Never Deceive a Duke (7 page)

“You misunderstand his point, my dear,” said her husband.

“It is not a matter of dislike, ma’am,” Gareth calmly lied. “I am inconvenienced in having to leave my business unattended in London.”

Lady Ingham smiled benightedly. “But surely you must have clerks?”

Gareth felt suddenly and inordinately weary. These people were kind enough, but they knew little of the real world. “We’ve a dozen clerks, ma’am, but it would be a bit much for them to take on,” he answered. “And my business associate is newly wed, so she—”

“She?”
Lady Ingham pounced on the morsel of gossip. “Why, what sort of business associate do you have?”

Gareth was tempted to say he’d gone in halves on Mrs. Berkley’s latest flagellation house, since that was the sort of salacious reply she obviously hoped for. He restrained himself. “The Marchioness of Nash is my associate,” he answered. “We are part owners in a company called Neville Shipping.”

The duchess said nothing, but Gareth saw her eyes widen in obvious surprise.

“Neville Shipping,” mused the doctor. “Have you an office in Wapping High Street? I think I’ve seen it.”

“On one of your trips up to town, I daresay?” said the duchess, breaking her silence.

“Yes, I remember seeing the sign thereabouts,” Osborne confessed. “I use a chemist near Wapping Wall. What a small place the world has become.”

“Not too small, I hope,” said Gareth. “If it is shrinking, Neville’s shall soon be out of business altogether.”

“But surely, Your Grace, you do not mean to continue on with it?” Mrs. Ingham’s tone was faintly chiding.

At that, Gareth finally felt his temper slip. “Why would I not?” he asked pointedly. “Hard work never did a man much ill—and often a vast deal of good.”

“Quite so! Quite so!” said Sir Percy again.

The doctor leaned forward as if to emphasize his words. “There are vocations, Lady Ingham, and then there are passions. Perhaps this business is a passion for the duke?”

Gareth glanced down the length of snowy linen to see that the duchess was watching him attentively, as if wondering what his answer would be. “It was a necessity which has become a passion,” he said. “Shall we leave it at that?”

Moments later, the desserts were cleared and port was brought in. The gentlemen did not linger long. When they rejoined the ladies in the withdrawing room, it was to see Lady Ingham already being helped into her cloak.

“I heard a little thunder,” she said almost sheepishly. “I think, Percy, we must go at once.”

Sir Percy winked at Gareth. “The wife does not care for thunderstorms.”

“Nor does Her Grace,” Osborne gently added.

The duchess, who had been neatening Lady Ingham’s cloak collar, froze. She looked at no one, not even the doctor. Osborne must have realized his faux pas, and he began prattling in more general terms about the weather.

“May we set you down in the village, Osborne?” Sir Percy interjected. “I fear my wife is right about the rain.”

“Thank you, no,” said Osborne. “I brought an umbrella.”

Gareth accompanied the Inghams to the front door, but the duchess held back almost deferentially. When Gareth returned to the withdrawing room moments later, however, he wondered if deference had anything to do with it. Osborne stood just inside the door, the duchess’s hands clasped lightly in his own. He was holding her gaze intently.

“And the sleeping draught?” he murmured. “Promise me, Antonia, that you will not forget it?”

She caught the plump swell of her lower lip between her teeth, and something in Gareth’s stomach did a flip-flop. “I dislike it immensely,” she finally said. “It makes me feel very queer afterward.”

“Antonia, you must promise me,” he said more firmly, lifting her hands as if he might kiss them. “You need it—otherwise you know you will not do well with this storm coming in.”

She dropped her gaze in a sweep of dark eyelashes. “Very well. I shall consider it.”

Gareth cleared his throat sharply and stepped inside the room.

The pair sprang apart almost conspiratorially. The duchess lowered her eyes again and drifted toward the cold hearth, rubbing her arms as if she felt chilled. Dr. Osborne began to express his thanks for the dinner.

When Gareth returned from escorting the doctor out, he was somewhat relieved to discover that the duchess had vanished.

