The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

Chapter Twenty

He danced the last dance of the evening with Constance, his sole intention to throw the scandalmongers off his true scent. He realized too late that he and Harriet could have made a more discreet return to the ballroom and that certain conclusions would be drawn. Did the duke find his aunt’s abigail more desirable than one of Society’s own? Such speculation amused the ton.

Constance found nothing amusing in his behavior and did not hesitate to say so. “This was meant to be our night.”

“Was it?” he asked in surprise.

“I thought our engagement might be announced.”

“Did you?” He noticed Harriet standing behind his aunt, their expressions of mutual disapproval rather delightful.

“My father has already had papers drawn for the wedding.”

“To my late brother, perhaps. But not to me.”

She smiled thinly, walking the steps of the last set as if they were opponents on a dueling field, not on a dance floor. “Your grace is too honest.”

He bowed in relief as the dance ended. “And, you, my lady, are only so in the moonlight.”

For a moment she appeared not to understand what he meant. But then she gave a slight nod, not bothering to lie. “At least I do not engage in affairs with those beneath my station. Lord Hargrave is merely a friend.”

He walked beside her to the supper room, Constance calling back farewells to the other guests who had not been invited to stay. Her dark hair lay tightly coiled upon the whitest skin, aside from Edlyn’s, that he had ever seen. Her eyes shone like cold, distant stars.

She paused without warning, people crowding all around them. “You may kiss me now.”

“But everyone is watching.”

“I know. Just kiss me and be done with it.”

The thought held as much appeal as did a wasp sting. But since when did a Boscastle male refuse an offer to indulge a lady?

She tilted her face. “On the cheek. Lips closed.”

He stared down at her. She looked for all the world as if she were awaiting a guillotine to drop. “Why don’t we just shake hands and go from there?”

“If his grace does not pay me court tonight, the papers will report that we have become estranged.”

“Estranged? Before we are even properly engaged?” He laughed. “What a complicated world is London’s Society. I admit it does not interest me at all.”

“Your brother had an instinctive respect for the roles one must play. Your instincts, I fear, are far less refined.”

“And that is why you fear them?” he asked curiously.

“What I fear is that you shall make fools of both of us, your grace.”

“And if I do not care?”

She regarded him with contempt. “Ours is to be an arranged marriage. Whether you care or not is irrelevant.”

If Griffin had ever felt the slightest interest in pursuing a match between them, even for the purpose of breeding heirs, it dissipated. Disregarding the fact that his male parts did not exactly dance in her presence, he was repulsed by the unfeeling ease with which she was as willing to share his bed, his life, as she had been his late brother’s.

It was a well-known fact that a Boscastle could not survive without passion. Perhaps if Griffin had never come to London, he would have lived the rest of his days denying what his ancestry had ordained.

Perhaps he would never have met a woman with hair the color of a pagan bonfire and a spirit disciplined enough to becalm the beast he was afraid he had become.

Harriet slept late and not well, dreaming of a young duke who abducted her from her warm bed in a flying chariot and carried her into darkness. Her teeth chattered like a skeleton’s. It was perishing cold up in the clouds, despite what the poets might claim, and the duke had turned a deaf ear to her objections. Harriet’s dream counterpart was less impressed with romantic gestures than she was with practical matters.

She reached through the mist for his cloak, pulling it off the duke’s broad shoulders with a cry of shock. He was nude beneath, his chest and torso as hard and beautifully sculpted as the statues in the marquess’s garden. A work of art, Lady Hermia Dalrymple would announce when the girls at the academy took out their sketchbooks. The human body should reflect the hallowed perfection that its creator had intended.

In Harriet’s dream, as in her worldly experiences, not even a duke was hallowed. Nor did he seem to be entirely human. “I can’t find my heart,” he said, as she huddled deeper into his cloak and they ascended into his dark abode. “Do you happen to have a chisel on you, Harriet? I know they come in handy for housebreaking…”

She sat up in bed, the callused hand that shook her arm bringing her crashing straight back to earth. “His grace wishes to see you in the library, miss,” the chambermaid, Charity, hissed in her ear.

