How to Tame Your Duke, page 26
“You, Miss Dingleby? I’m shocked.”
“You must be quite honest with me, Emilie, my dear. I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.”
“I can’t imagine what you mean.”
Miss Dingleby took Emilie’s hand between both of her own and pressed it. “My dear, I am trained to notice details, and having lived in such close proximity to you these last weeks—sleeping in your very bedroom—it has not escaped me that a certain visitor, ordinarily quite reliable, has not made its regular appearance. Hmm?”
Emilie tried to pull her hand away. “You’re right. It’s an extraordinarily impertinent question.”
“Is the duke aware of this anomaly?”
“Which duke do you mean?”
Miss Dingleby arched one eyebrow. “Either one.”
The room seemed to have gone quite cold, despite the warmth of Miss Dingleby’s hands squeezing her own, the fiery light in the governess’s eyes.
“There’s no need to speak of it to anyone,” Emilie said. “The visitor is not long overdue.”
“How long?”
Emilie hesitated. “A week. Perhaps two.”
“Two weeks. Long enough, then.” Miss Dingleby pressed even more tightly. “And what are your intentions in the matter?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I’ve hardly had time to think about it. After the ball . . .”
“After the ball may be too late. Come, sit down.” Miss Dingleby drew her to the elegant leaf green settee at the end of the bed. “Now. You are to speak of this to no one, do you understand me?”
“I must tell Ashland, if . . . if the situation does not resolve itself.”
“Nonsense. If you tell him, what will happen? You’ll be obliged to marry him. This campaign of his, with his constant presence and his alluring ready-made family, will end in your becoming the Duchess of Ashland, if you’re not careful.”
Emilie forced a smile. “Not so terrible a fate, really. I’m becoming more reconciled to it by the day.”
Miss Dingleby jerked back. “Good God, Emilie! I rescue you from that stifling German court of yours, from royal marriages and etiquette and the lot, and you tumble headfirst into the same chains from which I’ve delivered you? An English duke, Emilie? I thought better of you. I taught better of you.”
“Ashland isn’t like that.”
“Don’t be obtuse. I suppose you fancy yourself in love with him.”
“If I do?”
“Then enjoy him, by all means, but don’t make the mistake of marrying him.”
Emilie jerked her hand free and stood. “I can’t believe you’re saying these things, Dingleby. You, who taught me about virtue and duty and honor.”
“Think carefully, Emilie. Think about what I allowed you. The books I gave you. Our discussions, late at night. When did I discourage your ambitions?”
Emilie stood silently, her pulse snapping in a quick rhythm.
“You don’t really want to marry him, do you? Out of the frying pan, into the fire. I’m only saying the very things you’re thinking.”
“I do love him. I want a life with him. I want . . .”
“But on your own terms, isn’t that right? Without encumbrance, without obligation. As your husband, he can control your every move.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“You’re arguing against yourself. Come, sit down again.” Miss Dingleby patted the cushion next to her.
Emilie remained standing.
“Very well. Listen to me: You have made an unfortunate error, but there are ways to correct it, without anyone the wiser.”
For some reason, Miss Dingleby’s words didn’t sound as shocking as they should. Emilie heard them distantly, matter-of-factly, as if the two of them were back in the palace schoolroom, going over lessons. Luisa would be listening attentively, pencil poised, and Stefanie would be staring out the window, admiring a butterfly. Emilie’s chest ached with longing.
“To rid myself of the baby, you mean,” she said at last. “If indeed there is a baby.”
Miss Dingleby sat on the settee with her arms folded in her black gabardine lap, forehead stretched with expectancy.
If indeed there is a baby. Emilie hadn’t allowed herself to think about the possibility yet. She had pushed the suspicion away, had concentrated on other things. She had expected every day to see the signs that everything was normal, everything was quite all right, and every day the signs had not appeared, and still somehow she’d convinced herself that it was a mistake, that the very idea of being with child by the Duke of Ashland was absurd.
