A chill of fear slithered down her back, despite the slight heat of a fever, and she inched farther back. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I was the last to retire, and when I passed by your room I thought I heard something unusual. I wanted to see if you needed any assistance.”
His tone was reasonable, and his explanation was very like her own rationalization for entering the duke’s bedroom the night he arrived. Indeed, perhaps she was letting Mabel’s fears taint her reason. It could be that his presence here had no ulterior, evil motive, and if Lord Elliot acted improperly, could that not be attributed to the way he had been raised, a spoiled son who seemingly could do no wrong?
“My throat is much better, thank you.”
“You don’t sound well,” he noted, regarding her steadfastly and making no move to leave.
“My nose is a little stuffy,” she concurred, and despite her sensible thoughts moments before, wished he would go away at once. “Mabel tells me she’s been hearing strange noises at night,” she said, carefully observing his reaction.
Which was unconcerned and, she thought, genuinely amused. “I go up on the roof to look at the stars on clear nights,” he replied. “I might have been an astronomer, if it did not require so much study.”
Hester didn’t know whether to believe him or not. He sounded sincere enough, but that did not excuse his presence in her bedroom.
Suddenly she sneezed violently, and was pleased to see him step back at last. As he.did, he ran his gaze over her entire body in a way that made her feel completely and ashamedly naked. “Good night, then, Hester,” he said quietly, and she was not pleased by his informal address. “I hope you sleep better now.”
“Good night, my lord,” she replied, and she could not keep censure from her tone.
Mercifully, he said no more, but went to the door and left her.
As Hester grew calmer, she reflected that Lord Elliot’s behavior was questionable enough to warn Mabel and the other female servants to take care.
Even when she had no real evidence that Elliot Fitzwalter was up to no good?
The best response might be to tell the duke what she suspected, and leave the matter in his hands.
In his strong, slender-fingered, arousing hands.
She would speak to him first thing tomorrow.
The hand tightened around Elliot’s throat with fierce strength, while an arm encircled his waist in an equally strong grip and dragged him into the duke’s bedroom. “What the hell were you doing?” Adrian demanded as he shoved his brother against the wall.
“Let…me…go,” Elliot gasped, trying vainly to pull Adrian’s hand away.
Adrian did, but only long enough to change his hold. He grabbed Elliot by the shoulders. “What were you doing in Lady Hester’s bedroom?”
“I heard a noise when I was passing by. I wanted to see if she needed help.”
Adrian smelled the wine on Elliot’s breath. “How solicitous of you,” he replied sarcastically. “Do you think I’m stupid, you corrupt little worm? You’re lucky she didn’t rouse the whole household.” Adrian fought to control his rage, for he was severely tempted to hurt Elliot, and that he must not do.
Elliot wrestled out of Adrian’s grip and tugged down his disheveled vest. “Well, she didn’t,” he replied.
“She has a right to privacy,” he growled. “Are you drunk?”
“A little. It helps pass the time,” Elliot said, apparently convinced he was out of danger. “So what if I have been enjoying some wine? It’s from Father’s wine cellar. Besides, you’re not exactly sober yourself. You’ve been into the port.” He nodded toward the open bottle on a table near the bed.
“At least it’s my port—and I don’t go sneaking into young lady’s bedrooms.” Adrian crossed his arms over his chest, very aware of the rapid thudding of his heart, which had not diminished from the time he had heard a small, furtive sound and looked down the corridor to see Elliot coming out of Hester’s bedroom.
“You act as if I raped her,” Elliot protested casually, strolling over to the table and helping himself to the port. “Suddenly gone all chivalrous, have we? For that woman? It’s probably the closest she’ll ever get to amusing a man.”
“Shut that filthy mouth of yours, Elliot, and get the hell out of my room.”
“Or what? You’ll tell my mother I’ve been a naughty boy?” Elliot took a drink of the port. “She won’t believe you, especially if I say I saw you in Hester’s room.”
Adrian scowled, but he didn’t respond, because Elliot was absolutely right, as Elliot well knew.
