Her breath caught. Attired in immaculate black breeches and an equally midnight coat, the snowy white cravat, loosely folded, hinted at a gentleman who didn’t give a jot about time or whether that measurement stopped altogether. Cedric did a quick sweep of the room, before his gaze ultimately landed on her. The heat of his eyes threatened to bore through her. Why was he here? Why, when by Francesca’s own admission he was a man to studiously avoid polite affairs?
“Lord St. Albans,” Lady Erroll called out eagerly. “You are late, my boy.”
“Forgive me, madam,” he returned with his usual charming half-grin. “I was recently given a valuable lesson on punctuality, so you must forgive me.” He directed those words to Genevieve.
“It seems you might benefit from another,” she said, chortling at her own jest, while the other guests laughed about her.
“Indeed, madam.” He slid his gaze briefly to Genevieve once more. “It is a lesson I’d very much welcome, too.”
Her skin burned hot and not at his slight teasing but rather the remembered feel of his hands on her person, the masculine scent of him.
Their hostess thumped the table. “Prepare a spot at the head for Lord St. Albans,” she instructed a footman. “Not every day I have a duke and a future duke at my table.” She chortled. Within moments, a setting had been laid, and a servant showed him to his respective seat, on a slight diagonal from where Genevieve sat…beside, Gillian and an unfamiliar lady.
Ever charming as only a rake could be, he politely engaged the young woman beside him. An unwelcome, unwanted, and decidedly unpleasant sentiment ripped through Genevieve. Something that felt very nearly like jealousy, and…an unfair anger that he should be so casual and calm while she’d been plopped alongside her bloody former betrothed.
Cedric looked her way and her cheeks warmed at being caught studying him. As indecent as it was to hold his eyes from across the table, his powerful stare locked with hers. Did he remember their kiss even now? Was he thinking of their talks of art and…? He inclined his head in a polite, perfunctory manner and then with an infuriating calm, turned his attention to the guest at his opposite side. Gillian.
An ugly jealousy unfurled within her. It tightened the muscles of her stomach and curled her toes until her feet ached, as the pair so easily conversed. For gentlemen like the Marquess of St. Albans assuredly did not wed…until they had to and when they did, they invariably married those bright-eyed, optimistic ladies like her ethereal sister and not said lady’s long in the tooth, too pale sister with a fiery scandal to match her strawberry tresses.
Genevieve had convinced herself all these years that she was content with the practical life devoid of emotional connections. She’d convinced herself that she’d become a practical, logical, sensible woman; a woman well past the bloom of her first blush, content to sketch and pour over her books of art. Only to be proven a liar before the same Society who’d cast her out.
She wanted so much more.
Things she would never have. A family, an art room of her own, a garden with which to tend…
“I want you still.”
A dull humming filled her ears and she slowly turned her head. “I beg your pardon.” Surely she’d imagined the duke’s words. Surely he was not so very brazen, so bloody arrogant that he’d—
“My circumstances were dire and your finances were not enough.” The duke spoke with the same boredom he might in discussing the weather. She sat numb. That is why he’d jilted her? For a fatter purse? Not for anything beyond the material. He’d ruined her life because of his craving and need for wealth. She curled her fingers tight about her spoon to still their tremble, all the while wanting to rake her nails over his face.
“I never stopped wanting you, Genevieve.” He spoke the way he might praise a worthy mount and she gritted her teeth. The duke leaned close. “And there is no reason we cannot still be together,” he whispered and slid his hand under the table.
She froze as with his large, gloved hand he squeezed her thigh ringing an outraged gasp from her lips. The spoon slipped from her fingers, clattering noisily upon the rim of the porcelain bowl. At the peculiar looks thrown her way, she swiftly smoothed her features. It wouldn’t do to be discovered with the venerable Duke of Aumere with his hand caressing her leg. Of course, she’d be the one to blame for encouraging him so. Fighting to quell the fury sucking at her rational thoughts, she discreetly placed her hand on her lap and made to move His Grace’s fingers, but he retained his hold.
