Her heart pounded so hard she thought it must be visible. Lowering her eyes quickly, she said, “Yes.”
He laughed, and pulling her hand through his arm, led her into the house. “Do you not realize that my reputation is so bad that nothing you could say could make it worse?”
Hope surged inside her. “Do you really believe that?” They deposited their hats and gloves with Bates and went into the navy sitting room.
“I will not have you worry about anything so silly. Especially not when I have something I very much need to ask.”
She sank onto the sofa, relief making her weak. Was it possible that all would be well? That he would not take offense? That she would not ruin him? Before she had recovered from this gracious windfall, the duke sat beside her and gathered her in his arms. “Do you love me, Elise?”
Emerging from the thoughts that had so plagued her, she said without a second thought, “Of course I do! Why else would I have been so worried?”
“There is no ‘of course’ about it. When did you begin to love me? Truly?”
“I do not know exactly when. But I do know that I was keenly aware of the fact the night you were stabbed. I was hoping you would kiss me.”
“That was my object, but Waterford had other ideas.”
“And the newspaper said you were dead! You have no idea how I mourned you.”
“I learned from the doctor that I had you to thank for saving me. Apparently, you stopped the bleeding just in time.”
“And then you came to Yorkshire, and I was despicable to you.”
“And I crashed down your door and frightened you.”
“Yes. I was right in the middle of my beastly book!”
“When did you begin to forgive me, then?”
“During my convalescence. You were so wonderful to me, and I realized then that Gregory had deliberately not told me the date of that newspaper. He had intentionally poisoned the well.”
“Enough talk. Suffice it to say, the viscount and I have a long and chequered history. Now, put him out of your mind. I do not want you thinking of anything else except how very much I love you.” Releasing her, he went down on one knee before her.
“Elise Edwards, will you marry me? Will you overlook my dreadful past and take me as I am now? A reformed rogue?”
“Of course I will,” she said softly. “You have no notion of how very much I love you.”
Drawing her to her feet, he smoothed the curls about her face and cupped it in his hands. Looking into his face, her eyes fell to his lips. In her breast was a longing so acute that she physically ached. He lowered his head. Just before their lips met, however, the door opened. In walked Viscount Chessingden.
“Dreadfully sorry! I see I’ve interrupted Elise in her favorite activity.”
“Go away, Chessingden!” the duke commanded.
“But I had a most urgent message from Elise to call here without delay. Perhaps it is you who should leave.”
Elise shot an angry look at Gregory. The moment was ruined, of course. Will Peter never kiss me?
He murmured in her ear, “Never mind. Remember, we have a lifetime ahead of us. I’ll make our announcement at the ball.”
She could not take her eyes from him. His words thrilled her down to her toes. At last. All was right between them.
“I will leave you, so you can transact your business with the viscount,” he said.
Her new fiancé departed, but she did not face the old one until the door was shut. Her anger with Gregory had mellowed. Giving her head a little shake, she bade him be seated.
Seating herself across from him in a straight-backed chair, she said, “Gregory, you intentionally misled me about that bet.”
His eyes, hot and surprisingly angry, bored into hers. “The man is no good, Elise. Did you know that . . .”
She cut him off. “I do not wish to hear any more dubious tales. You have done enough harm. And now, I am giving you a chance to undo it.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because I know that you would not wish me to be harmed by your actions.”
“What are we talking about here?”
“We are talking about a book I wrote. Based on things you told me about the duke. It is too late to withhold it from publication, so I want you to do the honorable thing and buy up all the copies from the publisher.”
Throwing back his head, Viscount Chessingden laughed. “Good work, Elise! Finally, the man will come by his just desserts!”
“You will not do as I ask?”
“Not for any amount of money. Nonetheless, there is one offer I might consider.”
She raised an eyebrow in query.
“Your luscious self. If you give yourself to me, wholly and completely, I will engage to do as you ask. If you shed your clothing immediately, it would not be too soon.”
After the duke’s careful courting of her, Gregory’s brash words came as a horrid shock. “Go away! I am engaged to Ruisdell. If I repeat what you have just said to him, he will call you out!”
He approached her, his eyes now warm with desire. Before she knew what was happening, he had pulled her to her feet, grabbed her head between his hands, and begun to kiss her as though it were a punishment. He ripped the sleeve of her gown and reached inside her bodice. At the touch of his hand, she screamed.
Bates came through the door, but it made no difference to the maddened viscount who struggled with Elise, holding her wrists, as she pulled herself away.
Finally free, she slapped his insolent face, while Bates, averting his eyes, grabbed Chessingden’s arm from behind. He wrenched it behind the viscount’s back.
“Scoundrel! How dare you treat Miss Edwards in such a manner?” He marched him out of the room, leaving Elise to cover herself with her hands.
