Schooling the Duke (The Heart of a Scandal, #1)

by Christi Caldwell

  Bile burned her throat, and she swallowed back nausea. That moment on his stone terrace, as vivid now as it was all those years ago. She blinked back the dratted sheen of tears that misted her eyes.

  Tears she’d not let fall for him and what had come to be. For as broken as he’d left her, Graham’s desertion had also made her stronger. Through his unfaithfulness, she’d grown and matured. She was no longer a weak child, huddled in the corner of a mail coach, afraid to so much as move. Rather, she was a woman grown, with her own mind, shaped by her past. And determined to own her future. There were no longer grand illusions of love and family. No, her dreams were altogether different. Stability and security, and a life of respectability—unlike her own mother’s dreary start.

  A whore, like her mother, she would never be. Reaffirming that vow, Rowena picked up her copy of Proper Rules of Proper Behavior and Proper Decorum and proceeded to read.

  A soft whimpering cut across her musings and she shot her head up. Silence reigned, with the only break in the quiet the beginning stirrings of a storm whipping wind at the carriage walls. Frowning, Rowena retrained her focus on her small leather volume.

  All ladies must...

  An eerie, agonized moan ricocheted about the interior of the conveyance and, heart thundering hard against her ribcage, she swiveled her gaze to Graham.

  Braced against the carriage wall, he thrashed his head back and forth. His arms twitched as though he fought some dreamed of demon, and she wanted the sight of his suffering to not matter. He did not matter. Why did that mantra inside her head feel like the greatest lie?

  “Nooooo...” A deathlike plea tore from his lips.

  Rowena bit down on the inside of her cheek, drawing blood. A metallic tinge flooded her senses. She would feel pain at the sight of any man’s suffering, and Graham’s was no different. She told herself as much in a silent litany. She was a bloody liar. He mattered still, all these years later. With his effortless ease in believing the worst of her and abandonment of all they’d shared, she cared for him. What nightmares did he battle? What evil had he faced on those fields of battle? Society had hailed him as a hero, and yet, some heroes were born of horrendous deeds and painful acts.

  “Your Grace,” she said quietly, setting her book alongside her on the bench.

  Graham jerked, and then his thrashing grew more frantic. He shot a foot out and caught her hard in the shin. A sharp hiss ran through Rowena’s teeth as pain radiated up her leg. Despite all that had come to pass between them, she could not allow him to suffer, if even just in his dreams.

  Ignoring the throbbing of her lower leg, she slid onto the bench beside him and touched his tense forearm. The muscles jumped under her palm. “Your Grace,” she repeated, this time more loudly.

  A cry exploded from her when he surged sideways and pinned her against the wall of the carriage. Her chest heaved violently, in time to the frantic pounding of her pulse, as Graham stared at her through vacant eyes. A chill rippled along her spine. For the dazed blankness in his gaze, she may as well have looked into the face of death. He curled a hand about her throat and he squeezed, cutting off the scream that formed. She scrabbled and scratched at his fingers, attempting to yank free, damning her ineffectual efforts. Stars danced behind her eyes. “G-Graham,” she managed, pleadingly.

  And at last, the use of his name drew him back from whatever hell had gripped him.

  Graham eyed her the way he might a foreign species of insect, and then he abruptly released her. Rowena sank against the side of the carriage and choked. Sucking in great, gasping breaths, she borrowed strength from the side of the wall and, at last, forced her eyes open. Her gaze collided with his.

  The remnants of the tortured demons that had haunted his dreams lingered still. Gooseflesh dotted her skin. “Rowena.” By the gruffness of his agonized whisper, it may as well have been him who’d had hands wrapped about his own throat. “I’m so sorry...” He gasped out. “I thought... I believed...” He continued to ramble, his incoherent sentences laced with horrified regret and shame. He stretched trembling hands out and then swiftly yanked them back. “I apologize, Mrs. Bryant,” he said, his eyes glittering as he glanced frantically about.

  A portentous howl echoed through the countryside as the storm hovered in the spring air, an ominous threat that matched the darkness inside the conveyance.

