by Eva Devon
“Happiness, satiation, does it truly matter?”
It should. But he’d long given up the idea of any real happiness. To make his way through this world with enough pleasure to make it bearable had all he’d ever really allowed himself to wish for after their brother, Henry’s, death.
“So, why don’t you just help her get what she’s clearly longed for all these years.”
“And what is that?”
“Why, you, of course. No doubt, she’s been waiting all these years for you to show up and claim her. Don’t you think that’s all she really wants, the ability to call herself your wife with some semblance of pride, and the knowledge she can fornicate wherever she pleases? She’ll have funds, relative freedom, and your blessing to do whatever or whomever she wants. What more could a woman want? She’s only irritated because you haven’t come up to snuff.”
Charles had a point, and she had seemed quite angry that he’d never come to collect her. Perhaps, she had had a girlish fantasy about marriage to him. It wasn’t truly his fault that the reality was so far from the dream. But he could still give her what she desired, even if it was almost a decade late.
A light knock resounded on the oak paneled door and Charles called, “Come in.”
Benson, Charles implacable and indefatigable butler strode in. “Pardon my lord, but the Duke of Darkwell is insisting he come up. I’ve told him you are not at home, but he insists—”
Footsteps thudded down the hall.
Benson’s shaggy brows bolted up towards his wrinkled forehead in horror. He whipped towards the door on surprisingly agile legs. Just as he reached the door, Darkwell strode in.
“Your Grace!” Benson protested. “You. . . You. . .”
“Thank you, Benson,” Charles sighed. “Darkwell, you better have a damn good excuse for barging in. A few minutes earlier and you would have had quite an eye full.
Darkwell rolled his eyes. “Nothing I haven’t seen before but this is damned serious, because Kathryn is put out. And if Kathryn is put out, someone is going to be beaten to a pulp.”
“What the devil could have disturbed Kathryn,” Jack demanded. “Oh, perhaps my shrew of a wife?”
Darkwell’s dark eyes narrowed.
“Oh god,” Jack groaned. “It is about my wife.”
“And your grandmother,” Darkwell said flatly.
Jack stared at him blankly for a moment then vaulted up off the couch, his head nearly bursting, but he ignored the highly unpleasant sensation which was over powered by a sudden and distressing protective urge. “Speak plain.”
“I don’t know what the fates were about making your wife my wife’s friend, but they can’t have been thinking with any sort of benevolence. You see, your grandmother, that tigress, has convinced Cordelia to hie off to your home. I’ve already been there. I wasn’t allowed to see her and you clearly weren’t there.”
“You don’t suppose grandmama tossed her in the Thames?” Charles said with a suspicious amount of glee.
“Charles,” Jack snapped.
Charles blinked innocently. “What?”
“Not now.”
“Come,” Charles stated an air of boredom to his tone. “Not even grandmama would. . . . Hmmm.”
Jack gave a tight nod. “Exactly.”
Charles sighed dramatically. “Then?”
A slow momentum built within Jack’s usually empty chest. He’d wondered how he was going to capture his own wife. Now, he knew it. “Rescue.”
“How boring.” Charles examined his immaculate nails to emphasize his point.
Jack was tempted to tear off the sheets from his brother’s bed and hang him. He tried a different and most likely more productive tactic instead. “It will infuriate grandmama.”
A thing he actually hated. His grandmother had done a great deal for him, but he couldn’t leave Cordelia to the older woman’s machinations.
Charles narrowed his eyes. “You’re not doing this out of some sort of noblesse oblige?”
“Of course not,” Jack scoffed. Noblesse oblige had nothing to do with the lust and determination to see his wife in a temper. With her beholden to him, that was the only thing a woman of her temper could be. But what a glorious temper, she did have.
Charles bounded to his feet. “Fine then. Let’s be going.”
Darkwell shook his raven haired head. “You two—”
“Yes?” they cut in in unison.
“Are the devil’s own brothers.”
