The Duke's Wicked Wife

by Elizabeth Bright

  Eliza was not the proper wife for him. Oh, she had all her hair, and a sense of humor, but her family lacked consequence and stature in the ton. Any of the other ladies present would have made a far better duchess. If he had learned anything over the past few days of the house party, it was that Miss Eliza Benton was disastrous to his peace of mind, and proximity to her only exacerbated the issue. Life would never be comfortable again.

  Given all this, he ought to be horrified at their compromised position. But instead, the relief was so great he nearly fell to his knees and wept.

  “I suppose,” he said calmly to the onlookers, “you are all still here because you are awaiting an explanation.”

  “An explanation is not necessary, Your Grace,” Lady Chester said. “We all have eyes. You aren’t the first man to be trapped by a pretty face.”

  Next to him, Eliza turned a furious shade of red.

  “My niece did no such thing,” Mrs. Roberts said indignantly. “I arrived before all of you, and I clearly heard him say ‘Kiss me, Eliza.’ If anyone laid a trap, it was the duke, if you will pardon me for saying so, Your Grace. Of course you did not see me there. No one ever does, it seems.”

  “There was no trap. There is no scandal.” He held up both hands to halt any argument and ignored the dubious feeling in his gut. He was almost certain it hadn’t been consciously done. Even he wouldn’t stoop that low. Mrs. Roberts truly did have a way of sneaking up on a person that was wholly disconcerting. He shook his head. “What you witnessed was a man kissing his fiancée. A moment of indiscretion, undoubtedly. But scandalous? Certainly not.”

  Eliza made a small squawk which he thought might turn into a mighty roar of protest once she fully recovered her faculties. He stepped in front of her and hoped she wouldn’t use the opportunity to stab him in the back.

  Lady Chester raised her chin. “With all due respect, Your Grace, you cannot expect us to believe—”

  “Did you never kiss Lord Chester before you recited your vows, my lady?” He met her gaze evenly. “Never?”

  Two red circles appeared on Lady Chester’s cheeks. Her lips flattened.

  “I believe,” Mrs. Eastwood said very gently, “that we are in danger of being too hasty with our words and decisions. The hour is late. This discussion can wait until morning, if it is necessary to discuss at all. It sounds as though the matter is already settled, and we were just not privy to it. May I be the first to congratulate you, Your Grace? And Miss Benton…” She hesitated, biting her lip. “I hope you both will be very happy.”

  She sounded somewhat doubtful, which caused a spasm of remorse deep in his belly. He fumbled in his pocket, searching out the bead. Regret served little purpose here; what was done was done, and he couldn’t change that.

  And he wouldn’t, even if he could.

  There was an echo of felicitations from the other guests, with similar insincerity. Lady Abingdon, he noted, said nothing at all. He glared at her, which she returned with a baleful stare.

  “Well!” Mrs. Roberts clapped her hands together briskly. “Shall we adjourn to our rooms? Come along, Eliza.”

  Eliza emerged from behind his back, chin high and shoulders back. She did not spare him a glance as she swept from the room behind her aunt, looking less like a chastened niece than a retreating queen. The remaining guests departed as well, leaving him alone with Abingdon and Nick.

  “Wessex,” Abingdon said, “what did you do?”

  Ah. Now that was an accusation, unlike the question Sebastian had posed to himself.

  Nick shut the door with a quiet click. He stood sentry, legs wide, arms crossed over his chest, blocking any possibility of escape.

  Sebastian looked from one annoying twin to the other. He narrowed his eyes. “I recall asking you that very question when Lady Abingdon was still Miss Bursnell and relations between you had progressed to a morally ambiguous place.”

  Abingdon’s gaze dropped, and he rubbed his cheek. “I was not ambiguous in my feelings for her. I had every intention of marrying her just as soon as she would have me. And anyway”—he delivered his parting shot with not a small amount of smug triumph—“I did not get caught.”

  The point was valid, Sebastian had to admit. A great many things between kissing and overly large babies born a month early could be forgiven, so long as nothing was ever proven.

