The Duke's Wager (8 page)

“No mourning clothes,” her aunt had warned her in the beginning, “for I don’t believe in them. George himself wouldn’t have expected it, and a fine sight I’ll be in all my bright colors, when my own niece is dressed like a crow.”

It will be only the one evening, Regina thought, guiltily, and at least he won’t feel like such a complete failure, and oh, I do want to get out of this house for a spell.

Belinda fussed over her hair for what seemed like hours, patting in little curls, brushing out the long cascading curl that swept over one shoulder. The little maid wore a small, secretive smile.

“Belinda,” Regina laughed, “Cousin Harry is not the Prince Regent. Why do you go to all this extraordinary effort?”

“Because, miss,” Belinda grinned, “who’s to say? It might be an extraordinary evening.”

“I’m off to Canterbury within the week, Belinda,” Regina said. “As well you know it, for you will have to get a new position when I leave.”

“That’s as may be,” Belinda grinned.

“Well leave off,” Regina said, rising, “for I’m all finished, and now I’ll have to wait an hour for Harry to get his neckcloth right and my aunt to have her hair papers taken out.”

Belinda, smiling largely, tittered out of the room. Regina stared after her with deep distrust. She had never felt an affinity with the girl, and this new behavior she was showing was unsettling. As the moments passed, Regina sat quietly, thinking about her forthcoming trip, hoping that she was suited for the new life she was going to attempt to make for herself. While the tuition of small girls might not seem very exciting, she thought, there might be compensations.

Belinda poked her head in the door.

“Oh miss,” she smiled, “there’s someone to see you, and I’ve taken the liberty of showing him to the study.”

“To see me?” Regina asked, and seeing Belinda’s affirmative nod, realized that it might be another of her uncle’s business acquaintances. Several of them had paid courtesy calls to her that first week. And since she could not think of another living soul who would seek her out here, Regina went down the stairs reasoning that it was some acquaintance of her uncle’s who perhaps had been out of town when the tragedy had occurred. Only, she hesitated at the door to the study, what will he think of me not wearing black? And she gazed down at the sweeping green gown that she wore.

Ah well, she thought, as Aunt says, what is done, is done and said. And with Belinda hovering behind her, she entered the study.

It was dimly lit, and in the first moment her eyes had to accustom themselves to the shadowy light thrown by the sole burning lamp. She could hear Belinda giggle as she closed the door behind her. What is the matter with the girl, she thought with annoyance, leaving me alone here with a guest?

But a moment later, when she could see who stood before her, smiling beatifically at her, she could only draw in her breath with a gasp.

She recognized him instantly, for he had never been too far from her thoughts, and acknowledging the recognition, he bowed. He looked, she thought inconsequentially, as disturbingly beautiful as he had that night at the Opera.

His pale hair reflected the dim glow of the lamp, his large innocent blue eyes smiled at her. The nose, she thought, is too long and thin and straight for a cherub, the face too lean, the mouth too curling. But there is such an air of disarming innocence. He wore dark evening dress, and she could see that the tapered coat that covered the slight frame did not conceal the long muscles of his shoulders, nor did the close-fitting breeches obscure the tight strength of his legs. When he spoke, it was in the same hoarsely sweet voice that had haunted her dreams all these past weeks.

“I see,” he said softly, “that age has not withered you. I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner.”

Her back stiffened, “But custom will stale me, sir. I take leave to tell you to get out.”

He looked at her with great interest. “Wit too? I am most fortunate. But I shall not ‘get out,’ Regina, at least not yet, when it has taken me so very long to get in.”

“How?” she began, but he cut her off with a wave of one long pale hand. “Very simple stuff, Regina,” he said caressingly. “Nothing to even gloat about. A few coins, a few kisses on the right lips, and any door will open to you.”

She shook her head, sending the curl of hair tossing back against her shoulder. “Why have you gone to all this trouble, sir? Following me, watching the house, and now, coming here? I made it quite clear the last time we met, when you insulted me, that I want nothing to do with you.”

