One Dance with a Duke (46 page)

I am here in Town, at my brother’s house. You are invited to dinner this evening
.

   
—A
.

There. If he wished to see her, he would know where to find her. Laurent dispatched a runner with the note, and Amelia passed two fretful hours unpacking in her old, modest bedchamber whilst Winifred renovated the downstairs. Finally, just as light was fading, she glimpsed the runner through her open window as he
made for the house’s back entrance. She rushed down the service stairs to find the boy.

“Well?” she asked him breathlessly, once she’d collared the youth. He held a folded paper in his hand. “Is that my reply?”

He shook his head no. “The duke weren’t at home, ma’am. Footman told me he’d gone out for a game of cards.”

A game of
cards?
He’d come back to London just for a game of cards?

“Go back there,” she told the boy. “Find out where he’s gone, and find His Grace to give him that note. Don’t bother coming back until you do.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She released the lad, and he darted off the way he’d come.

Circling one palm over her belly—a habit she’d already developed, even though her abdomen didn’t protrude yet—she took deep breaths and tried to remain calm.

Hours later, she was panicking.

Laurent’s house was crushed, wall to wall, with guests. They’d begun arriving shortly after sundown and continued to stream in even now. The entirety of Bryanston Square was congested with coaches and teams. Most of the recent arrivals didn’t even seem to understand they were lacking an invitation. Amelia wasn’t certain they knew whose house they were at; they were just following the crowd. Winifred’s food had run out hours ago, much to her despair, but her reinforcements of wine and spirits were holding strong for the moment. No one showed the slightest inclination to leave.

In the hall, the hired quartet gamely played over and through the din of rumor and laughter. A few couples carved out enough space to dance a cramped quadrille.

Amelia couldn’t imagine why they all hadn’t given up and gone home hours ago. The duke’s absence was obvious, and tonight she lacked the spirit to compensate with flirtation and witty remarks. Even with every window thrown open to the night air and the barest minimum of candles burning, the air in the rooms was exceedingly close, and Amelia had done her best to seek out the few pockets of relative seclusion. Whenever someone asked after Spencer, she murmured a few words of excuse. Recently arrived in town, delayed by business … et cetera.

She was on the verge of slipping out entirely and hiring a hack to Morland House, where she could perhaps find some restful quiet and wait for Spencer in peace. Then the musicians struck up the first few bars of a waltz, and a raucous male voice called out, “Not yet! Not yet!”

Bemused, she watched as every head in the room swiveled toward the ancient clock, where the short hand wavered just on the brink of twelve. A collective hush amplified the tick, tick, tick … as then the long hand swept past the ten. Amelia suddenly understood why the guests wouldn’t give up on the duke and simply go home.

They were waiting for the hour of twelve, of course. Breathless with anticipation to see if the Duke of Midnight would remain true to his name.

And that realization began the longest ten minutes of Amelia’s life.

She passed the first five minutes asking after and then slowly imbibing a glass of tepid lemonade.

By straightening every seam of her gloves, she managed to while away another two.

Then there came a dark, endless minute in which guilt and regret swamped her, and doubt followed close behind. Perhaps he wouldn’t come because he was still angry and didn’t want to see her. Perhaps he had no use for her now, since she was already with child.

Another minute ticked past, and she scolded herself. If he didn’t appear tonight, it meant nothing. Except that he was off somewhere else, and she would see him the next day. Or the next.

And then the entire assembly passed the final minute simply waiting, watching, listening to the clock’s inexorable ticks. When the slender minute hand finally clicked into unison with the squat hour hand, the room went dead silent. And then the clock’s cuckoo bird popped out from its window and cheerfully mocked them all.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
Twelve. Dratted. Times. The wretched little wooden creature had probably never enjoyed such a rapt audience.

It was midnight. And no duke had arrived.

Well, that was that.

Now the party was truly over. The musicians struck up a waltz, as they’d no doubt been bribed to do, but no one cared. The guests murmured amongst themselves on mundane, uninteresting topics, in the way people do when they’re thinking of leaving a party.

