The Duke of Distraction

by Darcy Burke

  After some time, Felix began to pace while Beck and Lavinia sat together on a small settee. They looked perfectly fine, content even, to sit quietly and wait. Felix felt as if he were going to explode. God, he hated this. How could he make it stop?

  He needed to find something else to do. Something that would take him away from this agony.

  He turned to face Beck and Lavinia. “I think I should go. My being here will probably upset Anthony. He’s still rather angry with me.” And likely always would be.

  “Yes, I am,” Anthony said, coming into the room with Sarah trailing behind him. Her face was pale, her features tense. “You shouldn’t have come.” It wasn’t clear if he meant Felix or everyone. “You should all go back to Stag’s Court.”

  Beck and Lavinia stood. “We were sorry to hear about the highwayman, but at least he’s gone,” Beck said.

  Anthony’s mouth tightened. “I should have left yesterday as soon as I heard. But I was distracted by—” He sent a dark glare at Felix and then Sarah.

  Felix, already wound up tight as a clock, could no longer keep himself in check. “Stop it. Stop shaming Sarah. You don’t own the right to feel sad and angry and seek comfort where you may. That your sister chose me instead of a bloody bottle isn’t your concern.”

  Anthony stepped forward, his eyes blazing. “You aren’t really going to try that argument again, are you?”

  “There is no argument.” Felix felt as if his blood were boiling, but he managed to rein himself in. “Sarah and I are getting married. There is no damage done here.”

  “Not yet, but you don’t want to marry her. You don’t want to marry anyone. How long will it be until you turn from her? Until you devastate her?”

  Yes, their friendship was over, and Felix was glad for it. “Go to hell, Anthony.” He stormed from the room and wove his way back to the entry hall, where he brushed past Inman without saying a word.

  Outside, he paused. He couldn’t just abandon Beck and Lavinia here. And Sarah. Hell, it was her house. He couldn’t abandon her where she lived.

  Soon, your house will be her house.

  “Felix!”

  The sound of her voice hit him like an arrow. He slowly turned to see her standing several feet away. She’d removed her hat, which he took as a sign that she meant to stay.

  She took a step forward. “You’re upset. I’ve never seen you upset.”

  “I don’t get upset.” He worked to keep his voice even, as he hadn’t done inside.

  “I know. And you should.”

  “What good does it do? Look at Anthony. He’s a mess of emotion, and it bleeds all over everyone else.”

  “Am I a mess?” she asked softly.

  “Of course not.”

  “But I’m overflowing with emotion.” She took another step.

  Felix pivoted so that he presented her with his profile. “I can’t.” He shook his head. “I can’t help you with that.”

  “But you have. You help everyone. That’s what you do.”

  Yes, that was what he did. But he couldn’t do that for her. Not knowing what he knew. That she loved him. When he’d realized everything had changed between them, he never imagined it would be this drastic. That being with her would rob him of his breath and tie him up so tightly that he felt as though he couldn’t move.

  He focused his gaze on a distant tree. “Anthony doesn’t want me here, and I understand that. I’ll be at Stag’s Court. Stay here as long as you like, and we’ll set the wedding whenever you decide.”

  She moved into his line of sight, her face a mass of concern and a dozen other emotions he didn’t want to see. “You assume I’m staying here.”

  “Aren’t you?” He lifted his gaze to her hair, dark and upswept, the curls a memory against his fingertips. “You didn’t bring your hat.”

  “You also assume we’re still getting married.”

  “Have you changed your mind again?” He kept his tone perfectly even. He wouldn’t persuade her—either way. It was entirely her choice.

  “When you didn’t say anything to Allencourt this morning, I wondered if you’d changed your mind. Have you?” She blinked at him, her facing clearing into a stoic mask. Her voice held none of the emotion it had.

  She was, he realized, behaving exactly like him.

  “I’ll just return to Stag’s Court. Advise me of what you want to do about the wedding.” He inclined his head toward his footman and climbed into the coach.

