How to Tame Your Duke, page 20
Emilie nearly jumped from the saddle. “Marry your father? Are you mad?”
“In the first place, there’s your royal honor to consider. I don’t suppose he knows he’s rogering the lost Princess Emilie of Holstein-whatever-it-is every Tuesday evening in Ashland Spa Hotel, does he?”
“Your lordship!”
Freddie tapped his temple beneath the brim of his wool hat. “I can put a few things together, Grimsby. So firstly, he’s got to marry you anyway, having debauched you and all that. Secondly, you’re clearly in love with him, because otherwise you wouldn’t be trotting off to meet him every week. And thirdly . . .”
“I am most certainly not in love . . .”
“. . . thirdly, Pater would be the most immense use in protecting you and finding those deadly assassins and all that. Imagine him going after the poor chaps with all his vengeful might, doling out justice hither and yon! They wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“There is a small impediment, your lordship. You forget your father is still married.”
Freddie snorted. “I daresay that can be got around pretty efficiently, after twelve years of abandonment by my incomparable mother.”
They walked on in silence for a moment, horses playing contentedly with their bits, saddle leather creaking in sympathy with the wind. A few more snowflakes flew by, thicker now. Emilie bent her chin into her scarf and studied the dead winter turf passing between her horse’s ears.
“There’s another reason.” Freddie’s voice cut defiantly through the air. “The last reason.”
“What’s that?”
“You could stay here. Not here, obviously, if all this glorious natural beauty ain’t to your taste.” He waved his crop to the monochrome horizon, the diagonal jags of building snow. “But the three of us, together, wherever it is. I’d even . . . I’d always rather fancied a . . .” He ducked his head, in an uncharacteristic display of embarrassment.
“A what, your lordship?”
“Well, a brother. Or even a sister. A bit late now to be a companion in mischief and all that, but still . . .” He shrugged, a sixteen-year-old’s indifferent shrug, masking vulnerability.
Emilie looked up at the heavy sky and blinked her stinging eyes.
“The point is,” said Freddie, more brusquely, “you’ve got to come clean to Pater. The longer you wait, the more he’ll rant and rage. You can trust Pater, Grimsby. He’ll move heaven and earth to help you, you know.”
“I know.” Emilie was studying the ground ahead, where a great stone formation—known to locals as the Old Lady, because it had apparently once sported a long and wart-flecked nose, before some winter frost a century ago had broken it off—loomed against the lines of snow. Was it her imagination, or did she catch a flicker of movement behind the Old Lady’s right ear?
She glanced to the left, where the relative safety of the Ashland Spa road beckoned a half mile away.
“I’ll help you, if you like. Warm him up a bit. Look here, Pater, have you ever imagined old Grimsby without his whiskers? He’d look a damned prime girl. Or else, That old Grimsby, what a priceless fellow. Make a fine wife, if only he were a she. That sort of thing.”
“Oh, splendid.”
“You could tell him tonight, couldn’t you? It’s Tuesday.”
The noseless Old Lady loomed near. Nothing stirred about her right ear except the snow. It must have been a trick of Emilie’s eyes, her overworked nerves. “So it is. But you forget your father hasn’t arrived back from London.”
“Oh, he’ll arrive. You’ll see. Pater never misses an appointment.”
Emilie opened her mouth to reply, but it was Freddie’s voice that shattered the air.
“Look out!”
A shape blurred along the right side of her vision. Someone grabbed her reins, turned the horse to the left, and they were galloping, galloping, the snow stinging against Emilie’s face, the wind freezing her breath in her lungs.
* * *
The Duke of Ashland sprang from the carriage almost before the wheels had come to a stop. “Have Grimsby and his lordship attend me in my study at once,” he said to Lionel, tossing the footman his greatcoat and hat.
Lionel followed him down the corridor. “They have gone out, sir.”
“Out?” Ashland spun about, nearly knocking the sturdy fellow to the marble floor. An odd emptiness scooped out in his chest. He realized it was disappointment. “Out, in this weather?”
“Yes, Your Grace. The weather has in fact turned for the better today, and his lordship was eager to take advantage.”
