That thought brought an unconscious frown to his brow. The prospect of Emily as his wife suddenly seemed as unappetizing as subsisting on gruel when he might have enjoyed a feast. Yet, he was committed to her in spirit if not in fact, and the Duke of Westleigh never backed away from his commitments.
Jerome sought refuge in the rose garden. A high hedge encircled it, hiding its occupants from the view of anyone in the house. As he stepped into it, he was startled to discover Lord Felix, resplendent in purple satin coat and breeches and an extravagantly plumed hat of the same colour, pacing among the bushes, practicing a speech. The fop was, he explained to Jerome, rehearsing the offer he intended to make that very night to Lady Rachel for her hand in marriage.
Her revulsion for Felix was so obvious that Jerome was astonished the fool would consider doing so. Nor did Lord Felix look to Jerome like a man whose heart, if indeed he had one beneath all that lace and satin and embroidery, was engaged.
The duke asked bluntly, “Why are you offering for her?”
Felix looked at him as though he were daft “Your Grace has but to look at her. There is no more beautiful woman. I defy you to name one.”
Jerome could not.
“I have her aunt and uncle’s blessings,” Felix confided. “Asking her is a mere formality”
Jerome doubted Rachel would regard it in that light.
“Want to do it right though,” Felix said. “That is why I wrote out my offer and memorized it. My tongue tends to mix things up when I am nervous.”
“If your offer to her is a mere formality why should you be nervous?”
“Can’t help but be. Never proposed to a woman before. Never met one beautiful enough to make me want to. Let me rehearse it for you, and you can tell me what you think.”
Jerome steeled himself for a long and flowery declaration.
With a great flourish, Felix swept his plumed hat from his head and, bringing it against his chest, made an extravagant bow, then intoned, “Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife? You—you—” He stumbled and looked hastily down at the sheet in his hand to prompt himself, then continued, “You will make me the happiest of men.”
He looked expectantly at Jerome.
“Is that all?”
“Yes, is it not eloquent?”
“Original, too,” Jerome said dryly.
A worried frown creased Felix’s forehead. “Perhaps I should make it a question: ‘Will you make me the happiest of men?’ ‘Tis the sort of thing a woman remembers all her life. You know what foolish, romantic creatures they are. One wants to say just the right thing.”
Felix looked down at his pristine silk stockings, and his frown deepened. “I know I should get down on bent knee to propose, but I cannot tolerate smudging my stockings. Surely Lady Rachel would not expect that of me.”
“What if she refuses your offer?”
“Refuse me?” Clearly the possibility had never occurred to Lord Felix. “Ridiculous. Lady Rachel is no fool.” His voice rose indignantly. “She will be overjoyed by an offer from me. How can you think she would refuse me? She is very intelligent for a woman.”
Jerome forbore telling him that was precisely why he thought she would.
Rachel stared with affronted eyes at Lord Felix when he presented himself to her before dinner. His purple satin coat was extravagantly decorated with gold embroidery and braid, and he reeked of musk. She feared she would soon suffer the overpowering urge to sneeze.
Fortunately, Aunt Sophia came up at that moment and greeted Felix. Rachel slipped away to join her Uncle Alfred, who was talking to the duke and Squire Archer’s wife who had been invited to dinner.
Uncle Alfred asked, “Did you hear that Lucinda Quincy was married today?”
Rachel was very fond of Lucinda, a sweet, shy heiress of sixteen who lived with her guardian a league to the west of Wingate Hall, and she exclaimed in surprise, “Married to whom? She was not even betrothed.”
‘Phillip Rutledge.”
Rachel was so shocked that she cried, “Surely not! Lucinda despises Rutledge!” Her voice, raised in distress, drew her aunt’s frowning attention and she came over to them.
“Lucinda would never marry him,” Rachel protested. “The slimy toad is naught but a ne’er-do-well fortune hunter.”
Aunt Sophia said coldly, “Then the silly chit should not have spent the night with him. Once an unwed girl has done so, she must marry the man or she is ruined.”
