The Duke's Obsession (Entangled Scandalous) (14 page)

It was no wonder. He was having a hard time making sense of all this himself. But if everything else was a little hazed and not quite focused, one ideal stood crystalline clear. He was a gentleman. And he would remain one. Even if a goddess incarnate sat before him with her lips slightly parted and her shirt pooled around her waist.

“Indeed. I should not have impugned your honor.”

“You didn’t impugn anything,” she said, irritation replacing her earlier disbelief. With her back stiff, she burrowed beneath the protective layer of the quilt she had gathered around her. “I would have voiced an objection had I felt it necessary.”

“Good,” he stated. Only it wasn’t good. It was clear that she had misinterpreted his botched appeal. She might even think that he didn’t want her, that she was the problem, and not his bloody honor. He shoved another hand through his tangled strands and groaned. “Bloody hell.”

Daphne snorted. “That is the only thing you’ve said that makes any sense.”

“Yes, well, I’m afraid I’ve made a whole damn mess of things.”

“Quite,” she quipped, a hint of a smile tugging on her lips.

Edward moved beside her, one hand still cinching the blanket around his waist. “I am attempting, in my own idiotic way, to be a gentleman, Miss Farrington.” He gave a flourished wave of his free hand and half bowed before her.

Her forehead creased as her brows lifted. “Please expound on that theory, Your Grace,” she replied, her voice mimicking his formal tone. “For I’m afraid I fail to see how not fulfilling a lady’s request is anything less than roguish.”

Edward sighed and let out a small laugh. “Under other circumstances, specifically those tied to the bonds of matrimony, I would heartily agree that to deny a lady would be quite fallacious. But I made an arrangement with you”—he paused, and nudged his elbow against her blanketed side—“and I’m doing my damnedest to uphold it.”

Daphne frowned. “And what arrangement would have you deny me? I do not recall agreeing to such a thing.”

He rubbed his hand over the white knuckles of her fingers clutching the blanket’s edge. “I have no intentions of denying you anything, Daphne. I am simply restraining them until more suitable conditions are made. Unlike most of my peers, I strive to be worthy of the title of gentleman.” Even if being a gentleman meant keeping secrets. Secrets he needed to tell her before someone else did.

But now was not the time to tell her. Not now when she was on the verge of seeing him for the man he was beneath the trappings of his title. Not when his hard efforts to sway her mind were bearing fruit.

Daphne’s lips lifted as her eyes lowered. “I cannot fault you that.”

Smiling, he gave her another nudge in the side. “You are most gracious, my lady.”

“Yes, among other things, one of which is warm, though it seems your fire has lost its flame.” She nodded toward the hearth.

He glanced at the glowing pile of white ashes in the grate. Whatever moisture remained on their clothing would have to be tolerated on the ride back to the house. They could not wait in a cold and dark cottage for clothes that could easily dry on one of the racks at Thornhaven—even if that meant returning in the middle of a storm. A short absence was easily forgiven; a longer one would not be so readily overlooked, despite heavy summer rains—or his good intentions.

Edward rocked onto his heels and stood. The rattling winds had ceased, but the rain continued to fall, its cadence on the roof having settled into soft patters and not the earlier drenching ones. They would be soaked and thoroughly uncomfortable upon their arrival to the manor house, but their presence would silence any murmurs of gossip that may already be spreading.

“Here.” He lifted her wet and heavy stay off the floor. “It would be best if you were to return in your clothes rather than mine.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “The rains have let up a bit and dinner will be announced soon. There may still be time to hide our absence.”

Daphne gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “I suppose you’re right.” She plucked the undergarment from his hand and stared at the tangled laces with a look of loathing. “It seems such a shame to put this back on when you spent so much effort getting it off.”

Now, however, with Daphne’s pert little breasts jiggling through her near transparent shift as she maneuvered her way into the confines of her sodden stay, was definitely not the time for deep revelations and conscience cleanings. Now was the time for admiration.

“Edward,” she mumbled, her hands in the air, her face covered by the stay. “Might I trouble you for some assistance? It seems the stay and I are at an impasse.”