“I see.” Ashland turned around and resumed his journey, less urgently now. “Have them come to me the instant they arrive, then. And tell Simpson to bring in some coffee,” he added, over his shoulder. “A great deal of coffee.”
In the study, Ashland lit the lamps himself and settled into his chair before the desk. A neat stack of papers lay atop the blotter, waiting for his attention, but the words blurred in his empty gaze. He glanced at the clock: half past two. He’d risen before dawn to make the earliest possible train, to make certain of reaching home in time. And he’d worked furiously in the days before: going over papers and agreements with Mr. Baneweather, instructing agents with Isabelle’s Italian address, concluding all his business in a burst of insomniac activity.
And that interview last night in the Duke of Olympia’s private study . . .
His gaze dropped down to the papers before him, just as a distant shouting reached his ears, accompanied by thumping and clattering. He raised his head and looked out the study window.
A loud crash. Raised voices carrying through the walls. Ashland sighed and rose to his feet.
It could only be Freddie.
Sure enough, a bare thirty seconds later, the study door burst open to reveal his long and angular son, greatcoat still attached to his body, hat askew. “Pater! You’re back!”
“I am.”
Grimsby slid out from behind Freddie’s back, and Ashland was surprised by the surge of affection he felt for the tutor’s slight form, for his wheat-colored hair emerging into the light as he removed his hat.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace. How was your journey?”
Ashland looked from one to the other. They were bristling with fresh air and energy, with some strange suppressed excitement, breathing hard with it. Freddie’s eyes gleamed so brightly, they nearly jumped from his head. Grimsby’s hand clutched his hat a little too hard.
Ashland wanted to leap over the desk and crush them both in his arms.
Being English, and being a duke, and being Ashland, he did not. He crossed his arms and said, “Tolerable, I suppose. Did you have a pleasant ride?”
“Oh, ripping,” said Freddie. “Especially that exhilarating dash at the end. Galloped along as if the Devil himself were at our heels, firing a pistol. Have you ordered coffee?”
“I have.”
Freddie tossed his hat and greatcoat in one chair and threw himself in another. “Grimsby and I have had the most cracking time whilst you’ve been away. I’ve learned all his deadly secrets.”
Grimsby sent Freddie a killing look and placed his hat upon a small tripod table, underneath a lamp.
“Is that true, Mr. Grimsby?” asked Ashland. “What sort of secrets?”
“His lordship is pleased to joke with us,” said Grimsby, in his gruff little voice. “I have little of interest to disclose, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, that depends on what one finds interesting,” said Freddie. “Where the devil is that coffee?”
On cue, the door swung open in a stately fashion. The next few minutes were occupied by the usual rituals of pouring and serving. Ashland inspected the coffee, a particular strain of arabica beans he’d ordered in London and sent down to the Abbey a few days earlier with instructions to brew at double strength, piping hot. Grimsby’s whiskers twitched as he sniffed his cup.
“Were your ears burning last night, Mr. Grimsby?” Ashland asked, settling back in his chair in a cloud of aromatic steam.
“Your Grace?”
“I was discussing your case with your venerable sponsor, the Duke of Olympia.”
Grimsby choked on his coffee. Freddie delivered him a hearty swat to the back, causing additional coffee to spill from his cup, causing his hands to jerk, causing more coffee to be spilled. Ashland rose silently and handed the poor fellow a napkin, while Freddie guffawed spasmodically in his chair.
“Go on, Pater,” he said, between gasps. “Tell us about Olympia.”
“There isn’t so much to tell, really. He asked after our Grimsby, and I told him he was getting along very well.”
“I agree. Grimsby’s getting along very well indeed. Giving satisfaction. That’s the phrase, isn’t it? A great”—Freddie coughed—“a great deal of satisfaction.”
Grimsby ignored Freddie and looked directly at Ashland. “How kind of you, sir. Was His Grace in good health?”
Ashland laughed. “When is he otherwise? Yes, he was looking very well. We discussed your excellencies as a tutor for some minutes. He takes a great interest in you, Grimsby.”
“I daresay,” said Freddie.
