In My Wildest Fantasies (Love at Pembroke Palace Book 1)

by Julianne MacLean

  Charlotte’s eyes turned toward her questioningly.

  “Mr. Rushton,” she replied in a polite but cool tone. “What a coincidence, meeting you here.”

  “But it is hardly a coincidence,” he said. “You must have known I would come to Pembroke to find you.”

  She bristled at his familiar tone and squared her shoulders. “You should have called upon me at Pembroke Palace,” she said. “My husband and I would have been pleased to receive you.”

  He looked at Charlotte while he spoke. “Your husband. Yes, your father informed me of your marriage. As you can imagine, I was surprised to hear it.”

  It was clear he wished to communicate something to her—that he was angry or felt betrayed? She was not yet sure which it was. All she could do was wait anxiously for him to say what he came here to say and hope it would satisfy him and he would leave.

  Charlotte cleared her throat.

  Rebecca fought to remember her manners. “Forgive me, Charlotte. Allow me to introduce Mr. Maximilian Rushton, my father’s neighbor. Mr. Rushton, this is Lady Charlotte Sinclair, my sister-in-law.”

  He bowed to her. “Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

  “Good afternoon,” she replied, with a notable degree of reserve.

  He turned his gaze to Rebecca again. “But surely your sister-in-law knows that I am more to you than just your father’s neighbor.”

  Rebecca flinched at his candid words and assumptions. “She knows exactly what I have told her—that you are my father’s neighbor, nothing more, because whatever arrangements you had with him do not concern me. I am a married woman now.”

  “But it should concern you,” he replied. “You were promised to me, yet you did not explain yourself or even say goodbye.”

  She could not believe he had the audacity to confront her about this at all, let alone in front of Charlotte. How she wished Devon were here. “I owed you no explanation whatsoever.”

  Charlotte carefully interrupted. “Perhaps I should see if Mrs. Sisk has found the right fabric for that hat we were discussing earlier.” She pointed toward the back room. “I am sure she wouldn’t mind if I just went to see if—”

  “You do not need to go anywhere,” Rebecca said. “Mr. Rushton was just leaving.”

  “Please, my dear,” he said in a beseeching tone she had never heard him use before. There was an actual hint of vulnerability in it. “If I could only have a moment of your time. I would like to understand what happened between us, so that I can put this painful experience behind me.”

  She could almost feel the pity from Charlotte’s soft heart floating into the air between them, while her own heart was squeezing with distrust.

  “There was no us, Mr. Rushton. There never was, so perhaps that is enough of an explanation.”

  “Please tell me that is not true,” he persisted. “I have been paying calls to you and your father for years. Surely you knew that my feelings had become involved. And that day we met in the stables...”

  Charlotte coughed and cleared her throat again. “My, my, I dare say it is warm in here. I believe I would benefit from a brief walk and some fresh air. If you will excuse me.”

  “No, Charlotte, that is not necessary!” Rebecca stepped forward, but before she could do anything to stop her sister-in-law, she was out the door and Rebecca was standing in Mrs. Sisk’s hat shop, alone with Mr. Rushton.

  She glanced at the door to the back room and could hear the woman puttering around. She wondered if she was listening.

  “Lady Charlotte is very astute,” he said, the facade of vulnerability vanishing like a drop of water on a hot stove. “She was very good to give us some privacy.”

  “I do not want privacy with you, sir, for there is nothing of any consequence to say. You already know that I have married the Marquess of Hawthorne, the future Duke of Pembroke.”

  She hoped he was intimidated.

  “Mm, yes, and you entered into that marriage very hastily, without a thorough understanding of the situation.”

  “I understood enough,” she said. “I know what kind of man you are, and for all I know, you beat my father into submitting to your wishes. And because he was weak and ill, he made promises on my behalf which were not acceptable to me.”

  He smirked. “Weak and ill? That is precisely what I am talking about. You lack insight, Rebecca.”

  She laughed at him. “No, it is you who lacks insight. I am married now, and I have nothing more to say to you.”

  She walked past him out the door to find Charlotte.

  He followed her onto the street. The door slammed shut behind him.

  “Excellent idea,” he said. “We shall take a walk together in the mist and clear the air.”

  “I am going nowhere with you.” She looked frantically up and down the street, but Charlotte had disappeared, presumably into another shop, and their coachman had not yet returned to pick them up.

  “And why is that?” he asked. “I suppose you think I am going to try to kidnap you or knock you over the head with my walking stick and stuff you into my coach? That would be rather dramatic, if I may say. Foolish, too. Your husband would pursue us without a doubt.”

  She stopped and faced him. “Good day, Mr. Rushton.”

  “But you cannot say good day to me yet,” he replied, continuing to follow when she started off again. “You haven’t heard me out.”

  Barely able to contain her fury, she stopped and waited for him to explain whatever he wished to explain.

  He strolled leisurely to the corner and leaned against a lamppost. “I am not going to knock you over the head and kidnap you because there is no need for force on my part. I am quite certain you are going to recognize your error and come home to me under your own free will.”

