The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

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by Jillian Hunter


  He claimed he needed her.

  They needed each other.

  She made another attempt to speak. This time she was distracted by the glimpse of his taut-muscled chest as he stripped his waistcoat and freshly laundered shirt from his shoulders. She forgot what she’d intended to say. Whatever it was dwindled in importance to placing her hand on his sculpted torso and feeling his skin, testing his strength for herself. She traced her fingers across the striated plane of his stomach. He caught her wrist, gathering her up against his chest. She curled her arm around his neck and gently drew his head to hers. He expelled a rough sigh against her mouth. She felt his hand between their bodies as he unbuttoned his trousers. When they broke apart to breathe, she made no secret of studying his lithe frame and thick shaft, curved like a scimitar from below his belly.

  He laughed softly, letting her look her fill. “Well?”

  Her gaze lifted to his. “Fine. I believe you. There was no third thigh. Your point is taken.”

  “Not quite.” He gave her a knowing smile. “Just wait.”

  She drew her hand up and slowly touched the pulsing knob of his manhood with her fingertips. His shoulders jerked in a reflex that would have discouraged further intimacy had he not suddenly lowered himself over her and whispered against her mouth, “I don’t trust my body tonight. It wants you too badly to do what it’s told.”

  He kissed her, bracing his weight on both hands until she wrapped her arms around his waist and whispered, “Please. I’m not afraid, Griffin. I’ve never been afraid of you.”

  He released a breath, as if her admission had set him free. She raised her hips and felt his shaft stab gently into her passage. She closed her eyes, the pleasure so intense it was all she could do not to dig her nails into his back and draw him deeper. Her back arched.

  He teased her. He penetrated her a little more each time she bucked her hips, withdrawing before she could catch her breath. Her sheath widened at the pressure, stretching beyond what she would have thought possible. At one point the friction became more than she could bear. She twisted at the waist. She moved away instinctively, only to feel his hands holding her hips still to permit his full entry.

  She gritted her teeth and heard his soothing voice in her ear as he drove into her body. Too deep. He couldn’t possibly go farther. He promised her he could. He did. And she liked it, rotating her hips until she took him completely inside her, until she dissolved into the heart of a storm. For several minutes she felt as if her spirit had been enchained. She did not belong to herself. But then the blood in her veins began to flow with a renewed strength, and, after an eternity, she emerged, galvanized and acquainted with the laws of passion that had decreed her fate.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “How is this? I must not be trifled with, and I demand an answer.”

  MMARY SHELLEY

  Frankenstein

  The duke had made his decision, and he doubted he could wait until the end of the week to announce it to those it affected. For one thing, he could not tolerate another afternoon tea or hour of playing noughts and crosses with his aunt. He and Harriet could not live on stolen moments forever. One of these nights he was going to get caught sneaking into her sarcophagus suite, and no one would believe he was only playing mummy. Or Butler would creak around one of the columns and catch the master kissing the companion. Sooner or later the maids would giggle when they saw him staring at her in a desperate moment or glaring down the footmen for helping her too willingly with some small task.

  Perhaps the servants had noticed already.

  She was the one.

  He had known it all along. He had never needed to look for anyone else. She had seen right through him from the start. She wasn’t afraid of thunder or lightning, and after the last two years Griffin understood that no one could predict or prevent the storms that life held in store. But would it not be nice to have a strong woman to keep one steady during the tempestuous parts? And who would make a better wife than one who had spent most of her life fighting to come out on the right side?

  Indeed, it was on the following night that this realization was put to the test by a storm that struck him without warning-before he could formally begin the proper courtship that Harriet desired. In fact, the crisis came before he could even admit to her in private that the Duke of Glenmorgan was no longer in search of a suitable wife.

  Harriet thought it had been a delightful evening. Griffin had escorted her and his aunt to the theater. When the play ended, he had claimed both women by the arm to lead them through the crowd of onlookers, who thrilled to the unfoldment of another Boscastle scandal before their eyes. “You do realize what people are thinking, Griffin?” his aunt asked in a curious undertone, all the while smiling and nodding at the awestruck, as if impervious to the whispers that erupted in their wake. “The ton is now of the firm belief that you are not only a reprobate but a man who thumbs his nose at public opinion.”

  He shrugged, and Harriet was rather astonished to realize that he had just acknowledged their relationship to not only his aunt but to the beau monde without uttering a single word. Of course, the nature of their relationship had yet to be revealed to her. The true shock appeared to be in the making.

  She had been gathering the courage to leave at the end of the week. She had also been too much of a coward to let Lady Powlis know of her decision. Perhaps she would tell her tonight. Griffin had had his chance to speak up.

  As they exited the theater, someone in the crowd called out a mocking reference to the Duchess of St. Giles. Harriet had a retort on the tip of her tongue, but suddenly Griffin turned with a fury that sent the offender slinking away before he could be confronted.

  “You damned swine,” Griffin said, in an enraged voice that thrilled his audience to no end and sent a chill of foreboding down Harriet’s back. “Why don’t you come forth so that I might have the pleasure of inviting you to pistols at breakfast?”

