The Dukes of War: Complete Collection

by Ridley, Erica

  He slammed down the teapot hard enough to crack the handle. “You know nothing of battle and even less about soldiers. Do not romanticize me or the war. Any war. ’Tis nothing more than troops of killers murdering other killers in the name of their esteemed leader, who is likely to be far more bloodthirsty than brilliant.”

  Her mouth fell open. “How can you say that? Napoleon was mad—and, yes, our own king has been deemed unfit to rule—but that does not make the cause you fought for any less worthy. What of Wellington? And the Fifteenth Regiment of Dragoons? I have read countless accounts on all the skirmishes, and—”

  “Hearsay,” he spat with disgust. “You are proving my point. You know nothing of life if your only knowledge of it comes from books.”

  Her teeth clenched. He wanted a row? Fine. “Only an ignoramus would claim there’s no knowledge to be found in books. Literature may not provide firsthand experience, but reading still has value. Perhaps if the leaders you hate knew their history a little better, war wouldn’t break out so easily.”

  “Battle changes people, Miss Downing. I know you can’t understand what that means, but—”

  “Why can’t I? Because of books again? You might recall that I also interact with people upon occasion.” She set down her teacup before she threw it at him. “My best friend married your best friend, who returned from the selfsame war just as heroic and as honorable as he went in. But you’re right. Not everyone did. The privateer sent to rescue Grace’s mother had captained a ship in the Royal Navy, fighting Napoleon from the sea. Before enlisting, that man was a barrister. So don’t tell me I don’t understand that war can change people, Captain Grey. I do know. I’ve seen it. I can also see you.”

  His chest expanded and he crossed his thick arms before it. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I haven’t forgotten who you were before you became what you are now,” she said in exasperation. “You and Lord Carlisle and Major Blackpool were intermittently present at the same events and soirées I myself attended. The earl had not yet lost his father. The major had not yet lost his leg and his brother. And you had not yet lost your reason. The fact that you’re feeling well enough to argue with me today proves that no matter how the war changed you, you kept changing. You’re not the empty shell of a man Carlisle dragged through London like an oversize doll. You’re you again.”

  He glared at her in silence.

  She lowered her voice. “War is terrible. I recognize that. But now it’s over. What happens next is up to you.”

  He pushed to his feet and piled the dishes and silverware into a stack. “It’s not that simple, and we’re done talking about it.”

  She gathered the cups and the teapot and followed him into the kitchen. “Of course it’s not simple. Did you know Major Blackpool was one of only two people who ever bothered to stand up to dance with me at a ball? That moment will literally never happen again. He no longer attends balls. He’s missing a leg. From what I understand, he can barely walk and shall never dance again. But his life isn’t over.”

  Captain Grey submerged the plates into a bucket of water and pushed it out of her reach. “Who was the other man you danced with?”

  “My brother. Why won’t you let me wash the dishes?”

  “Scullery work is hard on the skin, and you have pretty hands.” He began to scrub the first plate. “Blackpool is a hero. I am not. You’d do well to remember that. It would be the height of foolishness to trust a man who doesn’t trust himself.”

  She shook her head. “Fighting for innocents and defending your country is inherently heroic. I believe in you. Closing yourself off won’t change that. No matter what you do, your heroism will always—”

  He grabbed her face with wet hands and closed his mouth over hers with bruising force. No doubt he expected her to swoon, or slap him, or some other such nonsense.

  She gripped his arms and held on tight.

  His lips were wide and firm against hers. The rough hands cradling her face dripped with water, but all she felt was warm. Desired. He wasn’t simply kissing her. He was holding her in place as if he never wanted to let her go. Hope soared within her. She pressed herself even closer and let her eyes flutter closed.

  Even through his clothes, the muscles of his arms were tight and firm beneath her ungloved hands. What would it be like to feel them wrapped around her? Would he hold her close with the same desperate passion that had begun this kiss? Or would his embrace be tender, as his lips were now, brushing against hers with gentle insistence?

