What a Duke Dares

Chapter Thirty-Three

Bad blood will always out, you know.”

The low, insinuating female voice reached Pen on her return to the crowded ballroom from the ladies’ retiring room. Shock more than curiosity made her pause. The tone was repellently malevolent. Just hearing it made her want a thorough wash.

What on earth could engender such spite?

A palm tree concealed the speaker—Lady Frencham’s soiree had a tropical theme—so Pen had no idea who she was. Even after a fortnight in London society, she had difficulty identifying people. Although if she’d heard that nasty voice before, surely she’d remember it.

A second woman replied before Pen could do the decent thing and move out of earshot. “He’s done a grand job of convincing the world to forget his slut of a mother. I’d mention his father, but nobody knows who that is. There are two likely candidates. But given the late duchess’s depravity, hundreds more could have sired him.”

The late duchess? Although no names had been mentioned, a sick foreboding coiled in Pen’s belly.

“He gives himself such airs that one might almost believe him the gentleman he apes. Almost.”

“Until he turned up with that Thorne strumpet.”

Dear Lord, they were talking about Cam. And her.

Horror kept Pen trapped beside the palm tree. Was this what everyone thought?

She flattened a trembling hand against the wall and told herself to leave. The proverb about eavesdroppers hearing no good of themselves came to mind. That clearly counted double for hearing no good of those one loved.

“A marriage in Italy? I for one don’t believe a word of it. Don’t tell me she wasn’t sharing his bed. After the shipwreck, the game was up, so they married in haste. I see trouble already. They act more like strangers than newlyweds. There’s more Rothermere scandal ahead, my dear. That hussy Penelope Thorne won’t limit herself to one man. And Sedgemoor will tire of her soon enough and seek entertainment elsewhere. It’s in the family line, isn’t it?”

Humiliated color seared Pen’s cheeks. The witch’s remarks contained enough truth to cut. She and Cam had struggled so hard to contain any gossip about their wedding. She supposed it was inevitable that they’d failed. But this squalid meanness nauseated her.

“I heard they were at it like rabbits even before she went abroad.” Pen wouldn’t have believed that the first speaker’s voice could become more waspish, but it did. “Everyone knows why she left England before her debut. You mark my words. There’s a Thorne bastard with Rothermere eyes somewhere in France or Italy. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s talk in a few years of them adopting some obscure cousin’s child that nobody’s heard of. A bastard spawning another bastard. It would be amusing if it wasn’t such a blow to society’s standards. Heaven knows, one pays respect to the title when one meets the villain face to face, but it becomes tiresome pretending to honor a mongrel, whatever his noble pretensions.”

Pen could take it no longer. She forgot every promise she’d made never to shame Cam. She didn’t care that the ballroom was packed with observers. Such lies couldn’t go unchallenged. Drawing herself up to her full height, she sailed around the palm tree to accost the women.

“Just as it becomes tiresome to follow the dictates of good manners,” she snapped, unfolding her fan in a single movement and waving it as though the air reeked in the vicinity of these two old cats.

To her surprise, she recognized both of them. They’d fawned over her, angling without subtlety for invitations to Fentonwyck.

“Your Grace…” Mrs. Combe-Browne rose and started a curtsy before recalling that if Pen had overheard them, the gesture was misplaced. Instead she staggered like she’d had too much to drink before landing so awkwardly on her spindly chair that she nearly tumbled to the floor. Pen felt no urge to smile.

“Ladies.” Pen focused a hostile eye on the first speaker, Lady Phillips, a woman notorious as the late Duke of Kent’s mistress. “Although I use the term advisedly.”

“Your Grace!” the woman protested. “I have no idea what prompts such discourtesy.”

Pen glared. “Don’t you?”

Lady Phillips was less easily rattled than her companion. Her eyes narrowed as she stood. “Were you eavesdropping on a private conversation?”

“No conversation audible from the other side of the room counts as private.” Pen matched tone to actions by closing her fan with a contempt that the old bat couldn’t miss. “How ironic that a woman of your blemished reputation sees fit to malign the finest man in England.”

Lady Phillips didn’t retreat, although Mrs. Combe-Browne whimpered like a sick piglet and huddled into her chair as if trying to melt into the wall. “A noble title does not of itself denote honor. Nor in this case breeding.”

Pen stepped forward. Unfortunately Lady Phillips was almost as tall and twice her weight. This might be like confronting a bad-tempered rhino, but nothing could calm Pen’s outrage. How dare this raddled hag insult Cam?

“Perhaps a noble title doesn’t. But character and honesty and heart do. And my husband has those in abundance. If courage and intelligence and generosity form no part of a gentleman’s character, he’s no gentleman, whatever his parents got up to. And that counts for ladies too.”

“Well, I never!” Mrs. Combe-Browne bleated behind her friend.

“You never should have, either of you,” Pen snapped. “My husband is a man of influence.”

Lady Phillips sneered. “You dare to threaten me, you trumped-up whore? Don’t imagine your brazen antics across the Channel are any secret.”

Pen squared her shoulders, ready to do battle, but before she could engage, Cam spoke behind her. Usually she was preternaturally aware of his presence. It was one of the burdens of loving him. But she’d been so furious, nothing else had registered.

“That’s quite enough, Lady Phillips,” Cam said in an icy voice.

Pen shivered. She hated that tone. The few times Cam had used it on her, it had scraped the flesh off her bones. She could see that he was seething. Perhaps, she thought with a weight settling in her belly, he was angrier with Pen than with Lady Phillips and her friend. They only repeated rumors that the gossips had spread before and would embroider in the future. Whereas Pen was obliged to uphold the Rothermere name.

