Once a Wallflower, at Last His Love

by Christi Caldwell

  She bowed her head. “Your Grace.” His horse danced nervously along the riding path, whinnying its distress with the rumble of thunder.

  The duke narrowed his eyes.

  Was he displeased at that perfunctory greeting? He was a duke. Perhaps those peers a step below a prince expected more reserved greetings—even from ladies. In a park. During a storm. Without a chaperone.

  “It is a pleasure to see you again” he growled. How very odd. She’d never taken him as a powerful noble who’d do something as primitive as growl.

  Fury flared in his eyes. “What in bloody hell are you doing out in this weather, Miss Rogers?”

  An unexpected warmth unfurled in her belly. Why, he was worried about her. No one worried about her. Certainly not her father or siblings. Nor her aunt. She was the single, stable element within their broken family. But this man…

  “Miss Rogers?” he snapped.

  This man expected an answer. “Er…” But God help her. What was the reason for this planned “meeting”? Her mind raced as Mr. Werksman’s demand for a brooding duke, and her insistence on an affable duke faded with her awareness of him as a man.

  He folded his arms, drumming his fingertips along his drenched black cloak. “Has the rain addled your senses?”

  Oh, the lout. “I—I…”

  He thrust his face close, running a searching stare over her face. Hermione swallowed hard, her body thrilling with an awareness of him. She couldn’t very well say she’d orchestrated this incident, planned it out with the strictest intentions of making him her brooding duke. All words, actions and sensible thought fled. Her family’s circumstances, Father’s despondency, Elizabeth’s situation, all lifted when presented with his nearness.

  He cast his gaze about, wholly unfazed by her nearness. “And where is your chaperone? What manner of parents, aunt, guardian, or whomever is charged with supervising you allows a young woman to go off in this weather?” The furious rumble of his voice warred with the thunder for supremacy.

  Hermione bit back the truth on her tongue: deceased mothers and lax fathers made for poor guardians. “Er…I just sent her back to the carriage. I forgot something and came back for it.” Which wasn’t altogether untrue.

  He scoured her face, and the intelligent spark of his eyes bespoke a man different than any other she’d ever known. Hmm, an intelligent duke. Who knew those rare creatures existed? A thick blanket of silence stretched between them. The blistering sting of rain pelted her cheeks and pinged like a thousand pinpricks upon the river’s surface.

  If palpable outrage hadn’t stemmed from apparent concern of her well-being, she’d have been quite cross with his high-handed response. No one had been concerned about her in so very long, she’d all but forgotten the wonderful feeling of being cared after. Instead, she’d taken on the role of de facto parent and protector to her three siblings.

  Then something hot and volatile shifted in his eyes, replacing the fury and concern. He trailed his gaze downward over her person, to her very exposed, lower legs. His expression grew pained. Of course lofty dukes would even feel the pain of an icy rain. A groan escaped him.

  Had he groaned? “Are you all right?” It certainly sounded as though he had. She followed his intense focus and her cheeks blazed. Oh, my! Perhaps it was not the rain, after all.

  “Fine,” he said, his voice garbled. Hermione scrambled to shove her skirts down over her knees. Some hot, indefinable emotion blazed to life in his eyes. In spite of the rainy cold, heat climbed a path up her neck, and warmed her insides, driving back the chill, the rain-dampened garments, so all she knew and all she felt was him.

  Then the look passed. Did she merely imagine any interest in his emerald green eyes? Which surely she had because dukes did not admire rumpled, wet and graceless ladies who had the ill-sense to run around London without a chaperone, as he’d quite succinctly pointed out mere moments ago.

  “Forgive me,” he said loudly, his voice carried through the rain. “Are you hurt?”

  She strove for nonchalant miss. “I am well, Your Gr—eep.” Her words ended on a high-pitched squeak as in one fluid motion he rose and swept her into his arms.

  Her heart pounded in rhythm to the thunder, deafening with its powerful intensity. She should be thinking of the Nefarious Duke and all the many words she could now commit to the page for Mr. Werksman’s story, but for all the words she did possess, the feel of him against her, the sight of his sun-kissed gold, unfashionably long hair—a splash of light in this dark day—could never be captured for any story.