“Very good of him, of course,” said Grimsby. “Had he any personal message for me?”
“No, no.” Ashland ran his mind over the rest of the discussion: the political situation in Europe, the distressing affair in Holstein-Schweinwald. Ashland had forgotten that Olympia’s sister had once been married to the assassinated Prince Rudolf, that he had a personal interest in the issue. What had Olympia said? I fear there may be a deeper game afoot. Ashland’s attention had been wandering at that point, looking forward to the next day, aching with longing. At the conclusion of the meeting, Ashland had finally worked up the nerve to say aloud what he’d been burning to say for an hour: I have decided to initiate a suit of divorce against Isabelle. I hope I may count on your support in this matter? Olympia had looked at him for a long moment, with that hooded gaze of his, and then he’d risen from his chair, offered his hand, and said, With all my heart.
It had been . . . gratifying. It had soothed that persistent twinge of guilt still buried deep in his conscience, even now.
“No message,” he said to Grimsby, a little absently, and glanced again at the clock.
Freddie, setting to work on his cake, said crumbfully, “I say. Are we keeping you from an appointment, Pater?”
“Not at present.”
“Because one can’t help but noticing that it is Tuesday afternoon. Shouldn’t you be upstairs, bathing and shaving and making yourself pretty?”
“Frederick.” Ashland brought down his cup with a crash.
“Oh, come, sir. We quite understand. We are all men here, aren’t we? Men of the world, I mean. Hmm, Grimsby?”
“Quite,” said Grimsby, with steely masculinity. He swung his fist upward against his chest. “Men of the world, that’s us.”
Freddie stuffed the rest of his cake in his mouth and rose. “So we shan’t keep you an instant longer. God knows it must take hours to make your frightful mug acceptable to the discriminating female eye. What do you think, Grimsby?”
Grimsby rose. The lamplight reflected against his spectacles in a flash of white. “I think His Grace is perfectly acceptable. But then, I’m hardly a judge, am I?”
Ashland felt oddly unnerved under the white light of Grimsby’s gaze. He looked at Freddie instead. “Your candor is priceless, young man. Grimsby, will you do me the very great service of hauling my ungrateful cur of a son upstairs to his studies?”
Grimsby bowed, and as the light ran over his skin, Ashland thought he looked a trifle pink. All the salty talk, no doubt. Poor, innocent chap.
“With the greatest pleasure, Your Grace,” said Grimsby, and he grabbed Freddie by his ungrateful collar and hauled him upstairs to his studies.
* * *
Good God,” said Emilie, as the schoolroom door closed at last behind them. “How the devil could you sit there like that, cracking jokes? We were nearly killed!”
“Oh, I’ve dodged the odd highwayman often enough, in my time. That leap across the hidden ditch behind North Tor unseats them every time.” Freddie reclined in his chair and idled his finger in his Latin grammar.
“That was no highwayman.” She stopped. “There really are highwaymen about?”
“Well, not really. Thieves, brigands, what have you. But not the stand and deliver sort of highwayman. The trains, I’m afraid, have done for the poor chaps. Still . . .”
Emilie paced across the room. “In any case, this was no common thief, that far away from the road, and a little-used road at that. No, the fellow knew what he was after. He knew where to find us, and when.” She drummed her fingers on her elbows. “This is disastrous. They must know I’m here. I shall have to write to Miss Dingleby directly.”
Freddie straightened. “What’s that? You really think it was some foreign agent or another?”
“Without a doubt. He was waiting for us. Miss Dingleby said someone was making inquiries in the district. My God! I hope my sisters . . .”
Freddie leapt to his feet. “Well, then we’ve got to tell Pater straightaway! He can post guards, hunt the chap down . . .”
She spun to face him. “Absolutely not! I can’t possibly embroil him in this.”
“Why the devil not?”
“Because . . .” She swallowed heavily. “Because it’s none of his affair.”
“You’re his affair.” Freddie paused. “Literally.”
“I won’t, Freddie. Not . . . not yet.” She closed her mind to the thought: confessing everything to Ashland, watching his blue eye grow colder and colder as he realized the magnitude of her double deception. Watching the emotion wink out of him, as surely as the wind howled over the moor.