“It was no trouble at all, and not at all an insult,” he said, smiling with some inner joy. “And what you want, Regina, has very little to do with it. I saw you, and lost my poor heart. I was enraptured,” he said, placing one hand over his breast. “Is that what you want to hear? No matter. It’s true. You are very lovely. And being inaccessible made you even lovelier, if possible. I offer you that much-used organ, Regina. Be mine,” he crooned.

“Well, you certainly are mad.” Regina smiled with relief, thinking it was only that he was a little deranged, or a buffoon. “But now that you have made your remarkable offer, I tell you that I am untouched by it, and want nothing to do with you. Now sir,” she went on, disturbed by the ceaseless smile, “I’m sure that there are many women who would be most honored by your confession. Unfortunately,” she shrugged, “I am not one of them. You find before you a female most singularly untouched by gentler emotions. So pray take yourself elsewhere, before I have to call my cousin for assistance in convincing you of my sincerity.”

“Harry?” purred the Duke. “Oh hardly Harry. Can you imagine him laying hands upon a duke of the realm? Really, Regina, you are not giving me any credit at all, are you?” She noticed that now he had stopped smiling and was looking at her steadily. “It’s very simple, my dear. Very unfair, if you will, but nonetheless, simple. I am not a good man. I am at the present, as a matter of record, rejoicing in one of the most evil reputations in all of England. But don’t pity me, Regina, for I swear it is well deserved. But I am very wealthy, and I am a duke, a duke of all things. And you are a commoner. Moreover, much to my joy, you are a commoner with no connections at all. No resources. No protector. You are my natural meat, Regina. My natural prey. I want you. Not, perhaps, in a spiritual fashion, rather in a very mortal fashion. For I, too, am a creature most singularly untouched by the gentler emotions. It is not gentle emotions that I spoke of, though. But I do want you, and what I want, I eventually have. Do you understand? You will profit by the experience, I think. You most certainly will be much richer for it. So be a good, sensible girl, and come along with me now. My carriage,” he said, sweeping a bow, “awaits.”

“You are mad,” she gasped, her eyes widening, “I am not a broom, or a tiepin, or…a snuffbox…a thing that you can see in a shop window and want, and take. I am not an object for your pleasure,” she went on. “I am a living, breathing person. No one can just take me.”

“You’re making it all very difficult, but exhilarating,” he said. “And you know very little. I can most certainly take you, Regina, any time I choose, even right here.” She backed against the door.

“But I think I won’t,” he mused, “because I do like leisure and comfort. And if you were a tiepin or a snuffbox, I wouldn’t want you quite so much. And the fact that you insist on being recognized as a thinking person, with certain rights, makes you all the most stimulating,” he said, now smiling radiantly.

“You are like some creature out of a bad dream,” Regina cried. “For all that I speak sense to you, you smile and smile, and continue as if I had said nothing. You seem to be untouched by reality. This is my uncle…my aunt’s house. I have a staff of servants here, my cousin and aunt are at this very moment waiting for me. Soon they will look for me. And you stand here and smile and tell me that you want me, that I am to come with you…surely you are playing some elaborate joke.…
”

“You think,” he said, considering, his head tilted to one side, “that the houseful of servants and aunts and cousins make a large difference?”

She heard her aunt’s strident voice in the hall, and shored up by the shrill sounds, held her head high. “Yes, and now, Your Grace, if you would leave….” He had heard the sounds as well, and seemed to be listening closely to the progress of the noises.

“Yes,” he said, and smiled again. He walked close to her, so close that she could scent the faint aroma of Bay rum and wine and tobacco on his person. The large wide blue eyes, now unsmiling, looked down into hers, and with a quick grace, he reached and drew her to him. His lips gently, she thought with surprise, very tenderly covered hers.

In that first instant, her shock gave way to surprise at the tenderness, at the small thrill that involuntarily raced through herself at the touch of those warm soft gentle lips upon hers. He held her as gently as she had ever been held, although her confused mind remembered that she had never been thus held. Still, he pressed his body to hers, and she felt him communicate an urgency of desire to her. In that first moment, she swayed against him, responding to the startling effect his presence had upon her, but before she could recover herself, indeed at the very moment she felt her resolve returning and her body tensed to push him away, instead, he cast her roughly away from him and said in a loud harsh voice, “No good, Regina, no good, I will not take you back.”

