No Dukes Need Apply (The Impossible Balfours Book 4)

by Gemma Blackwood

  “Not forever.”

  “Nothing is.” She shrugged and tried to look away, but Malcolm was nothing if not hard to ignore. He leaned closer to her.

  “He jilted you?”

  “He died.”

  Malcolm let go of her hand. Suddenly and sharply, as though her fingers had grown hot as coals. His eyes broke from hers and he rubbed the hand with the other, idly, his mind on something else.

  “I am sorry,” he said, his voice quiet and rough. “That was not for me to ask.”

  “I chose to answer.” Selina took up her reticule and began searching inside it. “I owe you a token.”

  “I asked more than my share of questions.” He pushed out from the table and made to stand.

  “You beat me fairly.” Her fingers closed around the object she had been searching for. “It’s not quite the Twynham by-election, but…”

  She held it towards him. A soft square of fabric, with a blue-winged swallow embroidered upon it.

  Malcolm took it hesitantly, holding it up carefully to inspect the tiny bird in silk thread.

  “Did you make this?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  His mouth twisted wryly. He weighed the square of fabric in his hand as though it were something very precious. “Lady Selina Balfour, doyenne of the London political scene, partaking in such a domestic activity as embroidery? I am astonished.” He tried to pass it back to her. “I cannot take this. Really. It’s too lovely. You must have intended it for something.”

  “For my new niece or nephew. But I can easily make another.” She busied herself with fastening up her reticule, refusing to take it back. “Keep it. Else you might forget you’ve beaten me.”

  Malcolm folded the square with reverence and tucked it into his pocket. “I shall never forget that. Believe me.”

  “Selina?” Anthea appeared at her side. Selina had not noticed her approach. She started, as though she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t, and pressed a hand anxiously to her carefully pinned hair as she turned away from Malcolm.

  “Aunt Ursula is tired,” said Anthea. “She was asking whether you are ready to go home.”

  The card party was breaking up around them. Selina looked at the clock and felt a pang of guilt over the lateness of the hour. Aunt Ursula was too elderly to be kept up so late.

  “Of course I’m ready.” She turned to say goodbye to Malcolm, but he was already gone, walking towards Lord Louis who was wrapping up his game of whist on the other side of the room. One of Malcolm’s hands was pressed stiffly against his right jacket pocket, where the embroidered swallow was hidden.

  Selina found Aunt Ursula and joined the other guests who were busy bidding their hosts and each other goodnight, pulling on thick gloves for the cold journey home, waiting for the footmen to fetch their coats. At last, after kissing Anthea fondly and shaking George’s hand, Selina emerged from the house into a cloudy night. The sky was dark, devoid of stars, and there was a mist in the air that thickened to rain as they waited for their carriage.

  In the confusion of feet and horse hooves and carriage wheels, a small black-spotted shape ran low about the heedless ankles of the departing guests. Selina barely registered the dog until it let out a loud, pitiful howl. A circle opened around the sound, people hastening to move away from the wounded animal.

  The dog had caught an accidental kick and been sent under the wheels of a rolling carriage. Selina caught sight of it by rising on tiptoe to peer over Lord Louis’s greatcoated shoulders. It was a sweet little thing, half-grown, a coach dog judging by its white coat and black spots. It lay on the cobbles beside the carriage wheel and whined in distress.

  The rain began to splatter down in earnest.

  “Drat,” said the elderly lord whose carriage had run over the dog. “That’s one of mine. Has anybody got a pistol? Put the poor thing out of its misery. Best way.”

  “Wait!”

  Malcolm’s open umbrella bulled through the crowd before him like a battering ram. He cast it aside as he reached the open space around the dog and knelt down beside it, his knee dropping carelessly into a puddle. He bent over the dog, protecting it from the gawping onlookers, and pulled off his glove with his teeth to run his hands over the leg.

  “Careful, Caversham!” called Lord Louis. “It’ll bite you!”

  But the dog seemed to sense that Malcolm was a friend. It made no move to bite him, and its whining quieted save for a high-pitched yelp when Malcolm touched the leg that had been caught under the wheel.

