“M’lord, you are not destined to be your father,” Colby stated simply. “No one is destined to be anything, except what they wish to be.”
“That’s unfortunately not how life works for us,” the duke lamented.
“And why not? You’ve rejected every other cage so many have tried to place on you - expectations of who to marry, and when, and it seems that that young lady has done the same,” Colby reasoned. “Why do you think yourself bound by the legacy of your father?”
The words resounded, and the duke did not have an answer. He had never thought on things from quite that perspective. The duke looked upon the moors again, and he saw her face. Everywhere, he saw her face. He saw her face and heard her voice crying out in love for him and he knew that Colby was right. No man is doomed to make those same mistakes.
“But how could I truly trust myself not to become the man my father did?” he asked Colby.
“I trust that you will not, as I’ve known you for a great many years, and have never seen such a beastly part of you, m’lord. And, clearly,” Colby mused as he tugged on the carriage’s reins, “that pretty young woman felt the same way. She trusted you - with her heart,” he exclaimed. “Why don’t you trust yourself?”
“I...” the duke tried to gather the words, but he did not truly have an answer. He struggled to find one, but nowhere could he devise an excuse for so salient a point. He looked out on the moors and damned himself silently as he saw her again, riding along the bend of the road just behind them. He heard the clop of Midnight’s hooves... and he focused, looking closely onto the far ridge. Stricken with shock, he exhaled, as he realized that this was not an illusion, nor some deceptive and damning ministration of his mind.
“M’lord?” Colby asked, peering over his shoulder.
“Is that... someone... coming up behind us?” the duke asked, his heart beating hard. It looked like her, and she could scarcely make out a carriage, studded with lights, following behind - the earl’s carriage, flashing as it tumbled along the roadway.
“It seems like a carriage, m’lord, and a woman... on a horse?” Colby reasoned. As he peered closer through the dark the duke noticed some movement on the horse, and heard a scream.
“Spin around! Block the roadway,” the duke exclaimed, pain settling into his stomach. “Some manner of... bandit, or some such, is...” he swallowed hard.
“Indeed, m’lord,” Colby responded, a canny and broad smile brimming as he yipped at the horses, pulling their reins around. The carriage swung hard and the duke nearly fell from his seat, but he hung on tight as the vehicle came into place, wheels in the mud and horses sniffling and whinnying as they marched impatiently, blocking passage along the road.
“It’s that bastard the earl, I’d bet,” the duke exclaimed as he stepped with haste out onto the roadway. His heart beat harder as he heard the screams and saw the procession advancing along the dips in the path, the cobblestones rumbling underfoot as they drew closer. Midnight whinnied loud, clearly trying to throw the earl from its back, and then he saw her - fighting atop the steed, with the earl grasping at her arms and trying to take control of the horse. Her face, so pained and desperate, brimmed suddenly with manic joy as she caught sight of the duke standing tall, blocking the path ahead.
“Lawrence!” he heard her shrill cry echo along the path as the wicked earl tried to silence her. He, too, looked up from his grappling of the slight woman, the devil in his eyes as they approached. The earl’s carriage creaked and swayed under the speed and the weight of the chase, but it came to a slow stop as the driver caught sight of the duke’s barricade. Midnight whinnied and rumbled and stopped all at once when it came close to the duke; the horse lifted its back legs, and the surprise earl found himself thrown completely from the horse’s back, landing on his side in the mud along the roadway with a grunt and a thud.
“Agh! Stupid animal!” the earl exclaimed, teetering as he struggled to his feet.
“Lawrence! You came back for me?!” Anne’s voice erupted like a cheerfully singing dove, and she leapt from Midnight’s back and ran to embrace him. He swept her into his arm and held her tight, never wanting to let go; certainly after seeing what had happened. The earl limped along the road, grunting, his face blazing with rage; blood ran down his nostrils, his face swollen and his eyes utterly infected with hate.