Tugging up his breeches, he barely fastened them in his haste toward her. “It would be my pleasure.” And with a quick pull down and over the tops of her breasts it was all that and more.

Chapter Fourteen

Daphne was a master of many things. She could speak fluently in three different languages when she felt so inclined. She could name all forty-six senators in the United States senate. She could even solve a complex sum in less time than a single breath. She could not, however, be silent in the space of one.

Not that she didn’t try. She had, with the utmost diligence, done her best to slip through the side doorway with the quietest of motions. Edward had assured her the easily missed entry was reserved for servants only and would be well-oiled and waxed to make certain their movements went unnoticed by the household.

Unfortunately, Daphne must have come on the day it was scheduled for its treatment, for the door whined as though it never received any such attention at all. With a shrill squeak and a low groan of protest, it jerked open and into a narrow hallway. The fraying rugs and bare walls in the servants’ hallway were exactly as Edward described it, including its echoing emptiness. Fortunately, everyone was, as she had hoped, readying for the evening meal and not bustling about on this side of the house.

With a shove and another shrill shriek of protest, the door slid back into place, leaving her free to navigate the empty hallway toward the security of her room. The task was easy enough, given Edward’s clear directions, along with the promise that he would be entering through the same door precisely five minutes after her, a promise he insisted on after her forceful reassurance that she could walk, or rather hobble, to her quarters without his aid.

No one needed to see her current state of dishevelment. One need not be a genius to deduce what had transpired between them. He had first carried her up the stairs, insisting all the while that secrecy was not needed. That he did not give a damn what others thought of their physical appearance, her injury explanation enough for their delay.

But in truth, Daphne didn’t want anyone to see her. Not because she was ashamed or embarrassed of their predicament, but because anyone with two eyes would likely see the affection she held for Edward.

She stumbled, her feet catching on an overturned edge of the floor runner. After a glance down the hallway, she gave a short prayer of thanksgiving that no one was present to witness her clumsiness and another hoping that the slim door in front of her was the one leading to the hall outside of her room.

A quick flip of a metal latch, and she stepped into a lavishly decorated hallway, and straight into a solid chest and pair of large arms.

“Bloody hell,” a deep voice cried. Two hands gripped her shoulders and set her off to the side. “Have a care, or I’ll report you to your superior.”

Daphne’s eyes widened. She had barreled right into the Earl of Westbrook.

Recognition dawned as he squinted in the dim light of the hall. “Miss Farrington?”

She must look a fright. Her hair had fallen from its pins ages ago, her blond curls flailed about her face and every which way past her shoulders. Her dress, which she had salvaged from the cottage’s unswept floor, was stained and tattered, not to mention, wet, limp, and not fully laced. She no doubt looked like a country maid after a turn in the stables. And from the burning gaze and lazy grin on the earl’s face, it appeared he agreed.

“My lord,” Daphne stuttered, inching her way back toward the now closed door. “Are you headed to dinner? I fear I have lost my way.”

“Indeed you have, for this”—he motioned toward the length of the corridor—“is the men’s wing.”

The men’s wing? She must have taken a right instead of a left, or was it a left instead of a right? Not that it mattered. Heaven only knew what assumptions could be made, or in the case of the earl and his roving gaze, what conclusions he had already drawn.

“Yes, well, if you could show me the way to the women’s corridor, I would be most obliged, my lord.”

The earl fingered a piece of ribbon at her shoulder. “How is it that you came to be here, Miss Farrington? And in such a”—he paused, his eyes hungrily roving over her body—“disorderly state?”

Daphne’s skin prickled with fear at the earl’s leering expression and insinuating tone. “I came from a walk and was caught out in the rain,” she answered, sliding away from his touch. “I thought to utilize the servant’s hall and obviously lost my way.”

The explanation was nothing but truth, and yet it sounded false even to her ears.

With one swift movement, the earl’s arm wrapped around her waist, pinning her between him and the wall. “Come now, Miss Farrington. There is no need to play coy. My bed warms just as easily as any other.”