  She strode toward him, chuckling scornfully at his preposterous suggestion. “You cannot possibly be serious. I am in love with my husband.”

  “Which is precisely why you are going to leave him.”

  All at once, a sickening dread seeped into her core. “Leave him? I would never do that. Not in a thousand years.”

  His brown eyes darkened with resolve. “I have been waiting a long time for you to be my wife, Rebecca, and that is how things are going to be. You are going to leave your husband tonight and ask for an annulment.”

  “An annulment! You are mad to even suggest it!”

  He pushed away from the post and approached her slowly. “A divorce, then. I don’t care. And I am not mad. You are going to do what I ask, and do it without a fight, or else your husband will be involved in the scandal of the decade, along with you—and worst of all, your father.”

  “What scandal?”

  She thought of the letter she had written to her father, asking why he was afraid of Mr. Rushton. She had not yet received a reply.

  Rushton leaned closer and rubbed the back of a cold finger down her cheek. “Here is your insight, darling. Your father is not the sick, weak man you believe him to be. He is in fact a cold-blooded killer, and if you do not leave your husband and return to Creighton Manor to be my wife, I will expose your father, and I might even hear about some unfortunate accident involving your husband’s early demise. Or any other member of his family, for that matter.”

  Her entire being wrenched with horror. “You are threatening to kill my husband, the heir to the Duke of Pembroke, or members of that esteemed family? I shall report you to the magistrate this very instant.”

  “That would be pointless,” he said, unruffled. “I’d only deny it, and a day or two later, evidence of your father’s ghastly crime would appear on that same magistrate’s desk. Then the esteemed Pembroke family would not be quite so well regarded, because of their connection to you.”

  She shook her head. “There was no crime. There could not have been.”

  Rushton handed her a not
e with the Creighton family crest printed at the top. It was the stationery from her father’s desk, dated five years earlier. Written upon it was a note to a jeweler, asking about repairs to a bracelet. It was signed: Miss Serena Fullarton...

  “What is this?”

  “It identifies the victim,” he casually said. “Your father gave that bracelet to her, and she is buried with it on his estate. I know exactly where.”

  Her stomach clenched. “Is this your handwriting?”

  She knew it was not her father’s...

  “No, it is hers.”

  A sickening lump lodged in her gut as he plucked the note out of her hands and slipped it back into his pocket.

  “Accept it, Rebecca. You do not know everything about your father.”

  She had no answer to that.

  “If you want to protect your husband,” he said, “leave him. Flee the palace in the night like you did when you left home and write him a letter explaining that you made a mistake, and that you still love me.”

  “And you think he will simply let me go? Has it not occurred to you that I might be carrying his child—the ducal heir?”

  Rushton turned away and started walking toward his coach, parked on the other side of the street. He glanced over his shoulder as he spoke. “For your sake, and for your father’s, you better pray that you are not. And if you are, it had better be a girl. But do not worry. There will be other heirs in your future. I will see to that. Now off you go. You need to go home and pack your things.”

  He stepped into his coach, and the driver closed the door behind him. As soon as the man climbed up onto the seat, the door opened again, and Mr. Rushton peered out at her.

  “By the way,” he said, “I liked the hat with the yellow feathers. Purchase it when you go back inside and bring it home with you. I expect to see you wearing it with a smile, at my door, by tomorrow, midnight.”

  With that, he shut the door, and his shiny black coach rolled away.

  Chapter 21

  That evening after dinner, Devon made his way through the dimly lit palace corridors to his wife’s bedchamber. Rebecca had been quiet and without smiles at the table during the meal, and afterward had insisted on speaking with him privately. He knew something was wrong. He intended to find out what it was.

  Arriving at her room, he knocked gently. There was no answer, so he knocked a second time. He waited, then lifted his fist to knock a third time when the door finally opened, and his gaze fell upon his beautiful wife, already dressed for bed. He was relieved to see her, though he did not quite understand why.

  “I’ve decided I prefer the secret passageways,” he said. “When I use them, I do not have to wait so long at your door.”

  With notable wariness, she stepped back and invited him in.

  He entered the room. A hot fire was blazing in the hearth. He stood for a moment looking at the flames, then turned to her.

  “Rebecca, you were not yourself at dinner this evening.”

  She closed the door behind him, went to the bed and climbed onto it. “I know.”

  He studied her tentative posture, her fingers fiddling with the coverlet, the absence of light in her eyes. “Tell me what is wrong,” he said. “It is obvious you are troubled. Whatever it is, I will fix it.”

  She frowned at him. “I thought you did not wish to be my hero, yet here you are offering to rescue me again.”

  A dozen misgivings began to spin through his mind. “Is there something you need to be rescued from? Or someone?” he added, feeling that familiar spark of obsession and jealousy, which he did not welcome. It made him feel like he was not in control.

  She slid off the bed, covered her cheeks with her hands, and strode to the opposite corner of the room. “It is not easy to say. I am so afraid of what you will think, Devon, but I know I must tell you.” She faced him. “I am in a terrible bind, and I do not know how to resolve it.”

