“And I didn’t.”
“Alas, the library was locked, and I had no wish to bother anyone for the key. I decided I might as well return upstairs without anything to read. Then Lady Cordelia came downstairs. I didn’t want her to see me for fear she’d think I was scheming to get myself into a compromising position with you. Nor did I want Your Grace to assume the same thing. I’ve resolved to take your accusations of predictability to heart.”
Still holding the decanter and snifter, he said, “But you didn’t return upstairs once she came into this drawing room, because your collision with the knight happened at about the same moment I was walking out on her.”
Embarrassment scorched Cecily’s face. “That’s because I was eavesdropping. And if she hoped for someone to discover the two of you in a compromising position, I did not want to be the person to do it. Do you really suffer a toothache?”
“Do I—” Confusion flickered across his face, and then he blinked. “Oh, that. No. No ache there, in any event.” Implying that he ached elsewhere, but before Cecily could inquire further, he quickly set down the decanter and snifter and headed for the doorway. “I shall fetch that book for you. What’s the title and where do you recall leaving it?”
She stiffened and dropped her foot to the floor. “I told you, it’s locked.”
“I know. I have the key.” He picked up one of the candelabrums lighting the room and strode into the hall.
She sprang to her feet, wincing at the pain in her big toe. “I can get the book, Your Grace. You need only unlock the door for me.”
“Nonsense. What sort of gentleman would I be if I let you do that with your injured foot?”
She swiftly hobbled after him. “I know exactly where it is. I can fetch it and then return upstairs. My foot is fine, really. Besides, you’re already carrying that heavy candelabrum.”
She was halfway across the great hall that now seemed about the same size as Grosvenor Square when he unlocked the library door and pushed it open.
“Stay where you are!” she cried, as she galloped past him. “I won’t have you follow me into the library at this late hour, lest you think this is part of my convoluted plan.”
“You’ll need light by which to see,” he pointed out. “You don’t wish to stub your other toe or even trip over a globe. I’ve heard that’s how the Duchess of Ainsley met her own duke.”
Her own duke? What did Bradbury mean by that? “I can see well enough if you remain right where you are,” she said, as she staggered over to the desk and pressed both hands on the blotter where she’d left the letter.
It was gone.
“Is it there?” he asked.
“No,” she said, as panic crawled up her spine.
“Then you must have left it elsewhere. Better light would certainly—”
“No! I can see very well it’s not here. I suppose a servant must have come in to clean while we were at dinner, and put everything away.” Could a servant have thrown the pages away, thinking them rubbish? But if the duke himself had locked the door—
“Everything? Was there something besides the book?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Well, all right, there were some papers on the desk, but—but—”
He interjected in falsetto, “But I don’t want Your Grace to know those papers are what I’m really looking for.”
Shock tore through Cecily as she snapped her head up to stare at the duke in the doorway, now with the candelabrum in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.
He lowered his voice to its usual baritone. “I only have two questions for you at this point. One, do you plan to write a sequel to The Duke Is a Devil, and two, if so, will you be putting any of tonight’s antics into your next book?”
Chapter Ten
Dane stood in the doorway, his right hand holding the heavy candelabrum and his left waving the letter he’d just pulled from his inside coat pocket. Cecily stood at the other end of the library behind the desk, gaping back at him as if what he clutched wasn’t the letter she’d written him, but her heart, freshly torn out of her chest and dripping blood all over the floor.
“Put that down!” she cried. “Drop it at once! You have no right to read it!”
“According to the salutation, this is a letter you’ve written to the Duke of Bradbury,” he calmly replied. “Lest you’ve forgotten, I am the Duke of Bradbury. Considering where you left this, it seems rather obvious that you meant for me to find it and read it.”
“No. No, I did not. You must let me explain.” Panic slashed through her voice, making it broken and raspy as she dashed around the desk and charged toward him, stubbed and bleeding toe be damned. If he didn’t move out of the way now, she’d crash right into him just as she crashed into that empty suit of armor, only in this case, she’d likely burn herself on one of these candles. Dane stepped back into the hall and set down the candelabrum on the console table adjacent to the door, just as Cecily burst out of the library. He held the letter high over his head, well out of her reach, though that didn’t stop her from jumping despite her bad toe.
“You weren’t supposed to read that yet,” she said, arm upraised as she jumped again. “It’s not even finished.”
Still clutching the letter, he turned away from her. She followed him, in a manner of speaking, as he continued to feint and dodge and spin, while she kept jumping and hopping and snatching at the letter, but never quite touching it.
“Then why did you leave it where I could find it?” he wanted to know. “Why did you come back down here when you did?”
“I told you already. To take it back upstairs with me.”
“You said you were looking for a book. A book you’re reading, or a book you’re writing?”
“It was this letter, and I never meant for you to see it tonight, maybe not ever,” she said, her blue eyes suddenly shining more than usual, and he knew what that meant. “I didn’t want you to know about it until I was certain I wanted you to see it. Please give it back to me, Your Grace. You have no idea how much this—” Her voice caught on a gasp. “—how it reminds me of—” She spun away from him.