Daphne’s palm met the side of his cheek with a smack that left her fingers stinging. “I have never warmed anyone’s bed, Lord Westbrook, and I most certainly have no desire to enter yours.”

The earl’s eyes flashed, his broad chest and thick arms retaining their lock around her as his head lowered to her neck. “My God, I had no idea you engaged in the arts of punishment.” His hand slid over her breast and squeezed. “Should you wish to further abuse me, I advise that we move out of the hallway and somewhere more private.”

Daphne gasped, her body stiffening with rage. The man was beyond vulgar. That he should think she was actually encouraging his attentions was…was…well, it was utterly preposterous. She lifted her arms and gave a firm shove to his chest, the force of her exertion lurching her backward. Her ankle knocked into the wall, making her near cry out in pain. “I am not engaged in anything but the act of removing myself from your presence, Lord Westbrook. Do not touch me again.”

The earl should at least have looked deterred. She had firmly stated her wishes, had used brute force to convey her distaste. But if anything, the scoundrel appeared encouraged by her incivilities, chuckling at her resistance as though she were a child he was not ready to dismiss.

“Lest you need reassuring, Miss Farrington, I assure you I can pay quite handsomely for your services.”

The sharp bite of his words stung her as though he had physically slapped his hand across her cheek. “I would mind your tongue, Lord Westbrook,” she ground out, her fists balling. “My brother and His Grace will be most aggrieved to hear that you cast your words about so foolishly and with so little propriety.”

“His Grace?” The earl snorted, his face scrunching into one of displeasure, as though simply saying Edward’s title brought a bitter taste to his lips. “I wonder, did His Grace throw about his words with little care while he seduced you? Did his lips slip and mention his nefarious dealings with a certain ship of interest to your family?”

She had to get away from this man and his vile accusations. Every bone in her body knew he posed an immediate threat to her virtue and perhaps her life, and yet, his last question had her hands stilling in their efforts to find the small latch that would trigger the door to the servant’s hall. “What ship?”

The earl’s lips curled into a sneer. “What ship, indeed?” He leaned against the damask wallpaper. “You mean the honorable Duke of Waverly did not mention his associations with the infamous Seraphina?”

Every hair on her body bristled at the word, at the mere mention of the ship that had caused her eight years of heartache and grief. Surely the earl did not know of what he spoke, of her family’s past ties to that name. Thomas had most assuredly been silent on the matter, and Edward, her sole confidant on the topic, did not likely share a convivial relationship with the earl. “What do you know of such a ship?” she whispered, her eyes flicking toward his dark hooded eyes.

“Enough to know that your brother was impressed into service on its deck. And that your duke financed the run it was making when the captain seized the ship.”

So difficult was it for her to inhale, he could not have strangled her more completely if he had placed his own two hands around her neck. He spoke impossibilities. She had seen no such association in the duke’s ledgers. No proof or evidence that he had financed any voyage of the Seraphina. She would have noticed. Surely she would have seen something, anything, that would have sprung a connection.

Daphne took a deep breath and shook her head. No. Edward’s association to anything remotely attached to the Seraphina was impossible. The ledgers he had given her had begun their entries a full year after Samuel’s disappearance. There was no link connecting Edward to any trade or investments done before that time, unless he hadn’t made any efforts to record them. Or…or he had withheld an extra ledger.

Daphne’s chest constricted. The eighth, or rather, given its preceding date, the first, ledger. The one Edward had insisted had nothing to do with Burnham, the one he had refused to let her check over because in reality, it had everything to do with her. Or worse, her deceased brother.

Was that why he had denied her access to its pages? Because he knew she would discover his secret?

“No.” But even as she said it, her hollow voice echoing in the hall, she knew the earl’s words could very well be true.

Her heart twisted, as though its two halves warred with each other, one side swelling with the love she held for a man who had placed her honor above his own desires, and the other crumbling and decaying with the earl’s words.

“The evidence says otherwise. I’m afraid your duke had a taste for rum in his younger days.”

“Rum?” As if a gentleman’s tastes had anything to do with Samuel or a frigate in His Majesty’s navy. Or betrayal. Or her breaking heart.