“You!” the earl shouted, staggering up the roadway as his carriage driver looked on pensively. “What are you doing here? She doesn’t want you! She doesn’t have a choice,” the earl called hoarsely. “I’ve already decided that she’s mine. And when I want something—”
“You look like you’ve had quite a bad evening tonight, Martin,” the duke coolly retorted, holding shivering Anne close to his side. “That nose of yours might need looked at.”
“This witch!” he hissed. “She did it. And don’t you worry, Duke of Amhurst, she’ll pay for it in time,” Martin snarled. “Now, let go of her, let her be on her way here.”
“I don’t think I’m going to do that, Martin,” Lawrence stated simply.
“What do you mean you aren’t going to do it, you idiot?” Martin sneered. “Let go of her! You don’t even like women,” he raged.
“You know what? You’re right, I don’t like women,” Lawrence said, letting Anne go; she pleaded for him to stay, but with a gentle caress he assuaged her fears. “I love women. Or, woman, more particularly. One particular woman. Anne Hatley of Roxborough.”
“Hah! You’re too late,” Martin sneered. “I’m the Earl of Carteret! I get whatever I want, and there’s little you can do to protest, you fop. You, of all people? Lawrence, of Amhurst? The most lily-touched fool in all England? Think you can take any woman you like?” he continued to rage. “You know nothing! I bed women with a simple smile! I control half of the estates in this country, and I’ll control another half when I’m finished with this harlot! Do you think you can do anything to stop me?” he asked Lawrence with a guffaw. “You can’t even help yourself! What, twenty-nine and you can’t find a wife? What a fool! And you think you deserve the viscount’s estate? What will you do with it, cry upon all of its lands? You idiot! You know nothing! You kn—” the earl’s final narcissistic exclamation found itself cut short by the sudden and quite final meeting of Lawrence’s coiled-up fist against the side of his already-bruised face. The single punch came with such ferocity that the earl spun on his feet, letting out a dumbfounded little groan of shocked pain, as he teetered back-forth on his feet. He turned around, woozy, and seemed ready to make a statement of protest at the complete lack of civility from the Duke of Amhurst... but instead all he managed to do was fall flat onto his ass, staring wide-eyed at the stars twinkling above.
“Hey!” the driver called out in protest from the earl’s carriage. “How dare you? Do you know who that man is?”
“To me, he looks like a silly infant, squirming around in the mud like a pig,” Lawrence proclaimed with a laugh. He felt Anne run to his side, and he laid his arm across her shoulders, feeling... almost transformed. He heard the Colby yip at the horses, and as they began to trot through the mud and back onto the road, he looked down to Anne. Tears on her face - but he knew they were tears of panic, and tears of confusion; and most of all, tears of joy.
“I love you, Lawrence,” she admitted, pressing her face into his chest. “I didn’t think you’d come back for me.”
“I suppose it’s fortunate that I did,” he joked.
“Should I kick him once? Just for the sake of it?” Anne asked with an impish smile, watching the daze earl try to stand on rubbery legs.
“You certainly should,” Lawrence added. And with aplomb he watched as his love left his side, and with her face all tightened up pure anger, she delivered a swift, singular strike of her toes against the earl’s ribs, sending him back to his side, writhing.
“My! That was quite unladylike of you,” Lawrence exclaimed facetiously, sighing as he came round to hold her once again. Her eyes gleamed, and i
t seemed at that perfect moment that the night had come in just the right way, to set up just the right moment, of her tranced in him, and him tranced in her. Their lips met again, with all the primal and molten fury that had in those moments of passion they spent together in the cabin; the feeling erupted within the both of them, and he held her tightly as she gripped at his back, pulling him closer, as close as the two of them could ever be. Lawrence closed his eyes and for the first time in as long as he could possibly remember the nightmares washed away, taken and thrown like scattered ashes tossed to the cool night breeze, deposited in dark places where they would never again be remembered.
“I love you, Lawrence, and I knew I would, from that moment we spoke at that table, in this awful malcontent’s parlor,” Anne admitted with a sheepish smile. “I saw you staring at that leek soup, and I needed to know you.”