Harriet was quick. She’d woken to worse. She had grabbed her dead-drunk father by the ears and shoved him to his feet, the pair of them pounding through hidden alleys with the peelers at their heels. But she was properly employed now, if subject to the demands of a duke. She stretched her arms and legs, wiggling her toes under the bedcovers. Who did he think he was to order a body half dressed out of bed at this hour of the day? “I haven’t done my hair or had tea. What’s the hurry?”

Charity shook her harder. “He said now. And he’s in one of those moods, if you know what I mean.”

“Is he?”

The last Harriet had seen of him, he was studying Lady Constance in complete absorption. Well, he could wait. She donned her morning frock, washed her face, and rinsed her mouth with rosemary water. But her hair-dear God. What a monstrous fright the looking glass reflected. Tangles of blazing red hair that took a good hour or so to tame before she could appear in polite company. Most of the time she braided it before bed. But last night she hadn’t bothered. The duke had half seduced her in the hall and then danced the last dance, right afterward, with the woman the ton expected him to marry.

Let him see her looking as though she’d been struck by lightning. Harriet took grim pleasure in the thought.

“Come on,” Charity urged, hauling her to the door. “Never mind your hair.”

“It looks that bad?”

“I’ve never seen the likes of it. But at least you still got your head and we still got jobs.”

Harriet lifted her chin. “I work for Lady Powlis.”

Charity pushed her through the door. “And who’s to say he won’t put that fussy old thing out to pasture once he takes a wife?”

He sat, unspeaking, as she entered the library and stood before him. Harriet knew the trick. She’d waited often enough before the magistrates to glean that when silence built, the person who wielded the least power-usually her-would break down. In this case, she was too annoyed to give him the satisfaction. She might have forgotten in time that he had danced with another woman last night. But she would never forgive him for insisting she appear before him with her hair as unruly as a gorse bush.

He drummed his fingers on the desk. “You took an inordinate amount of time responding to my call.”

“Sorry if your grace had to wait,” she said, breathless and annoyed. “I-”

A knock at the door saved further explanation. The duke snapped, “Enter,” and a footman wheeled in a tray that bore a porcelain teapot with steam rising from its spout, a single cup, a single plate, and three covered silver serving dishes. The savory aroma of fried bacon and hot buttered toast wafted in the air.

Harriet’s stomach gave a loud rumble in the silence. Was the self-indulgent so-and-so going to stuff his handsome face while she stood here, half fainting from lack of nourishment and the aftereffects of the previous evening’s impropriety?

He leaned back in his chair. “What happened to your hair?”

She counted to ten. Then to twenty. She clasped her hands before her and thought of her former life. She thought of her newborn nephew and her half brothers, trapped by their own ignorance in the squalor of St. Giles. She resurrected long-buried images of intimidation, abuse, of hunger, and shame. But even after all that mental palaver, she was hard-pressed not to fly across the duke’s cluttered desk and smack him a good one.

Instead, she bobbed an insolent curtsy and backed like a sleepwalker to the door. A voice-it sounded more like a toad croaking his last than her own-quoted the etiquette manual’s advice on how one properly disengaged from a perilous situation.

“Excuse me for such a discourteous departure, your grace. But I feel a sudden spell of giddiness calling me to the chaise-”

He stood abruptly.

She groped behind her for the doorknob, her other hand fluttering to her eyes. “If you are going to apologize for last night-”

“Apologize?”

She peeked at him through her fingers.

What had she been thinking? The fiend looked anything but sorry. Perhaps she was still dreaming. Had William the Conqueror, another famous duke who had been known to be a bastard, apologized for invading England? She wrenched open the door. He reached around her and closed it again.

“Just what are you doing?” she asked indignantly.