“Indeed, Miss Farrington. It was what the duke was running when your family’s ship was intercepted. When the captain, under His Grace’s charge, held your brother against the sharp blade of a sword, and forced him into service.”

His words were like weights, dragging her back into the dark depths of bitterness from which she had only recently emerged. Visions of Samuel’s panicked face as she had pictured him on that fateful night reappeared, their startling images choking her with vividness and making it difficult for her to breathe.

There had to be a mistake.

“The Seraphina was a naval frigate, not a cargo vessel,” Daphne stated, as a small whisper of hope stirred in her chest. Perhaps there were two maligned ships unfortunate to share the same name within the King’s navy. A simple misunderstanding. A small wrinkle in the details.

“Yes, well, everything is not always as it appears.” He glanced at her and lifted a brow. “While the Seraphina appeared for all intents and purposes as a frigate keeping His Majesty’s waters safe from Napoleon, it was merely a front for your duke and his barrels of illegal rum hiding in the bowels.”

“Illegal rum?” The duke’s wealth was vast, at least on paper, where his interest, even with Burnham’s cuts, had been large and substantial. Why would he engage in a scheme where the risk was often greater than the profit?

“Illegal rum,” the earl repeated, a haughty smile lighting his face. “And a captain who needed more men to haul and transport his profit. Captain Geoffries couldn’t resist capitalizing on the King’s allowances. It was no bother to impress an American ship with a half-British crew into service, especially when you had a duke funding the entire ordeal.”

“I don’t believe you.” Lord, she didn’t want to. But pricks of doubt had already begun to whittle away at her confidence in the duke’s innocence. She needed Edward to put her fears to rest, to assure her that this was all some horrible misunderstanding. That he was not responsible for Samuel’s passing.

“And how did you come across this information?” Daphne asked, folding her arms in front of her chest.

“One has his secrets, Miss Farrington, as you well know. But I can assure you mine comes from a source who held a mutual disregard for the duke.” His gaze slid up and down the length of her, settling on the exposed skin above her neckline. “Now, we can continue discussing the sad truths of the past, or we can explore the opportunities of the future. I would hate to have any more secrets laid bare.”

“There are no more to tell,” she countered with a note of defiance, though she knew very well that the earl had the advantage. She was disheveled, immodest, and all manner of indecently exposed in an area of the estate where only men were allowed. He would be stating nothing but truth should he feel inclined to reveal her unexplained presence in the men’s part of the house.

But if the earl had truth on his side, she had it as well, though even Daphne knew that a walk in the rain and a few mistaken turns down a hallway that she should not know existed, was likely an argument few would believe.

Her fingers fumbled on the latch just as the door gave way, opening into the hall and into a thick and solid chest. She didn’t have to see his face to know it belonged to Edward.

“Daphne!” His warm hands wrapped around her arms, spinning her into his embrace. “I should have known you would take a left instead of a right. When I didn’t see you in your chambers…I…”

Edward’s voice faded as he glanced upward toward Lord Westbrook.

The earl chuckled. “Dear heavens. I’d say you may have a future in the theater, Waverly. The surprise in your voice is almost believable, though I think we all know exactly why Miss Farrington is here.”

Edward’s arms constricted. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Westbrook. Miss Farrington and I were simply out for a walk, as our wet appearance implies.”

“Through the servant’s halls?” The earl clicked his tongue. “While your delivery is laudable, the story needs work. Unlike mine. My story is truth based on fact.”

Edward touched a finger under her chin. “What the devil is he talking about? What story?”

Hot tears slid down her cheeks, the salty droplets further dampening Edward’s soggy and gray-tinged shirt. Her fists curled into little balls, clenching the dingy fabric as she sought for words to counter the earl’s claims.

“Go on, Miss Farrington,” the earl prodded. “Tell him the story about the Seraphina. The one where you discover that your beloved funded illicit trade and supported the captain who so unjustly took your brother’s life.”

Edward’s grip faltered, his arms slackening about her waist before his embrace tightened with a new fervor and he near crushed her against his chest.