A week’s worth of fatigue settled on Amelia’s shoulders. For heaven’s sake, she needed to rest. She pressed forward through the packed drawing room, heading for the little pocket door behind the pianoforte. It led to a service corridor, and she could use it to make her escape upstairs.

“Amelia, wait.”

The deep voice rang out over the crowd. Over the musicians. Over even the violent pounding of her heart.

“Wait right there. Please.”

Well, that couldn’t be Spencer. She’d just heard the word “please.” She wheeled around anyway and felt positively biblical when the crowd thronging the hall parted like the Red Sea. And there, standing at the other end of that freshly carved valley of humanity, was her husband. The tardy Duke of Midnight.

“It’s ten past,” she couldn’t help but say. “You’re late.”

“I’m sorry,” he said earnestly, starting toward her. “I came as soon as I could.”

She shook her head, astonished. Not only “please,” but “sorry” now? In public, no less? Was this man truly her husband?

But of course he was. There was no other man on earth so handsome.

“Stay there,” he said again. “I’m coming to you.”

He took an awkward, hobbled step in her direction, and then another. A grimace pulled at his mouth. His injuries were clearly still paining him. As gratifying as it was to watch him at long last moving across a dance floor toward
her
, and not some preening debutante, she realized this was going to take far too long.

“For heaven’s sake, stay put,” she said. Her heel caught on the carpet fringe as she hurried toward him, and she would have fallen to the floor without the well-timed assistance of a smartly dressed gentleman in green velvet. It made her conscious, as she met her husband halfway and he pulled her into a tight embrace, that they were being observed by one and all. And “all,” in this case, referred to hundreds.

Of course she didn’t mind the attention herself. But she knew how Spencer hated crowds. She pulled him as far to the side as possible, putting his back toward the horde of onlookers.

“There now,” she said, keeping her arms laced around his neck. “Just pretend we’re dancing.”

He winced. “The ride from Braxton Hall nearly killed me. With these ribs, pretense is all I can manage.”

“Why are you in town at all? I heard you were playing cards.”

“Well, I meant to. That’s the reason I came to London. I’d no idea you’d be here. My intention was to win back Jack’s debt from the gaming lord himself. I’d
arranged the game, prepared my stakes and sharpened my strategy—do you know that man’s one of the best piquet players in England?”

“I suspect you’re better.”

His mouth tipped with an arrogant grin. “I suspect I’d have proved you right, in the end. It might have taken me hours, though, and we were just sitting down to the table when your boy found me, and I read your note. And after that …” He blew out a breath. “After that, I just said to hell with it. I wrote him a bank draft instead.”

She gasped. “You didn’t!”

“I did. Because whatever amount your brother owed, it wasn’t worth a single hour’s delay in seeing you.” He swallowed hard. “All Jack’s debts are paid, Amelia. You needn’t worry about his safety anymore.”

“Oh, Spencer. You’re very good to have done that. But I wish I’d had the opportunity to speak with you first. Jack’s gone. He sailed from Bristol on a brigantine bound for America. You were right. I was doing him more harm than good. He’s my brother, and I’ll always love him. But I’ll have to love him from afar just now. Our marriage is more important to me than anything.” She lowered her voice and gripped him tight. “
You
are more important to me than anything. I’ll never let anything come between us again.”

“I … I can’t believe it.” He blinked away a glimmer of emotion. “What of the debt?”

“Laurent has another buyer for the cottage.” When he began to form a question, she added, “The debts are ours to dispatch, not yours. We’ll repay you every penny. Jack is our problem, our family’s responsibility.”

“Your problems
are
mine. Your family too, if you’ll have me. I was a complete bastard to ask you to choose. And you can’t give up that cottage. It’s your home.”

“It’s a house. Just a pile of stones and mortar, and a
crumbling one at that. It’s meaningless without love to fill it. My home is wherever you are.” She felt a smile warming her face. “Here we are right back where we started, aren’t we? You owning my brother’s debt, me with only a drafty cottage in Gloucestershire as collateral.”