“It could be so wonderful between us, sweetheart.” His stale, wine-scented breath slapped her cheek.
“I’ve instructed you once. Do not call me sweetheart” With unsteady fingers, she grabbed her glass. Water droplets splashed over the crystal rim. “Remove your hand, Your Grace,” she said using her goblet to shield her lips.
He responded by moving his hand higher, sliding his fingers between the juncture of her thighs, bunching the fabric in a noisy manner. She froze as a thick curtain of rage descended over her vision, momentary blinding. How dare he disparage her name with his lies and now sully her with his indecent touch? Suddenly, the hatred she’d carried for him and the cold world in which they dwelled snapped. With a hiss, Genevieve hurled the contents of her glass in his face, gleefully relishing the way he choked and sputtered.
Gasps went up about the table. The sound faintly dulled by the rasp of her own frantic breathing.
Those loose chestnut strands, hung limp over the duke’s brow, as His Grace sat immobile, water dripping from his face.
Oh, God.
Reality pulled back the earlier rage and hatred, leaving in its place, a slow-building horror. The collection of guests, Genevieve included, watched in stupefied shock as the duke dabbed at his face with the crisp fabric of his dining napkin and then as one, the entire table looked to her.
Francesca with pride and encouragement.
Gillian with her usual gentle concern.
Her gaze collided briefly with Cedric’s thickly hooded lashes and unable to meet his stare, she fixed on but two pairs of enraged eyes. A mottled flush marred her parents’ equally fleshy cheeks. Wordlessly, she shoved back her chair, rose to her feet, and then walked from the room with her head held high.
Her father’s warning to “Attract No Notice” blared in her mind as she made her undignified march away.
Chapter 11
Not for the first time, in the course of the same week Cedric found himself remarkably…awake before the noon hour. And more remarkably—alert.
Seated at the breakfast table with his steaming black coffee at hand and his plate untouched, Cedric scanned the front of The Times.
In another shameful scandal, Lady GF, the elder amidst Lady Erroll’s esteemed guests gathered to dine, dumped her bowl of white soup on the Duke of A’s lap. The lady’s actions speak to her fury at having been denied the distinguished title of Duchess.
It is also said…
Cedric tossed the paper down beside him, where it landed with a fluttery thump. The whole of the ton had even less sense than he’d credited them over the years, which was saying a good deal. The closest to truth that had existed on the page was that white soup had, in fact, been served. Beyond that, however, the sheets contained nothing more than fabricated truths, manipulated by the lords and ladies who’d been in attendance, and churned out by a paper to spread through respectable households.
He grabbed his coffee and blew on the steaming brew. Though, in his estimation, the lady’s magnificent show with her glass of water had been too splendid for the papers to fail to properly report the detail. Before humiliation had burned her cheeks, there had been fire. It had lit her eyes ablaze and spoke of the passion he’d already tasted in her kiss.
What had precipitated that display? Did Genevieve, in fact, harbor sentiments for that fop, Aumere? He frowned over the top of his glass. Surely the thoughtful, spirited creature he’d met in the park had more sense to have any affection for one such as Aumere?
His mouth tightened reflexively and he forced his lips to relax. It hardly mattered whether the lady wanted to tup Aumere or Prinny himself, or any gentleman. What did, however, matter was that very public display and her rushed departure…and his own father’s recent threats.
For with the sole reason he’d accepted an invitation to Erroll’s deucedly dull affair gone, and a scandal left in her wake, Cedric had sat, grinning at the appropriate moments and adding a charming repartee as needed. All the while, his mind had worked through the implications of Genevieve’s actions…and what that could, nay, would mean for him. After years of swearing to never wed and propagate the Falcot line, his hand had been suitably forced. Really, forced through his own recklessness these years with funds left him by his mother. Where the prospect of wedding a proper, demure lady caused his palms to dampen and his gut to churn, following Genevieve’s breathtaking display, the earlier seed planted by Montfort had grown. And following his departure of that infernal-after-she’d-left affair, the seed had continued to grow.
