The Duke's Wager (31 page)

“You must see,” St. John said, his gray eyes pleading with her, “I need you, Regina. I will make a good husband to you. It will be only a little thing to do to ensure our happiness. What matter it what name you are known by? You will change your name when you marry me, anyway.”

“But not myself, Sinjin,” she said calmly. “I did tell you that I didn’t love you, Sinjin. And I still do not.”

“But you shall,” he insisted, cursing the circumstances that led to Torquay’s standing there, silhouetted against the window, for if he could only hold her, embrace her, he could convince her. He thought of his sick shock when, having made all his plans, he had returned to Fairleigh in triumph, only to find her gone. To find her note. Each word that she had written to him had caused him another stab of remorse. He wanted her now as his wife and mistress in one. He would not live in the double world of James, nor in the despised one of the Duke. With Regina, he saw, he could be complete. And he now saw how he could accomplish it. But there again was the omnipresent shadow of Torquay.

“If we were alone, I could convince you,” he said huskily.

“How ungracious, Sinjin,” the Duke said. “You are making me feel like an interloper, rather than another aspirant to her hand.”

“Then leave,” snarled the Marquis.

“Sinjin,” Regina said rapidly, seeing him start toward the Duke with fists clenched, “I would never, no never consent to having my name changed in order to have my name changed. Berryman is no noble name. I have no title. But I am Regina Berryman. If I were to pretend, even if only for a little while, that I were a French countess, or lady, soon I would come to believe it. I would be living a lie. You too, Sinjin, would, in some small part of your mind, come to believe it. And somewhere in all the deception, I would lose track of my real self. It would not do. No, never. At least His Grace was willing to have me, common name and all.”

“‘Love is not love which…alteration finds,” the Duke quoted softly.

“Love!” St. John shouted. “What does he know of love? Is that the name he gives to all his pastimes? Don’t be deceived by his glibness. If I could tell you, Regina, of what he has done in the name of his ‘love.’” He stared down at her. “He is a byword for licentiousness. You are too young to understand what lengths he has gone to. How he has sullied his name and his body. What he has lain with…what women…what—”

“Creatures,” the Duke put in in an oddly subdued voice. “Almost a bestiary full, in fact. Everything save for giraffes and donkeys. I fear he is right, Regina. I have ranged far. I have done things which, for all my honesty, I would rather you did not know of. I might say that it is all done. That I expect I could become an uncommonly dull husband. That I grow old, and weary of such amusements, especially since they never did amuse me the way I expected them to. I might say that with such a wife, I would feel no need of them. I might say that you would leave no room in my admittedly small heart for any others. There simply would be no more room. That I yearn for some truth. Some end to this unending game I have played with my life. All that I might say. But he is right. Understand that completely. He is right. I can only offer you an unclean hand, and a slightly tattered title.”

“But,” she said, freeing her hands from St. John’s grip and walking toward him, where he stood rigid, close to the window with a rigid smile upon his drawn face, “you offer it in honesty. Do you not?”

“That yes,” he said seriously, for once unsmiling, cold, and curiously defenseless. “But Sinjin offers you a great deal more, Regina. Be aware of that. He offers youth, a name that is not half so shocking as mine, a title, and a fortune. It was not he who plunged you into this situation. It was not he who sent your Miss Bekins halfway across the world. It was not he who invented this cruel chase we both have led you. Yes, he became a player, he dealt himself in. At first, I believe, only to annoy me, but he soon played in earnest. But he did not invent the game. Remember, Regina, I abducted you. I harrassed you. I sought to corrupt you. I am the originator of the game, even though I was the one eventually captured by my own devices.”

“Do you withdraw your offer, then?” she asked, her eyes searching his face.

“I do wish I could,” he said regretfully. “But no. I am not, at last, so noble. I cannot change so much. It would not be possible. I still offer you, for whatever use you wish to put them to, my name, my fortune, myself.”

“Why?” she insisted, in a choked voice. “Out of guilt? A sense of reparations? To compete with Sinjin? I must know why.”

He put up both his hands in a gesture of defense, and smiling only with his lips, he said hoarsely,

“Will you play for such high stakes then? Will you leave me nothing? No little vestige of myself? I see you will not. Say then, because you are the most honorable creature I have ever found.”

“Honor.” She shook her head.

“Why do you wish to marry me, Sinjin?” she turned to ask.

“If only we were alone,” he swore, “I should show you. But why? Because I love you, Regina. I must have you with me. I can speak with you. I can commune with you. I desire you. And need you.” He tried to think of what else she would want him to say, and helplessly asked, “What else do you require of me?”

“Perhaps, honesty,” she said. And turning again to the Duke, she asked, “Do you need me, Your Grace?”

“Your Grace?” He laughed. “It is a little late in the day for that, isn’t it? At least let me hear ‘Jason’ from your lips, once.”

“Jason, then,” she said. “Leave off the game, I pray you. I must know. Do you need me? Why?”

“Have done,” he sighed. “Who would not need you?”

“Do you?” she insisted.

