How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  She did, and because she had to press harder this time, the thirty seconds seemed like a hundred. Everywhere his body touched hers, he felt scorching hot. Slowly, as the seconds ticked by, she became aware of other things: the slow, deep labor of his breathing, the hard muscle of his calf beneath her fingertips, the scent of sandalwood—­his soap, perhaps? Inexplicably, her body began to tingle.

  The third time, she was aware of all that and something more. She could feel tension rising within her own body, a thick, strange sort of tension she’d never felt in her life before. It unfolded inside her, warm and slow, but it also strengthened and deepened with each second that passed, until it felt almost . . . luscious.

  Shall we, Edie?

  She closed her eyes. She could feel the rise and fall of his body beneath her with each breath he took. Everything else in the world seemed faint and far away.

  “That’s thirty seconds.”

  His voice pulled her out of the strange daze she’d fallen into. She sank back on her knees, and only when he rolled over and sat up, did she realize that her breathing was as hard and labored as his.

  The room was hot, the air was still, her heart was thudding hard in her chest.

  He smiled, and it hurt, piercing her like an arrow. “I think I like that one,” he said softly.

  She strove to catch her breath, but she didn’t even know why she was breathing so hard. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

  He tilted his head, studying her. “Why do I have the feeling we are not talking about my leg?”

  “I understand why you want . . . what you want,” Edie went on, not even knowing what impelled her to pursue the topic. “But why with me?”

  He sat up straighter, drawing closer to her. “We’ve already discussed this. We’re married, Edie.”

  She felt a curious sense of disappointment at that answer, and she didn’t even know why. What on earth had she been expecting him to say? “You could probably gain an annulment if you petitioned for one. After all, I’m refusing to give you your . . . your . . .”

  Her throat felt suddenly dry as dust, but she forced the words out. “Your conjugal rights. They might grant an annulment to you because of that.”

  “I don’t care if they would.” His gaze roamed over her face. “I don’t want an annulment, Edie.”

  “And if it were granted,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken, “you could remarry.”

  “I like the wife I have, thank you.” He touched her, his fingertips gliding over her cheek so softly that she couldn’t seem to find the will to pull back.

  You wouldn’t, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut. Not if you knew.

  “You could find someone much better suited to you than I am,” she said, hearing a note of desperation enter her voice, “someone much prettier—­”

  “Prettier?” he interrupted with a scoffing sound. “You think you’re not pretty?”

  She swallowed painfully and opened her eyes. “We both know I’m not.”

  His gaze roamed over her face for what seemed an eternity. “I don’t know anything of the kind,” he said at last.

  She hated this, hated his open, appraising stare, hating more how raw and vulnerable it made her feel. “Now who’s lying?” she whispered, and looked away.

  “We both remember that afternoon on the terrace.” His palm cupped her cheek, and he brought her gaze back to his. “And although I can’t be completely certain why it sticks in your memory, I’ll tell you why it sticks in mine. I said something that afternoon that made you smile, and that was the first time you had ever—­and I mean ever—­smiled at me.”

  “So?” The question was a tight, hard whisper, like the knot of fear inside her. She could hardly bear it, this light, tender caress, and yet . . . and yet, she was free to yank his hand away if she chose. Stand up, she thought, walk away. She didn’t move. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that you’re right.”

  “About what?” She looked down, staring at his chin, trying to stare past him altogether, trying not to feel anything.

  “About you not being pretty,” he mused, his fingertips tracing featherlight explorations across her cheeks, down her temples, and along her jaw. “Because when you smiled at me that day, I didn’t think you were pretty at all.” He paused, his fingertips stilled. “I thought you were beautiful.”

  At those words, something fractured inside her. She caught back a sob. “I can’t give you what you want, Stuart. You should find someone who can.”

  “But what about you, Edie? What about what you want?”

  His thumb brushed back and forth across her lips, and it took all she had to force words out. “It doesn’t seem to matter what I want.”

  “But it does matter.” This light caress was almost unbearable. “Don’t you want children?”

  Fear pushed up higher, up against her heart, and it hurt. Like pushing a bruise. “No,” she lied.

  “Why not?” He stopped caressing her mouth. He leaned closer, and she tried to turn away, but his hand slid into her hair, holding her still.

  “Oh, don’t!” She jerked back, and the wrapper of her tea gown caught on his cuff link, tearing the delicate lace. The sound was like a match to powder, igniting her into action.

  “I can’t do this.” She scrambled backward on her knees, trying to get to her feet and get away, but somehow, her skirts had become pinned beneath his hip. “Let go!” she cried, any shred of reason dissolving into sheer panic. She tugged desperately at her skirts. “Let go, let go, let go!”

  He lifted his hips, freeing her, but by the time she managed to find her feet beneath the layers of lace, silk, and muslin and stand up, Stuart had also risen, levering himself up by use of the footboard. “Edie, wait!”

  He grasped her wrist as she started to turn away, and when she pulled, he didn’t let her go. Instead, his grip tightened, and she froze, gripped by fear, and shame, and a sudden, terrible sense of inevitability. Why run? What would be the point?

