His Favorite Mistake

by Aydra Richards

  “You bloody bastard.” The words ripped across the space between them, and so did David. He felt his arm draw back, felt his fist fly, and his knuckles burned as they connected with the duke’s jaw. Rushton stumbled back beneath the force of the blow.

  “For God’s sake—” Clifton started across the room, presumably to put an end to the violence, but Rushton only waved him off, working his jaw.

  “Don’t, Nick,” he said, in a strained voice. “He’s entitled.”

  “I should call you out,” David hissed, his fury unappeased. With jerky motions he stripped off his traveling coat and cast it over the back of the sofa. “I should bloody well kill you. Whatever issue you had with me, you had no right to involve her.”

  “I know,” Rushton said, his voice tinged with self-loathing.

  “I didn’t compromise your damned sister,” David snarled, rolling up his cuffs. “I told you that—but you would prefer to believe a spoiled young girl.”

  “I know,” Rushton said again. His right hand came up to massage his jaw, but he had taken no steps to suggest he would even attempt to avoid the beating that David was ready to bestow. “I know all of it. I have no defense. There is no defense,” Rushton said. “Do what you will.”

  David had been spoiling for a fight since he’d arrived back in England, but Rushton’s resigned tone drew him up short. He had been prepared for mockery, for disdain, for any number of things. This…this acquiescence was something he had not been prepared for.

  Whatever it was that had occurred, somehow Rushton was no more pleased by the outcome than David. The man was prepared to take a beating because he felt he deserved one. Already there was a bruise shadowing his jaw, but he had returned his hands to his sides, ready to accept whatever violence David chose to dole out.

  David bit off a curse. “I can’t hit a man who won’t fight back,” he snarled.

  Clifton blew out a breath, a sound of abject relief. He snagged a bottle of liquor off the sideboard and splashed a measure into a glass, which he offered to David. David threw it back and held out the glass again for another.

  He brandished Jilly’s letter at Rushton as though it were a pistol. “She thinks she’s your duchess,” he said. “Is she?”

  And Rushton could not meet his gaze. “No,” he said at last. “She thinks she is, but she’s not.”

  “How—”

  Rushton gave a mirthless laugh, full of self-recrimination, and David had never heard such an empty sound, so devoid of life. “A sham wedding. A forged license. It’s in my desk drawer upstairs.”

  David went for his throat.

  Clifton yanked him back by the collar of his shirt with a vivid curse. “She will be his duchess,” Clifton snapped, flinging David toward a chair in the opposite corner. “For God’s sake, Westwood. She will be.”

  As a conciliatory gesture, Rushton produced an envelope from his pocket from which he drew a piece of paper. “The license,” he said. “Nick brought it down from London today. It’s legal. Jilly will be my duchess, just as soon as I can arrange it. More importantly, she will be my wife.”

  At that, David deflated. For all that he had been prepared to kill the man, somehow the thought had lost its luster. He had never seen a man brought so low. Rushton had run himself through the wringer, worse than David could ever have done.

  “I love Jilly,” Rushton said. “I wish to God I’d never deceived her. But I have every intention of righting the wrong I’ve done her, and I will cherish her for the rest of our lives.”

  David reached for the bottle of brandy once again, fury abating to quiet contemplation. Something about Rushton’s face made it hurt to look at the man. He wore a bone-deep shame, a sort of abject hopelessness that David would have expected to see in a man condemned to hang.

  For God’s sake, he could almost pity the duke.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  With a basket of blueberries strung over her arm and the last of her morning sickness finally abated, Jilly headed back to Windclere with a spring in her step. It had been such a fine morning already. The blueberries she would give to Mrs. Simpson to pass along to the cook, and they would make a lovely tart for afternoon tea.

  It would be her first time playing hostess as a duchess. Though she would have liked a bit more time to acclimate herself to the role, the viscount was James’ closest friend, and surely he would be regular visitor to their home, whether in London or in Sussex. She had no wish to come between them, to make herself a nuisance as a wife and upset their friendship. A brief visit in the country would be less formal and more comfortable for all of them, she suspected.

  The courtyard came into view as she passed out of the trees, and she was surprised by the appearance of not one, but two carriages there. One she had expected—Lord Clifton was due to arrive today, after all, but the other…the other bore the crest of the Earl of Westwood. David. David had come home to England?

  And here, to Windclere.

  She found herself somewhat surprised that he’d received her letter at all, much less that he had received it in a timely manner. What would he think of his younger sister being an old married lady these past two months?

  Probably she had embarrassed him with her elopement. Though he had never spared much attention for her, any scandal attached to her name would also touch him, and she spared a brief moment of regret for that. She did love him. Even if they had never been close, she had still entertained the hope that someday they might be, that when she had ceased to be a millstone round his neck, they might find some sort of affection for one another.

  Well, at least he ought to be pleased that she had made a good match—that Kittridge House would now be his alone.

  She walked up the steps and through the front door. Bartleby was standing in the foyer, and he jerked around to face her, surprise scrawled across his face.

