The Wicked Duke (7 page)

“No, sir, you will not. I will not accept such familiarity.”

“And I will not accept the formality of addressing you as Miss Radley, especially since another Miss Radley sits in the carriage.” He leaned forward. “I will call you pretty flower, until you think more familiarity is acceptable.”

It might be wiser to allow him to use her given name, rather than suffer this endearment. She tried to form a terse rejection of both, to no avail. The words kept scrambling. Lack of experience made her utterly incapable of handling this advance with anything resembling sophistication.

His position, with his arms on his knees, brought him very close to her. To her astonishment, he reached out and took her hand. The warmth of his touch flowed right
through her glove, and up her arm. Then it kept going, as if he heated her blood.

He began removing her glove. She watched, mesmerized by the intimacy of the small act. His fingers slid along her skin as they coaxed the glove down, bit by bit. His devilish slow disrobing of her hand caused his fingertips to keep skimming her inner arm. Her breath caught, and a shiver slid from her neck to her stomach.

“What . . . what are you doing?”

He drew off the glove completely, and held her hand in his, skin on skin. “You will not allow me to kiss you on the lips, I am sure. But this is not dangerous or scandalous. If we had been introduced differently, I would have done it right in front of your uncle.”

With that, he bowed his head over her hand, and kissed it.

Only it was not the kind of kiss a man might make to a lady's hand upon an introduction. Not a mere brushing or peck. He
kissed
her hand. Slowly. Seductively.

He hovered so his breath warmed her skin. Chills danced up her arm.

He pressed warm lips, then moved them so his mouth caressed her. She watched, mesmerized by the sight of his ardor, and by the effect it had on her. A new alertness affected all her senses. It felt like time had slowed to allow him to kiss at his leisure.

He turned her hand palm up, and kissed yet more. Prickly signs of arousal stirred in her stomach, astonishing her. Parts of her body that she rarely noticed came alive with sensations.

He gently nipped each fingertip. Each delicate pressure sent delicious shocks up her arm. Finally, he bit the pad at the base of her thumb. A scandalous pleasure tensed deep inside her.

The warmth of his lips edged over onto her wrist's pulse, and the sensation exploded.

She started, and pulled her hand away.

He looked at her. Not surprised. Not annoyed. He just waited while he watched her.

Her mind strove to form words to scold him, but her embarrassment would not allow them to form. Self-reproach for permitting such liberties came together neatly, however.

After one last, deep look into her eyes, he took the oars and began rowing again. It had been a knowing look, too honest in reflecting what he saw—a woman who had not resisted soon enough, considering what he had done.

When they arrived at the lake's bank, she clambered out of the boat and strode toward the carriage. She replaced her glove on her hand with difficulty, since she also carried her bonnet.

His boots fell into place beside her. “You can reprimand me if you want.”

“And continue to be the lord's fool? I will only scold this far. You are not to do that again. Nor do you need to call again, since you have had the kiss you say I owed you, even though I owed you nothing of the kind.”

“I think you may be right about that. I believe, now that I remember, that it was indeed a dance at the next assembly, as you claim.”

“You are impossible, and very bad. I know all about you. I knew even when I was a girl, and I can see you are even badder now.”

“I do not think
badder
is a word.”

“Should I say
wicked
, as everyone else does?”

“It has a certain flair to it, while
bad
is a word so often used as to be boring. It is applied to all sorts of ordinary things. The food has gone bad. He had a bad fall.
Wicked
, however, is always about a person at least, and much more precise.”

Between her embarrassment, and his teasing, she was flustered and at wits' end by the time they arrived at the carriage.

She hurried, to claim the sanctuary of having Nora nearby. When she saw the carriage window, however, all thoughts of the duke vanished. She broke into a run.

She pulled open the door. Her heart turned to lead and sank hard. “She is not here.
Nora is gone
.”

Aylesbury strode over, looked in, then called to the coachman. “Where did the lady go?”

The coachman rounded the carriage and looked inside. “I was here the whole time, Your Grace. Except the few minutes just now when I, um . . .” He looked at Marianne and flushed. “When I made a visit to the brush over there.” He pointed to the other side of the road.