  He set her on her feet and she mourned the loss of his fleeting warmth.

  She cleared her throat. “Well, then.” She glanced past his shoulder to where her sister, brother, and maid had disappeared a short while ago. Or had it been a long while ago? Time blurred together.

  He bent and retrieved his black hat and jammed the thoroughly ruined piece atop his head then held out his elbow.

  “What are you doing?” she blurted.

  “Escorting you to your carriage.”

  Her heart kicked up a frantic beat. She touched her fingers to the fabric of his rain-dampened cloak and accepted his escort. They started the long trek to the entrance of the park. All in the name of research. Perhaps if she repeated the words as a silent litany she might come to believe it.

  “I find I’m intrigued, Miss Rogers,” he said when the empty London streets pulled into focus.

  She stole an upward glance at him as they continued walking. “And what has you so intrigued, Your Grace?” She searched for a plausible explanation as to what would send a young lady out in this raging storm.

  “Your dance card.”

  She glanced at her wrist, wrinkling her brow in search of this supposed dance card.

  “Two nights ago,” he clarified. “Throughout the night you penned notes upon your card.”

  “Oh.” Her mind whirled rapidly. “Er… I was…” What could one really say? She couldn’t very well admit, Oh, you see, I craft stories for a mere half crown and selected you as the subject of my current book. I’m merely conducting research … “I was marking down…” Nothing. She had no plausible explanation that wouldn’t make her look like an absolute ninny. She pulled back her hand. “Er…if you’ll excuse me. I see my maid.” At least the carriage, anyway. Hermione dropped a curtsy. “I thank you for your assistance.” She stepped around him.

  The duke stepped into her path, blocking escape. She sighed. Of course, a duke would not be so easily dismissed. Especially the charming ones. “Do you know it occurs to me…” He caught a rain dampened strand of hair in his fingertips and tucked it behind her ear. Her breath lodged at that innocently sensual gesture. “…you didn’t answer my question.” He lowered his head, his mouth close to hers. His breath, a delicious blend of coffee and mint, caressed her lips.

  “I didn’t?” She struggled for a single coherent thought. “I’m sure I did.” Raindrops stung her eyes and she blinked them back.

  With a gloved finger he collected a bead of rain before it trailed into her eyes. “Oh, no, I’m sure you didn’t.” How could a voice sound both seductive and stern? “Furthermore, it doesn’t escape my notice the unusualness in you, a lady being out in this weather, Miss Rogers.” His penetrating stare yanked her from the spell he’d cast.

  With his questioning words, she sank into her only opening to freedom. Gasping, she stepped back with feigned indignation. “You dare question my honor as a lady!”

  His eyes went wide. “I—”

  She wagged a finger. “How very ungentlemanly of you, Your Grace.” Hermione dropped a hasty curtsy. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I shan’t tolerate such disrespect.” With that pathetic farcical drama she sprinted toward her carriage, feeling more than a bit guilty at the unfair charges she’d leveled at him. A lady must do what a lady must. Especially author ladies concealing their craft. The damp soles of her slippers slid across the wet grass and she threw her arms out to steady herself. All th
e while a pinprick of awareness pierced her neck and she stole a quick glance back.

  The Duke of Mallen remained rooted to the spot. He beat his hand against his sculpted thigh, a bemused glint in his eyes as he followed her flight.

  Hermione swung her gaze forward. She’d never before been accused of cowardice, but something of his presence, an unexplainable aura that had nothing to do with his title and everything to do with him teased her and worse reminded her why young ladies did foolish things and tossed away their reputations all for the pleasure of a man. It would seem she, practical and plain Hermione Rogers, was not immune to the lure of a charming, too-handsome nobleman. But then, Sebastian was no mere nobleman. Hermione groaned, humbled by the depth of her own weakness.

  She approached her carriage. The driver hopped down from the box and tugged the door open. He handed her inside, and then closed the door behind her.

  “Papa will be most displeased,” Addie lamented, taking a single look at a bedraggled Hermione.

  She gave her sister a wan smile. “I’m sure he will.” The lie came easily. Poor Addie still operated under the grand illusion Papa noticed his children.