  “It is all right.” That assurance emerged hoarse from the strain on her throat. “It was just a dream.” A nightmare. It had been a nightmare. She touched his coat sleeve.

  He wrenched his arm away. “It was no dream,” he thundered, and she cowered. This barely restrained, volatile man bore no hint of the affable grinning boy who’d once been her friend and lover. A muscle ticked at the corner of his eye, turned nearly jade green from the emotion pulsing there. Then he recoiled, and he blinked wildly.

  In this moment, she might have been a shadow upon the wall, for his gaze bore right through her.

  Then, he went still. Blinking slowly, he glanced around before settling his eyes on her. Hunched against the side of the carriage, she tried to steady her trembling limbs. He stretched his arms toward her, and despite herself, despite knowing the hatred he carried for her, knowing he would never intentionally put his hands upon her, she flinched.

  As if burned, he dropped his arms. “Rowena.” That gravelly utterance emerged as an entreaty from tense lips. He recoiled and then slapped his still shaking palm to his mouth. “Forgive me. I’m so sorry. I thought... I...” Then with a tortured moan better fitting a just-felled creature drawing in its final sweet breath of life, Graham shot his arm up and rapped hard on the ceiling. The carriage rolled to a slow stop in the middle of the old Roman road. He shoved the door open. Wind whipped inside the carriage, tossing Rowena’s loose tresses about her face. “My apologies,” he said with his usual cool. With that, he jumped outside and slammed the door in his wake. A moment later, the carriage resumed its gradual rumble forward, before continuing at a quick clip.

  She sat there motionless long after he’d gone. That volatile reaction and his secret demons proved without a doubt how little they’d known of one another, then... and how even less they knew of one another now. Just as life had forever changed her, surviving away from home at the cold, loveless Mrs. Belden’s institution, so, too, had he been changed, in ways she’d naively not allowed herself to think of.

  His nightmares were his own. His past belonged to him and someday to the woman he’d eventually take to wife.

  Dukes, even tortured ones, married illustrious ladies. They did not marry whores. They did not marry the daughters of whores. Nor did Rowena aspire to the role of his wife, or for that matter, wife to any man. She’d learned the perils in relying on anyone other than herself. Her parents, Jack... Graham—all had left her with an indelible lesson. She’d not be so foolish to again entrust any part of herself or security to another. No, she would come and fulfill the terms of employment he laid out in whatever macabre game he sought to play and, ultimately, leave.

  Despite his nightmare-gripped attack, his kiss, however, had proven his unyielding hold over her, still. Rowena touched her gloved fingertips to her lips, the memory of that embrace burned through the fabric. It recalled past kisses that had stirred a wicked desire inside. A dangerous yearning which had led her to throw away her virtue and risk her future. Now she’d been forced to enter his employ. How could she survive and hold on to her preciously guarded strength and control where Graham was concerned?

  Only, if she were being truthful, at least with herself, she could admit she’d never been strong where Graham was concerned. Since the moment she’d spied him in the village, a girl new to Wallingford, she’d been captivated. And his hold was just as strong all these years later.

  Rowena drew in a deep breath. Except, she was no longer a naïve young miss seeing love and romance in the world around her. Now, she was a woman grown, who’d been stung by a gentleman’s falsehoods... and despite the demons that haunted
him and her urge to see him safely through, she’d do well to remember that.

  No good had ever come out of her relationship with Graham Linford. Nor would it ever.

  Chapter 6

  Later that evening, seated in the corner of the Fox and Hare Inn, Graham stared into the bottom of his empty tankard. Rain pinged against the leather windowpanes in steady torrents.

  The sharp beat echoed like gunshots in his mind.

  ...By God, you’ll never hold them back... leave me... just leave me... Moisture beaded on his brow, and he pressed his fingertips against his temple to drive back the nightmares.

  “More ale, my lord?”

  Yanked back from the precipice of madness, Graham looked up. The innkeeper Martin smiled benignly back and lifted his pitcher. “Ale?” he repeated. Incapable of words, Graham nodded. The other man poured his tankard full and shuffled off.

