A Duke in the Night

by Kelly Bowen

  He’d been in Dover to collect his correspondence, including a letter from London that the Strathmore ships still hadn’t come in. Harland Hayward had finally been backed into a corner, and August had already shown him the perfect way out. He would approach the baron again once they were back in London. August’s purchase of Strathmore Shipping—or, at the very least, a significant share of it—would get him what he wanted and also ensure that Clara and her family would be taken care of.

  He should have felt exceedingly pleased. Euphoric even, because this was what he lived for. The culmination of diligence, logic, timing, patience, and a little bit of luck. Yet this victory was strangely hollow.

  August covered the rest of the distance with feet that felt heavy and sluggish. He came to stand beside her, gazing out in the same direction. Clara didn’t look at him, didn’t give him any indication that she was even aware of his company. Presently she pushed herself off the wall and circled the lighthouse, then slipped inside it through a darkened entry. August followed, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light.

  “Why do you think they built this?” she asked.

  “Who?”

  “The Romans.” She gestured to the walls around her. “Why did they spend centuries fighting? Why invest so much blood and effort to build something that, in the end, they simply abandoned?” Clara didn’t move but stayed as she was, leaning back against the rough wall, her head tipped up to the clouds far above, visible through the round opening at the top.

  August looked up at the swirl of scarlet-and-tangerine clouds reflecting the setting sun against a darkening sky. For a moment he could almost imagine the light was from the flame that would have burned centuries ago, guiding sailors home safely.

  “I would suggest that the men who built this lighthouse had no intention of abandoning it.” He scuffed his boot in the dirt scattered across the floor, scattering a small collection of stubborn, light-starved weeds. “I suspect that they knew they were building something greater than themselves. Something that would survive long after they were gone.”

  The wind was whistling through the openings set above their heads in the circular structure, and it tugged at the hem of Clara’s skirts and the curl that was forever escaping. She shoved it back behind her ear. “Do you think greed was Rome’s ultimate downfall?” she asked. “If they had stopped sooner in their quest to take over every corner of the world and had been happy with what they’d already conquered, would they still be here?”

  “Perhaps greed is the wrong word. Ambition, maybe. Men will always want more,” August said, his voice echoing against the circular wall. “More land, more wealth, more control, more security.”

  “I think my father would have said the same thing.” She sounded bitter. “Both of you would have made good Romans.”

  “How so?”

  “Enough is never enough. You told me that once. My father, I think, believed that too. I just…” She shook her head. “I just hope that…ambition ends better for you than it did for the Romans.” And my father, he heard her add silently. Because August knew she was speaking of her father’s failed ambitions and the mess he’d landed his children in.

  “Clara…” He stopped, unsure what he wanted to say. The guilt was starting to overwhelm his resolve. He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell her that he had bought the legacy that her mother had left to her and, after this year, would raze it to the ground. He couldn’t tell her that that purchase had been what had led him to pry into her life and then take very deliberate steps to capitalize on her family’s misfortune. He couldn’t tell her any of that without losing her forever.

  In his old life, such steps had made him clever and pragmatic. Yet standing here, in an ancient lighthouse with a woman who had illuminated his world, he didn’t feel clever and pragmatic. He felt utterly wretched. His moment of triumph had somehow become a moment of failure.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said. He couldn’t tell her what he had already done. But he could undo this, maybe, without losing her. Without risking her ever discovering what he had done. “I can help.”

  She shook her head. “No, you can’t.”

  “I can. Is it money that you need?” The words tumbled from him in a desperate rush. “Because whatever you need is yours.”

  Clara had gone completely still, her eyes narrowed. “No,” she said after a long minute. “I can’t…We can’t…”

  August wanted to shake her. He couldn’t reveal what he’d known all along without exposing his hand. He needed her to tell him the truth. He needed her to ask him for help.

  He needed her to trust him.

  “There’s nothing you can do,” she said.

  Frustration skewered all the foreign emotions that were making it hard for him to think straight. “Horseshit,” he said loudly, his voice bouncing around him. “You won’t accept my help. Why?”

  “Because this is a family matter and doesn’t concern you,” she said. “And you are not family.”

  That hurt more than it ever should have. “Then what am I?” he demanded. “A friend? A lover? A mere distraction?”

  “You were never a mere distraction.”

  “Yet you keep me at a distance. You won’t let me in. Just like everyone else.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Why are you still alone?” he demanded.

  “Because being alone gives me my freedom. My independence.”

  He took two steps closer to her. “Independence and freedom don’t mean you have to do everything by yourself. They don’t mean you have to do everything alone. True freedom and independence allow you to recognize when you need help. And give you the ability to ask for it. Know when to ask for help, Clara.”

  She looked away. “You’re speaking of your father.”

  “No. I’m speaking of you. You think I am the only man in the world who sees you and admires you for who you really are? You think I am the only man who would never take away that freedom and independence you speak of should he find himself lucky enough to have you? You, Clara Hayward, have become very good at using all the rules of society, the very rules you profess to despise, to keep yourself apart. And I can’t figure out why.”

