What the Duke Doesn't Know

by Jane Ashford

  He was shivering from the icy air at his back. James eased away from Kawena and rose. He folded the drapery over her, then put on his riding breeches, still damp and clammy. On his way to find more wood to build up the fire, he checked the tide. It had turned. With the light of the half moon, they could probably make it back to town now. But wasn’t it best to wait for dawn? He didn’t know the road well, and they might attract slightly less attention if they returned when the inn was awake and busy. Perhaps they could even slip up to their rooms undetected? He could hope.

  When he returned with more scraps of furniture, Kawena was awake. She gazed up at him from her drapery cocoon, dark eyes unreadable. James took his time placing the wood on the coals, blowing on them to help the wood catch. He wished she would speak so he needn’t be the one to set the tone for this awkward conversation. At last, she did.

  “I’m very thirsty,” she said.

  Beset by equal parts of relief and disappointment, James said, “So am I. And the horses, I’m sure. I’ll search, but I don’t think there’s any fresh water here.”

  “If only we were like those turtles.”

  “Those…?” Had he heard her correctly? It didn’t seem possible that, lying there sleepy-eyed and gloriously disheveled in the firelight, she’d mentioned turtles.

  “The sea turtles,” she added. “That annoying old man said they can drink seawater and get rid of the salt.”

  She surprised a laugh out of James. “He did, didn’t he?”

  “It would be a very helpful skill to have. For the horses, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you laughing at me? Why?” She rose up on one elbow and eyed him.

  “I was just admiring the sharpness of your memory. I’d forgotten about the turtles.”

  “But it was a very interesting thing to know.”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  “You could if you wished to.”

  She moved, and the drapery slid half off her breasts. At that moment, James could not have argued that his name was Gresham. He might not even have remembered it.

  Kawena waited. When he said nothing, she went on. “Well, if there is no water, we should go back to the inn. The tide must have turned by now?”

  Maddeningly, the drapery lingered just at the point…

  “Hasn’t it?”

  “What?” James felt the flush that warmed his cheek. He had no idea what she’d asked.

  “The tide? Is the path clear?”

  “Oh. Yes, nearly. It’s still going out.”

  She sighed. The drapery rose and fell, but did not slip any farther. “So we should go, I suppose.”

  It didn’t sound like a question. Or a conclusion. James had never strained so hard to catch the nuance buried in a few words. “We must. But it might be best to wait for first light.” He didn’t go into his reasoning on this point, as he had forgotten it.

  Kawena sat up and stretched. The drapery fell away. She lifted her heavy hair and pushed it back over her shoulders. The movement arched her breasts so invitingly that James’s breath caught. His body’s instant response was almost painful. Then she smiled at him, eyes sultry, and said, “We have time then.”

  After that, he was incapable of a single thought. He shed his breeches as fast as humanly possible. And then he held her in his arms again and reveled in her eager welcome. Together, they dove headlong into the realm of trailing fingertips and parted lips and tangled limbs, where nothing was more complicated than how long they could prolong their mutual pleasure and how deeply they could savor its exquisite conclusion.

  * * *

  Much later, Kawena stirred in James’s embrace. Sitting up, she stretched again, looked around the room, then rose and walked over to a patch of white on the floor. She picked it up and started wiping the streaks of dust from her body. James so enjoyed the sight that he didn’t notice at first what she held. Then it hit him, and he jerked upright. “Hold on, that’s my neckcloth!”

  “Yes,” Kawena agreed. “I thought we would want to keep our shirts clean.” She looked at the dusty floor. “Well, as clean as we can.” Continuing her rough ablutions, seemingly unabashed by his appreciative gaze, she looked out the window. “The sun is coming up.” Finished with the swatch of linen, she offered it to him and began to collect her scattered clothes.

  His once-crisp neckcloth, limp and dirty in his hand, James was conscious of a sharp pang of regret. Their idyll was over. It was time to come back down to Earth. To make certain she understood the harsh English realities, he said, “You know that we can’t tell anyone what…happened here?”

  “Happened?” Kawena repeated.

  What would Alan and Ariel say to him if they learned of it? He knew his brother loved and respected him, and there was growing affection between him and Ariel. He couldn’t bear the thought of disappointing them. “We’ll need a story for the innkeeper.”

  “A story. Like a fairy tale?”

  She sounded curious, and perhaps…amused? That couldn’t be right. “I’ve told you that people will talk, disapprove. They would treat you badly.” She needed to understand. He couldn’t bear the thought of her being hurt, insulted.

  “Yes, I remember. We will tell whatever story you wish.”

  It seemed almost as if she was humoring him. She must acknowledge that he knew more about his own country than she did.

  “We could simply tell them the truth,” Kawena continued. “Part of the truth,” she amended at his change of expression. “That Rex ran away with me, and we were trapped by the tide before we noticed.”

  It seemed easy when she put it that way. “I suppose.”

  “We can tell how we burned old furniture to keep warm,” she said, growing more enthusiastic. “And how very thirsty we became. The poor horses, too. My father always said a good story should be specific.”