Absurd.
Her belly was quite flat. She felt quite as she usually did. Perhaps her breasts were a little sore, a little swollen, but that was surely the result of being back in corsets again, her body being shoved and squeezed into position; or perhaps because the tardy visitor was on the point of returning.
Should we be so fortunate as to conceive a child. Ashland’s child, the child he wanted. She forced herself to imagine it: Ashland, standing by a window, cradling a sleeping infant in his enormous arms. Her heart began to slow down, to thud in a hard and steady rhythm, returning warmth to her belly and limbs.
Ashland’s child. Their child.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.
“I am being perfectly reasonable. Women do it every day.”
“Perhaps they do. But I couldn’t do such a thing without telling him,” said Emilie.
Miss Dingleby threw her hands up. “Listen to you! You’re laying your neck conveniently on the scaffold, after all I did to free you.”
“I see no reason to act at all just yet. Once the ball is over . . .”
Miss Dingleby rose. “Once the ball is over, and the danger is past, you’ll have no escape. You’ll be relieved, you’ll be grateful to Ashland, you’ll do whatever he asks. I am quite ashamed of you, Emilie. I’d thought you made of sterner stuff. I’d thought, if I gave you a taste of independence . . .”
Emilie’s hands fisted at her sides. “Yes! Yes, I quite perceive that everybody thinks they know what’s best for me. Everyone makes plans for me. Everybody moves me about at will to suit their own purposes. But I do have a will of my own, and I intend to exercise it this instant. Miss Dingleby, you will leave this room at once, and allow me for once to make my own decisions.”
Miss Dingleby did not move. Her tender rosebud mouth tightened almost imperceptibly around the corners; her eyes regarded Emilie without blinking.
“Brava,” she said at last, and left the room.
* * *
The Duke of Ashland, ascending the grand staircase of the Duke of Olympia’s Park Lane town house two steps at a time, was not particularly pleased to encounter the neatly dressed figure of Miss Dingleby just as he achieved the top.
He stepped aside. “Good afternoon, Miss Dingleby.”
“Good afternoon, Your Grace. You are here to see Her Highness?” she asked, as she might ask, You are here to snatch the Grail of Our Lord from its sacred altar, you unscrupulous dog?
“I am.”
“I suppose it will not trouble you that Her Highness is resting in her bedchamber at present?”
“I shall not disturb her long.”
“Certainly not. I have every faith in Your Grace’s sense of honor and decency,” said Miss Dingleby in precisely spaced words. “Good day.”
The door to Emilie’s suite stood ajar. He rapped on the thick panel nonetheless.
“Who is it?”
“Ashland.”
A slight pause. “Come in.”
He pushed open the door. Emilie stood at the window, her fingers pressed against the sill. The fading light cast a bluish tint over her skin.
“You’re not wearing your spectacles,” he said.
“My eyes were hurting.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She looked at him. The muscles of her face were drawn tight; her body radiated restless tension. One finger drummed against the wooden window frame. “Are you off to return Freddie and Mary to Eaton Square?”
“Yes, I am. I shall return later this evening, of course. Where is Miss Dingleby going? You shouldn’t be left alone like this.”
She crossed the floor toward him. “May I go with you? I’ve hardly been outside at all these past weeks.”
“I would rather you didn’t. I have an errand to run before returning.”
“I see.”
“Emilie.” He fixed his arms behind his back to keep himself from touching her. “Are you quite all right?”
“Yes.”
“If you’re having second thoughts about tomorrow, I can stop everything. I’ll tell Olympia . . .”
“No! No. I want this over with.”
“I don’t like it. You know that. There are other ways.”
“It’s my decision,” she said.
She stood so regally, her back straight, her chin tilted. Her golden hair was parted neatly and gleamed with submission before disappearing into a snug chignon at the back of her neck. She reminded him of a citadel, all smooth stone walls and high battlements. He wanted to throw up his grappling hook and scale her, but the very thought of the act seemed profane. As if he might scar her, might mar the perfect fortress of her.
