Worth of a Duke

by K. J. Jackson

  “You do not walk that slowly, L.B. Entirely rude.” She yanked her black shall tighter around her shoulders.

  “Just enjoying the day, Duchess.” Rowen stopped in front of her. “What is it that you need?”

  “I asked Wynne today if she was ready to paint me again. She was in the painting room, just staring out the window. But she looked different—happier. I thought it the right time to start up again. But she just jumped—like she did not even know I was in the room—and then mumbled something about it not being the right time yet.”

  “What am I to do about that, Duchess? I cannot make her paint.”

  “What is happening with her, L.B.? You are supposed to be making her well again.” She leaned forward, pointing her finger at his chest. “That is the only reason I have allowed you such a breach of propriety. The only reason I have allowed you unfettered access to her—trusted in your status as a gentleman when you are alone with her.”

  Rowen’s eyebrow arched. “You have allowed it? I think you forget, Duchess, that I am the one that does or does not allow who is present at this castle. And I do find your sudden increased expectation of my honor somewhat laughable.”

  “Do not push me, L.B. Wynne is a young, unmarried woman in the unchaperoned presence of a man. Even you should understand that it is her reputation that you do harm to, were word to get out.”

  “Are you truly threatening her at the same time as demanding she be back by your side? That is low, even for you, Duchess.” Rowen shook his head, trying to ignore the madness of this woman. “I have done as you asked, Duchess. I have been trying to pull her out of her grief. It is working. She paints me. She converses.”

  The duchess’s arm swung wide. “You have done nothing. She is no closer to being back to me than she was. She will paint you, but not me. She talks to you, but not me.”

  “I cannot control her grief, Duchess. Cannot control what she will or will not do. You are too akin to her mother. She just needs more time.”

  “Time? I am through giving you time.” The duchess leaned in at him, her words biting. “Your time is now short, L.B. Short. Do not test me.”

  She spun, stomping away from him.

  Rowen could only stand, staring at the back of her black skirts swishing, letting the ball of rage in his gut dissipate before he moved forth.

  { Chapter 15 }

  “I did not know if you would appear or not.” Wynne leaned away from the canvas in front of her to look at him.

  Rowen instantly recognized the tentativeness in her gaze as she watched him step past the arched doorway into the painting room. “You were worried?”

  “No—” She stopped herself, then nodded her head.

  “Worried that I would show, or worried that I would not?” Rowen asked.

  She stood from her chair, setting down the paintbrush and her board of paints and walked over to him. Feet stopping right before him, she looked up at him inquisitively. The faint smell of honey—always around her to keep the paints malleable, a trick she had learned from her grandfather—wafted up to his nose.

  “Why would that even be a question?” She grabbed the apron about her waist and twisted her ring finger in it, wiping away wet grey paint. Even after last night, innocence still sparkled in the blue flecks in her eyes.

  “I was worried you would not come,” she said. “But that was silly—I should not have questioned you. I just have not seen you all day, and that is unusual.”

  “I was stuck down at the stables.” Rowen stepped away from her, if only to stop inhaling her scent, and closed the door to the room.

  It took him a long moment to steel himself and turn to face her. Heaven help him, he wanted to kiss her. Yank the pins from her hair. Pick her up and carry her back to his room.

  Rowen took a step toward her, stopping with plenty of distance between them.

  “Wynne, we cannot repeat what we did last night. I will not have you reacting…”

  “Like I did?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Will not have me wallowing in my own choices? Will not let me take responsibility for my own actions?” Her chest rose in a deep sigh. “I needed you Rowe. And I was not wrong about it.”

  “No, you were not wrong. You knew what you could handle.” He eyed her, watching her eyes flicker between ire and longing. “It is that you take too much responsibility for your actions—put too much pressure upon yourself—that is what worries me, Wynne. What it can do to your soul.”

  “That is it? You are worried about my soul so you will not touch me?”

  He couldn’t resist another step toward her. Close enough to feel her breath as she looked up at him, challenging. He met her heat. “I want you in my bed, Wynne. God help me, I do. Right now. But I fear…”

  “What?”