  As he suckled her lower lip, her mouth parted—not in surprise, but in eagerness. Just because it was her first kiss didn’t mean she was ignorant of what pleasures it might bring. She rose on her toes to meet him.

  She had researched the matter extensively and was delighted to discover that he had been right about book knowledge failing to communicate the complete picture. No mere words on parchment could remotely convey the heat and immediacy and… dizziness of having his mouth mold to hers. The heady sensation of need and shared desire.

  Being kissed was more than she’d ever imagined. Being kissed by him was more than she’d ever dreamed.

  Her fingers trembled—her entire body trembled—and she clutched his neck with abandon. She could no longer stand. She couldn’t feel her legs, her knees, anything except her mouth on his and their bodies cleaving together. The rest of the world melted away. It was as if she’d been waiting for this moment, this man, all of her life.

  She licked at his lower lip and thrilled when a raw groan escaped his throat. Her heart hammered against her ribs, pushing her bosom against his chest with every staccato beat. All she could think was that she never wanted their kiss to end. This was heaven.

  His tongue met hers and a delicious shiver shot down her spine, electrifying her skin. He tasted of tea, but also of a spice she could not define. He tasted of virile man, she supposed. Of Captain Xavier Grey. Everything about him was strong and sure and masculine and completely irresistible. She wanted to be his. She wanted him to be hers.

  Her knees weakened. He felt like home and danger and hope all wrapped into one. Her breath escaped in tiny bursts when she remembered to breathe at all. He didn’t just make her feel desirable. He proved with every consuming kiss, with the thundering of his own heart against hers, that his desire for her was powerful enough to devour them both.

  She was already lost.

  He pulled away, gasping, and ran a shaking hand through his hair.

  It was all she could do not to sway right back into his embrace.

  “Was that heroic?” he rasped. “Or was it a selfish man doing what selfish men do?”

  She gazed back at him in wonder. Her lips were tender from his kiss. “It was beautiful.”

  “It was foolish.” He turned back to the bucket and reached for the next dirty saucer. “It shan’t be repeated.”

  Chapter 10

  It was all Xavier could do not to stick his head in the bucket of soapy water and drown himself for being such an imbecile.

  Was grabbing Miss Downing and kissing her meant to teach her a lesson of some sort? What pearl of wisdom, precisely, had he intended to impart, other than if the snow didn’t ease up soon, he was going to have to build an impenetrable ice hut and encase himself inside?

  He supposed he’d meant to prove that he was not an honorable man, nor a wise object upon which to pin one’s cap. A smart man would not have kissed her. An honorable man absolutely would not have done.

  Why couldn’t she see that by dubbing him “hero” of this charade, he would prove himself unheroic with the mere acceptance of the role?

  Heaven knew he’d been unheroic enough to last a lifetime. When he’d realized he could not be trusted around others, he had sunk to the most desperate of solutions. At first, he’d shuttered himself inside his mind. When that proved unsustainable—curse the empathy of true friends!—he’d managed to shutter himself in a tiny cottage, a solid mile from the nearest postin
g house.

  Then she came along. And he’d kissed her.

  The smart thing to do—the only thing to do—was to be heroic enough for them both. If she would not watch out for her best interests, he would have to work twice as hard. Thrice as hard. Oh, God, was he ever hard…

  He groaned. If he was ever to acquit himself in some small way, she must retain her innocence. And obviously, it was up to him to ensure that happened. Miss Downing was unlikely to assist him in his mission to preserve her chastity.

  She seemed to believe his home a fortress of anonymity, within which all depraved acts could be wantonly enjoyed without a soul ever becoming the wiser. As if she believed whatever happened in the captain’s cottage, stayed in the captain’s cottage.

  Naïve beyond all reckoning. He shook his head. There were no such things as secrets.