  “I don’t think he’ll even notice,” her brother grumbled.

  She gave Hugh a pointed look. His lips settled into a mutinous line, but he fell silent.

  As the carriage rocked forward, Addie launched into a flurry of conversation about the rain and the sheer beauty of the crystal droplets—ever a hopeless romantic. Hermione tugged at the curtain and peered outside. Her heart thudded wildly at the duke’s retreating frame, her gaze fixed until he became nothing more than a dot upon the dreary, stormy horizon.

  The memory of his fathomless green eyes trained on her exposed leg filled her, drowning out her sister and brother’s bickering, the outward chill, her maid’s annoyance. In that moment, he’d looked at her as though she was not simply plain, too-thin Hermione Rogers, but rather as an object of beauty. The implausibility of a duke expressing any interest in a lady of lesser nobility was best reserved for the pages of her books. Except, he’d noticed her today, and by his own account, two nights ago when he’d said…

  The curtain slipped from her fingers and fluttered into place.

  When he’d said…

  Throughout the evening, you made notes upon your dance card…

  Which meant he’d observed her mark her card not once, but numerous times. In her haste to be rid of him a short while ago and spare herself the embarrassment of revealing the truth, she’d fled. Hermione adjusted her cloak. Except, only now did she realize the duke had acknowledged to studying her throughout the evening.

  Which really should have very little bearing on the role that he would serve in her life. Yet, somehow it mattered. Even as she knew the perils in such a thing mattering. Her fingers ached with the need for a pencil so she might commit these confounded emotions to paper. Perhaps all her heroines had it all wrong…

  C

  hapter 9

  For a man concerned with an early death, Sebastian reckoned he really should have more of a care than to stand in the middle of Hyde Park in the midst of a deluge, but by God he’d been expertly handled…by a slip of a young lady, no less. Lightning cracked across the blackened sky, and when presented with the new possibility of dying by lightning strike, he managed to at last set aside his fixed interest in the suspicious Hermione Rogers.

  Sebastian trudged through the rainy grounds of Hyde Park, hoping his faithful, if skittish, horse had not abandoned him to his own devices. The wind kicked up and slapped his cheeks with stinging drops of rain. All the while, Miss Hermione Rogers and her lean limbs exposed to the cool air clung to his mind with an annoying tenacity, the one bit of warmth on this dismal day.

  With one stumble and an accidental lifting of skirts, the young lady, once plain, was, well…no longer plain. Instead, she was a young woman with impossibly lithe legs that conjured all manner of wicked thoughts, all of which involved those lithe limbs wrapped about a man’s waist.

  He doffed his useless, hopelessly ruined hat and beat it against his leg. What manner of woman embarked out on this infernal day on her own? Likely the same woman seated at the edge of an evening’s festivities, penning notes upon her dance card. He’d be daft as old King George himself to not realize there was certainly more to the mysterious young lady. Having avoided far too many parson’s traps these years, he knew better than to feed into this dangerous, insatiable curiosity of the lady’s goings-on. Or, he should know better, anyway.

  The nervous whinny of his horse penetrated his musings, and he wandered to the edge of the walking path. Bolt danced back and forth.

  “Easy, boy,” he murmured, gentling the fractious creature. The giant, black stallion tossed its head back, and his silken mane sent drops flying. Sebastian claimed the reins. “Hardly fair to require you to come out in this all to avoid my sister and mother’s matchmaking.” He patted Bolt’s withers.

  The faithful horse whinnied his agreement. Sebastian placed his foot in the stirrup and swung his leg over the mount. With a little nudge of his knees, he urged the horse forward, and gave him some much deserved freedom. He streaked through the lush, empty grounds of Hyde Park, stretching his strides. Wind and rain whipped at Sebastian’s face and he embraced the invigorating cold upon his skin.

  He guided his horse through the empty London streets, on toward his townhouse in Grosvenor Square. The old, faithful servant, Carmichael, who’d been with his family since his youth stood at the entrance—the man always had an uncanny ability to know when someone approached the front door. Sebastian dismounted. He tossed the reins to a waiting footman and bounded up the steps where he shrugged out of his drenched cloak then handed it as well as his ruined hat to the butler.

