Never Deceive a Duke (24 page)

He felt his gaze soften and dipped his head to kiss her softly on the cheek. “You are right,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her ear. “I am worrying.”

She rolled toward him and tucked her head beneath his chin. “You are very large,” she said against his chest. “You make me feel…
safe,
Gabriel. If an accident happened—if your fear came true—would it be…so dreadfully awful?”

He made her feel safe.
Was that it? Roughly, he laughed. “Awful for you, love? Or for me?”

“It wouldn’t be awful for me,” she whispered, her voice a little hollow.

He gripped her fiercely then. “Listen to me, Antonia,” he said. “You don’t want me. Stick with your own kind—that’s the advice my grandfather always gave me. And he was right, too.”

“And you…you aren’t my kind?”

“You know, Antonia, that I am not,” he answered. “You were brought up to be something that I never was. You have a birthright that was never mine to claim.”

Her gaze moved slowly over his face. “That is not true, Gabriel.”

He searched for the words that would make it clear to her. “Antonia,” he said quietly. “For three years I lived here amongst these people at Selsdon. But I was never, ever one of them. And if I forgot for one instant that I was not, someone—Warneham, his wife, even the servants—would remind me, quite firmly and clearly. So do you really think—do you truly imagine…” He let his words fall away and slowly shook his head.

She laid her hand against his chest. “Do I really think what?”

With a wistful smile, he stroked the turn of her cheek. “Do you really think, Antonia, that your family and your friends would agree with you?” he whispered. “Do you think for one moment they would not find me unsuitable? Beneath you?”

“But…but you are a duke now,” she answered. “Society will forgive a duke almost anything.”

“Outwardly, perhaps, yes,” he returned, gentling his voice. “But what is that worth? Do I want society to begrudgingly accept me simply because of some twist of fate? Most of them would not otherwise have acknowledged me had we tripped over one another.”

Antonia looked at him sadly—and far too knowingly. “You are so hurt inside, Gabriel,” she whispered. “It breaks my heart.”

He rolled onto his back and dragged an arm over his eyes. “But pain, Antonia, can be a useful emotion,” he said. “Pain can drive you. Spur you on to make something of yourself.”

“Is that what happened to you?” she asked.

“I daresay it was,” he answered. “I wanted control of my own life. Of my destiny. I did not want to be at anyone else’s mercy ever again.”

She curled against him, and he drew her tight to his side, then lifted the other arm from his eyes. “The thunder has ended, I think,” he said. “Perhaps the rain will soon stop, too.”

“Gabriel, you may go if you wish,” she said quietly. “I shall be fine. As you say, the worst is over.”

“Yes, perhaps,” he murmured.

But he could not find the will to rise from her bed and leave her. Her hand was playing through the hair on his chest, and her small, warm body was wrapped around his. It was bliss. Almost without deciding to, he reached down and pulled up the disheveled bedcovers, all the way to their chins.

Antonia nuzzled nearer. “How did you know, Gabriel, when you fell in love?” she asked. “How did it feel?”

Her questions shook him. “I…I beg your pardon?” he asked, crooking his head to look down at her.

Antonia shrugged. “Did she make your heart skip a beat? Did you feel unable to sleep or to eat?”

Xanthia
. She meant Xanthia. “It…it wasn’t like that,” he said. “I just came to feel that we should be together. That it was fated in some way.”

“That does not sound like love,” Antonia murmured.

“I loved her,” he said a little defensively. “It was not the head-over-heels, sick-to-your-stomach kind of falling in love, perhaps. It was a slow recognition of what would be best.”

“Best for both of you?” Antonia asked. “You did not feel beneath her? After all, her brother was a nobleman.”

Gareth opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. He considered her question. “Rothewell is not like other noblemen,” he finally said. “The three of them grew up with nothing, and in frightful conditions. They were orphans, too, you see, sent out to Barbados by a family that did not want them. I suppose we shared that. In a way, we all grew up together, clinging to the wreckage of our old lives, and trying to come out strong.”

“I see,” she murmured, her voice vibrating faintly against his chest. “And was there a pivotal moment for you? An instant when you realized you wished to marry her?”

For a long moment, he did not answer. “It was in a storm,” he finally confessed. “Not like this, but a sort of hurricane. We were trapped alone in our shipping office near the careenage, and we thought…well, we thought we were going to die. I had prepared myself for such a death many times before—life at sea requires it—but Zee was terrified. The storm felled trees and shattered windows. Small skiffs were thrown up from the ocean like so much seaweed. One corner of our roof kept lifting off. And in the end, we hid behind some of the furniture, and I—”

“What?” she encouraged. “Go on.”