“Not so homely, by the by. Not in her nightgown. Did you know she had the most delightful mole over her left breast? And a fine breast it is, too. Perfect, in fact. Whoever would have guessed?”
“Leave, Elliot. Now.”
“You invited me here, dear brother, in your own inimitable way.” He gave Adrian a coolly measuring stare, not unlike the one that was sometimes on Adrian’s face.
“Stay away from the women of this house,” Adrian warned. “If you want sport, go to the town and pay for it.”
“Why so upset, anyway?” Elliot asked. “You’re not thinking of seducing her yourself, are you?”
“I rather thought seducing virgins more your occupation,” Adrian observed.
“Are you trying to annoy me?”
“Perhaps. Why not? I think you do many things to annoy me.”
“And why shouldn’t I?” Elliot charged. “You make my life miserable.”
Adrian glared at his sibling. “I make your life miserable?”
“Yes. You always keep me lacking funds, until I have to come begging like a child.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? I give you a liberal allowance, and then some.”
“A man of my rank has a certain position to maintain.”
“And yours seems to be any position, preferably with some naive young thing who doesn’t know enough to avoid scoundrels like you.”
“While we’re talking about money,” Elliot replied, not a whit ashamed, “I need more.”
“Ask your mother.”
“You know I can’t,” Elliot complained. “Just as you know that I’m right. You can afford it, dearest brother. Why be so miserly?”
“If I wasn’t careful enough for all of us,” Adrian reminded him, “we would be bankrupt”.
“That’s nonsense and you know it.”
Adrian marched over to his table and poured himself another drink. Elliot was right. He was very rich. However, he also knew that if he gave Elliot more money, he might just as well take the sum and throw it into the sea.
“If I married, would you increase the allowance?”
Adrian downed his drink in one gulp, warmed for a brief instant as he regarded his sibling with a stony gaze. “Which lucky lady do you propose to bless with your hand?” he asked sarcastically. “Damaris Sackville-Cooper? Your mother won’t be pleased.”
“Of course not. I’m passing the time with her, that’s all.”
“Who, then? Elizabeth Howell?”
Elliot shook his head swiftly and without hesitation, a response that made Adrian despise him anew. “I assume you have not yet made your choice, then,” Adrian said.
Elliot glanced at his half brother, so straight backed and stem and unforgiving. He wanted very much to upset Adrian at that moment, to repay him in some small measure for the way Adrian always made him feel worthless and stupid. Adrian had resented him from the moment of his birth, because their father had loved both his sons, and if he felt neglected, he should have realized that a father had a duty to all his children.
Therefore, if he could goad Adrian in even a small way, Elliot vowed, he would, and as he faced his brother’s harsh gaze, he began to consider which choice of future wife would most disturb Adrian.
He doubted Adrian had any interest in Damaris Sackville-Cooper beyond admiring a beautiful face and splendid figure, or he would be pursuing her much mo
re ardently.
Who else could he suggest? Who could he choose that would make Adrian nearly mad with apprehension? Somebody completely unsuitable. Somebody that Adrian would know Elliot could never be faithful to, so that self-righteous prig would exist in a torture of dread until Elliot fulfilled his expectations. Somebody Adrian would think far too good for his rake of a sibling.
The perfect answer presented itself and he voiced it at once. “Lady Hester.”
He watched Adrian carefully, wondering if this outrageous suggestion would get any reaction.
It didn’t, beyond a sardonic grin. “I might have known you couldn’t be serious,” Adrian remarked.
But then Elliot had one of the great surprises of his life, because however inscrutable Adrian’s face, in his eyes was an emotion that looked suspiciously like dismay.
Any emotional reaction at all was so unusual, even the slightest would have been cause for delight, and if Elliot had expected anything, it would have been anger. Not dismay.
For once, Elliot thought triumphantly, he had succeeded in upsetting Adrian! He was so pleased, he pursued his chosen course with relish. “Indeed. Don’t you think she will improve me?”