He caught her beneath her knees, lifting her into the air with a look of mock alarm. “I cannot allow you to go fainting in the hall, or I shall be blamed for it. There is a perfectly good sofa behind us that you may swoon upon to your heart’s content.”

“How convenient.”

“Isn’t it?” he muttered, hefting her up a little higher to navigate his way across the room.

She locked her hands reflexively around his neck. It was either that or hit her head against the furniture. He bore her toward the sofa like a barbarian, apparently unconcerned that she might have a word or two to say about the matter.

“There.” He deposited her ungently on the burgundy damask sofa that sat between two sash windows. “I will give you three minutes to recover before I call a physician to the house. While you’re at it, I suggest you do something about your hair.”

“That,” she said, sitting up, “is the last insult I shall endure. I do not care if you are a duke and live in a castle made of diamonds. I do not care if every woman in the entire world dreams of becoming your wife. I-”

He sat down beside her, his expression encouraging her to continue. Harriet lost her train of thought. She had never noticed how the daylight brought out the singular beauty of his face. “I-I forgot what I was saying.”

He stretched his arm across the back of the sofa. “Something about diamonds, a wife, and-ah, the last insult. Which, oddly enough, leads me to the reason I summoned you with such urgency that you… you obviously had no time to prepare.”

Harriet compressed her lips. He was going to dismiss her, and she hated him. She hated him not only because he was a duke but because he smelled divine and his sultry eyes sent little shocks into her deepest regions. She hated herself for not moving when his carved mouth suddenly hovered a mere breath from hers. And she might actually have fainted if all the gin in her father’s blood hadn’t made her as strong as a cart horse.

“If you are going to let me go, your grace, then have the decency to do so before dark.”

He frowned. “Certainly not before breakfast.”

His shoulder pressed her deeper into the sofa. The ebony buttons of his cutaway black jacket brushed against her unadorned muslin bodice.

“Do you still feel faint?” he asked, lifting a strand of her hair to the light. “If so, I think you’d better have a cup of tea and a bite to eat before I explain why I needed to see you. A hearty breakfast might settle your nerves.”

She combed her fingers through her hair, reclaiming the strand he was studying in fascination. Settle her nerves. Of all the gall. He’d done more to tangle up her inners than the month she’d shared a gaol cell with a murderess. But-she was hungry.

“You had that breakfast ordered for me?” she asked, halfway to the table before he could answer.

“I ate earlier,” he said. “Please, serve yourself.”

She touched her palm to the pot. Still piping hot. The bacon and toast tempted her. It seemed a pity to let a decent meal go to waste, especially when she knew how hard the servants worked to please the young duke, in the hope he would keep them on.

She seated herself in the chair at the table, folding her limbs as gracefully as the sticks of a fan, as she had been taught at the academy. In the old days she’d have attacked her plate like a farmhand. But now she forced herself to take delicate nibbles here and there.

He turned to the window with a troubled frown. Harriet placed her toast back on the plate. She glanced at his desk, suddenly noticing the papers scattered everywhere, some even strewn across the floor, as if he’d thrown them in a temper.

“I think you had better tell me what the matter is,” she said, biting her lip.

He shook his head. “Finish that toast. I haven’t seen a lady eat a decent meal since I arrived in London. Perhaps I scare their appetites away.” Entirely possible.

She took a delicate sip of tea, sighing in pleasure. There was nothing like a strong brew to start the day.

Except for a duke’s kiss.

“What happened to your desk, or shouldn’t I ask?”

He pivoted. “My secretary quit last night.”

“I wonder why,” she said without thinking. “But you don’t-you don’t expect me to-”

“-take his place? Absolutely not. My aunt would never share you. I’m surprised she hasn’t shouted the roof down to find you.”

“We went to bed late last night,” she reminded him. “It was light when I fell asleep.”

“Well, while we slept, the devil’s printshops were hard at work. You have not read the morning papers?”