She strode to the bank of the lake so she could see down the road better. She prayed she would spy Nora's thin form and yellow dress strolling away. Instead the road showed empty.

Aylesbury joined her, scanning as hard as she.

She turned her gaze on the lake. Horror shouted in her head. Yellow could be seen in the water a few hundred feet away. She clawed at the duke's arm and pointed. “
Look
. In the lake.”

“Stay here,” he commanded her sharply. He called to the coachman to follow and started running.

She ran, too, cursing herself for not being more careful, fighting tears that blinded her.

Aylesbury walked right into the lake and swam toward the yellow fabric billowing atop the water. He dove. For a few horrible moments nothing happened. The worst sensation spread through Marianne, one of pending grief too profound to bear.

Then Aylesbury's head broke the water. So did Nora's. He started back, pulling Nora's limp body with him. Marianne gasped hard for breath, not in relief but in dread.

She reached them just as he and the coachman dragged Nora onto the bank. Her muslin dress, transparent now, showed her body in all its pale thinness.

Nora looked dead. There was no way to pretend she did not. She neither moved nor breathed. An eerie serenity had claimed her face.

Marianne fell to her knees and took Nora in her arms. “She warned me. I will never forgive myself for not keeping better watch, especially today when she was forced to—” She glared over at Aylesbury. “How careless I have been. I should have refused my uncle. Fought him today. I should have walked away into abject poverty rather than allow him to risk her like this.”

Aylesbury reached for Nora. “She was not in long.”
He turned Nora over on the ground, and pressed firmly on her back.

“Again, milord,” the coachman said, watching with fearful eyes.

Aylesbury pushed again. And again. This time water streamed out Nora's mouth. He pushed once more.

Nora coughed. Then her shoulders rose and she coughed again and again.

Relief made Marianne weak. She embraced Nora's shoulders while the air entered her and consciousness returned. Nora remained face to the ground while she came back to life.

“What were you thinking, darling?” Marianne whispered in her ear while she cried out her anger with herself. “Forgive me for not knowing what his company would do, even for a short while. Forgive me for not standing up to your father. I will take care of you, and if it means we both leave that house, so be it.”

Aylesbury had stood so Marianne could tend to her cousin. Now he bent down, turned Nora, and lifted her in his arms. He began striding back to the carriage, with the coachman and Marianne in his wake.

They bundled her into the blanket, and Aylesbury gave orders to make haste back to the house. Marianne held Nora the whole way.

A hearty footman carried Nora into the house.

“Take her to my chamber,” Marianne said. “Find my uncle and send him at once,” she commanded another servant.

Up in her chamber, Marianne had Katy remove Nora's
soaked clothes and dress her in one of Marianne's nightdresses. They tucked her into the bed, and built up the fire. Nora looked very small there. Childish and helpless.

Nora opened her eyes. She saw Marianne, and reached for her hand. “Do not scold.”

“I will not scold
you
.” With Nora safe and dry, however, her anger kept building. Anger at herself, for not being more careful, and at her uncle, for being so cruel, and at Aylesbury, for being so bad his whole life he did not even remember all the wicked things he had done.

Uncle Horace burst into the chamber and strode to the bed. Seeing his daughter awake resulted in a long sigh of relief that gave Marianne heart. At least he had cared enough to worry.

He collected himself. “See she is kept warm,” he ordered Katy. “Get some sherry in her. That should help.”

Marianne touched his arm. “Uncle, I would speak with you.” She walked to the door.

In the passageway, with the door to her chamber firmly closed, she faced her uncle.

“Aylesbury said something about the lake,” he muttered. “Could you not prevent it?”

“She did not fall in the lake. She
walked into the lake
.” Marianne spoke lowly, but the words came out clipped and furious. “She threatened as much. You demanded she accompany the duke on this ride, and this is the result.”

“He is soaked. He went in after her. He saved her, the coachman said.”

“
He is the reason she even did it
. Are we now to be grateful he ruined his nice coats to drag her out?” She
turned on her heel. “He is still here? Good. I am going to tell him he is responsible, and that his actions today do not change that. I am going to let him know the damage he did three years ago, and—”

Her uncle's firm grasp stopped her in mid-stride. “You dare not. You cannot accuse him based on the fevered ravings of a woman.”