  “My lady,” he said, in a strangled voice. “That is, Your Grace—”

  The dear man still hadn’t quite found his footing with her, but she adored him anyway. She’d probably startled him with her sudden appearance—he did pride himself on being quite the most attentive butler in all of England, and she had reached the door without his notice.

  She held out the basket of blueberries with a fond smile. “If you would, please take these to Mrs. Simpson, Bartleby. And some tea, I think, as I can see we have guests.”

  “Your Grace, the duke is…currently occupied.” His gaze swiveled toward the closed door of the drawing room.

  “I saw the carriages,” she said. “I was expecting Lord Clifton, but it looks as though my brother has come to call as well.” She patted his hand. “I think I’ll surprise them. The tea, please, Bartleby.”

  She crossed the foyer and placed her hand on the doorknob, taking a moment to mentally prepare herself for her new role, to play the proper hostess that she would now need to be.

  David’s voice, rendered in a low, furious hiss, came through the door. “She thinks she’s your duchess. Is she?”

  Jilly’s brows drew together, baffled by the question. Of course she was his duchess; they’d been married for months already.

  James’ response followed. “No.”

  What? Her hand fell away from the knob. She backed a step, her breath hitching in her throat. What? It felt as though the floor had shifted beneath her feet, though she knew it was only the sudden shaking of her knees.

  A harsh burst of cold laughter. “A sham wedding. A forged license. It’s in my desk drawer upstairs.”

  Her ears closed against the rasp of James’ voice, against the hateful words that flowed through the closed door in a sibilant hiss. She backed three steps away, four, more, until finally her back was pressed up against the opposite wall, against the opulent paneling, the gilt-edged decorations cutting into her spine.

  Bartleby had not moved. He stood, still clutching the basket of blueberries, in the center of the foyer. And he could not meet her eyes.

  “Your Grace,” he said, his
gaze firmly attached to the polished surface of his shoes.

  “But I’m not,” she whispered reflexively. “I’m not Her Grace. Am I?”

  A moment of silence drew out, taut and trembling with the weight of the words hanging between them.

  Finally he said, almost apologetically, “Lady Jillian.”

  She could feel her heart shattering in her chest. Truly feel it, as though the scattered shards had imbedded themselves in her flesh. She had thought that she had been devastated when Adrian had eloped, but it was nothing—nothing at all—in comparison to this. Every muscle in her body had tensed against the sudden onslaught of anguish, and she took a swift, gasping breath, stunned by the magnitude of the betrayal that had been visited upon her.

  All this time, Bartleby had not been merely forgetful, had not been slipping up by calling her Lady Jillian. He had been slipping up by calling her Your Grace. They had known—they had all known. But for her, everyone had known who she was—and who she was not. What James had made of her.

  “Thank you, Bartleby,” she managed, with a dignity she did not feel. “You have been…very kind, all things considered.” Her voice broke on the last words, and as humiliation swelled up around her, she fled up the stairs, lest she embarrass herself before him yet further.

  ∞∞∞

  When Bartleby rapped on the door, all three men were on their third—perhaps fourth—glasses of brandy. With as swiftly as the spirits had flowed, it was rather hard to tell. James certainly hadn’t been keeping track, but he did feel a trifle slovenly. Of course, that could have been due in no small part to the facer that Westwood had planted him. It was going to bruise dreadfully, and Jilly would be—

  Jilly wouldn’t be anything, he reminded himself. He would be lucky if she ever deigned to speak with him again.

  Bartleby stomped into the room, sparing an evil glare for James. He plunked the tea service he carried on a tray down on the low table before the sofa with enough force to set the delicate china cups to rattling.

  Without preamble, he said, “Lady Jillian has returned. She requested that tea be brought to you, Your Grace.”

  “Her Grace, Bartleby,” James corrected. “She must always be Her Grace. She is going to be Her Grace.” He missed the look of approval that Westwood slanted him, having scrubbed at his face with both hands in the interim.

  Bartleby cleared his throat and said, “Her Grace listened at the door. She was, as you might imagine, a bit overset.”

  “What?” James croaked. He rose to his feet so swiftly that he very nearly toppled over instead. “Jilly heard?”

  Bartleby gave a curt, icy nod, accompanied by a flare of ire in his eyes. “Her Grace has gone upstairs toward the east wing. In her present humor, I would not expect her to come down to tea.”

  “Christ.” The word was torn from his lungs. And then he was running for the stairs, with only the vaguest sense of footfalls behind him, that Nick and Westwood had followed swiftly on his heels. He had never had cause before to regret that his ancestral home was such a sprawling, overly-ostentatious place, but with over a hundred rooms in the east wing alone, it could take ages to find her.

  Instead, it took only minutes. Of the doors that lined the upper corridor, only one was flung open, spilling the afternoon sunlight into the hall. James’ office. His heart gave a vicious beat in his chest, and he knew already what he would find when he reached the room.

  ∞∞∞

  Jilly clutched the forged license in her hand. It had been buried in the very back of the desk drawers, tucked away under piles of correspondence and ledgers, as if it had merited no more consideration than any other scrap of paper. It had served its purpose, and there was no further use for it, after all.