“Indeed we are,” Jack agreed as he strode for the door. Cordelia had waited and waited for him to collect her. Well, he was finally going to come up to the mark. A smile tugged at his lips. At last, life was looking very, very worth living.
Chapter 11
Cordy had to admire the dowager’s efficient skill, even if she did think the old battle axe was as the Arabs would say, a flea infested pit of a camel married to a donkey’s carbuncle. She sat, dressed in a frilly frock, abducted from Gemma’s room. The lace itched at her neck and it was all she could do not to rip the stuff off.
All signs of her own promised wardrobe had yet to appear and her predicament was so incredible even she was having trouble accepting how quickly that seemingly helpful old woman had turned into a mad old bag, locking her in an upstairs room. A nice room, but with a lock on it nonetheless.
Apparently, bread and water was on her menu until she saw sense and agreed to be Jack’s duchess. Which was all so bizarre considering the facts had led her to believe the Eversleigh family all, except Gemma, wished her as far from England as possible. Darkest Africa had seemed the preference. But now. . . Now? The old harridan had taken into account Cordelia’s skills at leading archeological expeditions, not to mention her diplomacy with aging and impossible aristocrats, and decided that such a pedigree along with her blue though somewhat tainted blood meant she was the perfect woman to inherit the dowager’s control of London Town.
Some would have been honored. Cordy wasn’t some. She was furious. She’d been held captive before and it was always an exasperating and occasionally terrifying experience. And she highly doubted she’d be able to wheedle the Dowager Duchess the way she had wheedled the Sheik. Her Grace, the dowager duchess of every one will dance to my tune, seemed wheedle proof.
A squat little toad of a woman sat across from Cordy, glaring. Quite belligerently, a single hair protruded out of a mole from her sharply angled, slightly grey bearded chin. One almost expected the woman’s name to be Helga the Horrible.
It wasn’t. Her name was Mrs. Alice Rose.
It seemed a cruel twist of fate that such a hideous crone of a woman should have such a delicate name.
Mrs. Rose sat in almost granite like silence and lack of movement that hid a remarkable agility and surprising speed which Cordy had encountered whilst attempting to bolt some five minutes ago.
She had accepted that the older woman was as tough as a Tar Tar and now was contemplating her next best opportunity of escape. It had seemed like a most logical conclusion to take the dowager’s offer. One did not deny such power out of hand. But it had been a mistake. A terrible mistake. And she couldn’t wait to leave all the positively mad people of London, the Eversleighs the maddest of all.
Escape now seemed a most appealing option. She had not fought for her independence so long to give it up so entirely and without respect in a few short hours. Her bloody dowager grace had another thing coming if she thought she would take such treatment without retaliation. There were some battles that surely even that tyrannical woman couldn’t win.
Cordy eyed her keeper then smiled, her winning smile. The smile which had worked on everyone except Jack’s dratted grandmother She hoped she hadn’t lost her touch. Still, needs must. “I assure you Mrs. Rose, you are guarding me quite illegally.”
The old woman sniffed and folded her old hands together, the gnarled fingers as tough as oak. “Don’t matter none.”
“That you imprison a fellow female?” Perhaps she could reason
with the creature. “After all, we are both women oppressed by society. Should we not unite in the bonds of sisterhood?”
Mrs. Rose looked away, nose in the air. “Say what you will, I shan’t be moved.”
Cordy scooted to the edge of her seat. “But Mrs. Rose—”
“No, missy.”
Missy?
Giving a terse nod, the old woman nodded once. “Her Grace wishes you to stay here until you come to your senses. So, here you shall stay.”
“And is Her Grace God, that I should be locked up and judged so?”
The woman gave her such an incredulous shrug that the only possible thing to discern from it was that, yes, the dowager was indeed God almighty.
It was a most intriguing predicament. She supposed she could overpower the old woman, but it just seemed so unsporting. . . Then again, Mrs. Rose had proved remarkably fast and strong and she might end up being squashed like a bug under the woman’s muscly girth.
