A Duke She Can't Refuse

by Gemma Blackwood

  “My point is,” she said, icily as a glacier, “that I know where to find the key that will lead us to the late duke’s final will.”

  15

  A fortune of ten thousand pounds was certainly something, but Daisy could not permit Mr Turner to ignore a bullet wound even for that sum of money. She and Alexander persuaded him to wait for a clerk to find a bandage for his arm, which Daisy did her best to tie as though she knew what she was doing.

  Kettleburn was left shouting and pounding the door in his private office, two clerks standing guard in anticipation of the Bow Street Runners who were expected to arrive at noon. Daisy had no desire to stay to watch him dragged off. The sensation of the barrel of his gun poking into her back had not quite left her. When she walked, she found herself glancing behind a little more often than was necessary.

  Alexander had seemed almost giddy in the immediate aftermath of his clash with Kettleburn, but as they rode the carriage back to his home, Daisy’s horse trotting alongside them, he had shut himself away behind the ducal façade again. Face cold and intent, eyes grave, lips pressed firm.

  Daisy knew that a kiss would soften the set of that mouth, but she was less certain than ever that a kiss would be welcomed. If there was ever a moment for it, surely her rescue from an armed kidnapper had been it?

  And yet she had herself to blame just as much as Alexander. She had busied herself with Mr Turner’s injury, barely sparing a word for her so-called fiancé. She had not wanted to risk his rejection, and so had made it impossible for him to approach her. A prophecy as self-fulfilling as it was bitter.

  Now that they were back in the Balfours’ house, Alexander was all focus and no warmth. He and Turner marched upstairs, shoulder to shoulder, Alexander calling peremptorily over his shoulder for a footman to fetch a crowbar. Daisy hurried after them.

  Alexander flung open the door to his bedroom, which looked exactly as it had done the day Daisy had found herself trespassing inside. He went to the bed, throwing off his top coat as he walked, and rolled up his shirt sleeves. Turner followed him, preparing to do the same, but Alexander shook his head.

  “You’re wounded. I’ll do it myself.”

  As the astonished footmen appeared carrying a variety of tools, Alexander took hold of the four-poster bed and, gritting his teeth, dragged it across the floor until the floorboards which lay beneath it were exposed, darker and dustier than those around them.

  “Daisy?” he asked, breathing heavily. She took a cautious step across the floor.

  She had thought that every painful memory from those horrible minutes trapped under the bed was branded indelibly into her brain. But now that the same floorboards were before her, there was nothing to distinguish them.

  She waved a hand vaguely over the centre of the space. “Around here?”

  Alexander hefted the crowbar. “No need to be precise. We’ll rip the whole floor up if we have to.”

  Daisy, task completed, stood back and watched as Alexander knelt down on the floorboards with the footmen, talking about plain edged boards versus tongue and groove fittings, sending one footman down for a hammer and chisel, and turning the neat, orderly room into a building site. Chisels were hammered into cracks, crowbars were inserted, floorboards were raised, wood dust rose into the air.

  They worked so quickly that by the time Selina appeared to find out what on earth was going on they had already lifted one floorboard and were working on the second.

  “Good morning, Daisy,” said Selina brightly, as though her brother often tore apart his bedroom in the company of his fiancée and a shopkeeper with an arm in a sling. “May I offer you some refreshment? My sisters and I are taking tea in the conservatory.”

  Daisy knew well enough that Selina was offering her a way to remove herself from a situation that would, if it ever escaped the walls of the Balfour home, once again cause tongues to wag: Miss Daisy Morton, alone and unchaperoned with her fiancé and several men all hard at work tearing up the floor of the duke’s bedroom. But the last thing she wanted was to miss out on the discovery of the key.

  Fortunately, at that moment, Alexander reached down into the hole they had made in the floor and let out a cry of triumph. “I have it!”

  He held aloft a tarnished old key, dusty from its time beneath the floorboards, but unmistakably the one Daisy had seen as she hid from Kettleburn and Mr Turner.