Dane lowered his arm. “It’s too late, Cecily. I’ve already read it. How could you have left it where you did all this time, if you didn’t want me to see it?”
She kept her back to him, though he could ascertain from the way she hunched her trembling shoulders that she had her hands over her face again.
And this time, he was quite positive that she wasn’t laughing.
He stepped over to the console table and slapped down the letter next to the candelabrum. “What reason would you have for deciding that maybe you didn’t want me to see it, after all?”
“You’re giving me that reason now,” she said, her voice muffled behind her hands.
He picked up the candelabrum. “I left it there on the table. As I said, I’ve already read it. Even the crossed-out part where you expressed surprise that I hadn’t already deduced the truth. I suppose you didn’t want to insult me by implying I must be some kind of lackwit. You can take it and return upstairs now. I’ll even light a taper for you.” So saying, he tilted the candelabrum toward the single candlestick already on the table. She kept her back to him, hands still over her face, shoulders hunched, the posture of someone who longed for the floor to open beneath her and swallow her whole, sucking her straight down to hell, where the devil dwelled.
And according to the book she confessed to writing, that devil was Dane. He hesitated for a moment, studying her back, and then he returned to the drawing room, setting down the candelabrum and picking up his brandy.
“I knew you’d be furious,” quaked her voice from the great hall. “I knew you’d either be furious, or you would laugh at me.”
He peered at the dark doorway. “I am not furious, just baffled. But if you have something to say to me, Cecily, then would you please, at a minimum, come to the door and say it to my face. Don’t cower in a dark, adjacent room. And don’t write it in
a letter and leave it where I might find it ‘by accident’ as if—” He started, abruptly breaking off his words as she suddenly materialized in the doorway as if by magic, the letter in her hand. Her blue eyes sparkled with tears that left glittery trails down her reddened cheeks.
“It was an accident,” she insisted tremulously. “No quotation marks around it. I had no idea you were coming here for the night. Until this morning, I thought I was going to London with our aunt and uncle and what’s her—whoever she is. He decreed just this morning that I would remain here indefinitely. But the dowager countess has no use for me, either.”
That last word yanked on Dane’s heart as he gazed back at her.
Cecily continued, “She told me to remain invisible. So I spent the day in the library. I wrote this letter merely to get my thoughts on paper. I really wanted to write it the very same moment I learned Harry meant to publish that book. But he spilled all my ink, and ruined what stationery I had remaining. That’s how I got the smudges on my face that day. And so I came to Bradbury Park in person. But all I did was make an utter mull of the whole thing.”
Dane sighed as he recalled that day. “No, Cecily. I wouldn’t say that.” He almost gestured to the sofa, then just in time swung his hand toward the loveseat. “Would you like to come in and sit down? Maybe this would be a good time for you to try that brandy. Either way, I promise I will not laugh at you, or bite you, or otherwise try to hurt you or take advantage of you. I just want to understand.” He paused, and then added, “Please.”
He wanted to understand why all of this seemed like the end of the world to her. Considering how devastated she was to learn he’d read her letter, he thought the better of telling her that he’d already read her book. That, he decided, was best left for later. Much later. Maybe once the book was published. Or after they were married—if they married. Or how about 1850?
She faltered, gazing at him uncertainly.
He went on, “I rescued you from that suit of armor, did I not? I helped you to a chair and examined your foot for injury, did I not? And all the while, did I strike you as being either amused or angry about something?”
“No,” she conceded. “You were kind and concerned. Just as you were that day you rescued me from the treehouse. And the ha-ha.”
He couldn’t help thinking it almost pained her to admit it. “Yet I showed you that kindness and concern right after reading your letter. How did you expect me to react?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I hadn’t yet decided whether to send it to you. You may have noticed there was no signature. That’s because I wasn’t finished.”
“Not finished?” He chuckled. “It’s the longest letter I’ve ever read, and yet you weren’t finished writing it?”
“I tend to write more words than I speak. Because usually I’m not allowed to speak.”
“I’m allowing you to speak now,” he said, gesturing again to the loveseat. “Please sit down, Cecily. I’ll sit, too, but it wouldn’t be good manners for me to do so until you do so, too.” He paused, pondering his words. “Did that come out right?”
“It did.” She finally crossed the drawing room and sat back down on the loveseat, perching on the very edge, as if she wanted to be ready to spring and escape at the next sign of trouble.
He pulled back the armchair at what he hoped she might consider a non-threatening distance—far enough away that he couldn’t reach her with his fingertip or even the toe of his boot, unless he stood up and walked three long strides in her direction. Then he sat.
“I may as well tell you straight off,” he said. “I knew from the day you called at Bradbury Park that you had to be the author of that book. Call me a cynic, but no one could be that devoted a friend.”
She took a deep, shaky breath, still trying to gather her bearings. “Then why didn’t you say so at the time?”