A loud thud whacked against the window.
Cordelia’s gaze jerked to the clear panes, exposing a rather grey morning and the tall, winding limbs of an oak frothing with lime green leaves.
Mrs. Rose also shifted her attention toward the window.
And then much to her exceedingly disbelieving eyes, in primate fashion, Jack Eversleigh, the Duke of Hunt, most frustratingly handsome and vexing man of the ton, popped into view, dangling from one of the oak’s impressive limbs. He gave her a grin so impossibly cheeky a shocked laugh burst from her lips.
Despite her astonishment, Cordy sprang to her feet and darted for the window.
Apparently winded from her earlier pursuit, Mrs. Rose lumbered after her.
Still, that didn’t stop Cordelia from throwing the window open and asking with all attempt at seriousness, “Do you have an appointment, sir?”
His dark brows lifted towards his boyishly uncoiffed jet hair. “Does one need such a thing to rescue one’s wife?”
She nearly tumbled out the window as her heart slammed in her chest. The word wife should have sounded dreadfully wrong. It didn’t.
He extended a lightly calloused, granite looking hand. “Come on then,” he dared. “Show me the wild Duchess Cordelia.”
She quickly peered down at the three stories of open space beneath her, the expanse between the windowsill, and the trunk of the tree. Without looking back towards her advancing jailor and her beautifully appointed prison, she grabbed Jack’s extended hand.
Mrs. Rose’s footsteps thundered across the room. As Jack spotted her, his eyes widened with chagrined horror. In one quick move, he latched his fingers firmly about Cordy’s then yanked in a fast, hard jerk. . .
Leaving her dangling from the very strong arm of one mad member of the ton. . . above a pristinely groomed lawn wondering if she’d traveled thousands of miles to die skewered upon one of the elephant shaped shrubberies below. Drawing in a steadying breath, she lifted her eyes to his and ordered, “Swing me over!”
And much to her amazement, he did exactly as she said, swinging her up through the cool air and in towards the ancient tree. She hit the scratchy bark with a hard thud and her breath omphed out of her, but not before she clung to the trunk with her legs and free arm. ’Twas a good thing her thighs were in such splendid condition, otherwise she would never would have been able to grip the large and rigid wood with such dexterity.
A strange look crossed over her husband’s face as she squeezed her legs before he shook his head in what could only be declared as wonder.
Even with her suitably fit person, clinging was remarkably difficult sans her sensible clothing. Gemma’s borrowed clothes were simply not meant for an aerial escape. Her legs wouldn’t part quite far enough to allow her groin to meet the tree. So, she dug her toes into the bark and glanced up at her would be rescuer. “Make haste. I shan’t be able to hold on long.”
A definite dose of admiration lit his face. “Unbelievable.”
She flashed a grin then said practically, “Thank you. Now let go my hand.”
“I hardly think that advisable.”
“Jack,” she warned, carefully, for she did truly appreciate his assistance in her escape, “Let go.”
“But—”
Cordy let out a sigh. Men. They were such ninnies.
With one swift move, she pulled her fingers from his, grabbed the tree, then scaled down the bark in quick slides. Her slippers landed on the lawn with a solid thud and she peered up, staring at two faces which were gaping down at her as if she’d grown a second head.
Jack was still far up in the tree, his mouth open.
Mrs. Rose on the other hand fairly shook with fury. She let out an unintelligible curse then whisked away from the window.
“Are you coming down?” Cordelia called.
There was a pause then the reply, “Indeed, madam.”
“If you could be quick about it?” She brushed her dirty hands against the fluffy frock and grimaced. “I do believe we are in a trifle hurry.”
And just as said words passed her lips, the door to the rear of the house cracked open.
With far less grace than her own descent, Jack scrambled down out of the tree, his muscled arms working with beautiful precision. It really was quite miraculous the strength and grace of the male form. . . Jack’s body moved with such power that she was sure she could learn a great deal anthropologically speaking from his movements. But just for good measure and so that he wouldn’t realize how much she admired him as an ideal specimen of the male species, she commanded, “Get a move on, Your Grace.”