“I cannot believe that Lucinda would have gone anywhere with Rutledge,” Rachel cried. “Why, she cannot abide him.”
“She did not go with him willingly,” Mrs. Archer said. “He abducted her by force and took her to an inn so that she would have to marry him. He knew full well that she would never wed him otherwise.”
“The circumstances are immaterial,” Sophia said coldly. “All that matters is she spent the night with him and so had to marry him.”
Incensed at the injustice of that, Rachel cried, “Lucinda is the one who was wronged! Why should she have had to marry Rutledge when he forced her to go with him against her will? Why was she punished for what he did to her? It is grossly unfair!”
Beside her, the duke said softly, “Yes, it is, but unfortunately, Lady Rachel, life is rarely fair.”
Her heart skipped at his closeness. “Has life been unfair to you, Your Grace?” she inquired archly.
His mouth quirked wryly. “No, it has been more than fair to me, but few are as lucky as I am.”
Rachel was impressed by his acceptance of his place in life as the stroke of good fortune it was, not merely his entitlement. But before she could pursue the conversation, he turned away. The more she discovered about the duke, the more enamoured of him she became. If only he could reciprocate her affection.
As the Wingates and their guests went into the drawing room after dinner, the duke slipped away.
“Rachel, dear girl,” Aunt Sophia said, “Lord Felix is a great admirer of harpsichord music.”
Rachel had learned to be on her guard whenever Sophia called her dear girl in that sugary tone.
“Pray take him into the music room and demonstrate our harpsichord’s fine tone to him.”
Rachel would rather walk over hot coals barefoot than be alone with Felix, but she knew that it was hopeless to protest against something that Sophia wanted.
As Rachel led Felix from the drawing room, she was perplexed to see him put on his wide-brimmed, extravagantly plumed hat, and she explained, “We do not go outside, my lord; the music room is but a few steps down the hall.”
It was his turn to look perplexed. “Did not think we did.”
Maxi trotted into the music room behind them. Rachel went directly to the harpsichord. She was lifting the cover over the keyboard when behind her, Lord Felix cried, “Lady Rachel.”
Alarmed by his strangled tone, she let the cover drop and whirled around. “What is it?”
He had come up very close to her, trapping her against the harpsichord bench. He reeked of musk, and it had its inevitable effect on her. Fighting to keep from sneezing, she leaned backward as far as she could over the instrument.
Lord Felix opened and closed his mouth several times with no sound issuing from it. He had the unnerved look of a man who was frantically trying to remember what he intended to say.
Finally, it seemed to come to him. With an extravagant flourish, he swept his plumed chapeau from his head. Unfortunately, he was standing so close to her that its plume struck her in the face. She stepped back, trying to avoid it, and tripped over the bench behind her. Unable to recover her balance, she sat down hard upon it.
Lord Felix, oblivious to what he had done, made her a low bow, straightened, and announced in dramatic, if somewhat rattled, accents, “I will do you the honour of making you my wife.”
Rachel stared up at him in kindling outrage.
“I will make you the happiest of women,” he concluded, then muttered under his breath, “There, by God, I have
said it all.”
Revolted, Rachel choked back her yearning to tell him that, to the contrary, he would make her the most miserable of women. She realized with a sinking heart that the battle lines would be drawn now between her and Sophia. But no matter what her aunt did, Rachel would not marry this insufferable fop. She said with icy politeness. “It is an honour, my lord, that I refuse.”
He was paying her no heed. Just as the insufferable prig would pay her and her wishes no heed once they were married! Instead he leaned down so that his face was no more than three inches from hers. “We shall be married in London, in St. Paul’s Cathedral.”
The smell of musk was too much for Rachel’s affronted senses. The sneeze she had been trying to suppress exploded.
Insensible to her discomfort, he continued, “Ours will be the wedding of the decade, perhaps of the century.”
Rachel could not stop sneezing.