“I didn’t even have time to do my hair.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “I should have ordered a brush and ribbon to go with breakfast.”

She vented a sigh. “You aren’t going to dismiss me?”

“Why should I?”

“Last night… well…”

“Do you think that was your fault?” His frown deepened. “As to dismissing you, I would not risk my aunt’s wrath. You may, however, wish to leave of your own volition after I explain what is being said about me.” He paused. “About us.”

Silence fell. Harriet felt a little ashamed she’d been so preoccupied with her own assumptions that she hadn’t considered he might have had a good reason to summon her.

“I know what has been said of you, your grace. I’ve been accused of worse.”

“Do you know what is being said now?”

She shook her head. He sounded so grim she decided she might be better left in the dark.

“We have been accused of conducting a liaison.”

“Oh.” She almost laughed in relief. “Is that all?”

He looked at her in frustration. “It would be appropriate on your part to burst into tears and accuse me of damaging whatever good reputation you have worked to achieve.”

“Lady Powlis will murder me,” she said suddenly.

“No,” he corrected. “She will murder me.”

“But it’s all absurd,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a lie; you and I-”

She didn’t finish. The dark glance he sent her seemed to be fraught with a message she was afraid to interpret.

“Is it really that absurd?” he asked.

She came slowly to her feet. “It is, unless you’re offering me a position as your mistress.”

He gave her a fierce look. “I’m offering you the chance to escape before it comes to that.” He half turned. “Your door does not have a lock.”

“How did you-” She saw the faint smile that tightened his face. “What if her ladyship reads the scandal sheets?”

“Undoubtedly she will.”

Harriet stared absently at the letters scattered around his desk. “Will she believe them?”

“She did not believe I murdered Liam when the court of public opinion accused me. This, however, is another matter. There is an element of truth to it.”

“Then I must be as guilty as you are,” she said under her breath. His head lifted.

“Go,” he said in a controlled voice. “And do not give any person who questions you about this scandal the satisfaction of a reply.”

“Yes, your grace.”

She turned in hesitation, torn between what he ordered her to do and what her heart told her he really meant. “May I say one more thing?” she asked, hurrying on before he answered. “Words can’t hurt you unless you let them. I’d have shriveled up into dust years ago if I had believed what my own father said about me.”

He shook his head. “I don’t give a damn what I am accused of being. I’m perfectly able to defend myself. But when my name is used as a weapon against those I care for, it is a different thing altogether.”

“I think I understand.” She stepped back, resisting the temptation to tidy the room before she left. It was unsettling to leave him in such a mess, even if it was of his own doing.

“Harriet…”

“Your grace?”

“For the love of God, do something about your hair.”

Her hair. Griffin released his breath as she left the room. No other lady’s companion could have brought the fortune Harriet would command on the market as a courtesan. She looked for all the world like the Irish Princess Isolde of the pure healing hands and secret passions. Would she heed his warning? Had he given her fair notice of his intentions? He believed he had. He’d done his best to explain himself. She claimed to understand, but if she understood the strength of his desires, she would not be so brave in his presence.

He glanced around the room, smiling unwillingly at the image of Harriet feigning an attack of the vapors. She’d had him half convinced as he lowered her to the sofa that he had sent her into a swoon.

She might indeed have been a duchess for how well she pretended indisposition. Only the mischief in her eyes had betrayed her.

His gaze lit upon the drawstring pouch that sat amid the disarranged papers on the desk. He had discovered it on the carriage floor the night he had brought her home from St. Giles. He’d meant to give it to her, although the strand of false pearls within seemed hardly worth the bother. Perhaps the necklace held some personal value, a gift from an early admirer. The cheap paste used to coat the glass beads had crumbled off in his fingers. In truth, he had felt so insulted on her behalf that he remained uncertain whether he would return the tawdry bauble to her at all or replace it with something more befitting her importance in his life.