“I can and I will.”

“No. If you do it, I will say you are as mad as she.”

“Are you so concerned about your forced friendship with this man that you will risk sacrificing your own daughter to your ambitions? Do not think I do not understand what motivates you. It is not Nora, or her welfare.”

“How dare you speak thus to me. I will—”

“Throw me out on the road? Do it. I am not without resources or skills.”

Her voice rang louder than she intended. She heard herself, and forced a calm on her demeanor that she did not feel in her heart. “You will abandon your plan regarding her marriage to him, or to anyone, until and unless she chooses to wed. Do you hear me, Uncle? If you persist in this, I will find a way to remove her from this house, even if I have to go into service to provide for her. She tried to make good on her threat today, and if ever there was proof that she will not accept marriage, that is it.”

Uncle Horace's expression changed from fury to chagrin by the time she finished.

“I will not expect her to marry,” he finally said. “In turn you are to promise that you will not throw
accusations at Aylesbury. They cannot be proven, and such men have power you do not comprehend.”

His quick capitulation surprised her. Perhaps how close they came to tragedy today added weight to her demand.

“I will go down and thank the duke for his help today,” Uncle Horace said. “I will communicate your gratitude as well, in ways I doubt you could voice sincerely right now.”

Marianne returned to Nora while her uncle descended the stairs. He had been right. After the events of the day, gratitude was the last thing she was inclined to give His Grace.

The Times of London

. . . To conclude our letter, we can report that Lord Ywain Hemingford of Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, has arrived in Gloucestershire to visit his brother, the Duke of Aylesbury. It is unknown whether the visit is a matter of business or is strictly familial, but locals have noted that Lord Ywain was not accompanied by his new wife, whose father, Hadrian Belvoir, had Newgate Prison as his domicile in the autumn, an incarceration that has now been described as an error. It is assumed that his wife remained in London to continue her studies with her tutors.

Elijah Tewkberry, Gloucestershire

“There is no reason for both of you to be bored too.” Lance ended his explanation of why his brothers should leave while they handed their horses to the groom.

That Ives dallied at Merrywood was bad enough. That Gareth had arrived yesterday did not bode well. It meant Ives had written and bidden him to come, in the hopes that Gareth could lure out of Lance that which Ives could not learn by badgering.

Ives wanted to know who “she” was. His lawyer's mind had concocted untold disasters waiting if Lance pursued a woman here in the county. Lance's refusal to go up to London with him two days ago only solidified Ives's view that something was afoot that required investigation.

“Just tell me where you went the other day, and I will leave,” Ives said. “You took the carriage.”

He referred to Lance's absence on the afternoon he called on Miss Radley.

“I told you I had the carriage take me to the lake so I could do some rowing. A man cannot live for weeks on end without exercise.” They strolled toward the house. “If you persist in prying, I may invite you to box for a few rounds, in order to release my irritation with your questions while I exercise more.”

“Have you developed a fondness for the lake of late?” Gareth asked. He always smiled when he pried, and he now beamed his most amiable expression in Lance's direction. Gareth's notable charm had ingratiated him with many ladies of the ton prior to his marriage, and it served him well with men too. It had probably, Lance admitted,
created the bond he and Ives felt for Gareth even if he was a half brother, and a bastard.

“Not particularly. Why do you ask?”

“We visited today. We went out of our way to do so.”

“We were riding. One rides here and there. We had no destination, so we could not go out of our way.”

Lance would not mind telling them about that ride with Miss Radley. If Ives had not turned into, well, Ives, he might have. Today's visit to the lake
had
been deliberate, so he could take a good look at the bank of that lake near where Nora Radley had almost drowned.

He had seen no evidence that she might have fallen in. No marks in the mud. No disturbance of the weeds or brush. The bank was not especially treacherous there. In fact it sloped to the water, making it easy to just walk in.

Is that what she had done? Marianne's dismay suggested as much. It disturbed him that he might have come so close to seeing one so young take her own life.