  She moved to the doorway and looked inside. “I’ll make sure Beck and Lavinia find their way back.” Now her tone carried emotion—sarcasm.

  He nodded, and she stepped away, allowing the footman to close the door.

  As he departed the place he’d long thought of as a home, he wondered if he’d ever return. He wondered if the past had finally caught up with him and would steal the meager happiness he’d managed to grasp.

  Sarah stared after the coach until long after it had disappeared, then turned and walked woodenly back to the house. Inside, she found Lavinia waiting for her in the entry hall.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  Sarah shrugged, feeling numb. “I don’t know. He’s gone, of course.”

  Lavinia nodded. “Shall I send for tea? Or would you like to go to your room and rest?”

  Hit with a sudden burst of anger, she strode away from Lavinia and went back to the drawing room. Beck stood near the fireplace, his head bent. He glanced up as she came in, but her gaze shot directly to Anthony. He held a glass of whisky or some other spirit and stared at the window toward the back garden their mother had loved.

  Sarah stopped a few feet from her brother. “Anthony, you will cease behaving like a jackass.”

  He turned and glowered at her. “Did he leave?”

  “Yes, thanks to you. You can’t be angry with him.”

  “I’ll be angry with whomever I like.”

  “Fine, then I’ll be angry at you until you stop. Felix is going to be my husband, and even if he wasn’t, he’s your oldest and dearest friend. I seduced him, and he’s trying to do the right thing, even though it’s killing him.” Her voice broke, and she felt Lavinia’s hand on her shoulder.

  Sarah took a deep breath to regain her equilibrium. “He needs me, Anthony. He needs us. Surely we’ve learned how important family is and how tightly we must hold and cherish it. Felix, even if we didn’t marry, is our family.”

  “But you just said doing the right thing was killing him. Why should I—or you—want that for Felix if he’s family?”

  She didn’t want that. And it was killing him. She could see it in the fleeting looks of terror in his eyes, in the way he’d revealed a depth of emotion today that he never had before. “He shouldn’t be hurting. Which is why I have to save him.” If she could. God, she prayed she could.

  Anthony pressed his lips together and stared at the glass in his hand. “Go after him, then. I won’t stop you.”

  “No, you wouldn’t even if you tried. But will you support me? Will you support him?” She moved toward Anthony, desperate to reach the brother buried beneath the fury and the sorrow. She had to save him too, she realized. “Mother and Father tried to include Felix after his father died, as much as his uncle would allow. They would want us to stand together. As much as he needs us, we need him too. Please, Anthony.”

  At the mention of their parents, his gaze had snapped up, locking onto hers. His eyes were full of sadness but also love. “When do you want to leave?”

  Sarah exhaled. “After we visit Mother and Father. I’m going to fetch my hat, and I’ll meet you in the garden.”

  She turned and gave Lavinia a brief hug. “Thank you.”

  “Do you want us to stay here?” Lavinia asked.

  Sarah shook her head firmly. “No, you’re coming too. Tomorrow is Felix’s birthday, and we’re having a party.”

  She only hoped he would come.

  Chapter 15

  It’s your birthday.

  The words
had always been spoken with disdain and sadness, never in joy. The day of Felix’s birth had always been a cause for despair and sorrow. And blame.

  There wasn’t a day that went by in which Felix hadn’t been acutely aware of the role he’d played in his mother’s death and in his father’s subsequent agony.

  “This should be a joyous day. Your mother would have been so happy. But now look at her.”

  He could feel his father’s hand on the back of his neck, forcing him to look at the cold letters and numbers etched into the stone that separated them from the woman his father had loved. The woman Felix had hated.

  Felix looked down at the tomb that bore her name and the date of her death. Today. His birthday.

  But he didn’t hate her anymore. He hadn’t even known her. She had been, by all accounts, a warm and lovely person, the kind of woman who’d loved children and adored animals. The kind of woman who lit the room with her presence and cheered everyone around her.

