The Devilish Duke, page 2
Folding her arms across her chest, she narrowed her eyes. “I shall have you know that my future happiness was torn apart tonight, and only the direst of circumstances compelled me to climb a tree!” Though, oddly enough, she wasn’t feeling nearly as heartbroken as she would have expected to. It seemed her verbal sparring with the Devil Duke was enough to cheer her spirits considerably.
The Duke said nothing; he merely continued to watch her. Sophie had the bizarre sensation that he was cataloguing her soul. She shivered in spite of herself.
“Are you cold?” he enquired, scanning her wrists as if to check for goosebumps.
“No,” she was quick to reply. For some strange reason, even though she was standing in the shrubs outside in the middle of the night and having a conversation with the Devil Duke, she felt oddly safe.
Although, if anyone happened upon them, she was sure to be ruined. Not that she was particularly worried over such an occurrence; she had no intention of marrying now, after all, but her aunt would be devastated.
“Come, let us get you out of the garden,” his deep voice drawled. “Then you can amuse me with your explanation about what you were doing up one of my trees.” He strode back through the shrubs toward the path.
She rather thought his words sounded like an imperial command. She brushed off the small bits of bark and twigs clinging to her gown and then took a step forward. Blast! Looking down, she saw the hem of her dress was happily entangled in the shrubs. “Darn!” Her luck just kept getting worse and worse.
“First, you fall from a tree, and now you are cursing,” he murmured. “I did not think young ladies were taught such interesting etiquette.”
She felt like displaying to him just what sort of unusual etiquette she’d been taught as she tugged harder on her gown. It still refused to budge. She couldn’t believe she was going to have to ask this bounder for his help. How mortifying. “My dress appears to be caught.”
“Stuck, are you?”
“How very astute.” She smiled through gritted teeth. “Now would you please be so kind as to help me?”
“I thought I had already done so. What are you willing to offer for my further assistance?”
Sophie paused, wholly unsure of the Duke’s intentions. “What do you mean?”
He smiled, though it did not reach his eyes. “I have already lost Lady Astley’s company tonight to assist you. Why should I help you once again without suitable reward for my services?”
Was he really suggesting what she thought he was? Surely not. And if he was, she certainly wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of revealing her awareness to what he was alluding to. “Because it is the right thing to do, of course.”
His eyes held hers, and she suddenly felt pinned down by his intense blue gaze. Even in the semi-darkness, they were striking. Then, he ruefully chuckled, and the trance was broken. “Doing the right thing. How novel.” A grin danced across his insanely sensual lips. Walking back through the shrubs, he reached around her and pulled on her dress. “You have snagged yourself well.”
“Trust me, I shall not be wearing one of these silly lace gowns again.” She watched as he bent down toward his boots. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you.” He pulled out a dagger from his boot.
Her eyes widened as the lamp light glinted off the sharp steel of the most vicious-looking blade she had ever seen. And he was carrying it around in his boot? “No. You are not to use that anywhere near me.”
“I am afraid I must, my lady.” He had an air of amusement about him that made her feel decidedly annoyed.
“And I am afraid you must not.” Goodness, his reputation for danger was clearly warranted. No other gentleman she knew would have a need, let alone dare, to carry around a knife on his person.
“Very well.” He re-sheathed his dagger. “I shall simply have to unlace your dress and then you can slip free of it.” He looked rather happy at the prospect.
“Excuse me?” Sophie was dumbfounded. The man’s suggestion was outrageous. “I am not taking my dress off in front of you! Have you lost your mind entirely?”
“No.” He stopped for a moment, however, as if to consider whether that actually was the case. “But either the gown comes off, or I use the knife to cut it free. They are the only two options available. I’d prefer the first, obviously.” The cad winked at her.
“The knife shall be perfectly fine.”
Huntington laughed and retrieved his dagger. “I rather thought it would.” He bent down, and with a quick flick of his wrist, he cut the trapped piece of lace free from the rest of her skirt. “There you are.”
Never one to worry overly much about her clothing, she shook out her dress and followed him through the shrubs to the path.
“I must say that your gown is looking oddly deflated. I think I may have seen the edge of your crinoline peeking out from under the stone bench.” His lips twitched at the corner.
Rushing over to the bench, she leaned down and picked the hoop up.
“Do you intend on putting it back on?” he drawled.
“Certainly not with you here, Your Grace.” Goodness, the man was incorrigible!
He grinned. “I can look away if you prefer, or assist? I must say, though, that my experience with such things relates more to getting the contraption off.”
“Why does that not surprise me at all?” Sophie tried to banish the sudden image of him standing behind her, his breath whispering across her ear as his fingers brushed across her waist while he laced it up.
