How to Tame Your Duke (29 page)

The Wraith had been caught within the week.

But the body remembered. His muscles knew how to perform the little tricks of movement, how to slide soundlessly along the rafters of a mews until he lay inches from the head of his target.

How to lie quietly, waiting for the moment to strike, even as the woman he loved pledged her own precious life in exchange for that of his children.

The woman he loved.

As Emilie’s voice floated up from below, serene and determined, he thought his own body might burst from the love he felt for her. He was suffused in it; he was made of it.

The gaslight switched on, and he dropped to the ground.

The pistol clattered to the floor with one efficient cut to Hans’s elbow. He wrapped his right arm around the man’s neck.

“Let him go, Ashland!” snapped Miss Dingleby.

Hans made a strangled noise. He dropped the rope end and clawed at Ashland’s arm with his powerful fingers, but Ashland held firm. A preternatural strength filled his limbs: the strength of battle. The strength of a man protecting what he held most dear.

“Ashland, be careful!” Emilie cried.

“Let him go, by God! Or I’ll shoot this pistol!”

“You’ll miss,” he said. Thirteen years ago, with a hand attached to his right wrist, he could have killed Hans in an instant. Now it was messy work, a brute test of his arm against Hans’s thick neck. Hans’s right hand had dropped away to scrabble at his jacket. A knife?

“Then I’ll hit Hans, and we’ll never know who the devil is really after the princesses!”

“
You’re
the one after them!” he roared.

“I am
not
! But kill him now, and we’re back to the beginning! And where does that leave Emilie? Where does that leave her sisters?”

Ashland paused. Trust her, or not? If he killed Hans, what would she do? Use her pistol on Emilie? Could he reach her in time?

“Emilie, is she speaking the truth?” he asked softly.

“I don’t know! I . . .” Emilie’s voice was agonized.

Ashland eyed the pistol on the ground, a few feet away.

“Very well,” he said. In a single movement, he released Hans with a violent toss, dove for the pistol, rolled, and trained it on the German valet. “Now, Hans. You will kindly untie my son and daughter.”

“I say, Pater! That was well done,” said Freddie. “Most efficient.”

Hans raised himself up on his elbows.

“Emilie,” Ashland said, “kindly explain to our friend what must be done.”

The German words rushed past his ears. He kept his pistol trained between Hans’s baleful eyes, which narrowed with comprehension as Emilie finished. Hans looked at the pistol, at Freddie and Mary, and back at Ashland.

“Do it.” Ashland’s tone of voice required no translation.

Hans rose to his knees and crawled to Freddie and Mary.

“That’s the spirit, old chap,” said Freddie. “Mind the knots.”

“Keep your hands where I can see them, Hans. Emilie?”

Emilie translated swiftly. Hans shot him a murderous look.

Mary slumped forward first. Freddie sprang free and began to rub her wrists. “That’s all right, then, old girl. See? I told you Pater would ride up on his cavalry. Reliable chap, Pater.”

“Nonetheless,” said Mary, “I should much prefer not to repeat the experience.”

Ashland’s shoulders eased a trifle at the sound of Mary’s composed voice. A thoroughbred, his newly adopted daughter.

“Now then, Miss Dingleby,” said Ashland, without shifting his gaze an inch, “what do you propose to do to keep Hans’s valuable brain to ourselves?”

“I shall take him off at once for questioning, of course,” she said crisply. “You and Emilie are free to go.”

“How very kind. And if I’d rather stay?”

“I hardly see the use. You have no German.”

“Indeed. Perhaps we’d better wait for reinforcements, however. Just to be on the safe side.” From the corner of his eye, he saw that Emilie was turning in Miss Dingleby’s direction, her right hand hidden in the folds of her satin ball gown.

The stiletto.
Did she have it with her?

He kept talking, kept Miss Dingleby’s attention focused on the hayloft.

“What I wonder, Miss Dingleby, is why you didn’t press him on these matters before. Unless you’re the one pulling the strings, of course. Then it would all make sense. Then it would be
your
valuable brain we must seek to preserve.”

She sighed. “How tiresome you all are.
You
of all people, Ashland, should know that a clever agent does nothing to reveal his hand. If I’d probed Hans for the names of his leaders, I’d have been suspected at once.”