  She spoke as if he was foolish, a man with foibles to be indulged. She had no idea what she was dealing with. She’d never seen the old biddies look down their aristocratic noses at girls whose transgressions were far more trivial than their…exquisite indulgence. She didn’t know what it meant to receive the cut direct or be pursued by leering men who took one slip as an excuse to take intolerable liberties.

  James’s fists clenched. He started to explain it to her, then realized that she wouldn’t listen. She’d only find him funnier than ever. And so why should he care? He wouldn’t be subject to the same strictures. Fellows weren’t. He could spread the story far and wide, if he liked, and get off scot-free. Indeed, he’d be envied, congratulated by sniggering acquaintances, encouraged to share titillating details.

  On a wave of revulsion, James felt, for the first time in his life, how truly unfair that was. He’d noted it vaguely before. It was a staple of his upbringing. Girls were held to a different standard. Reputation was their job, their doom to tend and polish like some fragile heirloom. Now, faced with the threat to Kawena, he silently rebelled. They had both indulged. Why should they be regarded differently for the same actions? More, he was an Englishman; he knew the rules and had broken them. If anyone should pay, it should be him. She came from quite a different society. She should not be blamed.

  James realized that Kawena was looking at him quizzically. She hadn’t the slightest notion what he was thinking.

  He would simply have to be mindful for her, he concluded. Yes, she would soon be off to realms where the old biddies were a distant irrelevance. But she could be treated badly in the meantime, an intolerable thought. James met her twinkling eyes and vowed that would never happen.

  * * *

  They started off early the next morning for London, to find the remaining members of the Charis crew and complete their mission. The road to the capital was better than the one from Oxford, so they barreled along at a rapid pace. Conversation was more stilted, however, and Kawena found th
is both irritating and unsettling. The night at the abandoned house seemed to sit between them on the seat, inserting itself into the most innocuous sentences. It complicated every accidental bump of shoulder or brush of hands, so as the miles passed, the atmosphere in the carriage grew fraught.

  With each passing hour, she understood more of how her mother had felt dealing with her father, reaching toward him across a gulf of preconceptions and habits. The idle hours of the journey gave their voices in her head free rein—Papa’s carping, Mama’s impatience. In all their years together, the disputes had never ended. The smallest things had reignited them in one or the other, and then they would be off, tossing words back and forth. Perhaps they even enjoyed the verbal jostling, because she knew they loved each other dearly. In her memory, though, it seemed they said the same things over and over. The thought left Kawena uncertain, a little sad, and not nearly as assured as she chose to appear.

  The encounter in that dusty room had been so glorious. Her few fumbling tries at home had been nothing like it. Indeed, she hadn’t entirely understood what all the fuss was about before. This seemed a matter to celebrate, but Lord James clearly did not. Their attitudes about the relations between men and women were so different. He fidgeted beside her as if he couldn’t wait for the journey to end. Was this really all about what other people would say?

  She did understand that. At home on the island, people gossiped, argued, even indulged in long-running, spiteful feuds. But they arose from sensible things, like stealing a fishing net or acting disrespectfully or cheating in a trade. She couldn’t imagine the whole of her small society banding together to condemn a couple who indulged, secretly, in a night’s pleasure.

  So was it only other people? Or did Lord James regret what they had done? Perhaps he still thought she meant to make some claim on him, despite her assurances. Did he dare to doubt her word? What else could she say? She would never force him into an unwanted marriage. Even if she wasn’t leaving England. Even if she was a timid English woman frightened by the opinions of this hidebound society.

  Only one thing was certain: their easy camaraderie was gone. The trip had become much less enjoyable. Her sadness about that grew with the miles. She’d so enjoyed his company before.

  And it grew even worse as they neared London. Kawena began to feel hemmed in by the outer landscape as well as the mood in the chaise. The web of streets and buildings thickening around them was like a maze. If she was dropped into this tangle of filthy streets, how would she ever find her way out? The air was heavy with smoke and rank odors and raucous with noise. “How can anyone live here?” she wondered.

  Lord James nodded. “This is a poor neighborhood, but I always feel like a caged animal in a city.”

  A wagon emerged from an alleyway ahead, and they had to slow to a crawl behind it. Another came up in the rear, trapping them. The street was crowded with people and carts and riders. The noise of hooves and babble of voices rose higher. “You can’t get out,” Kawena murmured.

  “Precisely.” He looked at her, and for the first time in days, they shared a companionable glance. Encouraged, she smiled. But it was as if she’d bared her teeth at him instead. He sat back and looked away.

  “We’ll stay at Langford House,” he said to the teeming street. “I’ve directed the post boys there.”

  “Your father’s house?”

  “Yes. They’re in the country, of course.”

  “Of course?”

  “No one’s in town at this time of year.”

  “There are people everywhere,” Kawena pointed out. She was seized by a desire to argue with him, to rouse some emotion, make him look at her. Also, his remark was nonsensical.

  “Society is away, I meant.”

  “These people are not a part of English society?” She gestured at the street.

  “Not by some people’s measure.”

  He wasn’t going to engage with her. It only made her want to push harder. “Why not go to an inn, as before?”