G
abriel stood at a distance as the older boys played, kicking their ball along the swath of green. He had seen them in Finsbury Circus before. And he had seen the ball, too; an amazingly round and bouncing sphere which skittered across the grass at lightning speed, and made a satisfying
“thunk!”
when kicked.

The smallest boy caught Gabriel’s eye and crooked a finger. With a glance back at his dozing grandfather, Gabriel dashed onto the grass.

The boy held out the ball. “We need a sixth,” he said. “Can you kick?”

Gabriel nodded. “I can kick.”

The biggest boy elbowed past him. “Give it, Will,” he said, snatching the ball from between them. “We ain’t playin’ with Jews.”

Gabriel let his arms drop.

The bigger boy danced backward across the grass, sneering. “What?” he said. “You want the ball? You want it? Here—catch!” He dropped the ball and punted hard, his long leg swinging wide.

The ball caught Gabriel in the gut. The breath burst from his lungs. He fell to the grass in a heap, the pounding of blood in his ears almost—
almost
—shutting out the peals of laughter. At first just the laughter of one. And then another and another, until all the boys were laughing.

His humiliation was complete when
Zayde
snatched him from the grass.
“A broch tsu dir!”
he said, shaking his fist at the boys. “Go back to Shoreditch, you little pigs!”

Still giggling, the boys dashed away.
Zayde
began to dust Gabriel off.
“Oy vey,
Gabriel! What were you thinking?”

“I—I liked their ball.”

“Eingeshpahrt!”
His grandfather sighed. “But I can buy you a ball, yes?”

“And I want someone to play with.”

“Then keep to your own kind!”
Zayde
seized his hand and set off across the grass towards their house. “They don’t want us, Gabriel. When will you learn, eh?”

That night, the heat broke and a rainstorm hammered across Surrey with a vengeance. Gareth went to bed to the sound of howling wind and the incessant rattle of overflowing drainpipes. Inordinately weary from the day’s travel—and the thoughts of the duty which lay before him—he fell at once into a deep but uneasy sleep. He awoke sometime after midnight in a cold sweat, caught in a tangle of sheets, unable to catch his breath. He jerked upright, terrified and disoriented.

Selsdon Court
. He was at Selsdon. A burning sconce in the passageway beyond limned the outline of his door. A very wide and very solid door. His cousin was finally dead, thank God. There was no ship, no chains. But the dream clung like damp, moldering sailcloth. He could smell it thick in his nostrils, along with the stench of tarred rope and the press of rancid, unwashed bodies. The
Saint-Nazaire
? Good God. He had not dreamt of that rotted old hulk in months.

He did not realize until that moment just how badly he was shaking. Dragging a hand through his tousled hair, Gareth tried to steady himself. Lord, what did it mean that he should dream of his lost youth tonight, of all nights?

Nothing. It meant noting. He was not a child any more. He could defend himself now. But at the moment, he needed a drink. Yes, a generous tot of brandy—Rothewell’s infamous cure for all ills. He extracted himself from the sheets, sat up on the edge of the bed, and wiped the sweat from his brow. Beyond the windows, lightning flashed; once, then again. Seconds later, thunder rumbled, but far in the distance.

The brandy sat on a side table between the windows. Gareth lit a lamp, pulled on his dressing gown, then poured a glass. And then a second. He was well into his third, and growing impatient with himself for brooding, when the restlessness struck. He looked at the mantel clock.
Half past two.
Why did it seem another lifetime?

It was this place. Returning conjured up too many memories. He thought, strangely, of his grandmother, and of Cyril. His life here, by and large, had been one of childhood misery. But he had not realized how relatively pleasant misery could be until he’d ended up in hell—on the
Saint-Nazaire
.

Abruptly, he tossed back the last of the brandy, savoring the burn as it slid down his throat. Good Lord, Rothewell would laugh to see him now, cowering in the gloom like some timorous boy, and slightly sotted from a mere fraction of what the baron himself might put away before breakfast.

Gareth, however, had never been much of a drinker. He’d always believed it a habit for blue bloods, men who need not rise at dawn to work for a living—a category which, he abruptly realized, now included
him
.