“That soup was dreadful. I certainly hope that’s not the memory of me you will carry into your old days,” Lawrence winced with playful disdain.
“We can’t control these sorts of things!” she declared in jest.
“No, but we can certainly control our future together, Anne. And I’ve made quite a decision for that future, love.”
“And what is that?” she retorted haughtily.
“Colby?” he called to the driver, who smiled as he checked on each of his horses in turn.
“Yes m’lord?” the cheery man pipped up.
“How far do you think the nearest church is from here? And do you think we might manage to rouse the priest from his slumber at this hour?” Lawrence said, as Anne’s eyes lit up in glee.
“It’s quite a ways, m’lord, and I doubt we’ll be rousing any priests,” Colby remarked. “But I doubt that’d stop you, would it?”
“You’re absolutely correct on that,” Lawrence answered, lost in Anne’s eyes, and she in his.
Epilogue
“Do you miss your father sometimes, love?”
Lord Strauss, now Viscount of Roxborough in addition to his title as duke of Amhurst, relaxed lazily upon a plush sofa in the manor he and his wife, the lovely Anne Hatley-Strauss, Viscountess of Roxborough, inherited from her dear father after he passed. He saw only a few seasons more, after Anne’s late-night wedding to the man she had so completely fallen in love with; but, Anne knew that her ailing father had lived those seasons in bliss, seeing his daughter so full of life - and most importantly, seeing her truly free.
“What has you thinking about him, darling?” the viscountess queried with a tilted head and a warm smile as she lounged against him; the study, where Anne had spent so many nights of her childhood sneaking about and reading father’s library of books, bathed in a calm and cozy, flickering fire, dancing in the fireplace. “Have you got the estate’s affairs on the mind again, as you so often do?”
“No, love, it’s not that,” Lord Strauss responded, eyes idly tracing the flames as their glow flickered across the mantle.
“Is something troubling you, love?” Anne asked, concern streaking creases along her face.
“I... I suppose, perhaps,” he declared, lifting her gently from him as he stood, paced towards the fireplace. “For a long time, I struggled to find myself, love. I suffered to see my own place among the vultures and the womanizers. I thought I would never find a soul that resonated with mine so well. And I was certain that when I did, I would do to her what my father did to the woman he had loved - I would destroy her, and destroy myself with her, just as my father did,” the duke mused.
“I trusted you. My heart did, and it has led me to the right place, I’m sure of it,” Anne chimed warmly. “You need not carry those doubts with you anymore.”
“I’ve no doubt in me about my fate, anymore,” the duke dispelled any such thoughts. “You trust in me - and your judgment is clearly far better than my own, what with your talent for managing... well, this entire bloody estate,” Lawrence laughed. “But your father... I was given something dear to him. Not just wealth, or estates, or names and titles - he spoke to me intimately that he wanted to give me something far dearer to him, something that he knew was not his to give, but which he hoped he could see happen. He gave me you,” Lawrence said, dithering as he stared at the fire.
“My father did not give me to you - I found you all on my own,” Anne wryly returned. “Though I know he took a liking to you... and he was right to. No other noble would love me the way you have.”
“I’ve never been a husband... we never train to be husbands. I know women take endless, drab courses on the proper way to be a ‘wife’, but men... we never know if we’re good husbands. And I don’t know if I’ll live up to what your father expected. If I’ll be everything he wanted me to be, for you,” Lawrence mused.
“My love...” Anne’s voice trailed as she sighed pleasantly. She rose from the couch, stepping slowly to the fireside. The flames licked and kicked along the stones and wrought-iron of the fireplace, illuminating the Lady Roxborough - the orange glow cascaded over her form, illuminating the seven-months-pregnant waist of the excitedly expecting young woman. She looked into his eyes, and he into hers, and somehow, she knew that no matter what words they exchanged, or didn’t exchange, they’d always find the answers together.
“My sister would be proud of you. I wish you could have met her. Perhaps one day, you - and our child - will,” he sighed, full of mirth.