“I’m going,” he said. “And I do so look forward to your next novel, my love. I will be certain to recommend it to all my acquaintance.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
IN WHICH THE DUKE GIVES A BALL
Lady Clarice had clearly outdone herself. It was worth the price of enduring Queen Elizabeth and seemingly unending commotion for the past week. His ballroom was transformed. Against the walls, which had been hung with gold metallic fabric, were swags of the red, white, and blue of the Union Jack. Further carrying out this patriotic theme, Lady Clarice had placed planters of petunias in these colors about the edges of the room, using them as dividers, creating alcoves by adding screens of ficus trees. Enhancing the table containing all the vellum sheets (transcribed by Elise in her elegant hand), was an enormous flag on the wall behind. Lady Susannah and Lady Clarice were to be posted by the table after he made his announcement concerning the lottery.
The ball was to commence at ten o’clock, and he paced about the empty ballroom nervously. Perhaps no one would come to a ball given by such a rogue as he.
He was wrong. When Lady Clarice joined him at the top of the stairs to welcome guests, she told him that the line of carriages was so long that it wound through several streets.
It was a new experience for him to act as host, though there had been many balls in this house when his mother was alive. It gave him a pleasure that he was not expecting. Especially when he caught sight of Elise with her aunt’s companion making her way up the stairs. Dressed in gold-spangled royal blue silk tissue, she had a delicate golden tiara of stars upon her head. Her hair was dressed in a complicated coiffure beginning with braids stretching back from her temples. Three black ringlets fell over her white shoulder. She was simply the most beautiful creature present.
And she was his! Never had he felt such well-being as the last two days since he had become engaged to the woman he loved with his whole heart. God bless Elise for bringing this joy into my life.
As he watched the opening minuet being danced to the strains of the excellent string orchestra Lady Clarice had hired, he ventured to hope that this was but the first of many balls that would be held at Shearings. The sight
of so many members of the ton in their finery and sparkling jewels used to cause him nothing but ennui. Tonight’s ball had a purpose, however, and that knowledge changed everything.
When eleven o’clock struck, he led Lady Clarice down the stairs on his arm and approached the dais where the orchestra had just finished playing a Scottish reel. Lady Clarice walked to the lottery table, where she joined her companion. Climbing onto the shallow stage, Ruisdell clapped his hands.
“If I could please have your attention, I would like to explain the rules for our lottery this evening.” Immediate silence descended on the ballroom. “At the conclusion of my instruction, I have another important announcement to make.” He proceeded to unfold the procedure he had worked out with Elise and her aunt. People began to buzz with reactions to this novel approach to charity, making it necessary for him to clap his hands once again.
Faces without number turned up to look at him. Nodding at Elise, he watched as she ascended the dais. When she reached him, there was a complete hush in the room. “Friends, I would like to announce my second betrothal to the same lady, Miss Elise Edwards. She has really consented to be my wife this time.”
The room erupted in applause, and he instructed the quartet to begin a waltz. Leading his lady down the steps, he watched as people made way for them to reach the center of the ballroom. Then he took Elise in his arms and, looking into her twinkling eyes, began to twirl about the room. He forgot his wounded leg. In fact, he lost consciousness of everything but Elise. In her eyes, he saw himself reflected as a being he was only coming to know. A new warmth spread through him, an elixir of well-being. His life had been a very cold night until now. For the first time, he was esteemed and loved. And for the first time in his life, he knew what it was to love another. And he had not so much as kissed her! Now, holding her in his arms, looking at her snowy white shoulders caressed by her black ringlets, he knew that their eventual union would be like nothing that had ever occurred in his life before. His life before Elise was blackness, lit only by his too-short friendship with Joshua Beynon. He hoped that there was such a thing as an afterlife and that Joshua could see him cherishing his Sunshine.
After their waltz, Elise and Ruisdell walked about the room arm in arm, receiving congratulations. The only thing that disturbed his tranquility was Lady Marianne’s presence. He hoped she would not make trouble tonight.
His hope was disappointed. In a dress that showed almost all of her bounteous bosom, she approached him as soon as Rochdale claimed Elise for the minuet. Grabbing his arm, she took him into an alcove of ficus trees. There she rubbed up against him frantically, her eyes gleaming with desire. “Your eyes are hot. I can tell you want me. I will wait for you tonight. Come to me. She will never know. And she can never give you . . . these.” She stood back a fraction.
Disgusted at his own arousal, he yanked her bodice as far up as it would go. Am I still a rake, after all? Why does my body still want this woman? Without a word, he turned his back on her. But Elise had seen. She was standing at the opening to the alcove, eyes wide.
“What is that woman to you, Peter?” she asked, her eyes sparking with anger. “Is she still your mistress?”
Marianne came up behind him in time to hear Elise’s question. “He cannot seem to get me out of his mind,” the brazen woman said, her voice husky with desire. “You are such a prim little thing, I know it will not be long before he returns to me. Our arrangement is a long-standing one, you know.”
Taking Elise’s arm, he could not keep himself from glancing down at her chaste bosom. It was not small, by any means, but it was properly covered. He swallowed with difficulty. Was he going to continue to be aroused by light-skirts? There was only one thing for it.
Leading Elise out onto his terrace, he whispered into her hair, “The woman is without shame. Do not regard her.” Tipping her chin up, so he could see her face, so miraculously restored to its beautiful complexion, he said, “Now, kiss me, Elise. As though there were no tomorrow.”