  “A broken leg, I think,” said Malcolm. The rain was bouncing from the brim of his hat. He glanced upwards, gave a slight shudder, and returned his attention to the dog.

  Selina pushed past Lord Louis and took up the umbrella Malcolm had cast aside. He did not notice, at first, that the rain had stopped falling on him. He was entirely focused on taking off his greatcoat to wrap around the dog. When he rose to his feet, the dog clasped safely in his arms, he nearly stepped on Selina’s foot. She stumbled backwards, the umbrella tipping sideways, and Malcolm looked upwards, as surprised as though the sky had turned to oilcloth.

  When he saw who was holding the umbrella, he gave a puzzled frown that was somehow warmer than all his knowing smiles.

  “There’s no future for a coach dog with a broken leg, Caversham,” said Louis. Someone had found a pistol, and it was passed through the crowd to Louis. He hefted it with a regretful sigh. “Let’s do it around the corner so we don’t upset the ladies.”

  “Nobody is going to shoot this dog.”

  It was easy to forget, while he was flirting with her and riling her, that Malcolm was still a duke. A duke, with all the power and authority the title implied. Selina fancied she saw the crowd step back in unison to escape the whip in his words.

  “My lady, if you would.” He nodded at the umbrella. “My carriage is this way.”

  Selina followed him, sheltering herself and the duke and the dog, until they reached his town coach.

  Malcolm placed the dog on the seat and saw that it was comfortable before stepping inside himself. He turned with a foot on the step and took hold of the umbrella.

  Selina resisted giving it back to him for a moment. “You don’t like the rain, do you?”

  He slid his hand down the handle of the umbrella until it cupped hers. “It’ll take more than a game of piquet to make me answer that.”

  “Lady Selina!”

  Her own carriage had rolled up behind her, and the footman was holding open the door. Malcolm bowed to Aunt Ursula, who had wrapped herself so securely in furs and blankets that she resembled an overstuffed cushion.

  “Good night, Lady Ursula.” He took the umbrella from Selina and upturned it to shake off the water. “Good night,” he repeated, quietly, flashing her the briefest of smiles before retreating into his carriage. The dog made a noise between a whimper and a happy yip.

  Selina hurried into the carriage before the rain soaked through her bonnet. She did not say much on the journey home and was grateful that Aunt Ursula was too tired to press her.

  As she gazed out at the dark streets of London, her mind kept returning to the expression on Malcolm’s face when he realised she was holding the umbrella. The mix of shock and unexpected pleasure. The way his lips had soundlessly parted, as though he had something to say that was too private to be spoken in company.

  She could not say why she struggled so to shake his face from her thoughts. She could not give a name to the feeling, timid yet warm, that sprung up inside her when she thought of it.

  She had lost a game of piquet that evening, but she did not feel the sting of defeat. The memory of Malcolm’s face at their parting made her feel that she had won. Though she could not imagine what her prize would be.

  7

  Malcolm had expected to see Selina walking the streets of Twynham, accompanied by her chosen candidate, Mr Forrester, a rosy-cheeked woman who presumably was Mrs Forrester, and a maid who looked as though she had
not expected quite so much walking from her day’s duties.

  What he did not expect, as he and Sir Roderick approached their party from the other end of Twynham’s High Street, was the smile that broke out on Selina’s face when she saw him.

  He stopped, a rush of heat rising in his chest, as Selina hurried towards him with beaming delight. He had seen that smile when she looked at her sisters, had noticed how it transformed the severity of her face into something luminous and lovely, full of welcome and invitingly soft surfaces.

  Not that she was not an attractive woman without it. Even a blind man would have been forced to admit her beauty. But Malcolm might look at a thousand lovely faces without feeling a fraction of the pleasure, the yearning, that he felt when Selina smiled.

  He had never imagined she would grace him with that glow of delight. As it happened, he was right.

  She was smiling at the dog he held in his arms.

  “Oh, what a precious creature!” she cried, stroking the dog’s ears before she had even spared a good day for Malcolm. “How is his hurt leg?”