“Probably for the same reason you didn’t say so. I surmised you were mortified—and not just because of the ink smudges on your face. I came perilously close to telling you flat out that I believed you to be the author, but I didn’t want to embarrass you any more than I might have already. So all I did was humor you and have faith that eventually you’d confess—which, in effect, you did.” He nodded at the letter now partially crumpled in her lap. “The book isn’t really about me—it’s about someone like me.”
“But not you.”
“Yet you’re convinced everyone else will think it isn’t about someone like me, but is about me, because of the rhyming names, and that it makes a villain out of me.”
“So Harry believes.”
“Methinks you need to place less importance on what Harry believes. He’s nothing but an idiot and a wastrel. And even if I never guessed you were the author, I did receive a letter later that same day, signed with your name—not that I believed it was your signature. He had to have written it. You were right—he wanted money to stop its publication.”
“Aunt Thea spoke of writing such a letter, but I think she made Rebecca do it,” Cecily quavered. “Later that day, Rebecca brought me the gloves I sometimes wear when I write so as not to have ink stains on my fingers all the time. Those gloves never leave my bedchamber. I think she wore them to write that letter while I was calling on you. They knew you wouldn’t pay any sum of money to stop publication, but thought it would direct your wrath toward me.”
He shook his head and sat forward slightly. “But if it’s just a silly work of fiction, and if I have no objection to its existence—which I don’t—then why are you so keen to keep it unpublished? Why are you so mortified by it, Cecily? Or by that letter you wrote today? And while I wouldn’t blame you for disavowing that broadside—”
“I didn’t write that and I don’t know who did!” she said fiercely.
“I know you didn’t. But I guess what I’m trying to ask is why do you think the world will come to an end if I read it? Or if anyone reads it?”
Fresh tears glistened in her eyes. “They’ve always laughed and made sport of what I wrote.”
“They being Harry and Willard?”
She nodded and blinked rapidly, as if fighting with all her strength to keep the tears back. “I’ve always liked to read, but there are only so many books around the house, and no lending or circulating libraries such as they have in London.”
“There are plenty of books in the libraries of every house I own, and you are always welcome to peruse them whenever you wish,” Dane declared.
“Thank you. But when I ran out of stories to read, I started writing my own, silly little fairy tales at first, and later the sort of thing Mrs. Radcliffe writes.”
“That seems a good idea to me.”
“Really?” She knit her brow, looking skeptical.
“Making, creating what you don’t have? In this case, new stories to read? That’s very resourceful, and quite ingenious, I daresay.”
“My family doesn’t seem to think so. They’ve always disapproved. They don’t consider it a ladylike pursuit. But I’ve never been very good at the more ladylike pursuits, such as embroidery and watercolors, or even playing the pianoforte.”
“Then they don’t approve of you being different,” he said. “They want you to fit in with everyone else.”
“Yet I’ve never felt as if I fit in with everyone else,” she said glumly. “I wish I did. That I could do embroidery or paint watercolors or play the pianoforte.”
“Why?”
She chuckled mirthlessly. “I don’t know. I can only think that maybe they wouldn’t treat me the way they do if I did.”
Dane, for one, doubted it. “Do you also keep a diary?”
“Not anymore. A diary is supposed to be a personal thing to the one who keeps it. But Harry was always reading it and then telling my aunt and uncle what I wrote. And then I would get in trouble for whatever it was.”
“They thought your words were treason and sedition, eh?”
“Yes! Yet they were naught but truthful observations.”
“My dear Cecily, you might be astounded to know how many people in the world are offended by truthful observations.”
“I daresay I should be just as astounded to know how many people occupy the earth at any given time. I hid my diary in every place I could think of, but to no avail. He always found it. And then...” Her voice trailed off, and she averted her gaze to the dying embers in the fireplace.
Dane took a sip of brandy and waited. For once he could not predict what she might have been about to say. But when a full minute ticked by and still she didn’t say anything, he prodded, “And then what?”
She licked her lips, bit the lower one, and kept her gaze riveted on the fireplace. “There was the time I was trapped in that treehouse. Harry was already in it, and he dared me to climb up into it, because it’s simply unheard of for a girl to do such a thing, because of our skirts. But I climbed the rope ladder with ease, though it swung a great deal, and I managed to get inside the treehouse with him.”
Another stretch of silence.
“And then he detached the ladder, threw it to the ground, and left you there, like the brat he was. Is,” said Dane, who knew this much of the story. “We boys knew how to get down from that thing without the ladder. My brother Linus once broke his collarbone jumping all the way down from it.”
“But I didn’t know how to climb down without the ladder,” Cecily said.
“No, you wouldn’t have known, and you might well have torn your skirt half off even if you did. There was a method to it that only foolish, fearless boys would dare to take—other than just jumping straight down, as Linus did.”
“Harry said I couldn’t leave the treehouse unless first I...” She clamped her mouth shut, as if she dared not speak another word.
Dane sat straight up in his chair, his spine stiff. Harry would have been about thirteen or fourteen at the time—the very age when a boy started thinking of ways to get alone with a girl and take advantage of her, heedless of any consequences. Many never learned or outgrew it.
“You were only what—ten, eleven years old at the time?” he asked.
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