“Nobody could do that.”
“So you think. I have another opinion.”
Adrian tried very hard to maintain his composure, but inside, his emotions were in an uproar. Could Elliot possibly be serious? Did he truly mean to pursue Hester—and with honorable intentions? In truth, she was far too good for him, yet Adrian couldn’t help acknowledging that if any woman existed who could save Elliot from the road to ruin, it might be Hester Pimblett.
If Elliot married, Adrian thought, wouldn’t he finally be free, too?
What would life be like without having to worry about every female who came into contact with Elliot? Or what would it be like not to have to pay Elliot’s gambling debts, or the shopkeepers who let him run up extravagant bills, or for the silence of people Adrian felt soiled to be near?
For so long he had kept hoping Elliot would grow out of his vices, and more than once had even wished him dead—anything to make him free of his promise.
Anything to be free of the fear that one day Elliot would go too far, and he would be unable to take the disgrace of his brother onto himself. That the venerable family name his father had held in such high esteem would be utterly and forever disgraced, rather than the reputation of one black sheep.
Yet even as this vision of freedom revealed itself, Adrian realized, with absolute certainty and conviction, that Hester held his chance for happiness, too. If he could have Hester for his wife, his life would be wonderfully different, full of the quiet joys of domesticity instead of the disgusting chaos of his London life.
But could he be completely happy, knowing that his selfish desire for Hester had robbed Elliot of his best chance for redemption?
If he gave up Hester, would this sacrifice not finally free him of his obligation to his dead father?
And what of Hester? He couldn’t ask her to take on the burden of the Dark Duke’s reputation, real or assumed. She had done nothing to merit the whispers and gossip. She had not sown the seeds of disgrace with its attendant price. He, and he alone, should have to live with his scandalous past.
He, and he alone, had made the promise to his father to do everything he could to keep Elliot’s reputation unsullied.
Therefore, he, and he alone, would make this one last sacrifice, no matter what the price, for Elliot’s sake, for his father’s sake and, most of all, for her sake. Because he could never be worthy of her love.
“I grant you, she’s not as beautiful as some, but she has a fine figure, and very pretty eyes. Don’t you agree, Adrian?”
He couldn’t. He simply couldn’t offer any encouragement, not now, when the idea of Hester married to someone else, to Elliot, was so new and disturbing.
“I see. You doubt my intentions. I assure you, she will be the perfect wife for me. Look how she manages Mama. Think what she will do for me.”
With a final look at his brother’s downcast face, Elliot sauntered from the room.
Hester did not get a chance to speak to the duke concerning Lord Elliot, for when she came down for breakfast, her nose runny and her eyes watery, Jenkins informed her that the duke had already departed to visit Miss Sackville-Cooper. He was not expected to return until the evening.
Chapter Fifteen
Adrian was giving a very good imitation of a man fascinated by harp music as he sat in the Sackville-Coopers’ drawing room and looked unseeing at the beautiful Damaris. He also took no notice of the examples of Damaris’s accomplishments spread about the room: watercolors, embroidery, pastels, netting, crocheted antimacassars, an ornately painted fire screen, the piano and the harp.
He wondered how Hester was feeling, and if she was any better. He had been tempted to send for the doctor before coming here, but his stepmother had informed him that there was no need.
“The Pimbletts all have the constitutions of elephants,” she had said dismissively, and for once Adrian accepted her opinion, for however ignorant the duchess was about some things, she had spent so much time with doctors and other medical men, she probably knew as much about illness as any of them.
He had also wanted to remain at home today, but he couldn’t, just as he couldn’t take the chance of displaying his true feelings for Hester in front of Eltion. If Elliot suspected how much Adrian wanted her, he would pursue Hester with a fierce devotion, just to take away what Adrian desired.
If Adrian hadn’t danced so much with Elizabeth Howell, she might yet have her life and reputation intact, instead of being dishonored and abandoned and childless. Elliot would do as much to Hester.