  The gathering dispersed. A few pedestrians hurried down the pavement, hesitating to cross the duke’s path. The other theater guests scrambled for the line of phaetons and town carriages that awaited them. Lady Powlis and Harriet stared at each other in complete silence. The duke wheeled toward the street.

  She reached back for his hand. “It’s all right,” she said quietly. “I’ve been called worse.”

  “Not in front of me.”

  “I do believe you’re tempting fate tonight, your grace. Can we please go home?”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  We look before and after, We pine for what is not- Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught.

  PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

  To a Skylark

  Harriet froze in panic when they entered the house to discover Lord Heath Boscastle, Griffin’s cousin, waiting in the hall with another gentleman, who had once played a less pleasant role in her life. Sir Daniel Mallory had been her nemesis. At one time, he had served as a Bow Street detective. After his sister was murdered by a gang of street thugs, he had decided that he would rid the city of its dangerous elements, and Harriet’s family fit the bill. He had retired and now served as an agent to private clients. Harriet had stayed with Lord Heath and his wife during the time he had allowed his home to be used by the academy. She had seen Sir Daniel visiting the St. James’s house at odd hours.

  Her last encounter with Sir Daniel, more than two years ago, was humiliating to recall. Prior to that, he had arrested her on more occasions than she could count. He had a good heart, and she’d taken advantage of it by promising repeatedly that she would stay out of trouble.

  Then one night, he had been waiting for her outside a house she’d intended to burglarize with her half brothers. The useless boobies had run off as Sir Daniel dragged her cursing and crying into an elegant carriage that no detective could ever afford. “I trusted you,” she shouted, bouncing up and down until she wore herself out. In secret, her instincts had recognized his goodness from the first day he had broken up a fight
in a cookshop and pretended not to notice her pinching a steak pie for her supper.

  “I don’t wanna go to gaol!” she had bellowed, banging at the drawn blinds. “I’ll be mouse meat, a little scrap like me! I’ll catch some ’orrid illness, and when I die, it’s your name I’ll be cursin’ on my lips.”

  He’d sworn a blue streak under his own breath. “Damn it, stop hitting the window like that. They’ll think you’re mad.”

  “I will be mad if I’m put away-”

  “You are not going to gaol.”

  “I hate yer lousy-what?”

  He exhaled loudly. “You are being taken to a private school.”

  She sat back, glaring at him. “To work as a maid? And who’s stupid enough to trust me with their silver?”

  “Your sponsor is a member of the Boscastle family. I don’t suppose the name is as well known in the slums as that of Grim Jack Gardner.”

  She’d settled down then, her interest caught.

  “Wot the devil would they want with the likes of me?”

  “For reasons perhaps only the devil can understand, one member of that family has accepted it as her moral duty to offer you a chance for a decent life. I warn you, Harriet, there will never come an opportunity like this again.”

  He had been right.

  But what did he want with her now?

  Had someone in her rotten family been caught in a felony? Honest to God. There was no rest for the wicked.

  The gravity of his manner as he introduced himself to the duke and Lady Powlis heightened her mistrust. “Good evening, Miss Gardner. I am pleased to find you well.”

  She felt Griffin’s hand at her shoulder, a welcome reminder that she had a staunch protector in her shade. “I think our guests and I would do better to privately discuss why they are here in the drawing room,” he said stiffly. “The ladies need not be upset.”

  Lord Heath shook his head. “They should come, Griff.”

  Griffin slowly removed his evening coat. “Very well.”

  ***

  He offered sherry after everyone had settled in the upstairs drawing room. Only his aunt accepted. She had gone a disturbing shade of gray, and he was grateful that Harriet had taken a seat beside her on the blue silk couch.

  Lord Heath did not mince words. “Your niece went missing from the academy tonight after a musical recital that only a handful of guests attended.”

  Griffin slid down into his chair with a groan of relief. “Is that all? Do you know how much agony she has put us through by running away?”

  “I assume Charlotte and the other schoolmistresses have searched the gardens,” Lady Powlis added, passing Harriet her empty glass for another drink. “That child will send us all to an early grave.”

  “Then perhaps this is a prank,” Sir Daniel said, handing Griffin a folded letter. “This was slipped under the academy’s front door an hour or so after one of the students reported that Miss Edlyn had disappeared. I wonder, your grace, if you have received a similar message?”

  Lady Powlis sighed. “With all the letters that have gone ignored, it could easily have been missed. What does she say now?”

  Griffin slowly shook his head. “It isn’t from Edlyn at all. It appears to be a ransom note demanding the sum of thirty thousand pounds for her return.”

  “May I see it?” Harriet asked. “I know the penmanship of every girl in the academy.” But after she read the letter over, she shook her head and felt a surge of fear. “I don’t recognize the script at all.”

  “Did she mention meeting someone at a dance or elsewhere?” Sir Daniel asked.

  “Not to me,” Griffin said, his face reflective. “But I confess I am the last person she would confide in.”

  Lord Heath looked up. “She was last seen wearing a dove-gray dress, off the shoulders, and a black velvet band in her hair.”

  Harriet frowned. “Her headband had a moonstone in the middle of it.”