He had mulled over the evidence frequently since he left Sir Horace that day. The outing's bad ending had done much to remove from his mind the slow seduction of Miss Radley's hand, and her apparent arousal from it.

They entered the house by the library's garden doors. No sooner had they done so than a servant stepped into the library and handed Lance a card.

Gareth craned his neck to read it. “Sir Horace. That is interesting. Perhaps he has come to inform you that the coroner will finally be settling matters regarding Percy's death.”

Somehow Lance doubted it. An oblique reference to doing that, made by Sir Horace in the autumn, had yielded nothing yet. Little had changed since then. More likely Sir Horace was using the excuse of Lance saving his daughter to insinuate himself further into a friendship.

“I should see him alone.”

“Certainly,” Ives said. He and Gareth retraced their steps and retreated to the garden.

Sir Horace, upon being presented, took a deliberate pose so Lance might examine him and note his dress and stance. One foot forward, back straight, nose high, he gazed with aggressive self-confidence. His gray hair had been slicked back, making his gaunt face all the more angular in appearance. His eyes appeared as narrow slits of bright smugness.

Sir Horace looked to be a man who intended to have his worth known today.

Lance could not imagine why.

“Will you have some brandy, Sir Horace?” Lance went to the decanters, since he knew one of them at least would imbibe.

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Glasses in hand, and asses settled on chairs facing each other, they sipped. Then Sir Horace set his glass down and put his hands on his knees. “I have come on a very important matter, sir. Not a mere social call.”

Hopefully, as Gareth had suggested, Horace was here as a justice of the peace, to inform Lance that the nine-month winter of his life was over.

“I will be clear and quick with it,” Sir Horace said, eyeing Lance with a steely glint. “I have come to advise you to marry my niece, Marianne Radley.”

Lance rarely found himself astonished. Now his surprise was such that he wondered if Sir Horace had gone mad.

That amazement soon gave way to a profound irritation. He had suffered much the last nine months, in part due to this man's intransigence. He had of late tolerated Sir Horace's company during rides he intended to take alone. Now this. Sir Horace had gone too far.

“How good of you to worry for my domestic contentment, sir.”

Horace rested back in his chair. “You do not like my presumption, I can see. I remind you that I am not only a mere neighbor, and one below you in rank at that. I am a justice of the peace.”

“How does that signify to the matter at hand?”

“I've the means to make you swing, Your Grace. I've proof enough you poisoned your brother. Like most men, I want to better myself, so I offer a bargain. Marry my niece, and I will not only keep this proof to myself, I will tell the coroner to close out the matter.”

Lance knew a moment of relief that Ives had gone into the garden. While normally of even temper, Ives was quick to fight when provoked, and if he sat where Lance now did, Sir Horace would soon find himself thrashed bloody.

Not that Lance took the threat, and the arrogance with which Sir Horace said it, without rising rancor.

“Do you expect me to trust that you have this proof?”

“If you've a bit of sense, you will. I've a person who will swear he saw you by your brother's food that night. Food prepared on a tray to go up to his private chambers. Saw you fussing with it. He came to me first, and I convinced him to tell no one else. Yet. If he lays down this information, however, that is all that will be needed, and you know it. You and your brother did not like each other. Lots of animosity for years. Then, with his passing, you got all of this.” His hand waved around the library, implying all that lay beyond.

As Lance listened, a raw emptiness spread out from his gut. He had come to know the sensation well these last months. It usually emerged at night, during his darkest hours, and he had resisted naming it for a long time. Ignoble fear. Pending doom. It evoked the insidious temptation to panic that all trapped men felt.

“Who is this person who claims to have seen this?”

Sir Horace laughed. “Let us just say it is someone I can put my hands on quickly enough, who will speak if I ask it of him.”

“Damnation, whoever it is, he lies. I did not even dine here myself, so I have no idea of where and when my brother did.”

“So you have said, many times.” Sir Horace picked up his glass and sipped some brandy. He appeared pleased with himself, and unwavering. Protestations of innocence would do Lance no good.

“Why your niece?”

“You find her at least moderately appealing, if you called. And my daughter . . .” He looked down at his glass. “My daughter is not suitable due to her illness.”