He gave a rueful shake of his head. “I cannot,” he said. “I have spoken too freely.”

“I see,” said Antonia gently. “The lady’s honor, and all that. Never mind. Knowing you, Gabriel, I can easily guess what happened.”

“Let us just say that I did the only thing I knew to do,” he admitted. “And frankly, I—I thought it meant something. But when the daylight came and the storm settled, Zee was her strong, competent self again. She did not need me. She never really had.”

Antonia drew his hand to her heart and set it flat against her chest. “Gabriel, what we did tonight—it
means
something,” she whispered. “I…I don’t quite know what—but when the rain stops and the morning comes, I shall still need—” Abruptly, she broke off her words and drew a steadying breath. “I will always be grateful to you,” she finished.

He held her close and pressed his lips to the top of her head. “I don’t want your gratitude, Antonia,” he said again. “I want only your happiness.”

“I know,” she murmured, her voice drowsy now. “I know that, Gabriel.”

And with their arms bound tightly about one another, they slipped away into a restless sleep, as the rain rattled through the downspouts and morning edged near, each of them dreaming of what might have been.

T
he Portsmouth seafront lay in darkness, the tang of salt and seaweed thick in the night air. The fine carriage swung into a narrow, cobbled lane and rocked to an immediate halt. Gabriel heard the ominous
slap-slosh-slap
of the rising tide as it pummeled the harbor’s stonework, and a chill ran down his spine.

They had stopped before a pub. Its iron lantern was swinging in its bracket, throwing a murky light up the alley. Four disreputable-looking fellows stood in the shadows. The largest of them pushed away from the wall with his booted foot and strolled languidly toward the carriage. “You’d be Warneham?” he asked through the window.

“Yes,” the duke hissed. He pulled out his purse and shoved a banknote at the man.

The man tucked the money into his coat. “Where’s ’e at, then?”

The duke lifted his gloved hand and pointed across the carriage. “There,” he gritted. “Just get him out of my sight. And make damned sure he never sees England again, do you hear?”

The man laughed, a low, raspy sound, and yanked open the door. Only then did Gabriel realize what was happening. “No!” he shouted. “Wait—sir!—I want my grandmother! Just let me go. Let me go back!”

“Ooh, wants ’is granny, does ’e?” The man moved as if to seize Gabriel by his coat collar.

“No, wait!” Gabriel caught the doorframe as the man jerked him out. “Stop! Your Grace! You—you cannot let them take me!”

“Oh, you think not?” Warneham lifted his boot and rammed his heel hard against the door’s edge, crushing Gabriel’s knuckles. He yelped with pain, and let go. The man had an arm about Gabriel’s waist now. He hefted him backward across his hip, as if he were balancing a sack of potatoes.

Warneham craned his head through the door as they left. “Scared of water, eh?” he called out. “Well, by God, I’m going to give you something to be scared of, you little Hebrew bastard.”

By the third day of her illness, Nellie Waters was champing at her bit like an old warhorse and beginning to trundle downstairs to her mistress’s room on all manner of pretexts. She had forgotten to lay out my lady’s hairpins. She wished to sort out some things for Monday’s laundry. All feeble excuses at best, so Antonia paid them no heed, turning Nellie on her heels as soon as she was caught and promptly sending her upstairs to bed again.

On Nellie’s last such foray, however, she managed to make away with a sack full of stockings to be mended and her darning needles. But when she returned to her quarters, she found George Kemble waiting in the narrow passageway outside her bedchamber door, one elegant shoulder propped languidly against the doorframe.

“Ah, Mrs. Waters, good morning! I see you are making a splendid recovery.”

“Not to hear my lady tell it,” said the maid irritably. “What do you want anyways, Mr. Kemble? These are the maids’ chambers, I’ll have you know.”

“Are they?” said Kemble speciously. “How exciting! Perhaps I shall catch just a teasing glimpse of your well-turned ankles, Mrs. Waters—in those attractive brown brogues you seem to favor?”

Mr. Kemble did not see the sack of stockings coming. Mrs. Waters caught him squarely across the ear and was greatly pleased to hear his teeth clack resoundingly.

“Good God, woman!” Mr. Kemble drew warily away. “It was a jest! A jest!”

Mrs. Waters glared at him. “I find my sense of humor sadly wanting nowadays,” she returned. “Now good day to you and your pert tongue, sir. I am bedridden, in case you had not heard.”

