My Fair Duchess (A Once Upon A Rogue Novel Book 1) (27 page)

“This is Lady Amelia, Mother.”

Amelia focused on Colin. The dangerous gleam in his eyes made her stomach twist. He looked angry.

She quickly curtseyed. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

 “Likewise.” The duchess barely flicked a glance her way. “Colin, I’d like you to call on me and spend time with Lady Sara.”

Amelia caught her breath on the dark look that descended over Colin’s face. He appeared as if was about to go to war with his mother, and her steely look and raised chin indicated she had every intention of engaging the enemy. Amelia had to do something to get Colin away.

“Oh, ouch!” She cried out and reached for her ankle. “I’ve twisted my ankle.”

Before she knew what was happening Colin had scoped her into his extremely well built arms. “Put me down,” she hissed, heat scorching her face.

“Not on your life,” he said, clutching him to her like a lifeline. He dipped his head at his mother and Lady Sara, as if it were every day he clutched a woman to him in the middle of Rotten Row.

Amelia barely held in her giggle.

“Mother. Lady Sara. I’m afraid I need to attend to Lady Amelia’s hurt ankle. If you’ll excuse me?”

His mother pressed her lips together, giving Amelia a narrow-eyed look that made her squirm closer to Colin. Instantly, she was aware that every inch of his body was just as hard as she had imagined. The blush warming her cheeks went from blistering to down right deadly. If her hands had not been twined around Colin’s muscular neck and upper back she would have fanned herself.

Colin swung them away just as his mother spoke in a sharp tone, but to Amelia it sounded more urgent than anything. “Aversley, please don’t forget you have a limited amount of time to fulfill your father’s dictate.”

A pained look flashed in his eyes. “I haven’t forgotten. Rest assured.” Without waiting for a reply, he strode toward where he had parked his conveyance.

“What dictate, Colin?” Amelia whispered.

He faltered in his step, his arms tensing around her. Glancing down with a furrowed brow he said, “Nothing that concerns, you since you seem to be staying nauseatingly devoted to Worthington.”

Amelia opened her mouth to set him straight―well, as straight as she could, since she was utterly confused―but her lady’s maid appeared at her side, red-faced and panting. She whipped up a fan, which she vigorously began to use on Amelia.

“Did you get too hot, my lady?” Lucy asked.

Colin held her tighter as they passed by a group of people, clearly gawking at them. Amelia cringed. Maybe no one would recognize them.

“Aversley,” a tall, dark, dangerous-looking gentleman called out, breaking away from the cluster of people.

Colin cursed under his breath, but all the same, Amelia heard him. She was so close to him she could feel the breath itself. “Who is that?” she whispered about the approaching man, who strangely wore a long black coat even though the heat was rather oppressive today. The garment billowed behind him, making him appear rather ominous. A little shiver escaped her.

“That is the Duke of Scarsdale. Rarely seen, but when he is, you can be sure trouble is afloat. We were once friends but not anymore.”

The Duke of Scarsdale was upon them in a flash. He nodded to Colin and bowed slightly to her. When he came up, piercing black eyes caught her gaze. “I don’t know you. I assure you if I did, I would be the man carrying you now instead of Aversley. You realize his heart is made of ice, don’t you?”

Colin snorted, but this Scarsdale’s offhanded comment angered her. “All things made of ice eventually melt,” she countered.

“Touché,” he said in a voice of silk wrapped with thorny vines. “By the looks of you, I imagine you could provide enough heat to melt a glacier.”

“Lady Amelia provides nothing but friendship,” Colin said in lethal tone. “She hurt her ankle on our walk. Mind your tongue, and your hands, or you will find yourself without either one or both.”

The man cracked a smile that showed he was no angel but pure devil, though a striking one. “Pardon me. I did not realize you had changed. So she’s off-limits? No sharing as in the past?”

“Scarsdale,” Colin growled, the muscles in his jaw bulging on the one word.

Amelia’s stomach twisted at Scarsdale’s words. Had Colin shared women with this man? What sort of person would do such a thing?

“I don’t feel well,” she murmured, meaning it.