  He shook his head, unable to say more. “Paint.” He stepped around her, going to the wooden chair by the table and sat. “Let us sit. You paint. Let us just do this for now.”

  Her gaze followed him, her bottom lip going under her teeth, biting hard. She wanted to argue, he could see that, but she held back.

  Quiet, she walked over to her table of paints, picking up her paint board and disappearing behind the canvas.

  Silence filled the room for minutes, and Rowen stared at the lines of the wooden easel supporting the canvas. He needed to get Wynne another one so that she could set the canvas even higher. She hunched over far too much with this one.

  “I saw you outside with the duchess.” Wynne’s voice popped out from behind the canvas. “What were you talking about? She looked distressed.”

  “She always looks distressed.”

  Wynne’s head appeared, her eyes scolding. “Not with me, Rowe. She can be quite docile.” Her voice softened. “But it was not just her. It was you as well. Usually you are calm around her. Clipped, but steady, not letting her affect you. But your face. I could tell she struck a bad chord with you.”

  Rowen’s mouth clamped closed.

  “You are not going to tell me?”

  He sighed, scratching the back of his head. “We were talking about you, Wynne.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “The duchess misses you. Misses your company. You have managed to reach her like no one ever has. Not since her son. And he only partially cared for her.”

  “I know I have been distant to her.” A frown lined her lips. “And when she came in here today, she looked hopeful. But I was thinking of other things…”

  “Us?”

  She nodded. “Unfortunately. And I must have been rude—distracted at the very least. I did not intend to be so. It is still hard for me to look at her and not be reminded of my mother. But why would she come to you about it?”

  “She thought I could help. That is all.”

  Wynne’s eyes narrowed. “That is all?”

  “Yes.”

  She gave a slight nod and busied herself with plopping fresh dollops of paint onto her board. She gave him a quick glance. “Why does the duchess call you L.B., Rowe? I would think Lockton or Rowen, given your history. But ‘L.B.’—I have been trying to figure it out for weeks. And every time she says it, you blink and an instant of something I cannot grasp goes across your face.”

  Rowen forced his face neutral. “She has always called me L.B., Wynne. It is the way it is.”

  “Little boy?”

  “No, that is not it.”

  “Lockton baby?”

  “Stop, Wynne.” His jaw tightened, and he attempted to relax it. “What the duchess does, and why she does it, only she knows. Everyone I know has stopped questioning her behavior long ago.”

  Wynne nodded, a quick apologetic smile coming to her face. Her head dropped and she set about mixing colors on her board, softly humming to herself.

  Minutes passed, and Rowen thought her lost in thought, and was just about to relax, happy to avoid the topic of the duchess, when Wynne’s voice startled him.

  “What happened to your mother here, Rowe? Here in the castle?”


  “No, Wynne.” His head was shaking before the words came out.

  “I can hear it now, Rowe. Truly. I can hear it. I want to know. And I want to know from you.”

  “Wynne, it is not necessary, it is past.”

  She pointedly pushed the paint board away from her, even though a brush thick with paint stayed in her fingers. She looked up at him. “Past that still, to this very day, puts daggers in your eyes when you even think about the duchess. For all of your forced politeness, Rowe, it is there. I see it. And I want to know why.”

  “I will not knowingly share a story that is going to lead you to dwell upon your own mother, Wynne.”

  She shook her head. “Not fair. Whatever the tale is, it does not mean I will not be sad, but I can handle it. I can hear this now, Rowe, and I want to know. I need to understand.”

  Rowen leaned back in the wooden chair, running a hand through his hair as he looked upward at the thick dark beams of the coffered ceiling. How to even begin this story?

  His eyes dropped to Wynne. “You do recall my father died early in my life?”

  “Yes. You said you were four.”

  He nodded. “After my father died, my uncle—the duke—brought my mother and me to live here at Notlund.”

  “That was generous.”

