her breasts. Between her thighs.
Feeling even more foolish than before, she flashed him a tremulous attempt at a smile. “Griffin.”
“May I join you?” he asked, as if she were inhabiting a throne, instead of hunkering down on a dirty old floor in a musty tower.
As if it mattered. As if she mattered.
She swallowed and nodded, a new sort of misery descending. “If you do not mind dirtying yourself. I am afraid I did not realize the state of the floor.” She paused, thinking better of what she had just said. “That is a lie. I did realize it. But in that moment, I did not care.”
“A little dirt on the arse never hurt anyone,” he said with a careful grin, before hunkering down beside her. He settled himself against her, so every part of them touched, from shoulder to hip, and stretched his long legs out alongside her voluminous silver skirts.
She leaned into him instinctively, finding solace in the heat and strength of his potently male form. “I do hope I have not ruined Her Grace’s skirts.”
“If you have, we will buy her a replacement in apologia. I am sure she will not mind.”
We.
That lone word had her turning her head toward him, facing him. They were husband and wife now. Inextricable. In such proximity, he was even more beautiful than from afar, and he took her breath and made her heart leap.
Violet bit her lip. “You did not have to follow me.”
“Of course I did.” He was solemn, staring at her as if she were something marvelous, a work of art on canvas he was seeing for the first time. “You are my wife.”
Wife. Yet another “w” word that seemed so foreign, and yet, filled her with a strange, new thrill. “I did not intend to flee the wedding breakfast or to bring you shame.”
“No,” he said softly, shaking his head as he studied her in that careful, considering way of his. “You could never bring me shame, spitfire. Not by being yourself and feeling everything with that big heart of yours. You were thinking of your brother, were you not?”
It seemed a matter of course he could read her so well. That he knew her when no one else did. “Yes. And…my mother.”
So much of her past rolled up her throat, unburied at last, and yet, she could not bring herself to speak any of it aloud. Not yet.
He surprised her by taking her left hand in his right and threading their fingers together. “You can tell me if you like. Or we can sit here until you are ready to go.”
Tears stung her eyes at his consideration. He was giving her permission to be herself. To grieve in her own way, even if it was half a lifetime after her mother had drowned herself. She sat alongside him in silence for an indeterminate span of time, studying their hands, so different, intertwined. Connected in a way that symbolized their union. Admiring his fingers in a manner she had not before—his fingers were thick and long, power radiating from them, and yet they held her with such reverence.
This was a man she could fall in love with, and she knew it. This was a man who did not understand her yet, but who was willing to make the time and effort to learn her, inside out. To discover her eccentricities and oddness, to embrace her successes and her failings, to admire all the parts of her making her who she was, imperfections and all.
“Or until your arse falls asleep,” he offered.
She laughed. Or rather, half-laughed, half-cried. It was so silly and sweet, and so unlike anything she had come to expect from a gentleman. Charles had never made her laugh, and nor had he truly listened to her. Perhaps if she had been an orchid, he would have taken greater interest.
She gave Griffin’s fingers a squeeze. “Thank you.”
“You need not thank me, Violet.” He brought their hands to his lips as one, kissing the top of hers. “If any of us should be expressing gratitude to the other, it is me. You selflessly ran away with me, at great risk to your reputation and relationship with your brother, and all because you believed in my innocence. I cannot thank you enough for that, and for the priceless gift of you as my wife.”
His words made her heart give a great pang, because she knew instinctively he meant them. The Duke of Strathmore was a great many things, including a mystery to her most of the time, but in this, she sensed his complete and utter honesty.
“But I do want to thank you,” she said, compelled to offer her own honesty by his example. “Thank you for being patient with me and kind, for not being angry when I fled the wedding breakfast, for wanting me as your wife. Thank you for opening yourself to me. It is not something you do easily, that much I can tell.”
“What a pair we are,” he said with a half grin, leaning his shoulder into hers.
“I am glad to be your wife,” she told him then, startling herself with her candor, with the veracity of the confession. It emerged directly from her heart. She meant it.
“You would not have preferred to be Lady Flowerpot after all?” he asked, a deeper question in his tone, along with a hint of self-doubt.
“The Duchess of Duplicity is a far better title,” she teased, nudging him back, bumping their shoulders together lightly as their fingers remained tightly tangled.