“I’m sure she would be proud of you. And so would my father,” Anne responded happily. They embraced, their lips meeting, and it felt as good as it had the very first time they kissed; in fact, it got better every day.
“As long as we have love,” Anne sighed. “We’ll be the best husband, and the best wife, and viscount and viscountess, in all of England.”
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Denying The Duke
By Virginia Vice
Chapter One
Lady Amelia stood poised in front of the mirror and looked at herself critically. It didn’t matter that her curls had been pinned by the expert hands of her maid and that her gown was made of the finest pale, yellow-sprigged muslin. The bright color helped, but did not completely hide, the dark circles caused by reading late into the night. Her shoulders were hidden by a fashionable pelisse with enough ribbons to make it frivolous and hopefully convey that the wearer was by extension a cheerful and slightly vacuous person. Dressing as the sweet, silly daughter was one of her hardest roles, but she tried hard to keep her father’s spirits up.
Amelia sighed and whipped off her jacket in one quick move. There, she was better attired without the frills and trimmings.
“Milady, would you be wanting another dress?” Mary asked as she picked the pelisse off the ground with a long-suffering sigh and a reproachful glance at her lady. There was nothing rude about the familiarity, Lady Amelia was close friends with her maid and they often spoke frankly to each other.
“This will do, Mary. I think perhaps it is time I went down for breakfast. No delays will keep the devil away today.” Amelia turned away from the mirror in clear discontent and started for the door.
“I reckon it cannot all be that bad, milady.” Mary countered in cheerful naiveté and started to clear away the collection of baubles, jewelry, and ribbons that had ended up unused. “The Marquis of Clarence is besotted with you.”
“The lot of them are bores and I have done nothing to encourage Lord Clarence.” Amelia sniffed peevishly, but her maid was used to such talk.
“But he is sure to offer for you any moment, milady. He took you riding in Hyde Park and I hear that is a precursor to a proposal if any.” Mary persisted in blind faith that her lady did not share.
Amelia remembered the dratted ride during which Lord Clarence had proceeded to bore her with discussions on his horses—particularly the team harnessed to his phaeton—all dashing and spirited. Truth be told, he handled them quite expertly but the man had horses on the brain. Perhaps the only reason Lord Clarence had deigned to explore their acquai
ntance was her own knowledge of the subject. “His conversation was abysmal. He talked of nothing but cattle.”
“Perhaps. But he has a fine stable and forty thousand a year. And he is not the only gentleman caller you have.”
Amelia did not dare allow the statements to console her. The majority of her suitors were heiress hunters. She looked at the girl who served as her maid and wondered how she could retain so naive so late in life. With a firm lecture to herself on the danger of self pity, Amelia headed to the breakfast room where her father, the Earl of Rochester, was dining this very minute. Directly outside the door she paused, drew herself up to her considerable height, pasted a beatific smile on her face, and walked in with a gay mien.
Amelia descended to breakfast and headed over to her father. She placed a kiss on his cheek and sat gingerly at the other end of the table in a chair that a footman had drawn out. As soon as she settled herself, a footman brought a plate to her and a cup of tea. Amelia applied herself to the eggs and sausages with toast. The silence was foreboding but Amelia continued with her meal with a carefully blank expression until Lord Rochester cleared his throat and pushed away from the table slightly.
Her shoulders hunched involuntarily and she smothered the rising panic. “How goes the Season?” The innocent inquiry immediately introduced chaotic emotions, frustration chief among them, into her thoughts.
“Well enough.” So far, she had been successful in discouraging unsatisfactory suitors before they plucked up the courage to approach her father. She resented the imposition, but in a few more days Parliament would disband, and she would be able to return to the country. To ride, run her hedge school and read the last three rows of books in the library. And best of all, she wouldn’t have to spend four hours dressing.
“So strange you have not had a single offer. Perhaps if you gave it such mind as you do your educational pursuits?” The suggestion was without rancor, stemming out of true concern and pity. Of all the emotions evident in her father’s eye, the latter had her hackles rising.
Regency Romance Omnibus 2018: Dominate Dukes & Tenacious Women Page 44
