Read Seducing the Duchess Online
Authors: Ashley March
Seducing the Duchess (23 page)
And it wasn’t one in which he was free to go wherever he chose, to mingle with the servants and commoners, with people like the Sheffields.
Yes, he could have had Charlotte tonight, but he had chosen duty instead, miserable fool that he was.
It was his role, his right, his privilege, his burden.
Somehow, he would find a way to serve his ducal obligations and have Charlotte, too.
A harsh sigh escaped his lips as he turned away, the sound becoming a stifled laugh when he caught sight of another of his grandfather’s portraits high on the opposite wall.
A multitude of scarves and stockings hung over the frame, draped over his face in haphazard disarray. Only one steely eye peered through the silky veil.
“Oh, Charlotte, my love,” Philip whispered once more, and strolled out of her bedchamber with the beginnings of a smile on his lips.
“Joanna.” Charlotte halted at the entrance to the sitting room. She had just come to . . . to . . . Oh, dash it, it didn’t matter now. “Fallon didn’t tell me you were here.”
Joanna gave her a strained smile, her eyes flicking to the opposite side of the room. Charlotte found it all too easy to follow her gaze to the sight of Philip, standing tall and straight as ever.
“Charlotte,” he said, gesturing toward a chair. “Please, sit down. Joanna has come to visit.”
Charlotte started. He hadn’t called her Lady Grey, but Joanna. She looked at Joanna again, and then once more at Philip. “No, thank you. I prefer to stand.”
“Very well.”
The silence stretched in the room, and she knew he was toying with her, waiting for her to take the bait. But she was done playing his games.
Smiling widely, she said, “Good day, then,” and turned to leave.
“Charlotte,” he called from behind her, not raising his voice at all, but merely using his ducal tone as if that alone would freeze her in her place. “I have told Joanna of our agreement.”
It was a strange thing. Such an announcement should not have made her heart skip a beat, or the blood to drain so quickly from her face, but it did, and she had to put a hand to the door frame to steady herself.
Counting to ten, she willed her body to calmness, to give nothing away, before she turned around once again. She couldn’t meet Joanna’s eyes, nor her own in one of the myriad mirrors along the wall. She fixed her gaze on Philip’s right ear. “Our agreement, Your Grace?” A question, as if they had any other sort of agreement between them.
He shifted subtly, just a slight movement, so that their eyes met. “Yes, our agreement. Regarding our divorce.”
If there had been a time when Charlotte had ever doubted Philip’s word, it was over. There was no going back now.
Even though she had spoken to Joanna about it, there was something so decisive, so final, in hearing him say the word aloud, in front of someone else.
Charlotte cocked her head to the side, a purposeful show of nonchalance. “And did you also inform her of your decision to make her the next Duchess of Rutherford?”
Philip smiled slowly, a smile which began with a twitch of his lips and spread until it crinkled the corners of his eyes. It was not one of his carefully controlled ten-degree smiles, but a full one. A real one.
He turned to look at Joanna, the warmth of that smile obviously meant for her alone. “Indeed, I have,” he said softly, “and she has agreed I do not need any further husband lessons from you.”
“I see.” But truly, she didn’t. How was it that not so long ago the two of them seemed to despise each other, and yet now they were smiling at each other like lovesick fools and sending secret messages with their eyes?
She looked at Joanna, waiting for some signal that she was merely playing along as they had agreed. But Joanna refused to meet her gaze, and Charlotte realized if Philip could have begun to thaw her heart, it must have been even easier for him to thaw Joanna’s.
She shouldn’t have cared, but somehow she felt as if he’d betrayed her all over again. Only this time, she’d thought he would fail with Joanna, had been so certain Joanna would be different. But apparently she wasn’t, and the pain of their togetherness was almost more than she could bear.
Despite everything, he was still her husband.
Somehow her back had come to rest against the edge of the door frame, and Charlotte was glad for the support. “And when is the wedding?” she asked brightly. Joyfully. So much so that the high octave of her own voice made her cringe.
Philip stood behind Joanna’s chair, his hand resting on her shoulder, her hand resting over his. It was such a lovely, domestic scene.
“Of course we shall have to wait until the divorce is finalized. I’ll ensure there’s no unnecessary delay, but it could very well take several months, perhaps even a year.”
“And in the meantime, I will ...”
Philip cocked a brow. “You will be free to do as you wish once the petition has begun. At that point, we won’t be able to avoid the larger scandal. Until then, however, I trust for you to remain here, at Ruthven Manor, to the end of the three months as we had first agreed. As much as I can, I wish to delay the gossip, at least until dear Joanna has finished her period of mourning.”
Dear Joanna.
Not much longer and he would doubtless begin composing sonnets to her beauty.
Still, Charlotte was suspicious of the sudden change. Just last night he had teased about kissing her in the rain, and yet today he acted as if they were as much strangers as they had been for the previous three years of their marriage.
Her fingers bit into the woodwork of the paneling beside the entrance, and she inhaled deeply. Then, matching his gaze with one equally arrogant, she asked, “And will you continue to try to kiss me until the end of the three months as well?” She darted a look at Joanna, who seemed frozen in her chair.
Philip’s brow lowered. “That won’t be necessary. Dear Joanna, I’m certain, will be happy to receive my kisses. Isn’t that right, my love?”
Charlotte followed the movement of his hand as he trailed his fingers from Joanna’s shoulder to the curve of her neck, to the sweep of her cheek, his thumb grazing her lips.
And as she spun toward the hall, the image of Philip leaning down toward those upturned lips remained imprinted, like a brand, upon her vision.