“Damned if I should like you to swing that sack at me when you were feeling hale and hearty, then.” Kemble was tugging at his earlobe in an attempt to restore his hearing. “Look, Mrs. Waters, I really did think we were getting along splendidly. Now I need your help—”

“I know your type, Mr. Kemble,” she said warningly. “You have come up here to poke about and stir up trouble, so—”

“Precisely!” Kemble interjected. “And I thought by now you must be quite bored to tears and ready for a little intrigue.”

“Intrigue?” Mrs. Waters drew back an inch, squinting.

Kemble slipped just the neck of his silver flask from his pocket. “Intrigue, and some of my special medicinal care for invalids?” he said, waggling it. “But please, my dear woman, not here in the passageway?”

With a somewhat guilty glance up and down the corridor, Mrs. Waters pushed open her door and motioned him in.

There being but one teacup and one chair in the room, Kemble was forced to strain gentility by perching on the edge of Mrs. Waters’s bed, and sipping straight from the flask. Though the room was tucked under an eave, it was nicely furnished with a small four-poster bed, chintz curtains, and a worn but beautiful Axminster carpet. The good lady sat across a small mahogany table, in a wing chair which looked old and comfortable. A paroxysm of coughing struck her, and she picked up the teacup for a long, restorative sip.

“Well, what manner of intrigue did you have in mind, sir?” asked Mrs. Waters when her throat was clear and her mood had been improved by the expensive brandy.

Kemble smiled serenely. “Well, first I must ask your opinion on a matter of some delicacy,” he said. “It concerns one of the few subjects—possibly the
only
subject—about which I know nothing.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Waters looked at him strangely. “And what would that be, pray?”

Kemble swallowed hard. “Well,
female
things,” he finally said. “Female things?” The look was deepening toward suspicion. “What manner of female things? We are not talking about hat ribbons here, are we?”

“I am afraid not,” said Mr. Kemble. “I mean female…er,
functions
.”

Mrs. Waters scowled disapprovingly. “Mr. Kemble, I really do not think—”

Kemble set the flask down with a
thunk
! “Madam, have you any notion how unpleasant a task this is for me?” he said tightly. “I am trying to help your mistress. If I did not need to know these things, would I really be asking?”

Mrs. Waters considered it. “No, I daresay not.”

“Fine,” he said impatiently. “Now, I want you to tell me what happens when a woman conceives a child? What are the symptoms? What, precisely, would she notice?”

Mrs. Waters flushed faintly. “Well, she would gain weight, of course.”

“Always?” he interjected. “From the very first? What if she were sickly?”

“Yes, I see your point,” said Mrs. Waters. “Some do take on a queasy stomach. But not usually at the very first.”

“But does it ever happen?”

“Oh, bless me, yes!” said the woman. “With her first child, my sister Anne clung to the chamber pot every day for three months, and thereafter was the picture of health. Some poor souls are ill the whole time—’tis rare, though.”

“And in those cases, the woman might actually lose weight at first?”

“’Tis possible,” said Mrs. Waters.

“What other symptoms might she have?” asked Kemble. “Her…her monthly courses would cease, would they not?”

Face flushing pink, the maid nodded. “Yes, ’tis the first sign, actually.”

“But could such a cessation be caused by something else?”

“Well, age, of course,” acknowledged Mrs. Waters. “Illness. A fright or a shock—especially one that lingers.”

“Melancholia?”

Mrs. Waters’s eyebrows drew together. “Well, it could be possible, I suppose,” she said. “Particularly if she fell off significantly—with her weight, I mean.”

“Another good point!” said Kemble. “Some women are obsessed with weight, are they not? I do not mean that they strive to have a good figure—it is something more obsessive than that.”

“I have heard tell of women who would starve themselves to death, ’tis true,” Mrs. Walters acknowledged. “But I never knew why, nor ever knew of one personally.”

Kemble tapped his finger pensively. “In any case,” he finally said, “could severe weight loss cause a cessation of a woman’s courses?”

“Oh, indeed it could do,” said the maid. “’Tis nature’s way of seeing they don’t conceive when they are too thin or too ill to bear a child. Nature knows what’s best, I always say.”

Kemble unscrewed the cap on his flask and took a small, pensive sip. “So which came first?” he muttered. “The chicken? Or the egg?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Kemble tipped the flask over Mrs. Waters’s teacup again. “If a woman became nauseous and her courses stopped, how would she know if pregnancy was the cause?”

The maid seemed beyond embarrassment now. “If she were married and healthy, ’twould be a safe assumption,” said Mrs. Walters. “Otherwise, why, it could be some time. Three months, perhaps—and then only if the doctor could feel it in the womb. A babe won’t quicken until much later than that.”

Kemble tucked the flask back into his pocket. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much. You have been an invaluable help to me.”