  Since he’d return from fighting Boney’s forces, he had been a man hunted by the ghosts of the lives he’d taken and the soldiers who’d given theirs saving his worthless one. Those crimes were the reason he fought the war’s hold still, all these years later.

  Now, Graham’s life had been upended, and he’d be forced to share his home and life with not only a charge but the one woman who earlier that afternoon had seen past the composed façade he presented to the world. For all that had come to pass... for all the vitriol and resentment, she’d attempted to offer him calming assurances.

  He tightened his hold on his drink. She wore the marks of his fingers on her neck and with her rasping breaths, she’d sought to calm him. The evidence of that goodness when presented with the beast he’d been to her since he’d arrived at Mrs. Belden’s, left him shamed and humbled. What would she say if she knew what he’d really become? For her romantic spirit, she’d also always been clever. As such, that quick wit would have surely resulted in her declining a position in a madman’s household should she know the full truth.

  He’d spent years hating her. Despising her for that forsaken vow she’d made to love him and only him. She hadn’t even cared enough to respond to a single note he’d written her. He’d been carried home weaker than a babe to find his brother dead and Graham on the cusp of death himself. Through it, she’d sustained him but she refused to even pay him a visit in friendship. When he’d managed to climb out of bed, the first place he’d gone was to her family’s cottage, and just like that, every hope and happiness he’d ever known had been shattered. Not even gone a year and she’d married another. That ruthless, fickle creature she’d proven herself to be was at odds with the stoic woman who’d sought to soothe him earlier.

  A rusty chuckle rumbled from deep in his chest. Friendship. He’d been so pathetic where Rowena was concerned, he would have taken even that scrap from her.

  Graham sipped his drink. For years, he’d hated her faithlessness. For marrying another. The cold reality was her marrying Mr. Bryant had been for the better—for her. Had she waited for him to return, he could never have made her his wife. And it had been selfish of him. For even as he with his madness couldn’t have ever married her, he’d at least wanted to know that her love was true.

  “Do you need your tankard filled, my lord?”

  He glanced up at the innkeeper’s wife and mustered a return smile for her. “Your husband recently refilled mine. Wonderful stuff,” he lied for her benefit. It was sour enough to burn a hole in a man’s belly.

  She grinned. “You’re one of the kind lords.”

  And guilt twisted away at his belly. Would the old woman think the same if she knew he’d spent the better part of the morning trying to bait and taunt the only woman he’d ever loved? The old woman dropped her voice to a whisper. “The ale, it’s rotten stuff, though.” She stole a glance back to where her husband mopped down another table. “My Martin, however, thinks it’s wonderful, and I do not have the heart to tell him otherwise.” Her eyes twinkled. “But then, isn’t that the way of life? You hold close a secret if it means sparing the other person hurt.”

  He forced a return smile and then desperate to turn the discourse to anything other than love and loyalty, Graham held his tankard out. The woman hefted her jug, and with shaky fingers, tipped it, filling his glass to the brim. “Thank you...?”

  “Martha.”

  Martha and Martin. Two people, who went together, even in names. How did fate so perfectly join some couples, while wreaking havoc on other mismatched pairs who were never meant to be?

  “Is My Lordship hungry? I’ve made fresh bread...” She sniffed at the air as the scent of burning permeated the taproom. Jug in hands, the woman shouted for her husband and went tearing for the kitchens.

  Martin snorted himself awake. “Who... what...?” Then climbing with difficulty to his feet, he started for the kitchens.

  Graham stared after that happy pair a moment and, giving his head a bemused shake, took another drink. How odd. He’d one of the oldest titles in the realm. A status that placed him a smidgen below royalty. He’d vast holdings. Unlimited wealth. And he did not know a jot of the happiness the old couple had.

  The sound of groaning floorboards pulled his attention to the darkened stairwell at the front of the room and he glanced over. A thrill of awareness went through him; the same volatile charge that had been there since the day she was fourteen, and he seventeen, noticing things about his one-time friend he’d really no place noticing. The shape of her lips. The curve of her hips. That same day, he’d kissed her and nothing had been the same since.