Wouldn’t he? Two days ago Adrian would have said the only person Elliot thought of was himself, but that was before Elliot had spoken of marrying Hester. Could it be that her presence touched Elliot, too, and in the same way? Was his selfish half brother that perceptive? Was Hester Elliot’s hope for a better life, too?
Adrian silently cursed himself for a fool, because even now he could not completely give up the idea of asking Hester to be his wife. In his mind, he knew he should not propose to her, as much as his heart pleaded, for he loved her too much to punish her by shackling her with his burdens.
No matter how much he loved her. No matter how passionately he thought of her, envisioning her in his bed as his lawful wife.
He had absolutely no doubts that she was a virgin. How wonderful that would be, to be in her arms knowing absolutely that he was the first! There had been no other woman in his life of whom that could be said.
He would be the first to show Hester the several secret places on a woman’s body that yielded unspeakable pleasures when a man caressed them. He would be the first to see those shrewd blue eyes widen with delight, shine with passionate intensity, close at the moment of ecstasy. He would teach her all the many variations of a kiss, and other things lips could do. He would neglect no part of her body, not the soles of her feet…the tips of her fingers…the nape of her neck.
No, he told himself. That could not be.
But to give her up to Elliot, who did not deserve her. Who would surely make her miserable. Who would take her to his bed—
Adrian forced the image from his mind, for he simply could not bear it.
He suddenly realized the music had stopped.
“That was marvelous,” he said as Damaris regarded him with distaste in her beautiful eyes. She set the harp back and folded her slender white hands gracefully in the lap of her ample silk skirts.
As demure and acquiescent as Damaris seemed, Adrian sensed he was not likely to raise Damaris’s hopes for a marriage proposal. If he was any judge of women at all—and given his experience, he must be by this time—Damaris Sackville-Cooper did not want to be in the same room with him, let alone married to him. While this in itself was an interesting novelty, he was in no way intrigued by her, and if he didn’t feel that feigning a
n interest in her was a way to protect Hester, he would never have come near the place.
“I am not much of a judge of harp music, I fear,” he said by way of explaining his lack of attention.
“Would you like me to play the pianoforte?” she asked dully, and he wondered what she would say if he expressed a desire to have her play the bagpipes.
Their awkward conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Sir Douglas, obviously just returned from his business trip to London, judging by his red face and traveling clothes. “Papa!” Damaris cried with an equal measure of relief and joy.
She ran and embraced her father, who smiled down at his daughter and then at their noble visitor. “A pleasure to find you here, Your Grace.”
“I trust your trip was enjoyable,” Adrian remarked, seeing the happy speculation in the older man’s eyes while he disengaged himself from Damaris. It was tempting to imagine Sir Douglas’s reaction to the news that the Duke of Barroughby would prefer to marry the plain Hester Pimblett. Too tempting, indeed.
“Very profitable, Your Grace, although I regretted having to miss the pleasure of your company,” Sir Douglas said. “Sit down, sit down!”
“No, really, I have no wish to intrude on your return,” Adrian protested halfheartedly.
“I must insist you stay,” Sir Douglas declared, not noticing or not caring to notice that his daughter was conspicuously silent. “Please, and for dinner, as well.”
Adrian nodded his head in acquiescence. He had a role to play, and he resigned himself to playing it. Yet suddenly he felt overwhelmed and helpless, a feeling he had experienced only once before, and had never wished to feel again. He must and would be in control!
“This is wonderful!” Sir Douglas exclaimed, beaming at the young couple. “How is your brother? And the duchess?”
“Lord Elliot and his mother are both quite well” Adrian replied, and he saw that Damaris seemed far more interested in the conversation now that it had focused on the other members of his family.
Adrian began to wonder if he was assuming Damaris was far safer than she was. After all, Elliot could be very charming and very persuasive; there might be other times when Sir Douglas would be absent. The man might even stupidly believe it would be in his daughter’s best interest to leave her alone with Lord Elliot, if the duke was not in the running. Surely not even Sir Douglas could continue to be blind to his daughter’s dislike of the duke.
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