  He had staff that would arrive as soon as the roads were passable. She had servants—and a brother—who would at some point wonder what had become of her. If there weren’t likenesses nailed to every wall across England already. And of course, she had yet to make it home without calling attention to her adventure. He grimaced. Good Lord.

  Even if he outfitted her with a chastity belt and a wimple, hundreds of people would cross her path between Chelmsford and London. People with eyes, ears, and wagging tongues. The only chance that remained of returning her home with her reputation intact was to ensure there was little reason to doubt it. Starting with never learning she’d crossed his door.

  He must resume his scheme of converting her image of him into one of a mere acquaintance. It had to work. One did not seduce one’s acquaintances. While she was here, he and Miss Downing would adhere to what was proper. They’d be nothing less and nothing more than perfectly dull, perfectly respectable… friends.

  But guarding a young lady’s reputation required more than merely abstaining from making love to her. Especially with a woman as unconventional and unpredictable as this one.

  Even without succumbing to carnal pleasures, there was nothing maiden-appropriate with which to pass the time. He was a bachelor. This was his home. Very little within its walls was appropriate for a young lady. She shouldn’t be anywhere near him or the dishes. Zeus. What was he to do?

  He didn’t even own a backgammon set. Yet he must ensure their one hundred percent platonic friendship didn’t degenerate to her swilling whiskey and smoking cigarillos as she tossed betting markers across a velvet card table. His cottage must remain a citadel of respectability.

  Which left what? Organizing his linen closet?

  Excitement rushed through his veins. No, not his linen closet. His library. What could be safer than a room full of books?

  His chest lightened. He washed the last of the dishes and dried his hands on a towel. A library like his could take weeks to organize. He didn’t even know what was on the shelves. He’d purchased titles at whim and left them helter-skelter when he’d set off for war.

  With luck, the volumes were so dusty that they’d cause sneezing fits every time they were touched. No man was less kissable than whilst suffering a violent coughing attack.

  He proffered his arm. “Would you like to see my library?”

  Her lips curved, but she narrowed her eyes in mock suspicion. “Dare I hope for a prurient collection of shunga scrolls?”

  He took a step back. “I am delighted to say that I have no idea what that means.”

  She laughed. “Why would you be happy about that?”

  He fixed her with an imperious stare. “Whatever it is, I doubt it is something proper.”

  “Who would want a proper library?” Her eyes widened and she tilted her head. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those pretentious sorts who only purchases books with the hope of impressing callers with their size or title.”

  “I never meant to show anyone my library, so, no, I am not so lowly a creature as that. However, I haven’t laid eyes on my books in well over three years, and I couldn’t begin to tell you what I might have thought worth perusing at that time. Essays on irrigation methods? Travel journals? French poetry? I imagine there’s a few of everything upon those shelves.”

  She hesitated, clearly tempted. “I recognize this as a blatant attempt to avoid other outlets for amusement.”

  “And yet you cannot resist.” He turned her toward the door and offered his arm once more. “What if the snow should melt by noontime? You might never get another chance to discover the hidden secrets of a captain’s library.”

  She slapped her hand onto the crook of his arm in resignation. “You don’t fight fair.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said quietly. He hoped she never would.

  She released his arm when they reached the library and preceded him into the room. He followed close behind. As soon as he entered, she pulled the door closed behind them.

  He arched a sardonic brow. “Was the empty cottage not private enough, madam?”

  She arched a brow right back. “Have you met my cat?”

  His gaze jerked to his shelves in horror. It was one thing for his books to be dusty… and quite another for them to be a pulpy, fur-sodden mess.

  Fortunately, all seemed to be in order. Perhaps too much in order. All the titles were upright and even, with nary a cobweb to be found.

  Curse his competent staff.

  Miss Downing began a slow examination of the room. Xavier lit a small fire with his flint and then settled onto the chaise longue to watch.