He bent to her and was relieved to note that as their lips touched, a fire lit below his ribs, growing in heat and intensity as he drew her lips hungrily into his mouth. He tightened his hold on her so that there was nothing between them but his waistcoat and linen shirt. The knowledge of who she was and who she was to become in his life—his wife and the mother of his children—was far more intoxicating than Marianne had ever been. These breasts that he felt against him would nurse his children. This body, so lithe and graceful, would carry his seed. He would, on a not too distant night, take her completely and make her his in the most exalted, intimate way.
As the kiss endured, he felt her hunger as well. She entwined his hair in her hands, stroked his back, arched her own as though offering herself to him. Were they not on his terrace, he knew he could not have restrained himself from taking her then and there. Marianne with her admittedly glorious charms had never ignited him thus.
“Yes, she is a delectable piece, ain’t she? I’m particularly fond of that bosom.”
Brought to earth with a crash, he turned to see Chessingden leaning against the wall, casually smoking a cigar.
“One of these days, Chessingden, you are going to go too far, and I will be forced to demand satisfaction.”
“Shades of the late earl, eh, Elise?”
Elise tugged at the duke’s arm, pulling him down the steps into his garden. When they were out of earshot of the viscount, she finally said, “Peter, we both have a past, although, mine is not nearly as lurid as yours. The viscount is a cad, worse than you know. But Lady Marianne is the outside of enough!”
“You are right.” He looked longingly at the stone bench they were approaching. “Nevertheless, my love, if you do not wish to have your very lovely dress ruined, I would advise against that bench. You have lit a fire in me, and I must call a retreat, or I will have you calling me a cad!”
She grinned and allowed him to return her to the ballroom. After enjoying a most satisfying supper of lobster patties, salmon in aspic, vegetables dressed with dill sauce, chicken wings, and tiny cherry tartlets, the duke rose from the table, and taking Elise with him, went to the lottery table. To his great satisfaction, not one sheet of vellum remained. Lady Clarice handed him his top hat, full of slips of paper containing the candidates for the prize. With the hat in one hand, and Elise’s hand over his other arm, he again ascended the dais.
This time, he did not need to clap. Everyone was agog to see who would win the thousand guinea lottery. He introduced the drawing with a short speech.
“The very first time I saw my fiancée was at her soup kitchen in the East End. She was dressed in a hideous gown with her hair pulled straight back in a knot, ladling soup into the bowls belonging to wounded soldiers. I guarantee that even in those circumstances, dressed and groomed as she was, I began to lose my heart. Having been a soldier myself, I was very moved by her desire to help the wounded of no means, and their families, to have at least one hot, nutritious meal per day.
“There is a saying, however, that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, he can feed himself for a lifetime. With this in mind, I organized this lottery to bring to your attention these same wounded soldiers, who wish to be employed so that they may provide that hot meal for their families themselves. Thank you for your generosity in taking this service upon yourselves.
“Now, Elise, darling, would you please draw a name from this hat?”
She did so. When she read the name, her hand flew to her mouth. Looking up at him, he saw her eyes widen. She gave him the paper.
Suppressing a sigh, he read, “Viscount Chessingden.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
OUR HEROINE VISITS HER FUTURE HOME
Two weeks after the ball at Shearings, a cortege set out from Blossom House for the duke’s estate near Buxton in the Peak District of Derbyshire, where the company was to reside until the wedding in December. Lady Clarice’s well-sprung traveling carriage took the le
ad, carrying Elise, her aunt, and Lady Susannah, accompanied (to the duke’s evident dismay) by both Queen Elizabeth and Henry Five. The duke rode alongside the carriage on his stallion, Jupiter. Behind this carriage rode Richards, Kitty, his grace’s cook, Covey, and the servants’ luggage in the rather ancient Ruisdell equippage. Behind this was Lady Clarice’s old brougham, which carried all the luggage for the ladies and the duke. Besides himself, the duke had hired two outriders for the two-day journey.
It was a lovely, crisp October morning, but Elise was anxious. She hoped to make a good impression on Ruisdell’s formidable aunt, who lived in Ruisdell Palace and who would be living close by in the Dower House after she was married to the duke. In addition, the duke’s younger brother, Lord Roger Northcott, who managed the estate, his wife, and twin sons now made their home in the Palace. They were not likely to welcome the bride who could give birth to progeny that would not only cut them out of the succession but, more immediately, oust them into the more rundown property on the edge of the estate near Taddington. It was evident to Elise that no one had expected the roguish duke to marry, least of all said roguish duke.
She was glad of the consoling presence of her aunt, Sukey, and even the pets. “I always thought that when I married, I might have at least half a chance of finally gaining a loving family,” she said. “But I am bound to be seen as an interloper.”
“I will always be your family, love,” her aunt said. “Derbyshire is not that far from London. I daresay, with a fast post chaise and four, I could be with you in a day and a half, should you need me.”
“Well, Peter has never spent time here since his parents were alive. I cannot picture him being happy with long stays in the country. He told me that he intends to take up his seat in the House of Lords and become far more active in politics. Perhaps we will not be here for much of the year.”
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