Five Days With a Duke, page 13
Constance tugged her hand free, and he yearned to link their fingers once more.
Connell caught her lightly about the arm, staying her, keeping her there, close to him. Where she shouldn’t be. But he wanted her there anyway. But then, he’d never been one to do that which he was supposed to.
“You are not wrong…” He grimaced. “That is… you were correct, Constance.” Their gazes locked. “There was an element of cynicism on my part. A large degree of it, but it wasn’t long before I enjoyed…” Her breath caught, and he moved his eyes over her face. Being with you. “Our talks,” he finished, the words true, but not complete in how he felt.
She opened her mouth, but he pressed two fingers against her lips, halting the words. “It’s not pity,” he said with a quiet insistence. “You have helped me far more than I’ve helped you, and if Iris saw benefit in us working together, then it could only be right.”
Constance remained silent for a long while, and he braced for her rejection. He didn’t want to think that this was the end of their time together. Only because she represented a diversion from the dreariness that was his life. That was all it was.
“Very well,” she said softly, holding her fingers out, and the slight lifting of his heart made a liar out of those earlier assurances.
“Of course,” he said, laying his palm in hers and agreeing to terms that brought him to smile.
“We’ve two more days.”
Two days. That effectively killed Connell’s grin. He’d come here, wanting her back in his life for the remainder of their agreed-upon time, which was just two days. “Was it… just two lessons left?”
“It was… is.” Did he imagine the wistful, almost sad quality to her confirmation? Or did he merely project his own miserable sentiments in that moment?
“Tomorrow, we meet in Hyde Park,” he murmured.
“Hyde…?” Three little endearing lines wrinkled her brow, and he brushed a finger over them.
“At eight o’clock on the edge of the Serpentine.” With that, Connell forced himself to stop touching her… and left.
Chapter 12
“But what did he waaant?” Constance’s mother pressed for the thirtieth time since Connell had taken his leave yesterday.
Shrugging into her cloak, Constance did what she did best where her mother was concerned—she deflected. “Who?” she asked, latching the clasp at her throat.
From the corner of her eye, she caught the grin on her maid’s lips, and Constance winked.
The countess emitted a huff of annoyance. “Who? Who else would I be talking about?” She looked to Dorinda and then moved closer to Constance. “His Grace,” Mother said in an egregiously loud whisper.
“Ah. I already told you, Mother,” she said with a like exasperation.
Her mother furrowed her brow, and as Constance started for the door, her mother followed quickly after. “You did?”
“I did,” she lied.
“I don’t think you did,” the countess said, speaking to herself. “I’m certain that I’d remember something so very—”
And God bless Scott for waiting at the door so she could make her escape. “Good afternoon, Mother.” Constance gave a wave and set out with Dorinda close at her heels.
“Where are you going?” the countess cried from behind her.
“To Hyde Park.”
There, at least, she’d offered her mother a truth.
“But… but it’s freezing out.”
Constance scoffed. “I’d hardly say it’s freezing.”
Except, as Scott drew the oak panels open, a gust of wind whipped through the foyer, making a liar of her. Constance forced a smile. “See? Pleasantly warm for the winter, it is.”
Scott closed the door on her mother’s sputtering, and Constance hastened down the steps for the waiting carriage.
A short while later, having left Dorinda at the ancient conveyance with her sweetheart, the driver, Constance found her way through Hyde Park.
Her teeth chattering, she rubbed her palms together. The old gloves, thin from wear, did little to keep the chill out. And yet, even with the wind making a tangle of her skirts and biting into her skin, she couldn’t contain the excitement that ran through her. At seeing him. At being here, alone with Connell Wordsworth, the Duke of Renaud.
As she recognized it was pointless trying to lie to herself, she owned that eagerness. Oh, she didn’t seek to convince herself that it was in any way right.
And yet…
Would Emilia truly blame Constance? Emilia, who’d fallen in love with Connell’s best friend?
Even if you had Emilia’s blessing, that would do nothing to erase the fact that Connell himself would be forever enthralled by his first love. Nor had Connell given any indication that he even wanted more with Constance.
But he did enjoy being with her. He’d said as much.
“And you’re being pathetic,” she mouthed. Constance stomped up the rise that looked down at the shore of the Serpentine and immediately found him there.
A solitary figure in midnight black, a stark mark upon an otherwise gray landscape.
She paused and devoured the sight of him: his broad back, his long legs encased in fawn breeches that hugged heavily muscled limbs.
She sighed. Is it a wonder she or any woman would fall to a puddle for this man?
Only…
The wind caught the strings of her bonnet and sent them whipping under her chin.
This appreciation for Connell went beyond more than the physical… or the feel of his mouth on hers. There was a kindred connection with this man, where she could speak freely, without censure and without care that he might judge her, because he never judged.
Connell turned, and doffing his hat, he waved it toward her.
Even with the fifteen feet between them and the slight rise, she caught the smile on his lips.
Lifting her hem, Constance skipped down the hill.
Skipped. When was the last time she’d moved with such exuberance?