Lance stood. Hands in pockets lest he succumb to his urge to punch Sir Horace, he paced away.

He did not need to ask why Sir Horace wanted this marriage. Any relationship to a duke brought advantages. It nearly always could be exploited for financial gain. Sir Horace's ability to get close to a man of influence would bring him influence in turn. Others would curry his favor, and offer him partnerships.

Most likely in the years ahead, if this marriage happened, Sir Horace would be sitting here many times, demanding some favor or another that would ultimately enrich him and his new friends.

“I will add some honey to the pot,” Sir Horace said. “I have considerable influence with the coroner. Not only will you not swing if you agree to my plan, but I will also see that you are exonerated. At least officially. He will change his determination from unknown causes, to natural causes.”

Lance would have liked to dismiss this new offer, but it pulled at his soul. The suspicions about him had made time stand still. With such a sword hanging over a man's head, he could never be truly free.

As for the “at least officially”—there would always be some talk of it, but without the official exoneration of this crime, the common references to it would never cease, no matter how virtuous a life he may lead.

“You are assuming the lady will have me.”

“What woman would not?”

A willful woman. A smart woman. “I'll not have you coerce her, as you are coercing me, if I agree to this. One partner in such a match is bad enough.”

“I am counting on your seeing that no coercion is necessary. Women aplenty have made fools of themselves over you. What is one more?” Sir Horace gazed over with a wizened spark in his eyes. “Woo her if you choose. Play the lovesick swain. Seduce if necessary. I leave the details to your expertise.”

“And if she proves intractable? There is no way you can force her to accept a proposal when it comes. All my expertise may be for naught.”

Sir Horace chuckled. “Possibly, possibly. We will consider that problem should it arise. I am sure it will not.” His mirth died. “Do we have a right understanding, Your Grace?”

It was a hell of a bargain, and one not to accept if there were any other choice. “I need to think about it.”

Sir Horace got to his feet. “Think all you want, but not too long. The coroner has been restless for several months now, and it can go badly if he is left to his own conclusions.”

*   *   *

“I
'll be damned.”

Ives muttered the curse for the third time. Or was it the fourth?

He and Gareth sat with Lance in Lance's dressing room. A bottle of port, its contents almost depleted, stood on the dressing table. Glasses dotted the chamber.

Lance had sent for them when it became clear he would not sleep this night. Now they all sat half foxed, ruminating over the news he had shared about Radley's visit.

“No,
I'll
be damned, from the looks of it, no matter what I do,” Lance said. “Have you no advice? No insights? No calls for action? No
solution
?”

That made his brothers alert.

“What do you think of her?” Gareth asked.

“What he thinks of her does not matter,” Ives said. “Lance, you cannot agree to marriage on these terms. He is bluffing. Lying.”

“Or someone is lying to him,” Gareth said.

“Let us assume it is the latter. Not because I trust Radley, but because he appeared far too sure of himself. If there is indeed a person willing to hang me with a lie, who might it be?” Lance grabbed the bottle, poured some, and passed it around. “A servant in this house, I expect, since only the servants and I were here. There is no one else to claim to have seen anything.”

“That hardly helps,” Gareth said. “There must be forty of them. How would you ferret out the scoundrel?”

“Actually, there are seventy or so,” Lance said.

“Eighty-seven, counting the ones on the grounds,” Ives corrected.

How like Ives to know.

“Yet not all eighty-seven would have excuses to be where a dinner might be prepared or transported,” Gareth offered.

Lance waved that idea off. “Any of them could find an
excuse to explain how they came to see me at my nefarious deed. We are stuck with all of them as possibilities.”

More silent rumination.

“I am going to put Radley off,” Lance said. “I will attend on the lady, and allow Radley to think I am going to propose. While I dance attendance, I will find out who this witness is.”

He set aside his glass and closed his eyes. Attending on Miss Radley—Marianne—would not be difficult. He had intended to anyway, to occupy his time. He did not like the idea of being required to court her, however. No man would. Just as no man, least of all a duke, would allow the likes of Sir Horace to dictate his choice of wife.