  It was, he suddenly realized, the kind of man he’d become. But not because she’d made him that way.

  Felix raised his eyes to his father’s tomb. “You did that.”

  The stone stared back at him, frustratingly silent.

  “Do you see that in spite of you, I am the man she would have wanted me to be?”

  Still nothing.

  Emotion unfurled inside him, and he dropped down, squatting so that he could look at his father at eye level. “Almost the man she would have wanted. I don’t think she would have wanted me to feel unloved. I don’t think she would have wanted you to drink yourself to an early grave and wholly abdicate the duties of fatherhood.”

  The rock was nearly as stoic as his father when Felix had used to cry. Until the day his father had beat him until he stopped. Then he’d never cried again. Nor had his father raised a hand to him again.

  “You didn’t have to hit me after that, did you?” he asked softly. “Everything changed when you whipped the emotion right out of me. I knew I wasn’t to show it, and so I never did.” Even now, as rage poured through him, he couldn’t yell or shout or even cry.

  “Thank you for that. At least partly,” he added. “I am glad to feel nothing for you, but you’ve left me incapable of feeling anything for anyone. You see, there’s a woman who loves me. Loves me.” His voice broke, and the wave of emotion completely stole his breath.

  Felix leaned forward and braced his hand on the stone, careful to touch the tomb beside his father that belonged to a great-uncle. Closing his eyes, Felix fought to inhale.

  At length, he raised his head and sat back, balancing on his feet once more. “I want to love her, but I don’t know how.”

  “I think you already do.”

  Her voice was a balm to the blistering agony in his soul. He stood and turned, the blood rushing to his legs and making them wobbly. Or maybe it was just seeing her. Though he’d only left her yesterday, it had felt like an eternity.

  “How—” He cleared his throat. “How can you know?”

  “That you love me?” She came toward him. Garbed in soft, dove gray, she appeared fragile except for her hat. It sported a wide brim and was topped with a jaunty purple feather, and in it, she was quintessentially Sarah, full of charm and energy, of beauty and light.

  He couldn’t speak for the lump lodged in his throat, so he nodded.

  She took his hand between hers, a gentle smile curving her lips. “Because when we’re together, everything is better. That’s what love is. Whether romantic or familial or friendship.”

  She was trying to tell him there were different kinds of love, that he’d experienced them all his life. At least that was what he thought she was saying.

  “What kind of love do you feel?” His body went rigid. If she said she loved him as a brother or a friend, he thought he might crumple.

  Her eyes crinkled at the edges as she smiled. “Do you even have to ask? I love you as, hopefully, my husband. As my lover. As my friend. As the first person I want to see when I wake up every morning and the last one I want to see when I close my eyes to go to sleep.” Her thumb stroked the back of his hand as wave after wave of emotion crashed over him. “Tell me what you feel.”

  Words jammed in his throat. “I—I can’t describe it. No, I can. I’m terrified. Of loving you. Of losing you.” His voice cracked again, and this time, he looked away. He thought of his mother lying behind the stone, the woman he never knew. “I left your body the other night because I’m afraid. If what happened to my mother happens to—”

  Sarah’s arms came around him, and she held him tight. “It won’t.”

  He resisted hugging her in return, desperate to keep some small part of himself guarded and safe. “You can’t say that.”

  “I can believe it because I must. I believe in our future, in us, and if there will be tragedy or grief, I will still take what we have. I don’t want the alternative. I don’t want life without you, however long it might be.” She pulled back and touched his face, her hand caressing his cheek. “I see that you’re scared. And I think I can see why. Not because of love or loss—at least not just because of those things, but because, I think, you somehow don’t believe you deserve to love and be loved. But Felix, you do.”

  He stared at her, the riot inside him quieting for the first time in the presence of another person. Because of the words and comfort of another person. “I don’t think anyone has ever seen the real me. Not until now.”

  “Then it is my honor.”