  She was staring at him, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “You can’t figure out why?” she said in a strangled voice. “Why don’t we start with your friends? The ones who dared you to dance with me. What did they call me that night?”

  “They were never my friends, and you know it,” August snapped. “They were the companions of a man who didn’t know enough to call himself such. Who erroneously thought that he could regain what status his family had lost in society by gaining their approval.”

  “You never answered my question.”

  “Because their words don’t bear repeating.”

  “How about if I do it for you? Unnatural. Bluestocking. Queer. Wallflower.” She stopped. “How am I doing so far? Because even if those weren’t the adjectives your friends used that night, I’d heard them all before. Many times.”

  “Clara—”

  “How about Mathias Stilton, then?” she said, her voice ragged. “A man I had actually believed to be a friend, someone who had not weighed the value of my dowry against my intellect. But he too reminded me that no one wanted me then, and no one wants me now.”

  “I want you,” he snarled.

  “But not forever,” she replied sadly.

  August could feel his fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms. He’d never considered forever. But now that the word was out there, shimmering just beyond him, it was enough to make him reel.

  “I’m tired of it all, August,” she said, and her voice was barely a whisper. “Maybe I grew tired of it long ago, if truth be told. It is far easier just to keep myself apart. Where there are no motivations to evaluate, no disappointments to endure. I have the freedom to seek my own happiness without depending on anyone else. Experience has taught me I am better served expecting the wor
st.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the woman who once spoke of changing the world.”

  Clara smiled sadly. “I didn’t say I would ever stop hoping for the best.”

  August reached out and smoothed her hair back from her face. “Don’t ever stop. You deserve to be happy, Clara.”

  “I am happy,” she said. “With you.”

  * * *

  August made a muffled noise, and then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him, crushing his mouth to hers. Clara melted into him instantly, wanting to lose herself in him. Wanting to lose herself in everything that was this man. She let him kiss her, let him set the pace, let him wipe her mind clean of everything that was not August Faulkner.

  He swept his tongue across the seam of her lips, and she opened willingly, letting him plunder what had always been his. This kiss, more than any of their kisses, tasted bittersweet. Tasted of what-ifs and lost opportunities and desire realized too late. Standing in a ruined lighthouse, the sky blazing above their heads, it tasted of goodbye.

  “Tell me what I am to you, Clara,” August whispered against her mouth.

  Everything, she wanted to cry. Everything that she had always dreamed of from the very first second he had taken her hand in a reckless waltz. And maybe that was why she had never entertained another man seriously. Maybe, somewhere deep down, she had given her heart away on a dance floor long ago.

  But she didn’t think, for one second, that she was his everything. She knew better than that. There had been no professions of love, no declarations of undying devotion. She had his respect and his admiration, to be sure, but not his heart.

  She closed her eyes. “A friend. A lover.” He had never pretended to be anything more.

  “Yes. Always.” August traced the outline of her lips with his thumb. “And that is not good enough to let me in?”

  Clara opened her eyes. Not for this. Not if there was ever a hope of their remaining friends or, even more unlikely, lovers when they returned to London. Not if she was to keep her promise to Harland and keep the Duke of Holloway out of the Strathmore family’s affairs.

  “I want us to stay friends,” she said. “So please don’t ask me again.”

  August’s hand fell to his side, and for the briefest of moments, he looked utterly bereft. “I need to tell you…” He stopped again, anguished frustration stamped all over his face. “I can’t…” The words died on his lips.

  Clara went up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. “Tomorrow I return to London with my students. And I understand that everything will change. But know this, August Faulkner. No matter what happens tomorrow, or a year from now, or another decade from now, I will always treasure the friendship that exists between us. I will always treasure what we were to each other here.” Her throat had thickened, and it was all she could do to keep her voice steady. “And if you are ever dared to dance with me again, I promise I will always say yes.”

  Chapter 20

  Outwardly, Clara’s return to London had been peculiarly ordinary.

  Haverhall continued to operate as it always had, which meant that the routine of Clara’s life remained unchanged for the time being. The only difference being that all financial transactions and communications were handled through a solicitor. Harland had secured an investor, though he was tight-lipped about his identity, citing his desire to remain anonymous. It had been enough to clear them from debt and see the remaining ships refitted and crewed.

  They had also received a letter from Boston, written by the captain of one of their missing ships, stating that both had taken damage on the way there, but that the damage had been minor, the cargo unharmed, and that they would be departing for England within a fortnight. They were expected back before the winter weather set in. The ships were too late to keep Strathmore Shipping intact, but Clara knew she should be thankful for small mercies.

  The last days of summer had faded into fall, and Clara had started the term as she always had, Haverhall full of young London ladies anxious to partake in the usual curriculum. She was determined to enjoy whatever time she had left and make the most of it. She wasn’t entirely sure what she would do when the year was over, but the success of this year’s summer program was still fresh in her mind. Perhaps Haverhall would simply become a summer program, the classes small but the students still unique.