  Alexander rose to his feet, heedless of the wood dust smearing his clothes. “I have an idea that I know the lock this fits.” He went to the writing desk and slid the key into the lock of one particular drawer. Mr Turner watched him with more agony on his face than the bullet wound had given him, one hand clenching and unclenching at his side as though he could take hold of the truth and wring it into existence.

  An expectant hush fell over the room as the drawer opened. Alexander reached inside and withdrew a folded sheet of paper, still fresh and white. He inspected the red wax seal and compared it to the ring he wore on the little finger of his left hand. “The Loxwell seal.”

  Daisy could have sworn that every person in the room was holding their breath, Selina included. Even the street sounds drifting through the half-open window seemed muted.

  Glancing around to check that his actions were witnessed, Alexander cracked open the seal and unfolded the letter that lay inside. “My uncle’s handwriting,” he remarked, as his eyes scanned the closely written paper.

  His face was impassive. If he had not already inherited a duke’s fortune, he might have made one easily in a gambling hell.

  Without speaking, Alexander passed the note to Mr Turner, who took it with trembling fingers. His eyes darted wildly over the page. “Forgive me, Your Grace, I cannot… I do not…”

  “You are to receive the sum of ten thousand pounds from my uncle’s estate,” said Alexander. “In full. Kettleburn will not take any of it from you.”

  Turner let out a violent exhalation and staggered to the closest place to sit, which was Alexander’s bed. He had barely sunk into the satin sheets before he realised what he was doing and jerked upright again. The letter fluttered in his hand. It was clear that he could no more understand what was written on it than he could fly to the moon. “I cannot believe it,” he murmured, eyes glassy. “I cannot believe it!”

  “Selina,” said Alexander, “please take our friend Mr Turner downstairs and fortify him with a glass of brandy. Oh, and call for a doctor to stitch up the bullet wound in his arm.”

  Selina raised an eyebrow but made no comment. She offered Mr Turner her arm and led him gently away.

  Alexander nodded to the assembled footmen. “I require a lawyer to be fetched here as soon as possible. Someone of good reputation, but not from Mr Kettleburn’s firm. This addendum to my uncle’s will must be dealt with properly.”

  “At once, Your Grace.” The tallest footman bowed and departed.

  Then, at last, Alexander’s eyes settled on Daisy. “I will leave the rest of you to replace the floorboards alone,” he said, speaking to the footmen but looking at her. His face was still as unreadable as it had been when he read the letter.

  The footmen assented and set to work at once. Alexander brushed past Daisy, his hand cupping her elbow for the briefest moment as he went by. “The library,” he said, tone gentle but words commanding. “It is time we spoke of certain things. Alone.”

  The thrill that ran through her at the thought of being alone with Alexander was both pleasurable and unwelcome. She could have done without her innards turning to girlish jelly every time his eyes caught hers. She would have much preferred not to quiver at the slightest touch of his hand.

  She sensed she was, at long last, close to discovering what lay in Alexander’s heart, and the situation was more delicate than ever. Infatuation would not lend her the even heartbeat and the steady hand she required.

  Love might, however.

  Her first feelings for Alexander had been giddy, fluttering flights of fantasy. A rush of blood and a loss of me
ntal capacity. But she realised now that beneath those girlish dreams, slow and steady, something new had been growing. Something warm and euphoric, which was not a loss, but a strength.

  Alexander was troubled by an old wound. Daisy’s love would heal it. Of all the wild schemes she had ever embarked upon, this was the most certain, the most important, the most selfish and selfless at the same time.

  She would succeed, because deep in her heart she had always believed that true love prevailed.

  As she followed Alexander into the cool air of the library and closed the door behind them with a soft click, she bid goodbye to the last of her fantasies.

  It was time to face the truth.

  16

  “How did you find out that it was Edith who broke the vase?”

  Daisy had not wanted to be the one to speak first, but Alexander had done nothing for half a minute but gaze at her with a solemn and thoughtful expression, and she could not bear the silence.