  A harsh, forced chuckle escaped Rowen. “Yes, well, so generous, that it was not long before my mother became his mistress.”

  Wynne gasped, as Rowen expected. What he did not expect was for Wynne to drop the brush in her hand, sending it to flop paint onto her apron, skirts, and then floor.

  Her face turning pink, she quickly fumbled to pick it up. “My apologies.”

  “It is nothing.”

  She smoothed the hair back from her temple, settling herself. “I presume the duchess knew of the affair?”

  “Yes. The duke produced very little effort in hiding it from the duchess. And even less of an effort in protecting my mother from the duchess. And by default, I became a convenient target for the duchess’s hatred as well. Almost from the moment we stepped foot in Notlund.”

  “You were four.”

  “Yes, and I was told daily that I was lower than dirt. That I did not deserve to be alive. That the best place for me was the dung heap.”

  Rowen shook his head. It had been a very long time since he had allowed the memories to flood him. And they were still visceral. His eyes drifted back to the ceiling.

  “But it was not just that she was vicious with her words. It was the way the duchess would set me up. She would entice me in, coddle me with kindness for just a few, fleeting moments, and I would believe things were different, that she did not hate me. And then she would lambast me. Rip treats from my hands and hand them to her son. Slap me when I reached for a toy of his. Juicy meat on a fork to my mouth, knocked to the floor for the dogs. And her laugh. Vicious. Her words…I was a waste. I should have never been born. The devil did not even want me.”

  Rowen took a steadying breath. “I was four. Four. I had no defense of it. I did not understand any of it—just that I was somehow unworthy. Ugly. Dumb. I did not know. The only thing I knew was that I should not exist. Every single day was like that. And I learned to never trust anything in front of me. That any high—any comfort would be rewarded with cruelty.”

  His arms folded over his chest as his eyes dropped to Wynne. “And I soon just accepted the fact that they—my cousin, the duke and duchess—were much better than I could ever hope to be. That I was lucky just to be breathing. Lucky to be alive, even if it was in the duchess’s concocted hell. It was not long before I truly believed that I was worthless.”

  His words yielded, and Wynne stood, grabbing her wooden chair and walking over to him. She set the chair down right in front of him and sat, leaning forward as her hands went gently on his knees.

  Wet, her eyes glistened in the light from the lamp on the table. “And your mother?”

  Rowen took a deep breath, his eyes shifting to the fireplace across the room. “My mother… when she could, she tried to protect me. Tried to take the brunt of the duchess’s viciousness. Took the threats. The hate. Would step in front of the slaps. The kicks. But the duchess knew—she knew it was far worse for my mother to have to watch her only child suffer. So that is what she did. And my mother suffered. The older I got, the more I understood how much she suffered just to protect me what little she could.”

  “Why did your mother stay—not take you both away?”

  “I do not know. I would wonder that every day. I begged her. Every day I would beg her to leave this place. But she had no power. The duke controlled my father’s fortune until I was of age. Maybe he threatened to cut her off. Maybe it was because of that. Maybe it was because she knew she couldn’t survive on her own. Couldn’t feed or house me. Maybe it was because she loved him. I do not know.”

  “And then she died and you got to leave this place?”

  He nodded, his eyes closing. “Slowly, at the end, she starved herself, day after day. She became bones right before me. Just before she died, she told me it was the best thing she could do for me—the only way she could still protect me. I told her she was wrong. I was old enough then. I was strong. I begged. But maybe she was trying to escape her own hell. Again, I do not know. Still to this day, I do not know.”

  She gave him long seconds. Long seconds Rowen used, eyes closed, to chase the long-ago demons back to the depths of his mind.

  That Wynne had even gotten him to speak the words, to talk about it.

  Hell.

  Then the hands on his knees tightened.

  He opened his eyes to her.

  Tears were in her eyes, pain for him or for herself, he could not tell. But he could see it—the tears that shone in her eyes brought forth sadness from deep in her soul.