On that thought, Gareth jerked from his chair and began to roam restlessly through the room. His grandfather had been right; he had never been meant for this sort of life. So how had it happened? For a time, he was lost in a whirl of thoughts and half-wrought memories; he could not later have said what, for at last he found something which could thoroughly distract him. He drew open the heavy draperies and looked out across the courtyard below.

Selsdon Court had begun as a Norman keep, which had become a fully crenellated castle in the reign of William II. Eventually the castle had become an elegant mansion, which had retained many of its original features, amongst them the south and east bastions, which were connected by a towering curtain wall, the oldest part of the house. Gareth could see it looming across the inner courtyard, its rough stone walls yellow-brown in the flickering light cast upward by the gate lamps. From his vantage point just above, he could make out the crenellations, but the interior rampart was steeped in shadow.

He peered higher, toward the sky. The rain was coming in sheets now, but with less ferocity, perhaps. Another bolt of lightning lit the sky, illuminating the house. Gareth’s gaze swept the curtain wall again. He had glimpsed something on the rampart. Motion? Light? Both, he thought. Another flash, this one more distant.

This time, he saw her clearly. A woman in white. She was pacing like some ghostly specter, her white-draped arms lifted heavenward. Good God, was she begging to die? Again the sky lit, bathing her in pale, otherworldly light. She seemed oblivious to the nearing storm. Gareth had both slippers on before he knew what he meant to do.

Later, of course, he realized that he should have summoned a servant. It would have saved him a pair of wet slippers and a vast amount of angst. But in the press of the moment, he rushed headlong down the twisting passageways, and up and down the stairs which led from one section of the house to another, and all the while praying he remembered how to find his way onto the wall. Surely he did? He and Cyril had played in the towers as children, battling one another up and down the spiral staircases.

Suddenly, he saw it. An arched wooden doorway banded with iron and set at an odd angle in the wall. He pushed through into the bastion’s circular room. The stairs were just beyond. He went up half a flight and saw the next door, a narrow, planked affair. It gave onto the curtain wall. But the damned door was stuck.

With a mighty blow, Gareth shouldered his way through. The door swung into the gloom on squalling hinges. On the rampart beyond, the woman was still pacing, her back turned to him. Again the horizon lit, throwing the east bastion ahead into stark relief. But he had no need to see her face. He knew at once who she was; he had known it, perhaps, from the first.

“Your Grace!” His words barely carried over the roar of the rain. “Antonia!
Stop!
”

She did not hear him. Gingerly, he approached, heedless of the puddles. Tension seemed to radiate from her body. Her pale blond hair hung below her waist, sodden from the rain. She looked shockingly thin and small.

“Antonia?” he said softly.

When he touched her shoulder, she turned without alarm and looked—well, not
at
him, but
through
him. It was utterly unnerving, especially when he realized she wore nothing but a sheer muslin nightgown which was now plastered to a pair of exquisite breasts.

He forced his gaze to her face. “Antonia,” he said quietly, “what are you doing out here?”

She pulled away, dragging a hand through her wet hair. “Beatrice,” she murmured, not looking at him. “The carriage—do you hear it?”

Gareth grasped her forearm in a gentle but uncompromising grip. “Who is Beatrice?” he asked over the racket of the rain.

“It’s late,” she rasped. “Surely…surely that must be them?”

“Antonia, get inside! No one is coming tonight.”

Obviously agitated, she shook her head. “The children, the children,” she muttered. “I must wait.”

She was sleepwalking.
Or a little mad, perhaps? Certainly she did not know where she was. Damn it, he had to get her off this bloody wall. A bolt of lightning was apt to strike them both dead. “Come inside, Antonia,” he said, tugging on her arm. “I insist.”

“No!” Her voice was panicked. “No, I cannot leave!” She jerked away, forcing him to lunge for her.

She fought at him like a little hellcat then, striking out with both hands, clawing and struggling to throw off his grasp. Again, she escaped, and this time, he captured her against him, banding her to him with one arm, trying not to hurt her as she flailed. But Antonia’s body was lithe and surprisingly strong—and surprisingly lush, too, God help him. For what seemed an eternity he fought her as she twisted, writhed, and struck at him, high on the rampart, with the storm drawing ever nearer, and nothing but the low crenellations to keep them both from tumbling over, and onto the cliffs below.