“A clever agent has ways of discovering these things.”

Emilie was doing something with her left arm, twisting it. He couldn’t see more, because Simpson was standing right next to her, immobile, his gaze trained on the small window next to the door.

“In any case,” Ashland went on, “I believe I shall have Freddie do the honors of tying up our good friend Hans. It’s only fitting, after all.”

“With pleasure.” Freddie picked up the rope.

Simpson shouted out.

Ashland felt the vibration in the wood below his feet, the electric rush he knew as well as his own heartbeat.

The door flew open.

“
Now
, boys!” someone shouted.

Hans launched himself forward. Ashland, off balance, stepped aside an instant too late. His left hand gripped the pistol; his right elbow took the force of the fall. Hans landed atop him and pressed the blade of a knife against his throat.

“Pater!” shouted Freddie.

A pistol shot shattered the air.

Hans’s eyes opened wide. He mouthed something, but no sound emerged from his throat.

Ashland gave a mighty shove, overturning the body from his chest, and sprang to his feet.

The Duke of Olympia stood near the doorway, as a stream of men eddied around him. In the center of the room, right next to the wheel of the landau, stood Miss Dingleby with her pistol still raised, surrounded by a cloud of acrid smoke.

*   *   *

I
n the end, it solves nothing,” said Miss Dingleby, sipping her sherry from the comfort of the Duke of Olympia’s best club chair. “Emilie is safe for the moment, but there are others involved in the plot, and they will strike again. Hans was the key. I had spent years cultivating him, gaining his trust.”

Emilie turned to the window and stared at the midnight blackness. Her brain ached with fatigue, but her thoughts insisted on jumping about. The image of Hans’s head, at the moment of impact. The sight of Ashland with a knife to his throat. Simpson’s hand on her arm, holding her still. “I’m very sorry to have overturned all the plans.”

“Not at all, my dear. It was not your fault.” The Duke of Olympia presided at his desk. His own glass of sherry sat next to the blotter, half full. His left hand twiddled a pen.

Ashland rose from his own chair and laid his hand on Emilie’s shoulder. “I shall not make such a mistake again, I promise. Are you quite sure you’re all right?”

His hand was warm and strong, enveloping her shoulder. She longed to turn to him, to let herself be swallowed up in his reassuring bulk, but her limbs were too stiff, her heart too heavy in her chest. “Yes, quite all right. A good night’s sleep, that’s all I need.”

Miss Dingleby set down her empty sherry glass and stood. “As do I. You’ll excuse me, all of you. We shall, of course, discuss all this in the morning. What’s to be done. The danger to the girls is only diminished, after all. We must find another way in.”

The Duke of Olympia had risen, too. “Thank you, my dear, for all your bravery tonight.”

She inclined her head. “Of course.”

When the door had shut softly behind her, Ashland turned to Olympia. “Well, then? What’s to be done? The other girls have their disguises, which may continue to shield them for a time, as long as Hans’s superiors aren’t aware of their exact whereabouts. But Emilie is now known to be alive and residing in this house. She’s the most obvious target.”

“Indeed.” Olympia’s sharp eyes moved to Emilie. “Particularly if—as I understand it—she may be carrying the next heir to the principality of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof.”

Emilie returned his gaze without speaking.

Ashland’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “We will marry without delay, of course. She will have the protection of my name and my body. I will . . .”

“Marry you!” Emilie spun to face the duke, dislodging his hand from her shoulder. “You forget, Your Grace. I never agreed to marry you. I agreed to a public engagement, nothing more.”

He stared at her, his pale blue eye wide with astonishment. “Not marry me!”

“I am
not
a pawn to be moved about. We might have scored a total success tonight if you’d let me in on your schemes. Instead you played at making love to me, you spent the evening seducing me in order to keep my poor witless self away from your terribly sophisticated, terribly important plans . . .”

“
Played
at making love to you!”

“. . . and then, without ceremony, you announce that we’ll be married without delay, that having deflowered and impregnated me, you’ll do your duty and—what was it?—
protect
me, particularly since I’m no longer simply a valuable political object in my own right, but a vessel for another one!”