Where was Emily, behind Emilie’s polished walls? Where was Grimsby?
“There are other ways,” he said again. “I have a special license in my pocket this instant. You are above the age of consent; we can be married before dinner. We can go away, wherever you like.”
“Nonsense. I intend to see this through. For my sisters’ sake, if nothing else.”
A flash of white showed between the fingers of her right hand: a balled-up handkerchief.
“Very well. Either way, I have made the necessary preparations. In the meantime, I have something for you.” He withdrew an envelope from his jacket pocket and held it out to her.
“What is it?” She tucked the handkerchief into her sleeve and took the envelope. He looked at her wrist. He wanted to strip away that sleeve, to strip away the dress itself, to gorge himself on her nakedness. He wanted to tumble her backward into that bed, or possibly forward, and make love to her until she was crying with pleasure, until she was laughing out loud, until she was herself again.
He swallowed heavily. “It arrived in the post at Eaton Square, addressed to you.”
She looked at the black scrawl on the envelope and gasped.
“Do you recognize it?” he asked.
Her gaze lifted to his, eyes wide with excitement, apprehension vanished. “It’s from my sister.”
TWENTY-TWO
The thin light of the gas lamps shifted across Ashland’s face as the carriage rounded the corner of Cheyne Walk later that night, making his ruined face even more terrifying than usual. His thunderous expression didn’t help. “I am a fool for letting you talk me into this.”
“It’s perfectly safe. You’re with me, and nobody in London knows me as Grimsby. Well, except Freddie, and he’s hardly an anarchist. A principled one, at any rate.”
“This is not the time for jokes.”
“Yes, it is.” Laughter bubbled up in her throat. She glanced out the window at the passing shadows of the houses, the lurid pools of gaslight on the pavement. “I’m going to see my sister. My sister, Ashland! You don’t know what this means to me.” She reached out and wrapped her hand around his enormous knee.
“You’re certain it was her handwriting? There could be no mistake?” He ignored her hand.
“As certain as I am of my own.”
“This chap she’s bringing. Is she a decent judge of character? You’ve no idea who he might be?”
“He must be the man my uncle placed her with, and you know Olympia’s judgment is impeccable.”
A grunting noise rumbled from his chest. He folded his arms. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it. Only try to be happy for me, will you?”
The carriage lurched over a rut, dislodging Emilie’s hand and flinging her off balance. Like a snake, Ashland’s arm flashed out to steady her. His grip encompassed her entire shoulder.
“A quarter of an hour,” he said. “No more.”
The carriage slowed. Albert Bridge loomed ahead, the approach shrouded with trees.
Ashland reached inside his overcoat, drew out a pistol, laid it in his lap. “You have your stiletto?”
“Put that away. Yes, I do.” She craned her head against the window, trying to make out the shapes outside in the thickening river fog. The carriage jolted to a stop, and she reached for the handle just as Ashland’s hand closed over hers.
“I go first,” he said. He gripped the pistol with his left hand and cocked it with a nimble motion of his stump. His chin jerked, motioning her to open the carriage door for him.
The dank Thames air rushed across Emilie’s cheeks. Ashland swung to the ground in a lithe and silent movement, like the enormous African cat she had imagined him, back in the library at Ashland Abbey. He tossed a single soft word back to the driver.
“Wait,” he said to Emilie. “Stay back in the carriage until I’ve called you.”
Emilie’s hand fisted around the edge of the door. Ashland took a step forward, and another. “Holstein,” he called out, in a low and carrying voice.
“Huhnhof,” came the faint reply.
Ashland made a quick motion with his right arm. Emilie slithered down the carriage step and came up behind him, in the shelter of his broad back, looking around his shoulder to the charcoal smudges of the Embankment.
A shape emerged. “Ashland, by God.”
“Hatherfield?” Ashland lowered his pistol.