  She stared down at the torn lace of her wrapper. It was a small tear, only an inch or two, and yet, she felt ripped apart, exposed, as if there were a scarlet A emblazoned on her chest. Her free hand lifted, and she watched it shake as she drew the edges of the wrapper together.

  “My God.” Stuart’s voice seemed to come to her from a great distance away, but though his hoarse whisper was barely discernible over the roar in her ears, it was enough to tell her that he had realized the truth. His hand let go of her wrist as if she burned. “My God, of course. How dense I’ve been.”

  His hand came up to touch her face. She flinched, and though his hand fell away, the fear inside her began forcing its way to the surface. She fought hard to hold it in, just as she had done so many times before, striving not to come apart.

  Her chest began to hurt from the effort it took to breathe. The scent of eau de cologne seemed to fill her nostrils and wrench her stomach. Shame washed over her, burning her skin like the lye soap she’d used six years ago to scrub it all away.

  “Edie, look at me.”

  She shook her head in refusal, but even as she did, she knew that unless she wanted to slip out in the middle of the night and run away, she’d have to look at him some time. And she could run to the ends of the earth, and it still wouldn’t matter, for she could never outrun what had happened to her.

  Steeling herself, she forced her gaze up, but the moment she saw his face, she felt her composure fracturing apart. She turned away, running for the door. She ran, not because of fear, but because the shocked, appalled look on Stuart’s face was more than she could bear.

  Chapter 12

  STUART HAD FELT many powerful emotions in his life. He’d been in the idiotic throes of first love and the dark depths of grief. He’d been awed by the breathtaking beauty of an African suns
et and stopped in his tracks by the vibrancy of a girl’s freckled face. He’d known lust, hunger, joy, and despair.

  He thought he’d known rage. Until now.

  Stuart stood in Edie’s bedroom, and he knew all the angers he’d ever experienced before were nothing but petty irritations. Rage was different. Rage was this—­his blood seething through his veins like lava, his head feeling as if it would split apart, blackness descending over his eyes and blotting out everything but Edie’s shaking hand pulling her clothes together.

  In that tiny action, the truth had come to him like a lightning flash, shocking him into utter paralysis as Edie had run out. He couldn’t follow her, even now. He couldn’t move, or even think, not with this rage erupting inside him. He could only feel.

  Standing here, in a prim and pretty English bedroom of lavender silks and velvets, he felt more savage, more primordial than any beast he’d ever encountered in the African bush.

  He wanted to kill the son of a bitch who’d done this to her. He wanted to hunt him, track him, bring him down and shred his flesh to his bones. He wanted to confront her father and demand why the hell he hadn’t done something to avenge her. He wanted to flay himself for not seeing the truth before now. He wanted to get drunk, start a fight, put a hole through a wall—­do anything but the one thing he knew he had to do.

  Stuart took a deep breath and rubbed his hands over his face, working to govern the violence inside himself. Rage would be of no help right now.

  He reached for his walking stick, took up his shoes, and returned to his own room. He dressed for dinner, and somehow, putting on a starched bib shirt, white waistcoat, black trousers, and black dinner jacket helped him tamp down the rage inside. As he tied his white silk tie into a proper bow, as he fastened shirt studs and cuff links, as he tucked a white pocket square into place, he was able to set aside the part of his soul that was raging beast and regain the part that was civilized man.

  Then, and only then, he went in search of his wife.

  He found her in the Roman Garden, or as she called it, the Secret Garden. She was sitting on the bench where they’d sat the day before, but as she caught sight of him emerging from between the tall clumps of fennel and spires of mullein, she jumped to her feet. “What do you want?”

  He stopped, studying her across the courtyard, considering how to proceed without causing her more pain or making things worse. He’d come out here to comfort her, but looking at her now, he suspected she would welcome comfort about as much as she would welcome having a tooth drawn.

  He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t just your heart he broke, was it?”

  Her face twisted, and it was like a knife going into his chest.

  “He . . .” Stuart paused, working to force the words out. “He violated you.”

  She made no sound, she shed no tears. She didn’t move or speak. She just looked at him, and no answer to his question was necessary. Her pain hung in the sultry summer air between them, and Stuart’s rage drove even deeper, spread even wider.

  From the beginning, he’d sensed her pain; he just hadn’t seen the true reason for it. Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to see? This wasn’t a broken heart or a virgin’s fear; this wasn’t something simple. Still, he knew the truth now, and as horrific as it was, there was no going back, so what was he supposed to do with the knowledge? God, in a situation like this, what was any man supposed to do?

  “I want to kill him, Edie,” he said, voicing his first impulse. “I want to board the next ship for New York, find that bastard, and kill him.”

  “You can’t,” she said dully. “I appreciate the gesture, but you can’t. Here, a duke might perhaps get by with murder, but in New York, they’ve no such sentiment. They’d hang you. Besides, don’t you think I thought of killing him? How many ways I plotted it? For a while, it was the only thing I lived for. But one . . . gets past that. There was Joanna to think of, you see. And her future.”