“Is it wrong of me to demand Briarbank in payment anyhow? The property needn’t change hands. A very long lease will suffice. I love it there, and I love being there with you. And I love you. God, I haven’t said that to you nearly enough, but I’m going to make up for it now by telling you five times a day. I love you, Amelia. Since the very first night, I knew you were the only woman for me. Until the day I die, I will love you. I love—”

“Hush.” She put a finger to his lips. Had he gone mad, or had he forgotten the crowd of onlookers at his back? Leaning in close, she teased, “It’s a quarter past midnight. Don’t exhaust all five so early in the day. I’d like something to look forward to, once we get home.”

He grasped her hand and kissed her fingers warmly. “You needn’t worry on that score.” He brought her close and whispered in her ear. “God, how I’ve missed you. Not only in bed, but especially in bed. It’s a very big bed, and it’s damned empty without you. Life is empty without you.”

Feeling it prudent to change the subject before she went to custard, she cleared her throat and asked, “How’s Claudia?”

“At Braxton Hall. I’ve promised to return quickly. She’s still considering her options, but I’ve told her she’ll have my support, no matter what her choice.”

“She will have
our
support.”

He released a deep sigh. “Thank you.” He raised a hand to her face, cradling her cheek in his palm. “And you? You are well?” He flicked a glance downward, toward her belly.

“Yes.” She smiled. “Both of us.”

As his thumb stroked sweetly over her cheek, his eyes warmed to rich shades of gold and green. He gave her one of those rare, devastating smiles. “What a beautiful mother you’ll be.”

He bent his head, clearly seeking a kiss.

She put a hand to his chest, holding him off.

“Spencer,” she whispered, darting a glance to either side. “There are hundreds of people about.”

“Are there? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Your heart’s pounding.”

“That’s for you.”

And now her own heart skipped a beat. She’d spent her whole life loving those around her, and still she’d never dreamed she could love someone this much—so much it stretched the very seams of her soul. Better yet was the knowledge that the love would only grow, and she would have to grow with it.

“You realize, you do have a certain reputation,” she murmured. “Everyone here is expecting to watch you cart me from the room in a scandalous, barbaric display.”

“Then they’ll be disappointed. I’m scarcely fit to lift a kitten at the moment, and even if I were …” He cupped her face in both hands, and his gaze reached so far into hers she felt it warming her toes. “It’s never been my desire to conquer you, Amelia. If you leave this room with me, it must be at my side. As my wife, my lover, my partner …” His thumb brushed her lip. “My dearest friend. Would you do that?”

She managed a tearful nod.

“Then may I kiss you now, in front of all these people?”

She nodded again, this time smiling through the tears. “On the lips, if you please. And do it properly.”

Read on for an excerpt from
Twice Tempted by a Rogue
by Tessa Dare

Published by Ballantine Books

Rhys St. Maur, newly Lord Ashworth, was a broken man.

Literally.

By the age of twenty, he’d fractured his left arm twice—once in a schoolboy brawl at Eton, and then again during an army training drill. Cracked ribs … he’d lost count of those. Fists driving through barroom haze to connect with his face had snapped the cartilage in his nose a few times, leaving him with a craggy profile—one that was not improved by his myriad scars. Since sometime around his thirtieth birthday, the little finger on his right hand just plain refused to bend. And in damp weather like this, his left knee throbbed with memories of marching through the Pyrenees and surviving the Battle of Nivelle unscathed, only to catch a Basque farmer’s hoe to the knee the next morning, when he left camp for a predawn piss.

That left knee was on fire tonight, sizzling with pain as Rhys trudged through the granite heart of Devonshire, leading his horse down the darkened road. The moisture in the air kept dithering between fog and rain, and the night was thick with its indecision. He couldn’t see but a few feet in front of him, which was why he’d decided to dismount and lead his horse on
foot. Between the poor visibility and the surrounding terrain littered with chunks of stone and boot-sucking bogs, the risk of fatal injury was too great.

For the horse, that was. Rhys wasn’t in the least concerned for himself. In fact, if he thought this godforsaken moor had any chance of claiming his own life, he’d cheerfully saddle his gelding and charge off into the gloom.

But it wouldn’t work. It never had. He’d just end up with a lamed or dead horse, another broken rib perhaps, and the same curse that had haunted him since boyhood: unwanted, undeserved, and wholly wasted good luck.