  “I know…I know you are not vulnerable like you once were, Rowe. That you know who you are and you do not need me to say this. But I need to say it for me.” Her voice rough, it cracked. She took a moment, head down, to re-gather her words.

  Then she leaned further forward, her hands slipping onto his thighs. Her hazel eyes came to his face. “I have never met a man with more worth than you, Rowe. Never. Who you are. What you stand for. What you have done. Every breath you take has integrity that cannot be broken. I see that. I see you. The whole of you is what I love.”

  Her thumbs tightened on his legs, drifting into dangerous territory. “And what you have done for me—all you have ever wanted to do since we met was protect me. Protect my innocence. You are good, Rowe. From your mind, to deep in your soul. Good. Every heartbeat. Every breath.”

  Rowen closed his eyes, dragging air into his tight chest.

  She was wrong. So very wrong. Those were the exact words he needed to hear. From anyone else, it would mean nothing. But from Wynne…from Wynne it meant the world.

  “And you are still trying to protect my innocence, Rowe. But that innocence was gone—shattered—before you ever laid eyes on me. It is not something you can protect anymore.”

  She stood, straddling his legs and the chair. Rowen opened his eyes to her.

  Moving forward, she pulled her skirts upward, bunching them until she could lower herself onto his lap, her thighs bare to the world.

  Wynne’s hands went to either side of his face, forcing his gaze to meet hers. “I needed you last night, Rowe, and you knew—you knew exactly what I needed. You gave it to me.”

  Her lips came down to his, sweet softness brushing his skin. “And now you need me, Rowe. You need me.” Her lips moved against his, whispering. “Let me give you what you need.”

  She curled her body forward, her hips rotating on his lap as she took his mouth fully, her tongue slipping in, her teeth teasing his skin.

  The vague thoughts of resistance, of honor, floated from his mind. She was right. He did need this. Need her in the most basic, human way. Her body giving over to him.

  He let it happen. Let her deepen her assault, let her move her b
ody against his until there was no turning back. No argument against what they both knew he needed.

  He needed her.

  And she wasn’t going to let him choose otherwise.

  Wynne’s hands slid down his body, her fingers running over his chest, pulling up his linen shirt until she could lift it off his frame.

  His torso naked to her, she bent, her lips running along his neck as her hands dove downward, unbuttoning his breeches. The motion, so simple, and with every brush of her knuckles, Rowen grew harder.

  Freed from the leather, he groaned, arching into her hands, begging for tightness in her touch.

  Wynne obliged, taking him full in her fingers, stroking, as her teeth ran along a line from his shoulder to the back of his neck.

  “Tell me I am doing this right, Rowe.”

  Instinct sent his hands around her, popping buttons on her dress and dragging it off her body. For a moment he thought she would cower from her nakedness, but she didn’t hesitate, instead wrapping her body even closer to his, skin on skin. Her nipples dragged across his chest.

  Rowen’s mouth went to her ear, tugging on her earlobe. “You are torture and heaven in one, Wynne. Hell, yes, you are doing this right.”

  His palms dragged up her body, fingers stretched across her back as his palms, his thumbs explored her curves—reveled in the smoothness of her skin, the way her body leaned into his touch, skin prickling.

  When he hit the moment he was straining, holding onto the last shreds of control, he dipped his hands inward, thumbs going to her core, finding her nubbin, waking it, owning it.

  Her body already moving in rhythm against his hand, Rowen grabbed her hips, lifting her and sliding into her body. Letting her sink onto him. Slow. Torturous.

  He filled her—claiming every part of her body that was open to him, and then he lifted her again. Dropping her with sweet agony, he repeated, fighting against her whimpered begs, her thrusting hips. She wanted him fast, straining herself to reach peak, and Rowen was enjoying the rawness in her need, in her mouth on his skin, in her hands ravaging his body.

  She started to beg, swearing, and Rowen grimaced against coming, his thumbs attacking her folds as he let her take over the pace on top of him. She came, arching backward, breasts in his face, and in the next instant, curled into him, fingernails digging into his back, tethering herself to him.