She knew that she’d made a horrible faux pas. In society, one rose above insults. Hadn’t Cam and Richard tried all their lives to prove that the sad old stories had no power? Not that anyone believed that, including Cam and Richard.

At Cam’s reprimand, the woman paled. “Your Grace, I’m sure you misunderstand.”

Pen should have realized that while the Duchess of Sedgemoor wouldn’t foil this tough old vulture, the duke would put her in her place.

“I’m sure I don’t, Lady Phillips, Mrs. Combe-Browne,” Cam responded in a clipped voice.

“I didn’t—” Mrs. Combe-Browne said shakily.

Whatever defense she’d meant to mount evaporated under Cam’s frigid stare. She shrank into herself and looked likely to burst into tears.

Pen was dismayed to notice that this fraught encounter stirred general interest. She cursed her impulsive Thorne blood. She wasn’t born to be a duchess, cool and composed under social fire. And she had a horrid suspicion that Cam reached the same conclusion, despite her efforts to make him proud.

“Your Grace, you’ve fallen in with bad company.” Lady Hillbrook approached to take her arm. “Come, my husband is eager to discuss your brilliant article in last month’s Blackwood’s Magazine. He wants your advice on acquiring artifacts from that excavation in Messina that you describe in such fascinating detail.”

Although she couldn’t imagine that a reminder of her unfeminine interest in scholarship would mollify Lady Phillips, Pen turned to Lady Hillbrook. “I’d be delighted.” The huskiness in her voice betrayed her gratitude.

Cam stared at her, green eyes opaque. Of course, he’d delay a lecture until they were alone. They’d caused enough talk. His anger would likely take the path of coldness rather than a blistering tirade. He couldn’t be nearly as disappointed in her as she was in herself. Harpies like Lady Phillips and Mrs. Combe-Browne weren’t worth fighting. Their poison was so deeply rooted that nothing would excise it.

“Sidonie, my wife and I are leaving. Jonas can talk antiquities some other time.” Like his voice, Cam’s expression was neutral. He was a master at hiding his feelings. From earliest boyhood, he’d had to be.

He extended his hand. Pen swallowed what felt like a boulder stuck in her throat and told herself she could survive this. She’d survived refusing the proposal she’d dreamed of all her life. She’d survived nine years without him. She’d survived his company in the Alps and the travesty of their marriage. She’d even survived pretending that she felt nothing but physical pleasure when he’d shared her bed.

Compared to what she’d been through, tonight was a minor bump in a union that would prove rockier yet.

She lifted her chin, determined to conceal every scrap of vulnerability from the hungry predators otherwise called polite society. She accepted Cam’s hand. The heat of his skin radiated through their gloves.

“Your Grace—” Lady Phillips started in a peremptory tone.

Cam’s glance would wither apples on the branch. His bow was a masterpiece of disdain. “Good evening, my lady.”

“Thank you, Lady Hillbrook,” Pen murmured.

Sidonie smiled without reserve. “I’ll call tomorrow.”

“Please do.”

To her amazement, Sidonie kissed her cheek. The gesture of support bolstered Pen’s failing courage.

Under ranks of avid eyes, Cam tucked Pen’s hand into the crook of his elbow and at a stately pace that was a mark of defiance, he led her toward the doors. The musicians scratched away at an ecossaise, but hardly anyone danced. Instead the guests craned their necks to observe the Duke and Duchess of Sedgemoor.

Cam’s muscles were rigid. The man whose arm she held burned with deep emotion. Pen didn’t need to be especially perceptive to recognize anger.

Inside their carriage, Pen battled to suck air into starved lungs, but every second’s delay only tightened her nerves. “I’m sorry—”

He raised his hand. His other hand, much to her surprise, still curled around hers. “Wait until we’re home, Pen.”

Apprehension clawed at her, but she supposed that if he intended a full-scale row, he’d want time and privacy. His silence alarmed her more than censure would.

Pen slumped beside her husband and wished she’d had the sense to keep her mouth shut. But it was too late for regrets. She’d said what she’d said. Cam had heard. Sidonie had heard. She had a sneaking suspicion that everyone in that packed ballroom adorned with bedraggled palm trees had heard. Those who hadn’t heard would soon receive an accounting of the duchess bearding the ton’s most vicious gossips.

An accounting only likely to grow more flamboyant in the telling.

Her sigh escaped before she remembered to muffle it. To her surprise, Cam’s grip firmed.

Far too quickly, Pen faced Cam in the library where a few nights ago, they’d shared such blazing passion. She tried not to remember how he’d pounded into her. But it was impossible. The experience had marked her soul. She’d treasure it until the day she died.

“Cam, I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she began, still clinging to his hand. Silly to find that innocent contact so affecting after the wanton things they’d done to each other.

He stood close, blocking her view of everything but him. What was new? Since she was a little girl, she’d only ever seen him.

“You’re sorry?” His voice sounded choked.

Oh, no, he really was livid. She braced for temper and closed her eyes.

“Are you afraid?” he asked, still in that raw voice.

She swallowed to moisten a mouth dry with terror. And lied. “Of course not.”

“You looked like you weren’t afraid of anything when you told that cow Lady Phillips to shut her mouth.”

“She made me so angry.” Pen spoke quickly before her courage evaporated. “I know I said I’d behave. I know I said I’d do my best to be a proper duchess. But she was so mean.”

“And you couldn’t bear to hear her deriding me.”

“No.” She opened her eyes, dreading what she’d find.

There was a light in Cam’s eyes that she’d never seen before. He raised his hand to cup her face. “Nobody’s ever defended me like that. You were magnificent.”