Colin blinked at her, surprise evident on his face. “Scarsdale,” he said as way of a goodbye.

As Colin whisked her away, Amelia caught a glimpse of a gentleman lingering half-hidden behind a tree. That was odd. She squinted to get a better view. Was that Lord Huntington? No, it couldn’t possibly be. The heat of the day and the awful truth of what she had heard must be getting to her. She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again the gentleman, whoever he was, was gone.

Within moments, they were at the carriage and on the way back to Lady Langley’s. They rode in near silence; Lucy’s humming the only thing filling the quiet. When they got to the house, Amelia didn’t wait for him to hand her out. She fairly jumped out of the carriage when it stopped and raced toward the garden to be alone. Behind her, footsteps pounded, and she knew without turning that he had followed her. She flung open the iron gate to the garden and raced down the stone path to the fountain in the middle of a circle of trees.

Why was she so upset about what the Duke of Scarsdale had said?

She didn’t know, but she was.

By the time she stopped, her head pounded almost as hard as her heart. Stones crunched behind her, and she swung around to face Colin. “Is what he said true? Did you―” She swallowed hard and forced herself to form the question. “Did you share women with that man?”

He glanced toward the ground and then finally back up at her. Unspoken pain glittered in his gaze. “Not knowingly. But it’s nice to know you think so little of me. Not that I don’t deserve it.”

Such relief filled her that she flung herself at him. Their bodies collided, and she swayed backward. In a flash, he reached out and gripped her roughly to him. She splayed her hands over the ridges of his back and buried her face in his chest. It was highly improper, but she just could not seem to help herself or make herself let him go. Instead, she clung to him for a moment, counting the beats of his thumping heart and inhaling his woodsy scent. Confusing emotions ran havoc inside of her.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she admitted.

“Perhaps you’re ready to move on to loftier titles.”

“Don’t be absurd.” She shoved him away, angered that he would not let go of his ridiculous notions about women. If she was going to make sensible―well half-sensible―decisions regarding him, she needed to understand what drove him to distrust women so. “I know some things about you,” she blurted hoping confrontation would make him reveal something of himself.

He gripped her by the arms and pulled her close. “What do you think you know?” His voice was cracked, raw.

Her stomach dropped at the painful sound. “I’ve heard whispers. I know that you have quite the reputation.”

“Yes, I do,” he said, his tone flat. “I built that reputation. It was a lot of hard work. Many women lined up to use me, and I let them. Then I turned around and used them in kind.”

“Why would you do such a thing? Look how unhappy it’s made you.”

His gaze grew dull. “Does it matter why I did it?”

“Of course it does,” she cried.

He released her arm and stepped away from her. “I decided to build that reputation when I learned that the first and only woman I foolishly thought I loved had used me for revenge against my mother, who damn well does not and has never loved me.”

“Oh, Colin,” she softly, her heart wrenching for him.

But he gazed through her as if he had not heard her. It was a long moment until he seemed to focus on her again. “I learned several very important lessons in the years I built my reputation. Can you guess what they might be?”

She shook her head, her throat aching with the need to offer him soothing words, but she knew he would reject the offer.

“Women do not want love. They crave money, power and a man other than their husbands to satisfy the appetites they aren’t supposed to have.”

“Is that all you learned?” she asked, her heart thumping in her ears.

“No. I learned very early on it was better to be numb than to feel a thing. And that’s how a person turns bad, Amelia.”

“You’re not bad. You’ve helped Constance and Philip and you are kind to Lucy. The woman you thought you loved when you were young hurt you. Don’t you see? You are good.”

“I’m not.” He shook his head. “Good people can love. I don’t feel that emotion.”

“You can!”

“No.” The denial was vehement and revealed his fear.

“You feel something for me,” she blurted.

“You’re right. I do.
Desire.
”

He crushed his mouth to hers in a bruising kiss. His tongue parted her lips with force and invaded her. She stiffened in his arms. All her life she had imagined her first kiss would be wonderful and from a man who loved her.

Angry, she pulled back until their contact broke, and she blinked tears from her eyes. “Let me go.” Her voice trembled on the last word.