  She wasn’t just beautiful. Everything about her was bewitching and larger than life. Her huge brown eyes. Her mane of wild, curly hair. Her pouty lips and curvaceous figure. Her literate, clever mind. The sheer force of her will. Her single-minded intensity. How seductively she walked. How sweetly she kissed.

  He gritted his teeth. This was Operation Platonic Friendship. He was not to think about the taste of her mouth or the sway of her hips.

  They needed to spend the entirety of the day discussing Wordsworth and Voltaire. Or rather, something less… provocative. He didn’t want to make a good impression. Perhaps he ought to engage her in a lively debate on whether library books were best catalogued by size or color.

  “What do you think of my collection?” he found himself asking instead.

  “Well…” She poked her head from around a corner. “The topics are varied enough, but at least half have never been read. The pages aren’t even sliced.”

  “You can do the honors, if you’ve found something you’d like to read.” He adjusted a small pillow and stretched out upon the chaise longue. He didn’t much care who sliced the pages, but if offering her the privilege made him seem like a good friend, he’d be happy to lend his knife.

  Eyes sparkling, she bounced in place. “I can read anything that I want?”

  “As long as it isn’t…” He hesitated. What had she mentioned earlier? Sugar? Shogun? “…shunga scrolls.”

  The corners of her mouth quirked. “Nobody reads shunga scrolls. They just look at the pictures.”

  He cut her a flat look.

  She gave an innocent flutter of eyelashes and selected a book from the shelves. “Lie back down. I’ll read something to you. How about the Odyssey in original Greek?”

  He couldn’t even remember purchasing it. “Do you mind if I snore?”

  “I hope you do. But I’ll translate aloud in case you manage to stay awake.” Rather than take another chair, she perched at the foot of the chaise longue with her back toward him. “Ahem. Page the first. ‘Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero…’”

  There. Xavier relaxed his head against the cushion. Nothing could be more respectable.

  Or less stimulating. He hadn’t actually intended to snore, but neither had he anticipated the level of mortal dullness in which Miss Downing read aloud. She could not have infused less life into her tone had she merely been counting sheep.

  He might have told her not to bother translating since it wasn’t doing either of them any favors, except he saw
no advantage to being rude. His goal was to be perceived as a friend, not the enemy. Enemies could incite passion.

  Miss Downing’s monotone could only incite slumber.

  After a while, he let his eyelids drift closed. It had been a long, cold night filled with nothing but vivid waking dreams. He had been exhausted from the moment he rolled out of bed. Her tone was pacifying in its relentless uniformity, the words forgettable and relaxing.

  He almost didn’t notice when she skipped from Calypso to Circe in the space of a breath. Her low words droned on without hitch. His eyes flew open. How could she have turned thirty pages at once without noticing? How could she have skipped the Trojan horse without noticing?

  Sleep forgotten, he propped himself up on one elbow to glance over her shoulder at the text.

  And roared. “What the devil are you reading, woman?”

  She jumped, her cheeks flushing a rosy pink. “You said I might read whatever I wished.”

  “You said you were reading the Odyssey!”

  “I said I would read you the Odyssey.” She motioned him back to his pillow. “I’m reading something else.”

  “That’s not ‘something else.’” Heart galloping, he reached for the book.

  She held it aloft with her other hand. “You can’t have it. I’m right in the middle.”

  “Absolutely not,” he ground out. “That’s The Memoirs of Fanny Hill, and it’s not fit for human eyes.”

  Her brows arched. “Then why do you have it?”

  “Because I’m inhuman! Give me the damn book or I’ll—”

  “Oh, lie back down. You were almost asleep. I’ve already read most of what you’re afraid of, so there’s not much harm in reading the rest.”

  He collapsed back against the chaise and covered his face with his hands. No wonder the woman’s storytelling abilities had been execrable. She’d been quoting from memory whilst reading an entirely different story. One in which an innocent country miss was procured by a bawdyhouse madam and then descended into a life of erotic abandon.