  He blinked, shaking off whatever deep contemplation had snatched him away, and managed the hint of a smile. “She told me. The rumours of how our arrangement began reached her at last, and she could not bear the guilt.”

  “Our arrangement?”

  “The betrothal, Daisy.” He frowned. “What else could I be referring to?”

  She rubbed her left foot against the back of her right ankle. “Nothing. Only… our arrangement. It sounds so formal. Like a business transaction.”

  “That is apt enough. We came to a mutually beneficial agreement in order to achieve certain goals.” He glanced downwards, reluctance tightening the corners of his mouth, and swung his arms once or twice before clasping his hands together and raising his eyes to hers again. He was calm, clear-eyed, steady. “I cannot help but feel that we have made as much progress towards those goals as we are ever likely to.”

  Daisy stared. “What are you saying?”

  “That our arrangement is no longer mutually beneficial.” He had the grace to let guilt hoarsen his voice. “And it should be brought to an end.”

  Daisy took a step back, finding her balance with difficulty. “You wish to call off our engagement?”

  “We will put it about, of course, that it was your idea.”

  “This is not what we agreed!”

  He raised an eyebrow. “We agreed to a sham, Daisy.”

  “A sham which would last until the end of the Season! Or at least until I found a suitable replacement.”

  His jaw visibly tightened. She had said the wrong thing, but she could not guess how. She had come into that room expecting an intimate revelation, not this. She was caught off guard, wounded without warning, and – oh, the last thing she wanted was to replace Alexander. Who could replace his calm grey eyes, his hidden smile, his scent like fresh-cut wood?

  “I am sorry,” she said, breathing deep. “I did not mean –”

  “But you should have meant it.” He spoke curtly, roughly, in a way she had never heard from him before. She wondered if this meant that she truly was reaching the heart of him.

  Perhaps what she had thought was an awakening to reality was simply another silly dream.

  “The fault is entirely mine,” he continued, too briskly for her to interject. “I allowed our public arrangement to affect my private behaviour. To blur the lines between helping you and hurting you.”

  “You have done nothing to hurt me –”

  “We promised we would not lie to each other.” He gave a bitter smile. “So I will not lie to you. When I suggested the false engagement, I believed my feelings towards you were friendly. Brotherly, even. I wanted to protect you. But with every moment that I spent as your betrothed, it became clearer that I felt something quite different. You woke something within me that I had sought for many years to suffocate.”

  “Now we come to it.” Daisy drew a deep breath in through her nose and forced herself to meet Alexander’s steady gaze. Every muscle in her body was as tense as though she were about to fling herself over the edge of a precipice. “You have not yet told me why you have decided that you, out of all the people in the world, are undeserving of love.”

  He blinked. “Undeserving?”

  She gestured at the marble fireplace, the silk curtains, the inches-thick rug on the floor. “You have no problem believing that you deserve this magnificent house. Not to mention your other magnificent houses! Your title. Your fortune. And yet when it comes to the most fundamental, the most natural, the most important part of life, you are ruining your chances before you even begin.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Undeserving is an apt term. But you are wrong if you think I am comfortable in my good fortune. It was only recently that I accepted my uncle would never produce a male heir. I spent my life telling myself that the dukedom was not mine to hope for. And now that my uncle is gone, and I am here…” He glanced up at the row of imposing portraits on the walls, the Dukes of Loxwell past. “I am the custodian of this wealth, this position. I must care for it as best I can and pass it on. Nothing more.” He cleared his throat. “And that means behaving in a way that befits the title. I have even less opportunity to cast aside my morals now than I did while my uncle lived.”

  “What cruel moral code aims to deprive you of affection?”

  “A just one.”

  His face was so drawn and his eyes so sad that Daisy could not contain her longing to move towards him, to take him in her arms and comfort him. But as she stepped forward, he held up a hand to stop her. “I have told you already that I caused a man’s death.”