  “Healing nicely, thank you.” Malcolm shifted the dog’s weight as it lapped enthusiastically at Selina’s hand. “I have named him Percival.”

  He suspected she was trying not to laugh. “A rather fine name for a retired coach dog.”

  “He is as brave as any Knight of the Round Table. Barely a whimper was heard as we bandaged up his leg.”

  She scratched Percival’s ears. He gazed at her adoringly.

  Malcolm was beginning to feel that he and the dog had more in common than first appeared. He cleared his throat. “You know Sir Roderick, of course.”

  “I do.” Selina nodded politely. Mr and Mrs Forrester approached, and all the necessary introductions were made.

  “How clever of His Grace to bring the puppy along to campaign with him,” said Selina, linking her arm through Mrs Forrester’s. “Little Percival has a charm he cannot hope to match.”

  Malcolm could only admire the way Selina put Mrs Forrester at ease. The lady had been struck dumb with nerves on being introduced to a duke. Now, at Selina’s gentle nudging, she managed a little laugh.

  “The dog has grown attached to me,” said Malcolm. “I couldn’t leave him at home. My staff can’t persuade him to eat unless I’m close by.”

  Selina was not the sort of person who smirked, but her lips moved in a way that came close. “I see. It is the dog who has become attached to you. Not the other way around.”

  “What brings you to Twynham this morning, my lady?” asked Sir Roderick, with a roughness that made Malcolm wince. He knew his old friend’s opinion of female interference in politics was not high. Especially when it threatened his own ambitions.

  “Now, now, Roddy. They’ve as much right to be here as we do.”

  Mr Forrester looked his opponent directly in the eye. Unlike his little wife, he was not at all cowed by titles. “We are canvassing the people of Twynham. Lady Selina has been of great assistance.”

  “Oh, I imagine she has.” Sir Roderick smacked his lips together. “Who wouldn’t trade a vote for a kiss from her ladyship, after all?”

  “That’s enough,” Malcolm snapped. He flashed the Forresters and Selina a smile and seized Sir Roderick by the arm, pulling him aside. This was made more difficult than expected by Percival’s desperate efforts to leap from his arms and get back to Selina.

  “What the devil’s the matter, Caversham?” demanded Sir Roderick, shaking him off with a frown. “If the gel can’t take a few punches, she has no business entering the ring.”

  “You wouldn’t impugn a gentleman’s honour simply because he stood against you,” said Malcolm, rearranging his grip on the restless dog. “I will ask you to show Lady Selina the same courtesy.”

  He did not often speak to Sir Roderick so harshly. The old knight blinked, taken aback.

  “That is not how we are going to win this election, Roddy,” said Malcolm, softening his tone. “You have nothing to worry about. Don’t lower yourself by insulting a woman.”

  “Very well.” Sir Roderick looked as though he was having a difficult time swallowing his objections. “Shall we move along, Caversham? I’ve no desire to speak to these people, and my throat is parched.”

  Malcolm glanced back at Selina, who had stopped a passer-by and was enthusiastically explaining Mr Forrester’s position on the responsibilities of landowners to their tenants.

  “You go on, Roddy.” He patted his shoulder. “Order me a glass of something pleasant.”

  Sir Roderick shook his head but knew better than to argue. He drew his coat tighter around his shoulders, though the temperature was pleasant, and made his way down the street towards the nearest tavern. Malcolm waited, idly toying with Percival’s ear, as Selina finished her conversation with the citizen of Twynham. Mr and Mrs Forrester were engaged in an animated discussion with a second gentleman who had happened to amble by.

  “Are you reconsidering your candidate, Your Grace?” asked Selina, noticing that Malcolm had not moved. He gave a non-committal shrug.

  “I am sure that Mr Forrester is a remarkable man.”

  “And I am sure that I could persuade you to back him, if you would only listen with an open mind.”

  Percival whined in Malcolm’s arms, straining to go to Selina. She made a soft, soothing noise and bestowed a few pats on his fuzzy head.