St. John stood still and watched them incredulously, unwilling to believe the look he saw upon her face for Torquay. She never took her eyes from his face.

The Duke, at last, so pale that she feared for him, smiled once again, only this time with real humor and tenderness.

“I need you,” he said quietly in his hoarse voice. “Indeed, more than any other man on earth could. And yes, I want you. And yes, damn it, I love you, insofar as I can understand the word. For I do not use it overmuch, as I am not sure I understand it altogether. But I am a selfish man, Regina. I think that if I really understood what love was, I would deny you. And insist that you leave at once, with Sinjin. I would renounce you. But I cannot. As I said, I am not a good man. But how foolish I am become. How can you wish to come with me, knowing what you do? I see your move now, Regina. Your victory is complete. Go to Sinjin, then. Collect all your winnings and go.”

“I want to go with you, Jason,” Regina said after a pause, hoping never again in her life to see that blanched, sick look upon his face, and wanting to erase it with her lips or her words. She stepped toward him and looked full into his face. “Whatever you have been or done. I do not know either what love is. But, to begin, I like you, Jason. Even when you frightened me, I could not help thinking of how much I could like you. I am happy with you when you cease to be on guard against me. I think of you constantly, and have done for weeks, it seems. And for some reason, I only want to be with you. And yes,” she said softly, forgetting St. John’s standing so close to the two of them, seeing only her world in the Duke’s intent eyes, “I desire you, too. You did teach me what desire is, and I find I want only you to teach me more. All of that. Is that love?”

“Let us attempt to find out,” he said gravely, catching up her hand in his.

“You cannot do this, Regina,” St. John choked. “You do not know what you are doing.”

“She is marrying me, Sinjin,” Torquay said softly, his gaze never leaving Regina, his hold on her tightening. “That is what she is doing.”

“No,” St. John began, but Regina spoke swiftly, cutting off his words.

“Yes,” she said. “But Sinjin, do not grieve. For I think you have not lost anything. I think you do not know yet what it was that you had asked of me, or whom it was that you asked it of. You wanted me to lie, and lie again, to myself and to you. You asked me to marry into a lie. No. It is you who must yet discover what love is. It is more than desire, I know. More than possession or passion, although I know that is a part of it. It is rather, in the end, I think, a part of friendship. Look to your friends for it,” she said.

“Is Amelia just outside?” the Duke said softly. “Then I must have a word with her. She must ride back with us and stay for a while at Grace Hall. For I want you well chaperoned, Regina. At least, I will begin this right. And she will want to witness our marriage. I know she will want to. But we shall invite a great many people, Regina. And you shall see how many will stumble over themselves to come to us.”

He held her hand tightly and took her to the door with him, but she paused to look up at St. John.

He stood still, his finely chiseled face seemingly graven in stone.

“Some day you will find it, Sinjin,” she said carefully, “but you were deceived. It was not I. No, never was it Regina Analise Berryman. For her, there was only desire. For ‘Lady Berry,’ there was love, and only for her. But that is…that was…never me.”

St. John stood for a long while, only staring down at the hard-won papers he had brought with him. The names: Mme. de Roche, Mme. Vicare, Mme. Chambord, swam before him. He had lost, the thought kept repeating. Lost all.

The door opened and Torquay came in once again, moving with the noiseless grace he always appeared with. St. John felt a hand upon his arm. And a soft voice said, “We would like you to come too, Sinjin. To wish us happy. Regina would like that very well. As I would. No, Sinjin, understand. You are yet young with a world of women ahead for you. Regina is the only woman in the world for me, indeed my only hope left for love…for honor, if you will. But understand, I do not gloat in triumph. I do not caper and fling your loss in your face. I, of all men, understand what a loss it is. I have long since ceased to regard this as a game. But you must pardon me for singing. For that is what I am doing, Sinjin. Forgive me. But I must sing,” and as noiselessly as he had come, he left.

St. John heard, as from a distance, the sound of a carriage in front of the inn. He walked, dazed, to the window, and saw through the rain-misted little squares, that Amelia was entering the dark coach with the distinctive crest. A moment later, he saw Jason Edward Thomas, Duke of Torquay, his distinctive bright hair dewed with rain, drape his long cloak about a small figure that stood close to him, as if welded to his side, to shelter it from the downpour. He saw the bright head dip for a moment, down under the cape-draped arm, and for a long moment the figures clung together. And then he handed her up into the coach. A moment later he entered. And then the equipage took off, the horses moving briskly down the darkened road.

But St. John Basil St. Charles, Marquis of Bessacarr, stood at the window looking out into the deserted road, some purple beribboned papers crushed in his hands, his arm against the window, his head lowered on his arm, for a long while, a very long while, after the dark coach had gone.

About the Author

Edith Layton has been writing since she was ten years old. She has worked as a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines, but has always been fascinated by English history, most particularly the Regency period. She lives on Long Island with her physician husband and three children, and collects antiques and large dogs.

The above bio appeared in the original print edition of this novel. For more information about Edith Layton's life and books, please visit edithlayton.com.