  Daisy hugged her arms around herself instead. His words seemed to chill the air, and to be without his embrace suddenly left her much too cold. “It must have been a terrible accident.”

  “An accident entirely of my making.” Alexander turned away abruptly and walked to the fireplace, where the coals that had been set that morning were glowing low and warm. He stared at them as though he could see the past in the shimmer of heat. “Jeffrey Overton was my dearest friend. We met at Eton and spent every hour together. When my parents died, Jeffrey was as much a child as I was, but his friendship was my beacon in the dark. His family was just as good, just as loving. When Selina entered her first Season, Mrs Overton was her chaperone. We both spent the winter at their house in London. And it was only then that I realised that, as much as Jeffrey was the world to me, he was the sun and sky to Selina.”

  Daisy frowned. “But Selina despises courtship. She has rejected every gentleman who ever approached her.”

  Alexander glanced over his shoulder. His face was as carefully guarded as ever, save for a muscle tightening in his jaw. “Yes. Every gentleman since Jeffrey.”

  He turned back to the fire, back poker-straight and arms tucked behind it, and though she longed to tell him this was a ridiculous way to make a confession, that he had no need to hide his pain from her, she knew that it would be dangerous to push him too far. He had spent so long cultivating the image of the cool-headed, stern, imperturbable duke. It hurt her to see how clearly he considered his own pain a weakness.

  The fact that he was revealing himself to her at all was a step in the right direction. There was a loving heart hidden at the core of Alexander. If Daisy was careful, she could coax it out into the sunlight.

  She walked to his side. “How did Jeffrey die?”

  When he turned to her, it brought their faces so close that all it would have taken was a stretch up on her tiptoes to touch her mouth to his.

  “What I am about to tell you must not leave this room,” he said. “I am trusting you with more than my own secrets. I have never told anyone what I am telling you now. I have never spoken of it with anyone but Selina.”

  “You can trust me.”

  He sighed, nodded, and passed a hand across his brow. “It is strange. After so many years of pretending, the truth seems like a dream.

  “I cannot remember when I first began to suspect that Jeffrey’s courtship of Selina had crossed into dangerous territory. They
spent weeks laughing together in corners, passing secret notes, arriving in rooms one after the other with the same mysterious smile. I was pleased, of course. I had always thought of Jeffrey as a brother. But as I slowly realised that he and Selina were sharing more than hidden kisses, I knew I had to step in. It was my duty as her brother.

  “I confronted Jeffrey with my suspicions and he did not deny them. I was firm with him. I could not allow any man – no matter how much I admired him – to take liberties with my sister without an official engagement. Jeffrey took it in good spirits. We all knew the engagement was coming, it was simply a question of when. As long as things were done properly, as long as they both followed the rules, I was delighted at the prospect of their marriage.

  “That evening, I was walking past Selina’s bedroom when I heard the sound of her laughter. I knew immediately that Jeffrey had betrayed me. He had told me what I wanted to hear without any intention of stopping his nightly visits to Selina’s room. I was furious. I pounded on the door, demanding entry. I fully intended to break it down. I shouted through the keyhole that I would call Jeffrey out on the spot if I found him inside.

  “And then Selina flung the door open, dressed in her nightgown. The room was full of wind, freezing, the curtains flying and her nightdress flapping around her. I will never forget the expression on her face. She was cold as ice. Anyone who didn’t know her as well as I did would have said she was furious, not fearful. And she blamed me. I could see the accusation in her eyes. It was my fault, and she knew it.

  “‘He fell,’ she told me. She sounded so calm. ‘You frightened him into climbing out the window, and he fell.’

  “I have no clear memory of what happened next. I know that we ran to the window and called to him. I know I must have seen him lying on the ground – it was a moonlit night – but I cannot picture it for the life of me.

  “I remember running down the stairs, Selina catching at my arm to slow me in case I fell, too, and walking barefoot through the damp grass outside. And I remember the way she screamed when we found him. I will always remember that.