  “You are mistaken if you think I will abandon Sir Roderick,” said Malcolm. “He may not be the dashing sort of youth you seem to favour, but he was indispensable to my father, and I owe him a great deal.”

  “Do you do everything to impress your late father?” asked Selina. “Or do you make the occasional attempt to be your own man?”

  Malcolm sucked in a hiss of breath. “My father was one of the greatest men of his age. A claim which I can never hope to emulate.”

  “I did not mean to offend you.” Selina abandoned Percival, laying her hand on Malcolm’s arm. It was beginning to ache with the weight of the dog, and now a new, deeper sort of ache began in response to her touch. “It is only that this is the second time you have mentioned your father’s influence in your choice to support Sir Roderick. I am yet to hear any arguments truly in his favour.”

  “Since you will not vote in the Twynham election, I see no need to expend my breath arguing with you.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “You don’t consider me a true opponent, do you? You simply assume that the voters will cast their ballots exactly as you tell them.”

  “I admit to a certain degree of confidence.” He inclined his head to acknowledge the unfairness of it all. “I am a duke. There is very little that can compete with that, I find.”

  “And nothing I can say will induce you to drop your support for Sir Roderick?”

  “Would anything I say induce you to abandon Mr Forrester?”

  Selina’s jaw tightened. He had said the wrong thing, though he couldn’t see how.

  “Mr Forrester is a brilliant young man who has proven his worth in the highest court in the land. He is intent on reform. If we can only get him into Parliament, his career is sure to be magnificent.”

  “And Sir Roderick’s is not?”

  “Come, Your Grace. You know as well as I do that Sir Roderick will vote as you instruct him and slumber through every speech in the Commons.”

  “Personally, I don’t find the thought particularly alarming.”

  “Would you not rather be part of something greater than yourself?” There was a fire alight in her dark eyes. Malcolm knew he could not hope to match it. He gave a self-deprecating chuckle which, judging by her hurt expression, she thought was directed at her.

  “I am already part of something greater than myself,” he said. “The Dukedom of Caversham. I am the ninth duke. Someday there shall be a tenth. Perhaps, eventually, even a twentieth. And to ensure Caversham’s future, I must consolidate my power today.” Percival yipped in his arms, and he saw with horror that there were sever
al muddy pawprints on Selina’s dress. “Blast!” He took a step backwards, giving the dog a shake too gentle to really chastise it. “Percy! You impudent beast.” Hefting the dog into one arm, he dug in his pocket for a handkerchief. “I am sorry.”

  She waved his proffered handkerchief away. “You can make it up to me by accepting an invitation to dine with my brother.”

  “With Loxwell? I’d rather –” He remembered how much she esteemed her sober brother just in time. “I can think of nothing I’d rather do.”

  “Really?” This time her smirk was unmistakable. “Even if I tell you that I shall bring you to Mr Forrester’s side by the end of the evening?”

  “I am not as easily won as my dog, Selina. It’ll take more than a scratch behind the ears.”

  “I’m sure it will.” The flames were back in her eyes, defiant and close enough to warm him. “I look forward to the opportunity to discuss things with you properly.”

  Malcolm was looking forward to it, too. More than he would ever admit.

  “You have no shame, Percy,” he murmured, as the dog settled contentedly against his shoulder to watch Selina and the Forresters walk away. “It isn’t the done thing to paw at a lady that way, you know.”

  Percival opened a lazy eye and gave him a look far too knowing for a mere animal.

  “Stop that.” Malcolm glowered until the dog, unperturbed, let out a snuffle and closed his eye again. “I refuse to be taken to task by a dog.”

  But he would, apparently, sign up for an evening of undiluted political debate with Lady Selina Balfour. Without a second’s hesitation.

  As ever, when it came to her, he could not seem to untangle the pain from the pleasure.

  8

  If Malcolm had been asked to describe his perfect evening’s entertainment, the delights on offer at the Duke of Loxwell’s London residence would not even have made the list. And yet, as dessert was served at the dinner Selina had somehow persuaded him to attend, he had to admit that – against all the odds – he was enjoying himself.