  But such was not the case with Nick, so there he turned.

  “You, at least, will not judge me. You were not caught yourself, but Adelaide was, and her misery was on your head.” He jabbed a finger as he spoke.

  “I do not judge you, Wessex.” Nick paused, reconsidered. “Not for this, that is.”

  “Neither of us has just cause to sit in judgment,” Abingdon admitted. “It is only— You said you had no desire to marry Miss Benton, that she would be the last woman you took to wife. How in blazes did this happen?” He looked about him in confusion, as though seeking answers from the books lining the oak shelves.

  An excellent question.

  How had Sebastian found himself kissing Eliza in the library while his friends and guests looked on? Had he taken leave of his senses? Temporarily gone mad?

  He went to the Chippendale sideboard, removed three snifters, and poured two fingers of brandy in each. Abingdon and Nick claimed their glasses and commenced with emptying them. Sebastian swirled the amber liquid and frowned.

  It was not his first drink of the night. There had been the usual wine with dinner, and then after, when he had made up his mind to follow Eliza to the library, he had also fortified himself with a quick swallow of brandy. But for all that, he wasn’t in his cups. He couldn’t blame his behavior on spirits, for he was entirely sober…if not entirely sane.

  “I meant to say goodbye,” he said at last. “I don’t understand it myself.”

  The brothers looked at each other.

  “Your friendship with Miss Benton has never been of the, ah, ordinary sort,” Abingdon said delicately. “You tease and goad her mercilessly. She has chastised you and lectured you as no other woman in England would dare. And yet your friendship is not one of true animosity. It has often seemed to me that you understand each other far more than you understand yourselves. I cannot imagine that ending such a friendship would bring either of you joy. Is it at all possible that you hoped for this outcome?”

  “No, I—” Sebastian stopped, gave his glass a contemplative swirl. He closed his eyes, returning to the moment she kissed him. A shadowy movement, a feeling they were not alone, and then her lips had blotted out all thought, all feeling, except the desperate, terrible need never to let her go.

  “It is possible,” he said cautiously, “that while it was not intentionally done, it wasn’t precisely unintentional, either. On my part, I mean. Eliza is entirely blameless.”

  Nick groaned. “A word of advice. If you value your stones, never tell her. Keep such uncertainties to yourself. You were both aware that you were not alone in the house. I can vouchsafe that none of us were told to arrive at a certain time and catch you in the act. And does she not get a duke? Not a bad bargain, I’d say. Keep your mouth shut and your stones intact.”

  A sentiment Sebastian could agree with wholeheartedly. He downed the rest of his brandy.

  “The question now is, what do you intend to do?” Abingdon asked.

  Sebastian gave him a surprised look. “Exactly what I said I’d do. I’m going to marry her.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Eliza awoke to bright sunlight and a feeling of impending doom. She rolled over, burrowing deeper into the covers, and buried her head beneath the goose-down pillow.

  She had kissed the Duke of Wessex.

  Worse, she had liked it.

  Worse still, she had been caught.

  Her stupidity was appalling. What in heaven’s name had come over her? How had this happened? And why, why, wh
y was she such a damned fool?

  There was an insistent knock at the door, implying the person on the other side had knocked before, received no response, and was now impatient. Likely the first attempts had not penetrated her pillow.

  “Enter,” she said, expecting Marie.

  Instead there was a flurry of movement, a good deal of rustling, and a cacophony of voices tumbling over one another, as though her room had been invaded by a flock of starlings in silk dresses.

  She pushed the pillow and blankets from her face and peered out. At the foot of the bed stood Riya, Alice, and Adelaide, watching her with morbid fascination.

  Eliza sat up. “Good morning.”

  Three sets of dark eyes stared unblinkingly back at her.

  “I think I speak for us all,” Alice said, “when I say what the hell happened?”

  “Alice!” Adelaide rebuked.

  “It’s Wessex. Profanity is perfectly in order.”