Finally he managed to pin her against the bastion with the weight of his body. “Antonia, stop!” She was breathing hard now. He clung to her, the rain running in rivulets down his face. “For God’s sake, hold still!”

She had begun to cry—more of a gut-wrenching wail, really—and something inside him felt as if it was being wrenched from his chest with the sound. It was horrific. Heartbreaking. Her knees began to give, her entire body sliding weakly down the wall. Gareth drew her up, pulled her head to his shoulder, and let her sob. He had the other arm tightly around her at last, and the fight, he could sense, was going out of her. He drew her fully against him and felt the life or the consciousness or whatever it was slowly return to her body.

“Antonia,” he whispered into her damp hair. “Oh, Christ Jesus, you scared the life out of me!”

“I—I’m sorry!” she whimpered, still sobbing. “I’m sorry! Oh, God!”

“Come, we must go,” he said. “The storm is nearing again.”

But instead, she threw her arms around his neck as if she were drowning. “No, don’t leave me!” she whimpered. “Just…I cannot…” She began to sob in earnest, a sound like a wounded animal, and something inside his heart tore. “No one is coming,” she rasped through the tears. “I am sorry. I—I got mixed up.”

“It’s all right, my dear.” He tightened his grip around her waist and shoulders and felt her lush, womanly curves press enticingly along his body. She felt wonderfully warm despite the rain and the chilling remnants of what had been blind terror. Good God, what a pig he was! But her head was on his shoulder again, and she was still sobbing as if her heart might break.

“I won’t leave you,” he promised. “Come, Antonia, let’s go inside.”

At long last, she lifted her head, her arms still entwined behind his neck. Their gazes locked. Her eyes brimmed with emotion; fear and anguish, and yes, something more. Something haunting and painfully inescapable. Her lower lip trembled. And against him, her body began to tremble, too, as if from desperation, and from that raw emotion which one often feels when danger has brushed too near. An emotion which could oftentimes take the form of a desperate hunger; a wish to be fully, reassuringly alive.

Good God, this was ludicrous. And he was a cad. The rain was still trailing down their faces. Her breath was still hitching like a frightened child’s. But when her lashes dropped half shut, and her face tilted ever so slightly, he did it. He kissed her. And in that surreal moment, with the rain pounding down all around them, and thunder rumbling ominously in the distance, it seemed as if that was what she begged him for.

He had meant it as a gentle kiss. A kiss of comfort and of reassurance—or so he told himself. But when she opened her mouth beneath him, inviting him to deepen the kiss to something more, he accepted, sliding his tongue deep into the warmth of her mouth as if he, too, was desperate. Perhaps he was. Gareth had not kissed a woman with this sort of irrational hunger in…well, perhaps never.

He knew, of course, that it was wrong; that he was taking advantage of an emotionally vulnerable woman. And yet he was unable to stop himself. How could he? Antonia was kissing him back with a heated urgency, coming onto her toes, and allowing her breasts to press flat against him. She smelled of soap and rain, and of gardenia. The sodden nightgown clung to her every curve, lush and tempting, leaving nothing to the imagination.

At that, he closed his eyes, and set one hand over the swell of her hip, telling himself it was what she desired. When he touched her, she made a sound deep in her throat and pressed her hips into his.
Yes, she did want this.
And it was madness. A madness he strangely understood.

He had forgotten the rain which still drenched them. He had forgotten that anyone, as he had done, might look out from one of the second-floor windows. That the two of them might be struck dead at any moment. His breath was coming roughly now. His head was swimming with the need to keep her close; to draw her into him somehow. To bind her to him.

Yes, it was madness. Vaguely, he knew it would pass. But when she hitched one knee high, and let it stroke the outside of his thigh, he did it. He slid his hand fully beneath the lush weight of her buttock and gently lifted, parting her so that his fingertips might stroke deeper despite the wet muslin of her gown.