Surely it had been as a girl, plotting and planning with her friends on how to win the heart of a duke.
Constance stumbled as that old memory came sliding in. She fell and tumbled over herself, rolling down the hill, also as she had as a girl. Those times, however, had been intentional.
She grunted and came to a stop at the bottom and looked up.
Connell grinned down at her. “I used to love doing that as a boy.” He held a hand out, and she stretched her fingers up, joining their palms as one.
In one effortless pull, he drew her up. She fell into his arms and remained there, wanting to stay there forever.
Alas, he immediately set her away. “Come now,” he urged, tugging her onward.
How did he still not realize she’d follow him anywhere?
“Who did you go tumbling down hills with? Do you have siblings?”
He shook his head and didn’t break stride. “Alas, my parents were dutiful to all Society’s rules, but failed to adhere to the requisite spare.”
She could imagine him as he’d been, mischievous and troublesome and even wilder than he was as a grown man. That only reminded her of how much of this man remained a mystery.
He’d also offered a glimpse into his past. “They were endlessly proper, I take it?”
“They took their ducal and duchess responsibilities with a greater seriousness than the king took his royal ones, I always said.”
Constance searched the beautiful planes of his face for some indication of what he was feeling. “Was yours… a lonely childhood?”
He slowed his steps, and his brows came together. “I was never alone. Society would never dare leave an heir to a dukedom alone. And certainly not my parents.” A wry grin formed on his lips. “No matter how much I might have wished for it.” He gestured with his hat as he spoke. “There were always plenty of people underfoot. Tutors and instructors and solicitors and men of affairs, all people who’d one day answer to me.”
Constance stopped, and Connell came back around to face her. “That’s not the same thing,” she said softly. “Being with people is not the same as being with people.”
His expression grew wistful. “No. No, you’re right on that score.”
“Hazel and Iris,” she supplied, knowing him enough now to gather just how much that beloved pair had shaped him.
“I didn’t realize how solitary my existence was until them. I never knew the difference, as you pointed out,” he clarified. “From my days at Eton and Oxford and then after, I surrounded myself with so many people, but I didn’t realize until much later that those people weren’t really friends and were certainly not family. I’d only had one true good friend,” he murmured, and they resumed walking.
“Lord Mulgrave.”
He nodded.
“I… trust that will always be hard for you,” she said softly. “I am sorry for that.”
Connell scoffed. “Don’t be. I’ve told you, I regret how I handled the dissolution of my betrothal, and yet, I don’t regret not being with Lady Emilia.”
She chewed at her lip. Those thoughts weren’t compatible.
“You’re thinking that doesn’t make any logical sense,” he hazarded as they started for the Serpentine.
Constance huddled into her cloak, “A-a bit.” The winter chill lent a quiver to her words. She was also thinking that another person being able to read her unspoken thoughts would never be anything but unnerving.
“If we’d wed, we would have been happy, until someday when she realized that mayhap there was another man who was better for her. A man who made her smile in ways I didn’t and be free in ways she wasn’t around me. And that man would have been my best friend.” He gave his head a wry shake. “Imagine how very miserable each of us would have been, then?”
“That… is certainly a way of looking at it.” A way she’d not considered.
“Heath is her soul mate in ways I never was.”
“I don’t…” Unfamiliar with the term, Constance shook her head.
“Soul mates,” he repeated. “Two people with a lifelong bond. It is the strongest one a person can know. Coleridge recently wrote of it.”
She was reminded all over again that he’d a love of poetry and was a wordsmith.
They reached the shore and stopped. A large leather sack lay atop a boulder. Briefly distracted, she glanced at the bag. “What is this?”
“Why, I thought that should be apparent, given the nature of our relationship.”
What was the nature of their relationship? It was all confused now in her mind.
And worse, in her heart.
“We’re on to the latest lesson for your column.”
The latest lesson.
“And… what lesson is that, Connell?”
“Ice skating, of course.”
*
He’d not even bothered to ask whether his betrothed enjoyed skating. In fact, he didn’t really know anything about her.
But he knew what this woman’s smiles meant. He knew the many meanings of the tilt of her lips.
This latest grin to curve that full mouth was the one he preferred on her—unrestrained and filled only with joy.
Constance laughed, her breath stirring a little cloud of white. “Ice skating.”
“I trust you’re familiar with the pastime?”
She gave a little flounce of her golden curls. “I’ll have you know I’m quite skilled at it.”
He reached into the bag and pulled out a pair of blades.
Constance’s laughter filled the empty grounds of Hyde Park, bouncing off the winter still. “You’re mad.”
Since the moment he’d drawn his first breath, born into the role of future duke, he’d been met with deference for no other reason than because of the title that would be his. “Have you called me… mad?”
Her features settled into a mock-somber mask. “I am. Mad to the extreme, you are, Connell Wordsworth.”
Mad.
He rolled that insult around. The lads at Eton had been obnoxiously fawning. Had a single person ever dared treat him… as any other man? It was a refreshing way to go through life, and he hadn’t known he’d been missing it until Constance had stormed through his front door and into his life.