“She’s right in the bushes behind . . .” the man’s voice began, but the rest was lost in a rush of footsteps, a flying missile of wool and damp skin that flung itself past Ashland and swept up Emilie in a bone-crushing embrace.
“Stefanie!” Emilie gasped out, hugging her back, crying, shaking. She pushed the coat-clad shoulders away and grasped her sister by the cheeks. “It’s you!”
* * *
The Marquess of Hatherfield coughed discreetly. “Does have a rather . . . a rather odd appearance, don’t it?”
Ashland glanced at the two figures embracing on the bench ten yards away, on whose four trousered legs only the faintest trace of gaslight gleamed. Emilie had taken off her bowler hat, and Stefanie was touching her hair, exclaiming at its shortness.
He kicked his toe at the gravel. “Is she really a ginger?”
“Beyond a doubt,” Hatherfield said blandly.
A squeal of delight issued from the bench, followed by an answering squeal of equal pitch.
“What the devil are they talking about?” Ashland said.
“Us, old man. Us.”
“How do you know that?”
“Four sisters. And a stepmother.”
A hansom cab trotted by in a wet rattle of hooves and wheels. Ashland watched it travel along the Embankment and up Cheyne Walk. The fog was already growing denser, cold and greasy against his skin. “Five minutes,” he called out gently.
The two figures on the bench paid no attention. They were holding hands now, chattering like birds. Their words mingled and overlapped, an astonishing tangle of verbiage. How the devil did they make each other out?
“Women,” said Hatherfield. He thrust his hands into his coat pockets.
“Have you had any trouble?” Ashland asked.
Hatherfield sighed a weary sigh. “Nothing but trouble, old man. You?”
“I mean this sort of trouble.” Ashland nodded to the thick and expectant shadows around them. “Threats, attacks. Has anyone found you out?”
“No, no. Lying low.”
“Stay low, Hatherfield. Stay low. You’ve heard about the ball tomorrow?”
“Invitation arrived a week ago.”
“Don’t go. Don’t let her go. Do you understand me?”
Stefanie’s giggle rang in the air. At least Ashland assumed it was Stefanie. He’d certainly never heard Emilie make such a sound.
“I see,” said Hatherfield.
“Yes.”
Another hansom rattled by, followed by a carriage. A drunken voice rolled faintly from the boats moored nearby in the river.
Ashland called out, “Two minutes.”
On the last syllable, a sense of movement caught his attention: a noise, or perhaps intuition, because the movement came on his blind right side.
He turned. A dull gleam flashed from the fog-shrouded shadow of a clump of trees.
“Secure the women,” he said to Hatherfield, and he launched himself toward the trees.
A loud crack split the air. Cries erupted from the bench behind him.
Another stride, and he was flying into the shadows, colliding with a solid wool-padded figure.
“Oof,” it said.
The gun flew to the pavement. Ashland kicked it away with his boot and shot his left fist into the man’s jaw. His head snapped backward; he toppled to the ground like a felled tree.
Ashland leaned down and gathered the man’s collar in his fist. “Who are you? Who sent you?”
The man’s hand moved; a flash of metal caught the gaslight. With a single motion, Ashland released the collar and thrust his right elbow downward into the man’s wrist. A faint crunch, and the knife dropped to the stones with a clank. The man howled with pain.
“Who sent you?”
The man lurched up. Ashland sent another fist into his jaw, and this time he went still into the pavement.
“Damnation,” Ashland muttered.
A low cry floated behind him. He whipped around.
In the blur of darkened bodies shifting through the fog, he couldn’t make anything out. Four people, maybe five. The hard smack of a fist connecting with flesh. A howling cry. Emilie’s voice, shouting something.
Ashland’s pistol dug into his ribs, but the quarters were too close for bullets. He reached for the knife in the grass, leapt forward, and grabbed the nearest figure. Broad, bulky: not one of the women. Ashland had at least eight inches of height on the man. He brought his right elbow down hard in the juncture of neck and shoulder, and the attacker crumpled to the ground without a sound.