  “What bind?” he asked, incredulous that something was distressing her so, and that she had not yet told him what it was.

  “I...I encountered Mr. Rushton in the village today.”

  His jaw clamped together. “He spoke to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he want?”

  She stared uneasily at him, then dropped her hands to her sides. “Me. He still wants me.”

  Devon labored to keep his breathing under control. “But you are my wife.”

  “He doesn’t seem to consider that much of an obstacle. I think he is mad.”

  Devon paused, swallowing hard. “Why did you not tell me about this sooner?”

  “I am telling you now.”

  “But why did you not tell me before now?” He heard the irritation explode in his voice and knew she heard it too.

  “You were gone out to the fields when I returned,” she explained, “and I couldn’t bring it up at dinner.”

  “You should have sent a groom out with a message to me the minute you returned from the village. I would have gone immediately after the man. I would have caught up with him and instructed him never to come within a ten-mile radius of you again. I would have educated him as to how my wife—the future Duchess of Pembroke—is to be treated and esteemed.”

  Rebecca stood silent, staring uncertainly at him, her face as pale as candle wax. “I wasn’t sure how you would react.”

  “That is how I would have reacted, had I known. But now there is nothing I can do but stand here and interrogate my wife.”

  Suddenly he wondered what would be happening presently if her father had not come to the palace on their wedding day and revealed the truth to him about her previous engagement. Would Devon even know about it? Would Rebecca ever have confessed? And if she had not, would she be telling him that she had met her former fiancé in the village today? Or would he never know?

  He recalled how she had answered his earlier question, and something inside him wrenched with dread. “What is this bind you are in?”

  Was she confused about her feelings? Was she torn?

  Heaven help him, he had thought this marriage was a straightforward affair. Rebecca had seemed enamored with him and eager to be his wife. From what he understood, she had lived her entire life sheltered in her father’s home. He had assumed there would be no complications, that he was marrying an innocent without a history. He had even allowed himself to become enamored with her in return, despite the fact that he knew how painful and disappointing love could be and had never intended to venture near such perilous affections again.

  He thought of his mother suddenly, how she had suffered through her marriage because she had been forced to marry a duke, when the one she truly loved was lost to her. Was that how Rebecca was feeling, or was he being completely obsessed and unreasonable?

  Rebecca touched a trembling finger to her mouth. “He accused my father of something terrible, and he told me that if I do not leave you, he will reveal my father’s crime to the world.”

  Devon closed a hand into a fist, while he carefully directed his thoughts and emotions to the practicalities of what she had just told him. “What is the accusation?”

  She hesitated, then spoke in a near whisper. “Murder.”

  He stared at her in disbelief.

  “It cannot be true,” she insisted. “My father may be many things, but he is not a killer.”

  “You believe Rushton is lying.”

  There was a slight faltering in her tone. “He must be. At least, that is what I am telling myself.”

  “But you are not sure.”

  She bit her lip and looked away. “To be honest, I do not know. I thought I knew my father. He was everything to me when I was a child, but over the years he has changed, and when he promised me to Mr. Rushton, I realized I did not know him at all.” She met Devon’s gaze again. “What kind of father forces a daughter to marry
a man she despises, when that man is not only a bully, but beneath her in rank?”

  Devon spoke in a matter-of-fact voice. “A father who is being blackmailed for murder.”

  She shot him a look. “You think he is guilty.”

  He strode across the room to stand before her, and spent a long moment studying her glistening green eyes, her moist, cherry lips, and her creamy white complexion. He found himself aware of her anguish and vulnerability, but in light of what was happening, in light of his own anguish and dismay, he strove to ignore that awareness, to crush it and cling to the particulars of the situation.

  “What I really want to know,” he said, “is why Rushton is so obsessed with you. Why he cannot let go of his desire to have you as his wife, and would blackmail an earl for that purpose, despite the fact that you have already married another man and have shared your bed with him. Tell me, Rebecca, are you sure you never once encouraged his affections?”

  Devon thought of the diary. He remembered how she had surprised him that night in the gallery with her knowledge of all things sexual. How she had known so much and been so naive of the sexual power she wielded.

  He found himself wondering where she had really gotten the diary.

  She glared at him. “Are you suggesting there was something between us, and that I have been lying to you? Why can’t you believe that I have only ever been devoted to you? If I were not, I would be taking the easy way out. I would be doing what he asked me to do—which, for your information, was to flee the palace tonight. If I did not want to be with you, you would be reading a letter of farewell from me at this very moment. But no, instead, I am taking a deadly risk. I have just done exactly what he warned me not to do. I have told you everything, Devon—everything—and now I must face the possibility that Mr. Rushton will expose my father for something, which I am not entirely sure he did not do.”

  Her emotional outburst should have broken through the hard wall of Devon’s resolve, but instead, he found himself fortifying that defense. “What exactly does he expect from you, and when?”