  Yes, some things never changed. And yet, other things did.

  With the benefit the darkened shadows afforded him in the corner, Graham took the opportunity to study Rowena without her notice. Where once she’d moved with an excited spring in her steps, now she picked her way about with the same care he’d practiced navigating enemy fire on the battlefield. She clutched a small book close to her chest and looked about the room. Again, he sought the girl of his past who’d been vibrant and lively. Had it been the loss of her husband that had left her broken? The amorphous face of a nemesis he’d never known danced around the chambers of his mind. Swallowing back a vile bitterness, he drank deep of his ale.

  Ultimately, Rowena found him with her gaze. He held her stare, expecting her to look away. Alas, the same spirit he’d long loved and admired remained as strong in the lady. She bowed her head in greeting. Graham lifted his glass in a silent toast.

  With that, she surveyed the room before claiming a spot at the stone hearth where a fire blazed within. She sat like a princess upon her throne, with her back to him. That wordless but powerful request for privacy rang louder than a shot in the silence.

  This is what we’ve become. Nay, this was what they’d always been. Strangers.

  But this was worse than the agony of her defection. This was the agony of... nothing. No words. No exchanges. No... anything from a woman he’d once bared his soul to and for.

  Graham took another long, much-needed swig of his ale and welcomed the fiery sting of the bitter brew sliding down his throat. Get control of yourself, man. There was but one reason for Rowena’s presence in his life and that was to serve as a servant in his employ. What had come to pass and what was never to have been didn’t merit—not any longer. As a boy it had mattered more than anything. As a man now past his thirtieth year, old resentments no longer signified. He sought for the stoic, ducal control he’d perfected where he needed no one and wanted even less.

  The quiet rumble of thunder sounded outside. Rowena jumped in her chair. The book she held sailed from her fingers and landed with a solid thwack on the table. The lady still feared the thunder. Graham briefly closed his eyes, damning the fates for that reminder. Odd, a person not only clung to the old fears that had once dogged them, but with the passage of time, acquired new ones as well. Not allowing himself to dwell on the fact that her comforts and peace of mind were no longer his affair, he shoved to his feet. Tankard in hand, he started over to the scarred, wooden table she’d clai
med.

  Rowena looked up, surprise paraded across the planes of her face.

  He jerked his chin. “May I?” he murmured, already pulling out the seat opposite her.

  She opened and closed her mouth like the trout they’d plucked from the river, searching for air. Another rumble of thunder shook the foundations of the establishment, and she hurriedly nodded.

  I fear nothing when I am with you, Graham. His lips still burned with the feel of her whispered words against them from long ago.

  Rowena dropped her gaze to her book, and he took in her bent head. Inevitably time changed them all. He’d learned that lesson most clearly on the fields of battle with his friends-in-arms shot down around him and strangers dying at his hands. Had her change to this silent, subdued woman been a slow one? Or had it been a gradual, painful death of her spirit?

  The faint marks at her throat drew his eyes and reminded him of his own transformation. “Are you all right?”

  Picking her head up, there was a flash of understanding that glinted in her brown eyes. “I am fine,” she assured him once more. Yet again, she sought to provide him an undeserved solace. He tried to reconcile that with the fickle woman who’d so quickly found another in his absence. She wet her lips. “You didn’t hurt me.”

  He gave a small, sad chuckle. “You were always a rotten liar, Rowena Endicott.”

  ...Why could my mother not be bothered to give me a second name...?

  She gave him a weak smile. “And you were always far too clever with words, Graham Marshall Francis Linford.”

  I promise our babes will have outrageously long names like yours, Graham Marshall Francis Linford.

  Their babes. Had he never gone off to fight, and had his brother never died, even now they could have a passel of children—a family of eight like they’d wished. A babe. Anything other than the meaningless, lonely life he now lived. One that would soon be filled with an equally cold wife and a requisite heir to fulfill his responsibilities to those depending on him.