  James closed his lips on the true answer—because he wasn’t sure how to be alone with her anymore. Fighting a constant desire to take her in his arms was wearing on him. Langford House would be…safer. It was more spacious, and there would be servants constantly about. They wouldn’t be in each other’s pockets as they had been for all the tantalizing hours of this journey. It would be easier to protect her as well, and it would show anyone who might wonder that she was a friend of his family, to be respected. His parents already knew about Kawena. Or, Alan did, at least, which meant the rest of the family soon would. She wasn’t a secret to keep.

  As they rattled over a stretch of uneven cobblestones, he became conscious of another motive, which startled and puzzled him. He wanted to show Kawena what she’d cast aside when she rejected his proposal. Which was ridiculous. He was relieved that she didn’t wish to be married. He’d gone over the reasons why it wouldn’t have done at all. But it rankled to be dismissed as if he was some half-pay officer with no breeding or prospects. A look at Langford House would show her… What, exactly?

  Taut with bewildered frustration, James shoved the thought out of his mind. The thing was to get this job done, fulfill his promise to help, and then return Kawena to Ariel. After that… Well, that would be after. It would be over. Whatever “it” was.

  They pulled up before the splendid facade of his father’s town house in late afternoon. As one of the post boys went to ring the bell, James handed Kawena down from the chaise. The feel of her fingers in his elicited memories so physically intense that he dropped her hand.

  The door was opened by a footman unfamiliar to James. He had a moment’s uneasiness. If they were turned away… But the fellow recognized him right enough, and after a momentary flash of surprise, quickly hidden, he ushered them inside. Kawena gazed about the lofty entry with gratifying awe. “We’ve come to stay a day or two,” James said. “No time to send word ahead, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, my lord. If you’d care to sit in the drawing room, I’ll inform Mrs. Hastings.”

  James didn’t wish to wait anywhere. He wanted to go to his customary bedchamber and sit there, alone, until he was able to clear his muddled mind. But he couldn’t abandon Kawena, so he led her up the grand staircase and into the indigo silk–draped parlor where his mother received visitors.

  “All this is just for your family?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She wandered about the room, examining the furnishings and ornaments, looking suitably impressed. He’d accomplished that much, at least. For whatever it was worth.

  When a middle-aged, black-clad woman bustled in, James recognized her face, as he had not her name. Mrs. Hastings was one of the main housekeeper’s assistants. No doubt she’d been left in London to oversee the town house while most of the servants accompanied his parents to the country. James introduced Kawena as a friend of the family. Mrs. Hastings gave no sign that she found it odd for one of the duke’s sons to arrive with an unattended young lady. She merely assured them that chambers were being prepared and invited Kawena to accompany her upstairs. Ignoring Kawena’s uneasy glances, James seized his opportunity and fled.

  Ten

  When James came back downstairs some two hours later, refreshed but conscious that he hadn’t inquired about the possibility of dinner, he was startled to hear his name called in a familiar voice. He turned from the foot of the stairs to find his brother Robert looking down at him from above. “What are you doing here?” Robert asked.

  “I might ask the same,” he replied, not really wishing to explain his presence. “Don’t you have rooms of your own in town? And aren’t you always out of town at this season?”

  Robert descended the steps with the languid grace of an acknowledged Pink of the ton. As always, in his next oldest brother’s presence, James felt a bit shabby. Even in full dress uniform, he couldn’t compete. Robert could lo
ok elegant covered in molasses and chicken feathers, as James had reason to know. Now, dressed in immaculate pantaloons, a coat that might have been an advertisement for his tailor, and a neckcloth of dizzying complexity, he was a sight to rouse sighs of envy from any aspirant to fashion.

  “I do,” he replied. “And I am. Certain…matters have kept me in London this summer.”

  “Matters?”

  Robert raised one russet eyebrow. “Rather like whatever brought you here, perhaps? You hate London.”

  Face to face in the entry hall, the brothers eyed each other. His greater height ought to give him an advantage, James thought. But Robert’s assurance more than overcame that factor. The friendly rivalry that had always bubbled amongst their crew of six brothers surfaced. They were at an impasse. Then, to his surprise, Robert conceded a crumb of information. “I stopped by to look for a book in Papa’s library,” he said.

  This made no sense. Robert didn’t read. It was one of the things they had in common. James wondered if this was some sort of diversion, and what Robert could really be up to.

  “I thought he might have a copy of Rolfe’s History of the Assyrian Empire, but it appears I was mistaken.”

  “History of the…what?” These were not words he would ever have expected to hear from Robert’s lips.

  “We need a citation,” Robert added absently, tapping his fingers on the curving banister.

  James hadn’t seen his brother since Nathaniel’s wedding some weeks ago. Could he have gone mad in that short period of time? “What the devil are you talking about?”

  Robert acknowledged his bewilderment with a half smile. “I’m involved in a…contest of sorts. With a certain young lady.”

  “A contest that includes history books and…what was it, Assyrians? What the deuce is an Assyrian?”

  “They were an ancient people. Byron mentions them in one of his poems.” To James’s utter astonishment, he proceeded to recite a few lines. “‘The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.’” He shrugged. “Pathetic doggerel, she calls it. Can’t say I disagree.”