“Amelia.” He said her name reverently and gently cupped her face once more. “I’m sorry.” He brushed a light kiss across her forehead. “So sorry.” He kissed her left cheek then her right.

A pleasant tingle began in her stomach and spread through her body as his lips moved to her neck, leaving her with a heady sensation. He lifted his face to look at her.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” His lips recaptured hers, but this time it was slow and thoughtful. The gentle pressure of his mouth against hers increased bit by bit until she thought her frail composure would shatter like glass. She opened her mouth for him and invited him in, wanting the havoc and chaos he created within her. His tongue swirled around her mouth and stoked a delicious fire.

She pressed up to her tiptoes, yearning for more of what he had to offer. He gave willingly, sucking at her lips and then lower to the hollow of her neck where her pulse beat furiously. After a moment, he pulled away and stepped back. “This is what I’m good at eliciting desire―not love.”

She wanted to wrap her arms around him and draw him back to her, but she knew he would not allow it. All of his words, clearly so carefully chosen, had an undeniable undercurrent of throbbing, dizzying pain.
His pain.
She desperately wanted to help him, and she sensed from what he’d said, and what she’d seen at the park, how much pain his belief that his mother didn’t love him caused him. “What makes you think your mother does not love you?”

“Twenty-five years make me think it,” he said dully.

She resisted the urge to sigh with exasperation. Men really were difficult at times. “You must have thought she loved you at one time.”

He simply raised his eyebrows in response.

“She’s your mother, for goodness sake. Of course she loves you.”

“One would think, but she does not have the capacity to love.”

Amelia did huff then. He was so set on this, so stubborn. “Surely she loved your father?”

He barked with laughter but not the happy sort. No, not at all.

“If you call having one affair after the other
love
, then she worshipped my father.”

A heavy feeling pulled at the pit of Amelia’s stomach. He’d said he’d thought he’d been in love as a young lad, but that the woman had used him for revenge; was it possible that the woman he thought he loved has used him to get revenge on his mother?

Amelia’s hand fluttered to her throat, and she swallowed convulsively. “Was the woman you’d thought you loved vengeful toward your mother?”

“How very perceptive you are,” he said in a flat voice.

He was putting up defenses. She understood it. Her books had been a defense, a refuge. “And that’s why you became who you were?”

“Enough, Amelia.” It was a harsh command. “I won’t stand here and bleed for you. No matter if I wanted to tell you everything or not. I cannot― I
cannot
do it.” He shuddered.

Maybe he would not tell her everything about his past now, but he was telling her enough to make her sure he could love, and if he could love then perhaps―”

“Amelia! Aversley?” Philip called, seconds before she saw him striding toward them.

“Philip, whatever are you doing here? Is Mother with you?”

He shook his head as he came to stand in front of them. “No. she said she didn’t feel she was quite up to the Season, but she insisted I come to keep an eye on you and to find myself a wife, instead.”

Colin groaned beside her. She pressed her lips together so as not to remark and focused on Philip. “You are sure she is well enough to be left alone?”

“She’s hardly alone,” Philip muttered, his face flushing. “Lady Constance and her mother have come every day to visit, and they said they would continue to come each day, twice a day. But Mother did seem better, as if some burden had lessened.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Amelia said.

Philip eyed Colin and then her. “So am I to expect Worthington to show up, now that I’m here, and ask for your hand?”

Amelia shifted from foot to foot. She needed to talk to Philip and explain to him how complicated things had become with her head and heart, especially since his winning the wager balanced on her staying true to her love for Lord Worthington, but she did not want to try to sort out her muddled state of mind in front of Colin.

“I’m not sure,” she murmured.

Philip patted her arm, but oddly, he was staring at Colin. “Don’t look so glum,” he said flickering his gaze to her and then back to Colin. “I’m sure you will catch Worthington’s heart and then your future happiness will be set.”

Before she could think what to say to that, Colin said, “Harthorne, I have some business to attend to. Do you care to come to the club tonight?”

“Actually,” Philip said, “I think I’ll come with you now. I was thinking, if it’s all right that I’d stay with you while I’m here. Amelia is in good hands, and I have a lot of appointments in Town. Your home is closer.”