She turned, startled, to see her aunt framed in the now open door, looking at her aghast, and her cousin, staring at her with shock.

“I’m terribly sorry,” said the Duke, sweeping a bow to her aunt, “to discompose you good people. Allow me to introduce myself. Jason Thomas, Duke of Torquay,” he went on, seeming very cold and contained. “Forgive me for this unseemly intrusion. But Regina had sent me a note of urgent import, and I came here posthaste. But,” he said, his blue eyes cold and narrowed, “I found only that I was to receive the same message I have received before. I do apologize for entering your house unannounced, but she had said it was a matter of some secrecy. I beg your pardon, and will take leave of you now.”

He walked to the door and hesitated for a moment, looking down into Regina’s dazed eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said in a clearly carrying stage whisper, “but it is over, Regina. I will not take you back. Your cousin looks like a good enough chap. Take care not to damage your future any further, my girl. For I will not acknowledge the child.”

And with one more courtly bow and a set cold expression, he left.

She packed her things quietly but quickly, as her aunt insisted. She tried to shut out the sounds of abuse from her aunt, but still some of the words drifted through. “…Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth…sweet and quiet…battening on our largesse…throwing out lures to my son, and with a bastard already well on its way.…
”
She had to carry her own traveling case to the door. Belinda was nowhere to be seen. Regina felt she had already gone, counting the coins she had earned.

She wore a cloak, and was glad of the hood which concealed her face, for she did not want her aunt to see her tears as she said again, yet again, “I know you will never believe me, but it was not so. It is not so.” Harry only stood and stared at her as though she were from some foreign land.

When the door slammed shut behind her, she lifted the case and descended the steps. At the bottom of them, when she reached the street, she felt someone take the grip from her frozen fingers, felt a hand propel her toward the street, and was roughly pushed into the carriage. She sank back against the cushions and saw him sitting across from her, smiling, smiling happily in the darkened coach.

“You see, Regina,” he said in that curiously confidential whisper that she had shivered in remembrance of, “you see how very simple it was?”

VI

“I do not understand, I cannot understand,” she said slowly, addressing him, looking toward the dim blur of his face in the shadowy interior of the carriage. They traveled unhurriedly on through the streets of town, the well-sprung coach swaying only slightly, and she had gotten a little time to collect her wits; so she went on in a low voice, almost reflectively, “You know, there are times, usually times of stress, when one is haunted by bad dreams.”

“My governess was of the opinion that they were brought on by a bad conscience, or a surfeit of sweets ingested before bedtime,” he said conversationally, relaxing against the plump cushions.

“No,” she shook her head, “no, that is not what I’m trying to say. In these troubled dreams, there is often a figure…or an object, something that would be quite benign, actually harmless in a waking state. But in these dreams, this object is invested with all sorts of sinister, dreadful terror. One does not know what sort of harm it betokens, but one knows it would be ruinous to oneself, and so throughout the dream, one runs from it. But, even in crowds of people, even alone in a locked room, somehow, by the magic of dreams, it comes through, it confronts…you can never escape it.”

“An object?” he said with amusement.

“Anything, I suppose it is different for each dreamer…anything from a table to an owl to a mouse, but the terror comes from the fact that you know it is malevolent, and you do not understand why it constantly pursues you, or what harm it means, and why you cannot escape it.”

“But I am neither a table nor a mouse, Regina, and I mean you no harm. But yes, your analogy holds in one respect, you cannot escape me,” he mused in a gentle voice.

“And if,” she went on, lost in her train of thought, “you have not already been fortunate enough to waken, shivering in terror at your close call with danger, and if you go on dreaming, there are times when you turn and face the pursuer. But no matter what you do, it is unswervable. If you hack at it, the pieces rise to chase you; if you set it afire, it follows you in flames; it is indestructable, it is relentless. But it all is only a dream; through it all, some part of you knows that it is only a dream, for no living creature could be that deficient of reason, that implacable. A living creature could be reasoned with,” she said, staring hard at him.