He required a wife. However, he’d little interest in a proper miss who was expecting babes and a bucolic tableau of marital affection and pretend bliss. What Cedric required was…a wife. Nothing more. Nothing less. What woman, however, would give up the dream of a family and be content with a rake for a husband, living a life where they each carried on their own, very separate existences. Until just this week, he’d have said such a paragon did not exist.
Then Lady Genevieve had stolen into his father’s library.
Now he knew that paragon was, indeed, real. A slow grin formed on his lips and he took a long swallow of his drink. Setting his glass down hard beside him, he grabbed the scandal sheet once more. Working his gaze over the page, he quickly found her name; bold and dark and so very damning.
With two scandals now tied to the lady’s name, not a single, respectable gentleman would offer Genevieve Farendale his name. Fortunately for the lady, the last thing he wanted, desired, or needed was respectability.
But what about what Genevieve desires?
A frown drove away his smile. Beyond the physical gratification he was sure each woman who warmed his bed knew in his arms, he’d never been one to think of a lady’s desires beyond that. Those creatures had all been the same. They craved wealth and title and expensive baubles.
His gaze remained trained on Genevieve’s name. For in just a handful of meetings, the lady had proven herself remarkably unlike all others. From the skirts she wore, to her loathing for those lofty titles, and her desire for solitary time in the garden of Hyde Park, she did not fit with what he knew of ladies of the ton. Yet, everyone wanted something. What did she want? And more, how difficult would it be to convince the lady who’d been shunned and shamed by Society that she could find freedom from all that censure?
Loathe the title as she might for the perceived attention it would bring, as a future duchess, she could move freely, just for the rank afforded her.
Footsteps sounded in the hall and he looked up expectantly at his butler in the entrance.
“Your mount has been readied, my lord.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgement and as the other man turned on his heel, Cedric remained rooted to his chair. For despite his efforts to convince himself of the logic in offering for a lady who had very few options in the marriage market, and his own need of a bride, his insides twisted in vicious knots at the prospect of forever binding himself to a single person. His parents’ union had been a publically miserable one and, given his own similarities to his sire, he could never be a devoted, respectable husband.
But mayhap, given Genevieve’s circumstances, that would not matter to the lady. Mayhap, if they both entered into the match with reason and logic, recognizing it as a business arrangement and nothing more, then the misery he’d witnessed in his own mother before she’d left him to her husband’s efforts would be avoided altogether.
Cedric tapped the rim of his nearly empty glass, distractedly. If he went into the union with the terms clearly laid out, spelled in such a way that the match was mutually beneficial to the both of them, then there would be no worry over entangled hearts or future babes or…well, anything that surely mattered to most women. All matters he wanted no part of. His lips pulled in a grimace.
Except, laying it out in a cold, perfunctory manner, he was forced to recognize that what he would offer to Genevieve Farendale was hardly the romantic match craved by whimsical chits. And make no doubt, for the lady’s clearheaded words and logic in his presence, one who stole into the gardens of Hyde Park and sketched in the privacy of her own company was possessed of a whimsical fancy.
Even with that, she was still the logical choice. They got on well in one another’s company; like friends, if there was ever such a thing as a gentleman forming a friendship with a young lady. She had her heart broken before and no doubt wished to avoid that likelihood again, at all costs. And, of course, the very obvious fact being they both required a spouse.
Fueled by that, Cedric finished his nearly cool coffee and set the glass down hard. He shoved back his chair and before he proceeded to create a list of all the folly in his intentions for the day, he started for the door. As he strode through the crimson-carpeted halls, he took in the scandalous portraits hanging on the walls and the dark, heavy furniture best suiting a bachelor’s residence. The possibility of sharing these rooms with a young lady sent terror churning in his belly.