“Yes, yes, very good,” Mr. Lesser said, nodding his head with approval. “You have been practicing, Your Grace. Very good.”
The melody was a simple one. Charlotte could have played it with her eyes closed, her feet bound, and seven of her fingers amputated.
Yet if it hadn’t been for certain . . . distractions . . . she no doubt would have been thrilled with the harpist’s praise.
She cast a mental scowl in the direction of the hallway, imagined it traveling through the winding corridor until it reached the sitting room, until it smacked Philip in his manipulative, overbearing head.
And because the sound of Joanna’s laughter had become quite the nuisance over the past five days, she then imagined it hitting Joanna, too.
Joanna.
Dear
Joanna.
Dear
Joanna.
Charlotte frowned. She could probably play the harp with all eight fingers and one thumb amputated.
“Your Grace!” Mr. Lesser exclaimed. He stilled her hand and wrapped his arms around the harp protectively. “The harp is not a drum! You cannot hit it with such—such—
ferocity
.”
ferocity
.”
Sighing, Charlotte sat back, not much caring if she maintained the proper duchesslike posture or not. After all, her duchess days were nearly over.
“My apologies, Mr. Lesser. Perhaps you might teach me something a bit more challenging. A bit more . . . lively?”
“Ahh.” Mr. Lesser’s eyes glinted behind his spectacles. “Her Grace wishes for a challenge. She is bored with my poor attempts to instruct her—”
Straightening, Charlotte extended a hand. “No, that is not what—”
“I see.” With a sly grin and a push of his spectacles back to the bridge of his nose, Mr. Lesser released the harp. “Let’s begin, then. Shall we?”
Two hours later, Charlotte learned what a sly grin from Mr. Lesser meant. Callused, bleeding fingertips. Dull, aching shoulders and a strained back.
Groaning, she happily watched him leave. She doubted she could have survived another ten minutes.
She heaved herself off the seat, tensing as a muscle spasm gripped the area between her neck and shoulder.
A low rumble and an accompanying giggle filtered into the hollow silence of the music room. What on earth could they be talking about? Not just today, but day after day, as they visited in the sitting room, in the conservatory, in the library.
Of course, she supposed she should be grateful she didn’t hear the dreadful silence instead. Those were the times when her head filled with lurid images, and her stomach writhed as if a nest of snakes had taken residence there.
And although Joanna usually left Ruthven Manor in the late afternoon, and Philip alone dined with her at supper, Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder if afterward, when she had retired to her bedchamber, he then visited Joanna at her home. Through the night.
After all, Joanna might be much more wholesome and proper than Charlotte could ever be, but if she was so free with her kisses, would she not be free with her body as well? And Philip was a man who had always kept a mistress—though not in the last six months,
if
she chose to believe him. She couldn’t imagine him being willing or able to wait until the petition began, and certainly not until the divorce was finalized.
if
she chose to believe him. She couldn’t imagine him being willing or able to wait until the petition began, and certainly not until the divorce was finalized.
Cursing beneath her breath, Charlotte quit the music room and headed in the direction of the sitting room. As she neared, she quieted her breathing and focused all of her attention on attempting to hear the conversation within.
“Soon this will all be yours, my darling,” she heard Philip say.
“Oh, Philip”—rustling—“do not say such things. She is still your wife. You must be more circumspect—”
More rustling. “She doesn’t care what I do. You know how she detests me. For once, let me be happy. Let us be happy.”
This was followed by silence and yet more rustling, and Charlotte’s imagination was quite happy to supply the intimate scene in her mind’s eye for her as she stared at the opposite wall—Joanna sitting on the end of the sofa, her elegant, gloved hand captured between Philip’s, their lips pressed together.
Humph.
Let me be happy,
he’d said. As if
she
had been the one to make his life miserable this entire time. As if he’d been anything
but
happy. He was the duke, and he had his mistress as well as a hundred other women who made themselves available to him.
Let me be happy,
he’d said. As if
she
had been the one to make his life miserable this entire time. As if he’d been anything
but
happy. He was the duke, and he had his mistress as well as a hundred other women who made themselves available to him.
Well, at least he was correct in one thing: Charlotte did indeed detest him.
Retreating a few paces in the opposite direction, she threw back her aching shoulders and pasted a smile on her face. When she was within the limit of hearing distance from the sitting room, she abruptly turned back around and began to whistle.
A loud, cheery tune that some sailor in a pub had taught her not quite so long ago. She whistled as she strolled with sashaying hips toward the sitting room, past the entrance, and all the way up the stairs to her bedchamber.
Philip stared at the doorway of the sitting room.
“It’s as I told you,” Joanna said, lifting her hands and silencing the rustle of her skirts. “This isn’t the way to go about it. At least allow me to tell Charlotte you love her, if you refuse to. It would be a start.”
Philip shook his head. He hadn’t spent the past five minutes with his lips a scant inch from Joanna’s for nothing. His neck had even been crooked at an exact angle so that if Charlotte had happened to look in, she would have thought their lips were touching.
He’d risked too much already by asking Joanna for her help. She could have gone to Charlotte and told her everything, but thankfully, swallowing his pride enough to approach her and apologize for his past behavior had seemed to sway her to his side.
But he was so damn tired of playing the mindless chitter-chatter game with Joanna every day, tired of being near her, talking with her, pretending to be interested in her, when all he wanted to do was be with Charlotte. And God knew, forgiving Joanna for nearly eloping with Ethan had been the most difficult of all.
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