He pounced to the earth and his black eyes narrowed as he rose from his crouched position. His hand reached out and engulfed hers. Without a word, he started running across the slightly damp grass towards the street, tugging her along behind him.
Luckily, she’d done her own fair share of running and kept up with him. Even so, her stays (something she was still adjusting too) nearly had her gasping for breath and her constrictive skirts caught on her shoes, threatening a much closer acquaintance with the lawn than her descent from the tree had done.
As they rounded to the cobbled street in front of the town house, she spotted a black coach, hitched with four chestnut horses and a driver sitting at the ready.
The front door flew open and shouts filled the air as liveried footmen bounded down the limestone stairs, their white wigs bobbing like fluffed cream.
“Run faster!” Jack shouted.
She attempted to kick out her feet to match his long stride and promptly caught her pointy shoe in a flounce. She flew forward, her limbs completely out of control.
Bracing herself, Cordelia cursed the men who made women’s gowns to be so imprisoning, but before her body could collide with the earth a pair of brazenly muscled arms latched around her middle then tossed her up into the air until her stomach landed with quite a distressing whump upon an exceptionally broad male shoulder.
Jack’s shoulder.
Though padded with sinew, it still jarred her middle. He made no apologies about his Neanderthal movement. “Down!” she ordered, rapping firmly against his back.
“Never mind your shrillness,” he returned.
“I am not shrill,” she huffed as best she may, middle thwacking against him. “I am authoritative. Now put me down!”
“In a moment.”
Her eyes fixed firmly on his rock hard buttocks flexing with each forward thrust of his thighs and she felt herself flush. She rammed a hand against his back. “This bleeding instant!”
“When we’re good and away, woman.”
Woman? Woman!
Just as she was about to deliver a blistering reply, she caught the movement of legs covered in white breeches out of the corner of her eye and realized they were being pursued quite determinedly to the coach. “Faster!” she bellowed.
“I am going faster. You weigh a surprising amount.”
And just as she was sure, said running breeches were about to reach out and seize her, she s
ailed through the air and bounced against a cushioned seat.
Jack’s large frame plummeted against her, landing with a hard and immobilizing crush. She thrashed under him to no avail, and she gasped for breath as the coach rushed into motion, rocking both of them in an undignified rhythm which was somehow quite physically provoking. Her already red cheeks burned prodigiously and she felt the most alarming things in the most alarming places. . . Undoubtedly due to the inappropriate placement of his thigh betwixt her legs and his chiseled chest pressed against her own considerably softer one.
At last, as the coach rumbled over the cobblestone, his hard frame eased against hers, and he lifted himself, but only ever so slightly. Only enough to allow her to breath and to make his weight a strangely pleasant sensation.
Pleasant or not, she had no intention of allowing him to linger upon her person. “Are you somehow incapacitated?”
“Only by your glorious body,” he purred.
She snorted. “Glorious, indeed. Remove yourself.”
“In a moment, I’m exhausted.”
She rolled her eyes, though since his face was pressed quite distractingly into the crook of her shoulder, his breath causing the most delicious sensations against her neck, the look was lost on him. “I had no idea you’d such little stamina.”
“It is the shock of having absconded with my own wife.” The warm words caressed against the soft skin of her neck and ear. “Give me a moment, and I shall rally.”
His lips were so close she nearly arched towards him, in a bizarre experience of her body attempting to act without regard to her brain.
“History has set a precedent for such happenings, and given circumstances,” she gritted, attempting to squirm away from his doubtlessly hypnotizing lips, “you can hardly call me your wife.”
Slowly, he lifted his head and gazed down at her with eyes as hot as the glittering sands of Egypt. “And yet you are.”
Her insides jellied and she glanced away. “Harrumph.”
He tsked. “Show a bit of gratitude.”
Such a ridiculous instruction sent her gaze reeling back towards his. “Whatever for?”