“A
vessel
!”

“What an honor for me! What joy, to look forward to a future of being married to an overbearing iceberg, protected and moved about and used for everyone’s purpose but my own! To bear a child for exactly the same fate! By God, I was better off as your son’s tutor. At least then I was free to act for myself, to leave your employment if I wished!”

She was breathing hard now, her hands fisted into her skirts. She thought for an instant of Ashland’s tender words, his gentle touch in the conservatory, making love to her as if she were the most precious object in the universe. And it had all been an act, simply to distract her. His charming words, his roomful of flowers, his romantic gestures were all meant to deceive her. To lull her into a lovestruck trance to keep her away from the real business of the evening.

Her blood ran so hot, she couldn’t think.

Ashland’s face was deeply flushed. “My
duty!
You think I wish to marry you out of
duty
? You honestly believe I was
pretending
that scene in the conservatory? I was
using
you?”

She snapped her fingers. “Oh, of course! I’d forgotten the inexplicable animal lust you feel for me. I stand corrected. Let us not to the marriage of true loins admit impediment.”

The Duke of Olympia made a strangled cough into his handkerchief. “My dear Emilie, I cannot help but feel that I am somewhat
de trop
in this most . . . er . . . edifying conversation. Perhaps I should retire and allow you and your . . . er . . .
overbearing iceberg
to continue . . .”

“No.” Ashland’s voice whipped out to cut the duke short. His face was ablaze. His single blue eye seemed lit from within, focused with extraordinary intensity on Emilie’s face. “No, sir. I want you to hear this. I want you both to witness what I have to say.”

He fell to one knee.

“Here we go,” Olympia muttered.

“Forgive me, Emilie. I have behaved unpardonably. I have not trusted you as you deserve. I haven’t been open with you. Instead of asking, I have demanded.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” said Olympia. “A woman likes to know what’s what, don’t she, my girl?”

Ashland ignored him. “May I tell you why, Emilie?”

She looked down at the top of Ashland’s head before her, bristling with close-cropped white hair, his proud face turned up to her. She couldn’t move. She tried to nod, and only the tiniest movement of her head resulted from the effort.

“Because I was afraid, Emilie. Because I have never felt even the slightest fraction of love for any woman, to match the love I bear for you. You are not a pawn to me. You are not a political object. A
vessel
, by God! You’re all there is.”

His left hand rested on his knee, closing and flexing. Emilie shut her eyes, because she couldn’t bear the sight before her. She couldn’t bear the sight of him, the Duke of Ashland, at her feet in his formal white shirt and satin waistcoat, his gleaming breeches. Immaculate, except for the pattern of red brown droplets sprayed delicately across his left shoulder.

“
You
are not a vessel, Emilie.
I
am. Everything I do, everything I have, everything I am, belongs to you. I don’t . . . Emilie, I can’t even describe it. I can’t tell you the whole of it. I was frozen, asleep, and you brought me back to life. You healed me, you made me whole again. I felt myself a beast, alone and snarling in my cave, and you walked inside without fear and tamed me.”

“What a bold mix of metaphors, my dear fellow,” said the Duke of Olympia. “I feel I should be scribbling notes. There’s a melodrama I’ve been thinking of writing, a sort of operatic saga, tragedy and betrayal and consumption of the lungs . . .”

Ashland reached out and took Emilie’s cold hand. “I was afraid that if I told you these things, you would run away. That it was too much, that
I
was too much: too big and too scarred, too demanding and too full of need for you. Because I do need you, Emilie. Every inch of you. I need your mind, your love, your companionship, your wisdom, the comfort of your body. Animal lust, my God! That isn’t the half of it. I need your body,
your
body, Emilie, because it unites me with
you
. I’m no sooner quit of you, than I’m dreaming of all the ways I want to have you again . . .”

From across the room came the clink of the decanter. “Sherry, anyone?”

“. . . and not simply because of this animal lust, this mad craving between us, but because it draws me into you. When I take you to bed, I feel as if I’m part of you, flesh of your flesh, in holy communion with the woman I adore. I am human again at last.”

Olympia clapped his hands. “Excellent. Soundly argued. True loins equals true minds. Surely that’s sufficient, my dear niece?”