  Adelaide’s mouth became a thin line of resignation at this irrefutable point.

  Riya rounded the bed, coming to sit next to Eliza. “What happened, dear?”

  “Oh, you know what happened.” Eliza gave her friends a cross look. “You were there. You saw everything.”

  “We saw everything, and still, somehow, understand nothing. It’s Wessex,” Alice said again, bewildered. “You said you intended never to marry anyone, but that if you did, the duke would be the last man on earth to make a suitable husband.”

  Eliza stood by that assessment, but she didn’t care for Alice’s tone. “I seem to recall you saying something similar regarding Abingdon,” she said coolly.

  Alice met her gaze unflinchingly. “Love has a way of making fools of us all. Is that…” She hesitated, eyeing Eliza with a doubtful expression. “Is that what happened? Are you in love with Wessex?”

  It seemed Alice could say Wessex only with italics now, as though it deeply surprised her every time his name slipped through her lips.

  Eliza sighed. “Of course I’m not in love with him. I never intended marriage. I just wanted a kiss, is all.”

  Wanted was a pale, flimsy word to describe her feelings at that moment. She had needed a kiss with such overwhelming ferocity that for a moment, nothing else mattered. She had needed his kiss more than her solitary mornings, more than Hyacinth Cottage, more than the air she breathed.

  Now, of course, with that sardonic, beautiful mouth nowhere in sight, sanity was restored and she needed those things very much, and his kiss not at all. It wasn’t fair. Her dreams, her life, was in shambles, whereas his would continue on exactly as planned. He had wanted a wife? Now he would have one, however unwilling she might be.

  Damn the man. Damn the man to an eternity in the countryside with no one but cows to witness his charm.

  Riya gave her knee, buried under a blanket, a sympathetic pat. “It could have been worse. At least you weren’t caught kissing Lord Sutton in the library. You don’t like him at all.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Of course, the liking bit is what got you in trouble. If you didn’t like the duke, you never would have been in the library with him to begin with, much less kissed him.”

  Since she couldn’t deny the logic of this assessment, Eliza buried her face in her hands and let out a muffled, long-suffering groan. “I am not the first lady to be kissed. I’m not even the first lady to be kissed by Wessex.” Ah, there now. She was speaking his name in italics, too. But she was in as much disbelief as Alice. How could she have let this happen? How? Damn the man, again.

  “You’re the first to be caught,” Alice said. “I must say, this is…surprising, and not just because I didn’t expect it of you. I didn’t expect it of him. It is not that he is discreet, for we all know of his dalliances with various widows and matrons. But he does not trifle with unmarried women. It is so unlike him.”

  It had been unlike him. Eliza frowned at the blanket, tracing the seam with her fingertip. The mask of cavalier gaiety he wore as a shield had slipped, revealing a man in the throes of true emotion. He had been angry, ruthless, hurt. And she had responded in kind. The kiss had been born from that madness.

  But she couldn’t explain all that to her friends, so she merely said, “There must be some way to extricate myself from this scandal without too many scratches to my character.”

  “No,” Adelaide said simply.

  Well, she would know. Adelaide had married the object of her own scandal, after all.

  Damnation.

  “Adelaide has the right of it. One might cross the ocean and still not go far enough to escape,” Riya said drily.

  Eliza lifted her head. “No matter how many dukes I am forced to marry, you will always have a home with me.”

  “Thank you.” Riya smiled. Then she sighed. “Although I do wish my brother were here. That might help clarify things.”

  Eliza felt her stomach sink at the word brother. Hampshire was a good deal closer than either India or Egypt, where Riya’s brothers were. “Oh, dear.”

  Riya, understanding the direction her thoughts had turned, gave her another kind pat. “There are worse things than telling an older brother he is to gain a duke in the family.”

  “Sir John does not like this particular duke, however.” Oh, he was going to be so disappointed in her. She gave a brisk shake of her head. “I’ll worry about that tomorrow, I suppose.”

  Adelaide looked at her in surprise. “Hampshire is not far from here. You don’t think Sir John will come straightaway?”