“Ah,” he said, holding the smaller skates aloft. “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them…” When she made no move to take the blades, he pressed them lightly against her until she was forced to take them.
“Whoever said that?”
“Just now? I said it.”
With her spare hand, Constance gave him a swat.
“Aristotle,” he said. “I might have paid attention to my Greek lessons.” Connell perched himself on the boulder and proceeded to strap one of the skates over his boots.
“Well, either way, I already know how to skate. Therefore, I needn’t an experiential lesson.”
“Ah, but I’m not referring to your learning to skate,” he corrected, holding a finger up. “I’m speaking of the ways to win my heart.”
He teased and set out bait that was met only with silence.
Lifting his head, Connell looked up at her.
High color had flooded her cheeks. It had rushed in quick and had nothing to do with the cold. He paused. “I was teasing,” he blurted. “I wasn’t really suggesting that I want you to win my heart.”
“Oh, I know,” she said quickly, her words tripping over themselves. “I didn’t think you were. I—”
They spoke over each other, their words tumbling together. “Because, of course, you don’t want to win my heart,” Connell said.
“O-of course I don’t.” Her teeth chattered. “Th-that would be… imprudent and—”
“This is all for Mrs. Matcher’s.”
“Wh-why, of course it i-is.” Another bell-like laugh spilled from those lips he yearned to claim once more. “Why else are we here, after a-all?”
“Precisely. And why would I want your heart?”
As soon as the words left him, he wanted to pluck them back.
That unintended insult brought Constance up short. She ceased rambling.
“Either heart,” he blurted.
Constance tipped her head, sending her bonnet tumbling sideways.
“That is, why would either of us want one another’s heart?” Stop. Talking. “Not just yours.” Just stop.
And then, one of them managed a brief pause in talking. Constance claimed a spot on the boulder beside him, seating herself at his shoulder so their arms nearly brushed. She began to pull on a skate.
Neither of them spoke.
To each other, that was. Constance muttered under her breath as she struggled to hold up her skirts and don her skates.
I wasn’t really suggesting that I want you to win my heart. Because, of course, you don’t want to win my heart.
As Connell adjusted the straps of his skates, he cringed inside. Good God, when had he become so very useless around women? He’d once been seductive and had an ease in speaking to women. He’d been charming, damn it. Charming.
Only, something told him this woman was different. Connell stole a sideways glance at her as she struggled with her hem, cursing in the quiet. Something told him that had any other lady been beside him, he’d find the right words and never stammer—or worse, accidentally insult her. Yes, he’d be lying if he didn’t acknowledge there was a hungering for her there. That since she’d lifted her head and boldly kissed him back, he’d yearned for more.
With her, he spoke freely about everything, from matters of jest and heartbreak to an assessment of Society’s double standards. And here he’d thought himself capable only of cynicism and anger.
Standing on his blades, he knelt before her.
Constance shot him a questioning look.
“May I?” he murmured.
She hesitated a moment, before relinquishing the skate.
Connell caught the edge of her skirts and froze. His pulse hammered faster. All because of exposing her ankle. He lifted her hem.
Lust went bolting through him. Head bent over that tantalizing flesh, Connell closed his eyes and struggled to rein in his desire.
For an ankle. A damned ankle.
Granted, a decidedly delightful one that her thin leather boot contoured, accentuating the curve of—
“Are you all right?” she asked, jolting him back into movement.
“Fine.” It wasn’t the first lie he’d given her. “I’ll have you know there’s nothing wrong with your heart.”
“Thank you,” she said drolly.
He winced, searching hopelessly for any of that rogue’s compliments that had once come so effortlessly. Connell sank back on his haunches. “I’m making a mess of this.”
Constance leaned over. “Actually, I think you nearly have it on.”
He closed his eyes briefly, his shoulders shaking with silent mirth. “I was referring to my words.”
She paused. “Oh. Yes, well, you are correct on that score.”
A laugh burst from him, and she joined in, and how wonderful it felt to laugh with another person. Nay, not just with anyone. With her. This woman.
He came up on his knees and palmed her cheek, hating the glove that denied him the satin softness of her skin. He searched his gaze over her face. “Some gentleman will be so very fortunate to win it.” Except, those words ushered in an image of some faceless stranger. A man wholly undeserving of Constance Brandley’s wit and courage and strength. And Connell wanted to thrash the unknown bastard within an inch of his life… and then finish off the job.
“I’m thirty years old, Connell,” she said without inflection and with matter-of-fact pragmatism. “My days for besotted suitors have come and gone.”
And she’d been left unwed. “Well, no one said cold Englishmen know a thing when it comes to matters of the heart.” With the life he’d lived, Connell himself had proven as much.
Her lips parted ever so slightly.
Unnerved by all that potent emotion blazing from those revealing eyes, Connell set to work on her skates once more. “Come,” he urged when he’d finished, not wanting anyone or anything between them. He stood and took her hands, guiding her up onto her feet.