It will be nothing more than a business arrangement…a convenient arrangement made only sweeter by the desire raging between them.
And that was, of course, assuming the lady said yes. Given Genevieve’s wariness around him and her own past, she was wiser than most women and knew better than to wed a rake. Of course, the lady surely knew by now he could show her more pleasure than she’d ever known her body capable of.
Cedric reached the foyer and accepted the cloak from his waiting butler and then his hat. As Avis hurried over and pulled the door open, Cedric stalled. The moment he stepped through that front door and inside the Marquess of Ellsworth’s townhouse, he’d be abandoning a lifelong pledge he’d taken to thwart his father’s wishes for him. Not truly, a voice reassured at the back of his head. There would still never be that coveted heir and a spare to secure the line. Instead, it would carry on through a distant relative his father disapproved of. Fueled by that assurance, Cedric jammed his black Oxonian on his head, and before his courage deserted him, strode over to the front door and stepped outside.
Having convinced himself of this madness, all that remained was bringing Genevieve Farendale around to his way of thinking.
Chapter 12
Seated on the floor of the nursery room with her sketchpad on her lap Genevieve let her fingers fly over the page. With each slash and stroke of the charcoal, the frustration and rage and restlessness rose to the surface.
Bloody bastards.
Her frantic movements sent a curl tumbling over her brow and she blew it back, not pausing to brush it back. All of them. Her loathsome, former betrothed, who’d so disrespect her. Her father who would hold her to blame. Her mother who would let him hold her to blame. Every last one of them, along with Lady Erroll and her guests could go to the devil.
The charcoal scratched noisily upon the page, as the half-grinning gentleman’s face materialized upon the sheet, revealing the charming, roguish, and, importantly, distracting Cedric Falcot, Marquess of St. Albans.
She bent her head, concentrating on the thick strands of his tousled hair. She had always loved charcoal and, in this moment, hated it for its failure to capture the thickened golden hue of sunshine and barley fields. At last, Genevieve paused and assessed the partially completed sketch of the gentleman as he’d been last evening. Seated beside her sister. He’d been the only guest at Lady Erroll’s who’d not had horror or glee stamped on his face. Instead, there had been that inscrutable expression; an almost nonchalant air of a person so thoroughly bored by it all. Society
. The gossip. The falsities. And there was something so very riveting, so captivating, in that. For in a moment of another public shame, there had been someone who’d not looked at her with pity or scorn.
A faint click cut into her musings and she glanced up suddenly.
Gillian closed the door. Unlike all the previous times since Genevieve’s return when she hovered uncertainly, this time she closed the door without request. “I thought I might find you here.”
Yes, because even for the four years of age separation between them, they’d once been the best of friends. Hadn’t her younger sister found her here before all others on the night of her wedding? With an absolute want for words, she said, “Hello, Gillian.” For what else was there to talk about?
Her sister strolled forward and in one effortless move, sank to the floor in a flurry of white skirts. They settled about her, as she dragged her legs close to her chest in a way that would have sent their mother into a fit of vapors. “Father has…” Her words trailed off and, belatedly, Genevieve followed her gaze downward.
Heat streaked across her cheeks as she quickly snapped the damning sketchpad closed. As much as she loved Gillian and had only called her friend, there was something too intimate, too personal, in sharing her unwitting fascination with the Marquess of St. Albans.
Thankfully, her sister continued and let the matter go unsaid. “Father sent your maid looking for you.”
She sighed. “Of course he did.” Just as she’d been unable to hide forever all those years ago, now was no exception. Ultimately she was located, summoned, and brought before her father—the arbiter and executioner of her fate.
Gillian rubbed her chin back and forth over her ruffled skirts. “Do you care to talk about it?” she asked tentatively.
Genevieve stilled, horribly motionless. Exposed by her sister’s discovery and then…
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 42