  “It belonged to her mother,” Lady Powlis said quietly. “She believed it would protect her from harm.”

  “For God’s sake,” Griffin said. “Do not tell me you encouraged that nonsense. She bought the headband at the fair last year from a gypsy she paid to read her fortune. The gypsy claimed it had belonged to Edlyn’s mother.”

  “You are unkind,” Lady Powlis whispered.

  Fierce emotions played across his face. “It is not a kindness to encourage the girl to be misled. Her mother has not come forth, nor has she been identified, in all this time. My brother refused to name her. If the woman cared, she could have contacted Edlyn during any of the past nine years.”

  “Perhaps she couldn’t find us,” Lady Powlis said, her demeanor suddenly deflated.

  Griffin softened his tone. “Castle Glenmorgan has stood in the same place for centuries. How could anyone, having left a little girl there, claim to have forgotten its location?”

  “The mother could have been ill,” Lady Powlis said. “Or perhaps Liam had made an arrangement that… It wouldn’t be the first sin the men of this family have committed.”

  She was on the verge of tears.

  Sir Daniel glanced at Griffin. “Perhaps the subject of her mother is one we ought to explore.”

  “What sort of person would abduct a young girl?” Lady Powlis asked in agitation, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief Harriet gave her.

  Harriet put her arms around Primrose’s shoulder. “We’ll find her, I promise. Please don’t cry. I know London like my own be-well, I know places that nobody even dreams exist.”

  “And where you are not to go,” Griffin said, staring hard at Sir Daniel. “What do you want us to do? Where do we start? I feel an urgency that mere discussion cannot allay.”

  “There is already a search in progress, your grace. For the moment I’m going to ask you all questions that you may not immediately be able to answer. It never hurts to return to the places you took Edlyn, as if you were actors in a play. Perhaps then you will remember something unusual that she did or someone who befriended her.”

  Griffin stood. It wasn’t enough for him to answer bloody questions. He needed to be part of the search. He was Edlyn’s uncle, her guardian, and though he had never told her, nor she him, they could not afford to lose each other. She had been his sullen fairy from the first time he had hoisted her on his shoulders to let her swing on the castle’s wrought-iron chandelier.

  Now he realized that she had been keeping secrets, and he was startled when he saw Sir Daniel lean forward to address Harriet in a low voice that suggested familiarity. Griffin was afraid to ask what the exact nature of their association had been.

  “Miss Boscastle said that Miss Edlyn might have confided her thoughts in you,” Sir Daniel said.

  “I shall do my best to remember,” Harriet replied, “but there were only a few times that she seemed to speak her mind.”

  Harriet wondered if she could keep her promise to the duke. Once she could have drawn out maps of London’s underworld wards and secret courts where only the hardest of criminals would venture. Few outsiders had the right of entry. Fewer still emerged alive.

  There were hundreds of places to hide an abducted girl in London. And countless more for a girl who might not want to be found. Still, Harriet and Sir Daniel agreed that Edlyn had likely been taken against her will.

  She frowned, suddenly realizing that Griffin and Lord Heath had not only risen but were making their way to the door. “We’re going for a ride with Drake and Devon,” the duke explained at her questioning look. “Stay with Primrose.” He looked back at the tall man who had not moved from his chair. “I trust you will be safe for now with Sir Daniel.”

  Harriet wanted to go with him. The pain in his eyes reminded her of a beast who had taken a hunter’s arrow to the heart. If she tried to pull out the arrow, he might bleed to death. Or lash out at her as he struggled to survive. He would not rest until he found his niece.

  It seemed as if all the men she had ever known were half made up
of darkness. Her father. Her brothers. One day they would fight to protect her. The next she might well be fighting them to protect herself.

  “Let us know if there is news,” she said. “Send word no matter what time it is.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  I was moved. I shuddered when I thought of the possible consequences of my consent.

  MARY SHELLEY

  Frankenstein

  Edlyn stared out the cracked window at the gin shop on the corner. It was dark outside, and she doubted anyone could see her from the street.

  “I tell you, Rosalie, that girl is a witch. The picture did not fall off the wall by itself. She made it happen.” The man wiped a dribble of wine from his chin. “It’s the Welsh blood that makes her wicked.”

  “And the Boscastle blood that makes her wealthy,” his companion, a woman in her thirties, said in a flat voice. “Remember that, and pray do not spit when you talk.”

  Jonathan Harvey watched Edlyn from a safe distance across the room. He wore an ill-fitting jacket, with a soiled cravat and fustian trousers. He and his lover, Rosalie Porter, lived in this unappealing tenement off what Edlyn had deduced was Hanging Sword Alley.

  If she was going to be held for ransom, Edlyn vowed to wreak the revenge that only a girl of her age could carry out.

  Rosalie Porter gave her a narrow glance. “You aren’t a witch, dear, are you?”

  Edlyn smiled.

  The gray cat preening on the hearth stretched suddenly and sauntered to Edlyn’s side. She knelt to stroke his ears. His purrs vibrated in the silence of the shabby parlor.

  “What did I tell you?” Jonathan sputtered, moving behind the oak settle for good measure.

 

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