Maxi, displaying more perspicacity than Lord Felix, recognized he was annoying his mistress. The terrier launched himself with a fierce growl at Lord Felix, attacking his ankle.
His lordship, more surprised than hurt by the terrier’s nipping, reeled back from Rachel. With his unencumbered foot, he aimed a brutal kick at the fluffy little silver dog. Maxi yelped in pain as he was propelled across the room by the force of the impact.
Felix yelled, “I’ll kill you, you miserable beast.”
Maxi scuttled out of the room, whimpering.
Rachel, appalled and sickened by Felix’s vicious, unwarranted treatment of her dog, jumped up from the bench, torn between wanting to follow Maxi to ascertain that he was all right and wanting to rip the enormous plume from Felix’s hat and throttle him with it.
She opted to go after her terrier, but Felix grabbed her arms in a surprisingly strong grip.
“How could you kick a poor little dog like that?” she demanded in revulsion and disgust.
“Poor little dog!” he squeaked. “That vicious beast attacked me.”
“You are the beast!” Rachel jerked free of his grasp. In a voice seething with anger and loathing, she said, “I would never marry you. Never. Nothing on earth will ever force me to marry you, Lord Felix. I trust I make myself clear.”
She brushed past him and ran into the hall. Maxi had vanished. Listening, she heard quiet whimpering and a deep, soothing human voice coming from a small anteroom across from the music room.
Rushing into it, she stopped abruptly at the sight of Maxi in the duke’s arms.
“What’s the matter, little fella?” he inquired. His voice, as soft as velvet, sent a tremor of pleasure through Rachel. His long, lean hand stroked the injured dog comfortingly.
The terrier whimpered again, and Jerome continued to soothe him with gentle murmurs and skilful fingers.
“Is Maxi all right?” Rachel asked.
“What happened to him?”
“Lord Felix kicked him across the room.”
The duke looked appalled. “Bastard! Why?” He sat down and, holding the dog on his lap, began to examine him gently with his hands.
“Maxi was trying to protect me from Felix’s unwanted attentions.”
The duke touched a spot over the terrier’s ribs. Maxi yelped in pain.
“Sorry, little fella,” he said as his hands concentrated on that area. “I have to do this.”
Rachel watched his graceful fingers gently probe Maxi. How different he was from Lord Felix. Behind his ducal hauteur was a kind, gentle man, and he did not shirk his responsibilities. He believed, as she did, that his inheritance brought with it duty as well as privilege. He was not spoiled and weak like Felix or feckless like her brother Stephen.
And he was the most exciting man she had ever met. No other man had ever had the effect on her that he did, turning her to pudding.
He finished his careful examination of Maxi and looked up at Rachel. “He appears to be suffering nothing more than bruised ribs.”
“Thank God,” she said, gathering her terrier up in her arms.
“Am I to understand that Lord Felix has just made you a most flattering offer?”
“Flattering? Flattering!” Rachel’s cheeks reddened with anger. “Do you know what he said to me?”
Amusement gleamed in the duke’s cyan eyes. “He asked you to do him the honour of becoming his wife.”
“He asked me nothing! He told me, ‘I will do you the honour of making you my wife.’ It is not funny!” she cried indignantly. “How can you laugh?”
“I am persuaded his tongue got a little twisted.”
“It was what he thought in his heart,” Rachel cried, unmollified. “The insufferable coxcomb.”
“Only think,” the duke said gravely, although his lips were twitching, “you may have broken his heart with your rejection.”
“His pride perhaps, but not his heart. I do not flatter myself that Felix has the smallest affection for me. I know better than that. There is no room in his heart for anyone but himself. I am merely another ornament to adorn his consequence.”
Jerome regarded her quizzically. “You do not think he entertains a great passion for you?”
“His only great passion is for collecting things,” Rachel said with asperity “I am another pretty object for him to acquire like his watercolours and his sculptures and his porcelain vases. I would merely be one more of his possessions.”