He stared down at her, his expression growing intent, his blue eyes darkening. “Do you mean it?”
She knew what he was asking, but she wanted to hear him acknowledge it just the same, to own his vulnerability. “Do I mean what?”
He did not hesitate. “That you are glad to be my wife?”
She drank him in, a man who was beautiful on the surface, it was true, but who was also beautiful beneath. He possessed depths and scars, and he was so much more than a duke, so much more than she could have ever expected or even comprehended. He was imperfect and real and hers. Just hers. All hers.
Forever.
She cupped his face with her right hand, enjoying the bristle of his neatly trimmed whiskers in her palm. “Of course I do. I am proud to call you my husband.”
And she meant those words, how she meant them.
“No more proud than I am to call you my wife.” He turned his head, pressing a reverent kiss to her palm. One first, then another, and another, and then her bare wrist. “What made you run?”
Violet swallowed, wondering where to begin. How to respond. For there was not one, simple answer. The truth, as it always tended to be, was complex. “On my sixth birthday, my mother held a ball in my honor. There were immense cakes and towers of gifts and so many people dancing, laughing, swirling. Such gaiety. Mama was so very delighted. She insisted I stay up in defiance of my governess, and then she demanded I eat an entire cake on my own.”
She stopped, the memory of that long-ago day flooding her, and with it a combination of bittersweet sadness.
Griffin’s fingers tightened on hers, as he seemed to sense her upset. “Violet, you do not have to—”
“Yes,” she interrupted, determined to relieve herself of this burden, to tell him the truth. “I do. When Mama was happy, you see, it was good to keep her that way. We all lived around her moods, and so I did as she asked. I ate cake until I was sick and vomited all over my gown. And then suddenly, she wasn’t happy any longer. She was crying, hysterically, and she would not stop, and my father was forced to take her from the ballroom.”
She still recalled the horrified expressions of their guests, the dazzling lords and ladies who had watched with growing discomfort as Violet tried to please her mother. Mama’s sobs that day had been soul-deep, and remembering them now, she could not help but wonder if they had been partially meant for her, as much as for her mother.
“I am so sorry, love.” He released her hand and put his arm around her shoulders instead, drawing her into his side as if he could shield her from the painful past. “Was she that way often?”
“More and more as time went by.” She took a deep breath, the revelations freeing her. “She was not well.
My father did his best to shield us from the worst, but as we grew older, he lost control, and eventually, interest. She was too much for him. Too much for all of us. Too much, even, for herself eventually.”
“It haunts you, does it not?” he asked quietly. “You fear you shall be like her one day.”
“Today,” she forced herself to say, staring down at the silk flowers trimming her skirts. A dozen of them, fashioned to be roses, and she had never felt lovelier than when she had donned it, only to wallow about on the floor.
What must her new husband think of her? Furthermore, what did she think of herself?
“Violet,” he said again, his voice like velvet, sinful and rich.
If she could choose one voice and one voice alone to speak her name for the rest of her life, it would, without doubt, be his.
But she plowed forward, needing to finish what she had begun. Needing him to understand who she was, where she had come from, needing him to see a part of herself she had never even accepted.
“I fear I am like her now, already, Griffin. What I have done, running away with you, was reckless and selfish. It is something my mother would have done, leaping without a thought for consequences. Once, she jumped from a moving carriage because she wanted to feel the wind.”
There. She had said it. Today, she was freeing all the specters of the past. A shudder passed through her, but she did not shed a tear. The time for crying was long gone, as gone as Mama.
“Your mother was ill,” Griffin said then, tilting up her chin with the faintest of touches so she had nowhere to look but at him.
And she was glad for it. She fell into his brilliant gaze as if it could save her, and maybe it couldn’t, but mayhap he could. And mayhap she could. Together, they both could. “Yes, she was.”
His thumb stroked her skin, softly, reverently. “I understand your fears and your pain. My father suffered from a similar condition, only he did not exhibit wild extremes of mood. His malady was different. It began with forgetting simple things, like wearing a waistcoat over his shirt or the names of old acquaintances. And then it got worse. One day, he went for a ride in the country and could not recall how to find his way back on land that had been in our family for centuries. Eventually, it was everything. He forgot me. Looked at me as if I were a stranger. He did not even know he had a son.”
Dangerous Duke Page 18