  “No, as I don’t intend to tell him straightaway.”

  “Oh.” Adelaide made a nervous coughing sound. “Oh, dear.”

  Eliza narrowed her eyes. “Adelaide. Tell me.”

  “It’s just that I saw the duke send a messenger this morning, and he gave the address as Micheldever,” her friend said all in a rush. “That’s where Sir John resides, isn’t it?”

  Eliza had thrown off the bed linens and leaped to her feet before Adelaide had finished speaking. “Oh, he did, did he?” She reached for the bell pull and gave it a vicious yank, summoning Marie. There might be a way out of this catastrophe, after all.

  One couldn’t marry a dead duke.

  …

  The door to the study was shut, leaving little doubt Eliza would find Wessex on the other side. She rapped once in warning before throwing it open without waiting for an invitation. It slammed against the wall with a thunderous crack and bounced back to her. She stopped it with a slap of her palms and strode into the room.

  Lord Abingdon and Mr. Eastwood jumped to attention. Wessex rose to his feet unhurriedly. Her eyes narrowed.

  “Miss Benton.” Abingdon bowed and his brother did likewise.

  Bile rose in her throat at the gravity of their expressions. No doubt Wessex had informed them that he had summoned her brother. They had likely discussed it in great detail, as he held their opinions in high regard.

  How dare he!

  Her chin rose. “Gentlemen. You may leave. Now.”

  They hesitated, eyes darting from her to the duke and back again, likely torn between propriety and self-preservation.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Wessex said. “What will they do, force us to marry? You may go.”

  They exited, leaving the door ajar. Eliza kicked it closed with her heel, her gaze never leaving Wessex’s face.

  “Have you eaten?” he asked, which was not the question she expected.

  She shook her head. She had paused at the dining room only long enough to ascertain he was not breakfasting with his guests before continuing her search for him.

  “I’ll ring for a tray. Please sit.”

  She nearly laughed. No, she would not sit and have a cozy tête-à-tête with him. She would stay on her feet and she would rage, and he would be forced to stand on his feet as well while he listened to every damn word.


  “You wrote to my brother,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said cautiously, as though aware of a trap but uncertain of the spring. “And this…upsets you.” Which clearly baffled him.

  This incensed her further. “For God’s sake, Sebastian, if you’re going to be an ass, at least do so purposefully, instead of blundering into— Into…” She groped for the word.

  “Assedness?” he supplied helpfully.

  “Yes. Don’t blunder into assedness accidentally.”

  “I apologize for the blunder and the assedness.” He bowed. “Please forgive me.”

  Her anger was ebbing away, much to her dismay, and she frowned sternly at him to ensure her lips did not slip into a smile. “You cannot properly apologize without knowing your error.”

  “Then enlighten me, dear Sigrid.”

  Very well, then, she would.

  “He is my brother. Why did you not seek my input or guidance? Did it not occur to you that I might wish him to hear this news from me first?”

  “Are you afraid I explained the circumstances? I assure you, I did not. I wrote only that I intended to make you my wife, and invited him here to discuss the matter.”

  “You do not understand. He will think— He will know—” She shook her head. “He does not approve of you.”

  “But I am a duke,” Wessex said, as though that was of utmost importance, which showed how little he understood Sir John. “Besides, we don’t run in the same circles at all. How can he disapprove of me? He doesn’t know me.”

  “He knows of you. That is sufficient.”

  There was a pause.

  “Ah,” he said thoughtfully.

  “He is not your brother, or even your friend. Your relationship to him matters very little and needs no protection. But he is all the family I have, and I love him dearly. I would be devastated to lose his respect and affection.” A fresh wave of despair gripped her. “You have nothing to lose, whereas I have so much. You ought to have at least considered my feelings.”

  For a long moment he said nothing. Her hands clenched in her skirt. If he did not apologize—a true apology, not the charming, meaningless drivel that he too often spewed forth—she would throw her tea at him. When her tea actually arrived, that is.