  She had all but torn James’ desk apart in searching for it. Papers were strewn about the room haphazardly, as she had simply cast them aside once she had ascertained that they were not what she had been seeking. Tidiness had not been a particular concern.

  It was a bit of a wonder that James had even kept the license, when there was always the possibility that she might have stumbled upon it. But then, she had respected his privacy, had had no inclination to go digging into his desk, no reason to rifle through his papers or belongings. Because she had trusted him, and as far as she had known, there had been absolutely no reason not to.

  More fool, her.

  She would have liked to say that she had been startled by the pounding of footsteps on the staircase, by the three men that shortly thereafter appeared in the doorway, disheveled and out of breath. She would have liked to say quite a lot of things, really, and most of them were quite beyond what should ever cross a lady’s mind, much less her tongue.

  She could not look at David, not with the sting of humiliation still burning behind her eyes. She could not look at Lord Clifton, as it occurred to her that he must also have known what James had intended for her. She did not even wish to look at James.

  Instead she looked down at the license, at the tiny creases the tight grip of her fingers had crushed into the paper.

  “It’s an excellent forgery,” she said, and prided herself on the even tone of her voice. “I mean to say, I assume it is. Of course I would never have known the difference.” She cleared her throat. “Surely such things are quite expensive. What did it cost you?”

  There was a heartbeat of strained silence, a low, rough sound from one of the men. She didn’t know who. She couldn’t look at them, couldn’t bear to consider what they must be thinking of her, of her naïveté. What a fool she had been.

  “Everything,” James said, his voice oddly hoarse. “It cost me everything.”

  Jilly bowed her head. She dropped the forged license as if it had scorched her fingers, let it flutter to the surface of the desk. Somewhere inside her there was grief, a mad rush of tears that would inevitably rise to the surface. But not here. Not while there was breath left in her body would she display even a glimmer of such a ruinous emotion. She had perfected the art of smiling placidly whilst her life crashed down around her ears already. She had weathered such a storm once. She could do it again.

  “I’m so sorry, David,” she said.

  “Don’t, Jilly.” David’s fierce voice overrode her own. “None of it is your fault. None of it.”

  “Still,” she persisted. “I realize that I have been…very foolish. I think—I think that perhaps I ought to go abroad for a time. I certainly cannot return to London.” She could not suppress the shudder that slipped down her spine. She had been ruined for months, and hadn’t even known it. Not even Nora could safely associate with her now. A fresh wave of pain buffeted her as she it occurred to her that she had lost more than just the husband she had thought she had, more than her self-respect—she had lost her reputation and all that went with it. Even the cold comfort of social acceptance had been stolen from her.

  “Of course you can,” Lord Clifton said. His voice was light and soft, the sort of reassuring tone someone might use with a wounded animal or a small child. “No one knows anything, Jilly. Between your aunt and I, we made sure of it. And no one here will speak out against you. Of that, you may be certain.”

  “Lady Jillian,” she corrected, though the words lacked the sharp inflection to which she had aspired. “Despite…circumstances being what they are,” she managed, well aware that it was a pitiful description of her present situation, “I am still entitled to the use of that title.” Suddenly she was so, so tired. Her thoughts felt sluggish and muddled. She felt as if she could simply go to bed and sleep for days. Maybe years.

  “Lady Jillian, then, as you like it,” he said easily, having taken no offense. “Won’t you come and have some tea? You look as if you could use it.”

  She drew a deep breath, pleased that it didn’t rattle in her throat. “If it is all the same to you, I would rather not. I would very much like to be alone at the moment.”

  David cleared his throat and eased into the room. “There are decisions to be made, Jill
y. You should be a part of them, however unpleasant it may be.”

  Unpleasant seemed too trite a word, too simple to describe the torture of sitting amongst them while they decided what was to be done with her. But there really was no use avoiding it, she supposed. Better to get it over and done with now, while she still maintained control of herself, while she could wear that practiced, bland smile without it cracking on her face.

  “Very well, then,” she said. “I suppose all that’s left is to conclude this farce, so I might as well take tea while we do it.”

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  James had roped Nick into fetching a glass of lemonade for Jilly, but she held the glass as if even the lemonade, which had so frequently soothed her unsettled stomach of late, threatened to upset it instead. And she looked so cold. It wasn’t simply the pallor of her face, or the glacial glint of her eyes, but the way she held herself so rigidly, so forbiddingly. James could look at her and legitimately believe that ice wouldn’t have melted in her mouth.

  It was difficult to reconcile the cool, detached lady sitting on the sofa across the room with the vibrant, lively Jilly who had been his loving wife these past two months. She might have all the same features, might wear Jilly’s clothing and her vivid curls, but the two women—despite being one and the same—bore little other similarity to one another.

  It had been some five minutes since they had returned once again to the drawing room, since Jilly had gone through the repetitive, mechanical motions of pouring a cup of tea for each of them, and thus far, no one present had dared breach the resounding silence that hung over the room. What, precisely, was one meant to say in such a situation? All the etiquette that had been drilled into James’ head over the years could hardly prepare him for this.

  At last Jilly, between placid sips of lemonade, broke the silence herself.