  But despite her determination to stay positive and not wallow, she recognized that she had been different since she returned from Dover. The things that she used to find joy in seemed grayer, as if the color had been leached from them. She wasn’t sure if that was because the future was more uncertain or because she was missing August with an intensity so great it hurt. Missing turning to him to share something. Missing his conversation, his laughter, his touch. Missing everything about him. She had thought she had been prepared to relegate their time together to memory. As she had the waltz they had once shared in their youth.

  Except it hadn’t been that easy.

  She had visited the museum since her return and had stood in front of the relief of the Lapith and centaur, lost in her memories and her thoughts. Stood for so long, in fact, that one of the attendants had approached her and asked if she was unwell. She had startled, her cheeks flushing, wondering if perhaps she was. August hadn’t called at Haverhall, nor had their paths crossed anywhere in London. Distance was easier, she supposed, in some respects. It would be infinitely harder to have him close and untouchable. And it would make the regrets that continued to linger even harder to ignore.

  So when the message from the Holloway residence had arrived, Clara’s reaction had been instantaneous and intense, turmoil reigning supreme. The butterflies stormed back, banging against the inside of her rib cage. Longing pooled hard and fast, deep within her, even as her mind intoned caution and curbed hope. She opened the neatly sealed missive and realized her hands were shaking. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling foolish.

  The note was clear and concise, just as she imagined all correspondence from the Duke of Holloway to be. It asked her to attend him at her earliest convenience. There was no hint as to what he wished to see her about. No statements that he missed her, no declarations of affection. No suggestions that anyone could ever misconstrue as anything other than cool and impersonal. But it didn’t matter.

  Because the regrets that lingered had told her everything that she needed to know. Those festering regrets had made it clear that she had fallen utterly in love with the Duke of Holloway. She should have told him that in Dover. She shouldn’t have said goodbye without telling him how she really felt. She should have told him everything.

  And now, it would seem, she had the perfect opportunity to rid herself of those regrets. She didn’t know what it would bring, but she was done hiding behind excuses.

  * * *

  The Holloway residence was a town house located in an older, established neighborhood, a location still distinguished and elegant, if not new. It would seem the duke had bypassed the more popular addresses, the wildly expensive squares where prices reflected nothing except the novelty of the residences. Clara almost caught herself smiling. August Faulkner would pay for realized luxury but he would not pay for affected vanity. How very like him.

  The interior of his home was exactly as she had expected as well. The finishings were fine but practical. The furniture was well made but not extravagant. The entire place exuded wealth but not excess. Clara was shown not into a drawing room but into a cavernous study by a quietly efficient butler. Tall bookshelves lined all the walls except the one that boasted a lit hearth, the fire lending light and a welcome warmth to the room. A heavy, masculine-looking desk sat just to the right of the hearth, its surface covered with papers. The entire room, in fact, had a very masculine feel to it, except, oddly enough, the second desk that sat just to the left. This desk looked new, and it was made of carved rosewood. It was something that, despite its practical, functional construction, looked as if it would be more at
home in a lady’s morning room.

  Clara wandered over to it, taking in the neat piles of ledgers, an assortment of what looked like receipts, a small collection of writing tools, and lists in a familiar feminine handwriting. Anne’s desk, then, by all appearances. Clara wondered if it had always been here. Or perhaps August had given Anne back her sense of purpose. Either way, Clara was intrigued.

  There was no sign of the duke, or Anne for that matter, and Clara wandered over toward the hearth and August’s desk. She knew she should return to the long sofa on which the butler had indicated she should wait. But the emotion and restless energy humming through her made it impossible to sit still. She didn’t know what August had summoned her for. Didn’t know what he wanted from her. But she was trying to remain composed. Trying not to hope.

  She stood near the side of his desk, staring at the glowing coals. A loud crash somewhere outside the study made her jump and whirl, her hip knocking a long, rolled sheaf of papers off the side of the desk. Clara put a hand to her chest, feeling foolish at the nervous tension that had her strung so tight. A maid hurried by the open door in the direction of the disturbance, a broom and pail in her hand, and Clara bent to retrieve the roll of paper from the floor. As she did, her eyes fell on the top corner, a word written in ink that had bled through to the back of the top sheet, easily distinguishable. Haverhall.

  She stood, the heavy roll still in her hand, and gently placed it back on the desk as if it were a viper. The rolled sheets were huge, the sort that architects and shipbuilders used. Clara poked at them, even as something in her mind was screaming at her to turn around and leave. To turn around and walk away and not look at what was in front of her. Once she saw what was there, it would be impossible to unsee it. But it was already too late.

  She took a deep breath and flicked the edge with her fingers, and the paper rolled out with a soft thump as it reached the end of his desk.

  “Haverhall” was written in small letters along the bottom of the paper, followed by “Wilds and Busby, Brighton. July, 1819.” She understood exactly what she was looking at even as she understood that it seemed August had solicited the services of architects and planners long before he had ever ridden for Dover. She swallowed with difficulty, her throat suddenly constricted and a feeling of sick certainty rising in her stomach. She smoothed the wide documents flat with her palm.