  “Your Grace,” Carmichael greeted.

  “Is she…?” Sebastian glanced around.

  “The Marchioness of Drake left only a short while ago,” the older man replied, a twinkle in his old eyes.

  “And my mother?” he asked, starting for the stairs.

  “Has gone out, Your Grace.”

  Sebastian took the stairs two at a time. His wet Hessians left a sopping trail of moisture in his wake. He reached the main landing and strode down the hall, pausing when he reached his chambers. Drawing a deep breath, he pressed the handle and entered his rooms, closing the door behind him, expelling the breath in a long sigh.

  In the privacy of his room, he allowed himself to consider the dubious Miss Hermione Rogers. He’d been accused of many things in his life. Ducal bore—by his sister. Pompous duke—by his brother-in-law. No one, however, had accused him of being a lack-wit. And he would have to be a total lack-wit if he did not acknowledge Hermione’s dubious behavior.

  He tugged free his cravat and tossed it to the floor. Young ladies did not go sneaking off in their host’s home in the midst of a ball and rifle through the gentleman’s personal desk. Nor did young ladies dash notes upon their dance cards. And they certainly didn’t go out unchaperoned, for a walk in Hyde Park on a day when the birds themselves had sense enough to stay sheltered. He shrugged out of his jacket. It joined the cravat in an ignoble heap then he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside.

  Who was this Miss Hermione Rogers, other than Lady Pemberly’s niece, who should arrive mid-Season? Of course, it was more likely there was nothing at all amiss with the young woman’s peculiar behaviors. He’d never been one with an overactive imagination but if he did, he’d have said Hermione was orchestrating their meetings, as evinced by the manner in which she studied him, intelligent eyes, committing his every detail to memory. He could have his solicitor make inquiries about the lady…

  Sebastian shoved back the idea as quickly as it had come. He’d not be reduced to subterfuge. Furthermore, those sapphire depths didn’t glitter with greed nor had she rained false compliments upon him. Rather, she’d met him in Denley’s office and Hyde Park with the same, proud, bold challenge flaring in her eyes, his title as d
uke be damned.

  Sebastian strode over to his armoire. No one truly took the time to learn his interests or desires beyond how it pertained to the damned title. Certainly not his father, the man who’d molded him. And what was more…Sebastian wanted to know about the woman Hermione, herself.

  The door opened. His valet slipped inside and Sebastian gave silent thanks for the interruption that stopped the flow of his confounded thoughts. The servant cast a forlorn glance at the rumpled attire and then moved with a purposeful march Wellington himself would have been proud of, past Sebastian, over to the armoire. He pulled the doors wide and pulled out each necessary piece, one at a time.

  Wordlessly Sebastian allowed himself to be dressed into comfortably dry garments. How did a gentleman learn about a young lady? He furrowed his brow. Even with his fascination of Hermione he’d not engage gossiping servants or resort to the scandal sheets. Nor could he obtain information about the young lady without rousing the ton’s suspicions. Waxham hadn’t known of her or about her. Sophie and Emmaline and his mother would interpret his interest as that of a romantic kind.

  Which it was not.

  Assuredly not. He appreciated his women with voluptuous forms and blonde hair and….

  Yet, as Sebastian accepted a jacket from Winston and pulled it on, he recognized there was something also quite pleasing in slender, lithe limbs and narrow waists. An unwitting grin pulled at his lips. There was also something to be said for a spirited lady undaunted by his title.

  He stared at the door a long moment. Perhaps, the best way in which to discover the secrets of Miss Hermione Rogers was not through friends, family, or gossip. His lips turned up in a slow smile. Perhaps it was in spending time with the lady herself, solely for research purposes, of course. After all, it begged an answer as to why a woman not at all his type had so captivated him…

  Seated upon the frayed red sofa, Hermione sifted through the ink-marked pages and absently stared at them. She tapped a finger against the top of one sheet. They really should be numbered. That way when her sister inevitably sneaked into her rooms and read through the pages, Hermione would have some semblance of the order of her plot.