  “I know I can’t murder him. But there are other possibilities.”

  “What? A duel over my honor?” She laughed, and it made him flinch. “I met him for a rendezvous. I never dreamed—­” She stopped, and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We were seen afterward, he refused to marry me, so by society’s reckoning, I was a jumped-­up slut, a slick little baggage who tried to trick a true gentleman into marriage and failed. There’s no honor to fight over, especially not six years later.”

  “A duel is quite tempting, I confess, but it isn’t what I’m thinking of.”

  She shook her head. “He’s rich, he’s powerful, he’s quite untouchable.”

  No man was untouchable, but Stuart didn’t say so. Instead, he drew another deep breath, reminded himself of what was important right now, and once again pushed his rage back down. He’d have time for that another day. “I can’t begin to imagine what you endured, and I don’t expect you to tell me about it, but—­”

  “Good.” The word was like a rifle shot.

  “But if you ever want to—­”

  “I shan’t. Now please go away.”

  She was like a wounded animal, he thought, looking at her. Fear and pain were in every line of her—­in the taut stillness of her form and in her watchful, wary stare. She wanted to be alone, to lick her wounds, and though she’d been that way all along, he couldn’t let her stay that way.

  More than ever, she reminded him of a gazelle, and he decided that was the only way to approach her. Slowly, moving with infinite care, he took a step closer, then stopped as she caught up the folds of her skirts. He took another step, and she glanced around as if trying to determine which way to run. But the lush shrubbery all around rather hemmed her in, and when he took another step, she must have decided not to go crashing through it. Instead, she lifted her chin and faced him down. “I would really like to be alone if you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind,” he answered, continuing around the fountain toward her with slow, measured steps. “By my estimation, I am still entitled to thirty minutes of your time today.”

  “You can’t be serious.” She stared at him, clearly aghast. “You can’t expect to continue with this now!”

  “I can, and I do.” He watched her pale face go even whiter, but he could not withdraw, he could not leave her to this alone. She was his wife. “Nothing has changed, not for me. And I have eight days left. Unless you intend to renege?”

  She shifted her weight and cast another furtive glance around.

  “You could, of course,” he went on as he began mounting the limestone steps. “But that would mean you’d have to run away from me.”

  He stopped in front of her. It was nearing dusk, the time of day when colors seemed most vivid and scents most potent. He could see the gold specks in her green eyes and the coppery glint in her red-­blond hair. He could smell the fragrance of the garden, and he could smell her fear. “And running would be rather futile, don’t you think?”

  “You know nothing about it,” she said through clenched teeth. “Nothing.”

  “But I do know about fear. I’ve faced it, more than once. That’s what one has to do with fear, by the way. Face it and defeat it because you can’t ever run far enough or fast enough to escape from it.”

  A sob tore from her throat, but she caught it back, biting down on her lip.

  “I also know about pain,” he went on. “I know about being wounded. But Edie, wounds do heal. There might be scar tissue left behind, but if you hold on long enough, even the deepest wound can heal.”

  Her head came up. Those gold specks in her eyes flashed like sparks. “So that’s what you think?” There was derision in her voice. “You think you can heal me?”

  “I was rather hoping we could heal each other.”

  “You don’t need me to heal your wounds. We both know you could hire a valet to help you, or you could be treated by the local doctor. You don’t real
ly need me at all.”

  “Don’t I?” It was his turn to look away, but as he stared past her shoulder to the intricate wrought-­iron plaque that hung on the limestone wall behind her, his mind flashed back to the night he’d almost died. “That’s where you’re wrong, Edie. I need you more than you could possibly know.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “It doesn’t matter, not right now.” He forced himself to look at her again. “I came out here to comfort you, not the other way around.”

  She looked past him, staring at the fountain. “That was kind of you, but I’m beyond needing comfort.”

  “Are you?” He noted the blank impassivity of her face. “Are you, indeed?”

  She stirred. “We should go in. It’s almost time for dinner.”

  “Not yet,” he said as she started to step around him. “There’s one thing I want to say.” He lifted his left hand to cup her face. She leaned back, evading his touch, a forcible reminder of what was at stake. So he moved back a step and opened his hand in front of her, offering it.

  She looked at it but didn’t move to take it.

  “You don’t have to take my hand,” he said. “You don’t have to kiss me, or bed me, or do anything else you don’t want to do, Edie. There is only one thing I’m asking of you.”

  She kept her gaze on his palm. “What’s that?” she whispered.

  “Give me a chance.” He paused, ducking his head a bit so that he could look into her face. “Give us a chance. I need that, and I think you need it, too.”

  He waited, and it seemed an eternity before she spoke.

  “Tomorrow morning, we’ll meet with Mr. Robson to go over the books. Ten o’clock.” She stepped around him, but she didn’t move to go down the steps. Instead, she stopped. “As to the other,” she said over her shoulder without looking at him, “I’ll try, Stuart. For the next eight days, I’ll try. That’s all I can promise you.”

  He watched her walk away, and he could only hope eight days was enough to buy him a lifetime. Just now, it didn’t seem the least bit likely.