  It couldn’t be this easy. What if Anthony was right? What if he did devastate her? “I don’t know how to do this, Sarah. Love. Trust.” Felix glanced briefly toward the tomb. “He broke me.”

  A tear tracked down her cheek, but she still smiled for him. “We’ll do it together.” Her voice was steady and sure.

  The dam inside him tore apart, and emotions, so many emotions, cascaded forth. He felt wetness on his cheeks for the first time in so long. He put his arms around her and brought her flush to his chest, then he kissed her, his soul seeking the solace he knew only she could give.

  He picked her up and carried her outside. “I can’t be in there with him anymore.” He set her down a distance from the church, in the shade of a pair of trees. “I just want you, Sarah. I need you.” He gently stroked the sides of her face, his palms resting against her cheeks. “I love you.”

  She smiled, and he feared his heart might burst.

  He kissed her again, his mouth claiming hers with sweet desperation. Touching her, feeling her was like air in his lungs after a lifetime underwater. She clasped his shoulders and pressed her body into his. He wanted to lose himself in her completely. No, he wanted to show her the depth of his emotions, the utter urgency he felt to possess her and be possessed.

  He sank to the ground, pulling her with him. Kissing her, he scrambled to find the hem of her skirt, lifting it as her fingers found the buttons of his fall.

  He pressed her back and rose above her, drawing in breath. “Is this terrible?”

  She laughed softly and shook her head. “This is wonderful. Love me, Felix. Now.”

  She opened his breeches and he pushed her gown to her waist. His fingers found her sex, and she was more than ready. Her hand guided him forward, and he sank into her wet heat. Groaning low in his throat, he began to move.

  She held him, one hand on his back and the other on his backside, pulling him deeper as her legs curled around his waist.

  Passion, dizzying and reckless, consumed him. Her legs quivered, and her muscles tensed. She cried out as she clenched around him, and he drove into her, uncaring that he screamed her name when he climaxed. And uncaring that he poured himself and their future into her.

  No, not uncaring. He did so with tender deliberation and boundless love.

  She pressed her legs tighter around him, keeping him inside her. He kissed her cheek, her ear, and whispered, “I’m not leaving. Not ever.”

  She pulled his mouth to hers. “Good.”

  Se
veral minutes later, or maybe it was an hour, Felix didn’t know, nor did he care, he helped her to stand. Somehow his hat had ended up several feet away. Sarah’s was still atop her head, but quite askew.

  “I’m amazed your hat is still in place,” he mused. “Must be the excellent craftsmanship.”

  She laughed as she straightened it. “Must be. I hope people are willing to pay for them.”

  “They will, but even if they don’t, I have it on good authority that you needn’t worry about planning for a spinster future.”

  She paused in putting herself back together. “You know that’s not why I’m marrying you.”

  He picked up his hat and returned to her. “I know precisely why you’re marrying me. The same reason I’m marrying you—I can’t live without you.”

  She kissed him again, and it was some time before she suggested they return to the house.

  “Must we?” he asked.

  She nodded, tucking her arm through his. “I’m afraid we need to get to a birthday party. If you’re amenable.”

  Joy filled his soul. “I’m more than amenable. I can hardly wait.”

  After a brief stop at the house to organize Felix’s birthday dinner, they went into Ware, where Felix purchased their marriage license. Then Sarah stopped to buy some hat supplies. Though it had started with uncertainty and apprehension, it had turned out to be the best day of Sarah’s life.

  When they’d returned the prior evening, Seales had informed her that Felix had gone into Ware. Though she’d waited for him to come home, she’d eventually given up some time past midnight only to awaken early and go in search of him.

  Which was how she’d found him in the church. Seales had said Felix wasn’t in the house, and a trip to the stables had revealed he hadn’t taken a horse or vehicle. Catching sight of the steward’s house, Sarah had thought of George and then of the church. History told her he wouldn’t be there, and yet she’d gone anyway. Partly because if nothing else she wanted to pay her respects on the day their family had been torn apart.