Mrs. Waters’s eyes widened, and she gave another cough into her handkerchief. “Have I indeed?” she finally said. “That was simple enough.”

He had already started toward the door when he thought of something else and turned around. “Mrs. Waters, may I ask—have you any notion who might have been the previous lady’s maid here at Selsdon?”

She pulled a thoughtful face. “Well, I’ve heard Musbury mention it on occasion,” she said, then shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m not at my best. I cannot call it to mind.”

“Mrs. Musbury,” said Kemble pensively. “Do you gather she knew the lady well?”

“Yes, I collect she did,” said Mrs. Waters. “She was from these parts, I believe, as was the last duchess.”

“Excellent!” Kemble rubbed his hands together. “Thank you, Mrs. Waters. You are, as always, perfectly brilliant.”

Gareth found Antonia in the parlor shortly before noon. He had not seen her since slipping from her bed in the early hours before dawn. She sat at the giltwood escritoire jotting out a letter, her head bent to the sun, which shot her hair with strands of brilliant gold. Her jaw was set somewhat rigidly over her task. She had not even heard him come in.

For a moment, he hesitated. She was beautiful, yes, but it was no longer her beauty which drew him. He thought of how she had felt in his arms last night. How loathe he had been to leave her. The almost ethereal intimacy they had shared. And now, when he had thought the reality of her situation would creep in to buck up his resolve, he found instead that it was flagging.

He was done for, he realized, watching her small, capable hand scratch across the page. He was in love with her, head over heels. There was no point in pretending otherwise. The only thing now was to decide what ought to be done about it. Would he do the right thing? Or the selfish thing?

And what
was
the right thing? Today he was not sure. Her questions last night about Zee had forced him to look inward and to face a certain truth. What Gareth felt now was very different from anything he had felt before, and far more complex. There was no impatience, none of the frustration he had felt with Zee. There was only a deep and abiding certainty that he needed this woman. A seemingly delicate and fragile woman who, Gareth was beginning to think, was actually neither.

He tucked his hat in the crook of his arm and stepped a little closer. “A penny for your thoughts?” he said quietly.

Antonia gave a little gasp. “Oh, heavens!” she said, her hand going to her heart. “Gabriel. I was lost in thought, was I not?”

With a muted smile, he peered over her shoulder. “Writing to one of your frustrated admirers in London?” he asked.

Antonia looked up and smiled. “It is very odd, but all those scoundrels seem to have vanished,” she said. “Could it have anything to do with the new duke who is in residence, I wonder?”

“I can’t think why I would put them off,” he confessed, taking one of her hands in his.

But perhaps he had done precisely that, he belatedly realized. Perhaps those sort of men feared being too closely examined by someone who might have Antonia’s best interests in mind.

She looked down at their entwined fingers. “I am writing to my father, Gabriel,” she said quietly. “I am telling him…telling him that I shall come. I shall do as he asks, and come to Town to celebrate the birth of the new child. I shall pay a few social calls with him, perhaps, and see how people receive me. There will be whispers behind my back, I know, but perhaps they will fade. Beyond that—well, I make Papa no promises.”

Gareth felt his heart sink and the floor seemingly shift beneath his feet. He was suddenly at a loss for words. “You have had a change of heart, then,” he finally managed. “When do you leave?”

Antonia glanced up, her eyes softening as she caught his gaze. “I think I should go at once, if Nellie is up to it,” she answered. “I—I have become a distraction to you, Gabriel. Please don’t say I haven’t. Besides, I shall need new clothes. My mourning is all but over.”

“Yes, I see,” he said quietly.

“I thank you, Gabriel,” she said, her voice soft. “You have given me strength and encouragement. You have made me feel as if—well, as if I really do have some say over my destiny. I
can
control my father. And perhaps I can have a life again. Perhaps I need not shut myself away in the country, or in Bath, for God’s sake, like some widow on her last legs.”

He still held his hat and was fighting not to crush it. “No, you are a widow with a pair of very lithe, very shapely legs,” he said, forcing himself to smile. “I think they will stand you in good stead whilst you waltz around London breaking hearts.”

She studied him quizzically, then the expression smoothed away, as if she had forced it. “Well, have you come in search for me?” she asked brightly, changing the subject. “Am I needed elsewhere in the house?”

Yes,
he wanted to say.
You are needed in my bed. In my heart
.
In my home, wherever it may be.

Her leaving so suddenly was a development he had not anticipated. And while it had sounded wise in the abstract, the reality of her going was another thing altogether. He wanted, inexplicably, to beg her to stay. To take back all his wise and cavalier words and simply throw himself on her mercy.