The sudden admiration for her in the duke’s eyes was unmistakable. And something else was there, something deep and warm that made her blood race.
He bent toward her slowly, almost as though he were being drawn to her by a power beyond his will to resist. He was going to kiss her. Maxi was still in her arms, and she wished she had had the foresight to put him down. Jerome’s mouth descended purposefully toward hers. She yearned for his lips on hers. Her heart was thudding like a wild thing.
In a moment of shattering insight, Rachel realized that she had fallen in love with him.
She remembered once asking her mother how she would know if she met a man with whom she could find the kind of deep and satisfying love that her parents had. Mama had said that she would know when it happened. Rachel had been sceptical, but now she saw that Mama had been right.
And the duke was that man.
When his lips were a scant inch from hers, he froze. To Rachel’s startled dismay, his brilliant blue eyes turned hard and gray. He stepped hastily back. Mumbling something about getting back to the drawing room, he left her.
Sadly, Rachel watched his retreat. Foolish man. Could he not see that they belonged together?
No, he could not! Mama had warned her that often even the most astute of men could be quite stupid when it came to recognizing what would make them happy, and they had to be nudged down the right path. Mama confessed that she had to do that even with Papa, wise as he was.
Except Rachel did not have the foggiest notion of how she was to do that with the duke.
Eleanor’s warning echoed in her memory: You have picked a most elusive quarry. Every beauty in London will tell you that.
If only Mama were here to advise her. Rachel cursed herself for not having had the foresight to ask Mama what she had done to persuade Papa to wed her.
Rachel had to find a way to get the duke to marry her. Not only was he her one hope of escaping Felix, but Jerome was her destiny. She was not going to let it pass her by, no matter what she had to do.
Chapter 11
Unable to sleep, his thoughts haunted by a pair of brilliant violet eyes, Jerome slipped down the stairs of the darkened house, intent on finding a book to read in the library
He thought of what Rachel had said about Felix regarding her as another pretty object for his collection. She had the right of it, Jerome thought admiringly. It surprised him how wise beyond her years she was in judging people. Those violet eyes saw so much.
He smiled at the memory of how lovely she had looked as she had sputtered out her indignation over Felix’s botched offer.
He had been unab
le to resist her beguiling mouth. As he had leaned forward to kiss her, breathing deeply of her scent of lavender and roses, he had been struck by the thought that no woman since Cleo had had such an effect on him.
Cleo. He had frozen at the memory of that perfidious bitch.
It had brought him to his senses. Much as Jerome wanted Lady Rachel, he would not make her his wife. Bedazzled as he was, he had not taken entire leave of his sanity.
So the only way he could have her was as his mistress. And that was out of the question. Not even a duke could make the innocent daughter of an earl his convenient without bringing down the wrath of society upon him. Once she was married, though, the strictures would no longer apply, and she would be fair game.
He should hope that she married Lord Felix, but the thought filled him with disgust.
Given Felix’s character, Jerome feared that Rachel’s rebuff of him would only make him more determined to have her. The spoiled fop had never in his life been denied anything he wanted. If he was refused something, he merely upped the price he would pay for it until he got it.
Jerome moved silently down the hall, dimly lit by flickering candles in wall sconces.
As he passed a slightly opened door, he heard Lord Felix’s querulous voice complaining. “She refused me. Me!” His tone turned accusatory. “You told me that I should have her. You will not get a penny of the sum I promised you until she is my wife.”
Jerome stopped dead in his tracks, so shocked by this disclosure that any scruples he might have about eavesdropping evaporated. He moved as close as he could to the crack in the door without being seen from within.
“I must have her,” Felix said, sounding so like a whining child that Jerome grit his teeth. “I have my heart set upon her. She is by far the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. No other woman will do for me. Lord Felix Overend does not settle for second best.”
“You will not have to.” It was Sophia Wingate speaking. “If you want her badly enough, you shall have her.”
“She said nothing on earth could force her to marry me.”
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