One more evening, and she would tell him. One more meeting of Emilie and Mr. Brown. His kisses, his body linked with hers. She couldn’t deny herself that.
And then it would be over. She would wire Miss Dingleby first thing tomorrow. She would warn her that the agents had found Tobias Grimsby, had connected the Duke of Ashland’s tutor to the missing Princess Emilie. That her sisters were possibly in danger as well. She would slip away, she would take the train up to London and stay with her uncle, and that would be that.
No more Ashland. No more Tuesday evenings. No more excruciating, half-naked encounters in the basement of Ashland Abbey.
“In any case,” Freddie was saying, peering out the window in the manner of a cornered fugitive, “I’ll accompany you into town tonight and wait for you in the stables. You’re not going off by yourself, not with assassins lurking around every bend.”
“Oh, well played. And you’ll be doing what in town this evening? Off to the Anvil? Cat’s cradle with Rose in the corner? Sipping tea?”
Freddie turned and grinned. “I’ll be as good as gold. Word of honor. Her Highness’s Royal Guard does not malinger on duty.” He performed a strict salute.
Emilie smiled. He looked absurdly young, all of a sudden, as he puffed his chest with assumed manhood. “I am deeply honored,” she said.
“Oh, I’m not doing it for you.” He went to the door, swung it open, and stood aside for her. “I’m bloody well doing it for poor old Pater.”
EIGHTEEN
Emilie arrived first in the Duke of Ashland’s private hotel suite. She spent a nervy seven minutes flitting about the rooms, fingering the curtains, adding coals to the fire. A week of steeling herself to him, a week of tempering her heart into hardness, and she had melted like metal in the forge the instant she had seen the duke standing behind his desk in the study, large and powerful and crackling in the exact center of that field of magnetic energy he carried effortlessly about him. His bright blue gaze had burned through her skin, and she knew she wouldn’t refuse him. Couldn’t refuse him.
She had already undressed to her corset and chemise. She would make no pretense that this was anything but a carnal meeting, a passionate reprise of the week before.
A knock sounded at last on the door. Emilie pulled her blindfold over her eyes and turned.
“Emilie?” His beautiful voice made the blood accelerate in her veins.
She held out her arms. “Here.”
She was expecting the touch of his hand, the formal press of his lips on her fingers. Instead she heard his quick footsteps approaching, and then she was hoisted upward and crushed against his endless chest. “Ah, God, Emilie. At last.”
She put her arms around his neck and breathed in the warm scent of his skin, just below his ear. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered.
He held her without speaking, as the coals sizzled and the clock ticked discreetly. He must love her a little, she thought. He must. She listened to his heartbeat, to the steady pace of his breathing.
Remember this.
“Mine.” He kissed her neck. “My Emilie.”
She took his ear delicately between her teeth. “Mine.”
The air sucked into his lungs. He hoisted her higher and carried her through space, set her into the cushions—the armchair, the sofa, she couldn’t tell—and laid his mouth over hers, kissing her ferociously as his hand dipped below the rim of her corset to stroke her breast.
Now. He would take her now, before even a dozen words had been exchanged between them, and every atom of her body thrilled with wicked anticipation. She wanted to be taken right here, pinned to the cushions by his hammering body. She stroked his mouth with her tongue and arched her back to his caress.
But he pulled back. “Wait,” he growled. His chest heaved beneath her hands. “Wait. Before we go on.”
He rose, and Emilie struggled upward against the slippery cushions. The armchair, she thought dimly. “Where are you?”
“Here.” Something dropped into her lap.
“What’s this?” She laid her fingers atop the weight: a sheaf of papers.
“It is a contract, Emilie. A legal vow.”
Emilie ran her finger around the edge. Her heart took on weight and sank slowly into her belly. “I don’t understand.”
Ashland’s voice came from somewhere above her, several feet away. The mantel, perhaps. “We are past the point of subterfuge, Emilie. You were quite right last week. This cannot go on as it has, not after what passed between us.”