“But you are an odd duck, are you not?” He leaned against a lamppost, as if making himself comfortable so he could take in the spectacle that she was about to create. “Most ladies would not dare to be caught without their crinoline safely shaping their dresses.”
She put her free hand on her hip. The fabric of her gown concealed all it covered, crinoline or no, but she still felt exposed under his gaze. “I could not very well climb a tree with it on, now could I?”
“True,” he said, “it would have made the endeavor practically impossible. Which does beg the question, what were you doing up a tree in the first place?”
“I was… Actually, that is not your concern.” She placed the crinoline on the bench just so she could cross her hands forbiddingly over her chest. “Besides, you should be ashamed of yourself, sir, carrying on with a married lady. Falling from the tree when I did was probably divine intervention.”
His laughter once again echoed through the night. “I am sure tonight has been highly instructive for you.”
She had the grace to blush as the memories of what he had recently been doing not five minutes before assailed her.
“From the heat stealing across your cheeks, Lady Sophie, I shall assume it was.”
The urge to throw something at his arrogant smirk nearly overwhelmed her. She had half a mind not to respond, though that would be childish. “Watching you and your mistress is not something I would ever care to see again, Your Grace.”
His lips twitched. “So you think Lady Astley is my mistress?”
“The fact that she was straddling your lap and moaning your name aloud might have given me an inkling,” she scoffed. “I see that the gossip concerning you has turned out to be remarkably correct. You, sir, are an out and out libertine.”
“I do try,” he said, his face completely serious. “I must say that the gossip circulating about yourself has also proved extremely accurate.”
“Gossip?” Who was making up stories about her? “There is no gossip about me. Is there?”
“Eccentricity is always gossiped about in the Ton.” He grinned. “Though, apart from your unusual charity work at orphanages, I must say that your little midnight rendezvous are not common knowledge.”
“Midnight rendezvous… Why, it was nothing of the sort.” Trust a libertine such as he to assume such a thing, when it could not be further from the truth. Involuntarily, she looked up at the library window.
Huntington’s eyes followed. “My, my… You are a little spy. Though I assume you got slightly more of a show than you had bargained for when Lady Astley and I interrupted.”
“I shall have you know, Your Grace, that I was not spying upon your dalliance. Rather, I was looking for my beloved.” It felt good to tell him her heart belonged to another. All the better to keep up the pretense that his nearness had no effect on her.
“Up a tree?” He chuckled. “This night continues to get more amusing by the moment. But tell me, are you not a tad young to have a beloved?”
“I’m not that young. Regardless, love cares naught for age; it is pure,” she insisted. “Though after what I have witnessed this evening, I was most recently considering joining a convent.”
His rich laughter again ricocheted through the night. “Made that much of an impression on you, did I?”
She lifted her chin high into the air. “Do not give yourself unwarranted praise, Your Grace.”
“It is never unwarranted. Of that you can be sure.” There was a heated and determined promise in his gaze that sent a fluttering through her belly, unsettling her greatly.
That he could have such an effect on her already was particularly disturbing. Taking in a deep breath, she continued on. “Truth be told, it was the very sight of the man of my dreams, a most wonderful earl, embracing his new fiancée that put the thought in my head.”
“You do not mean that nauseating do-gooder, the Earl of Abelard, do you?”
“How dare you call him that? He is the most honest, most selfless, most wonderful man in all of England.” Apart from the minor issue of his proposing to the wrong woman, of course.
“Yes, well…England is rather small.” Huntington once again sounded bored as he pulled a cheroot from his pocket and examined it, as if weighing whether it would be worth smoking in front of a lady.
“The world then!” she said. “The Earl is infinitely more of a gentleman than you, and he would never kiss a married woman such as you did.”
“True. I doubt he has the aptitude for it.”
“Stop mocking him.”
The man simply grinned. “But you take the bait so well. Now surely your chaperone must be frantic as to your whereabouts by this stage?”
Sophie cringed slightly as a flutter of guilt assailed her. “Actually, I think my aunt Mabel may be under the mistaken impression that I had a headache and borrowed the carriage to go home.”
“An impression given to her by you, no doubt?”
Reluctantly, she bobbed her head in agreement.
“I pity the poor sap that gets saddled with you.” He sighed. “Very well, I shall send my carriage around to take you home to bed. There you can dream of your beloved and of his new fiancée’s early demise.”
“That is a terrible thing to suggest.” Sophie smoothed down the skirts of her gown. “No one could be horrid enough to wish someone dead.”
Huntington’s expression flattened. “In that, my dear lady, you are wrong. Very wrong.”
She shivered; his eyes were now a wintry blue, all humor having fled. “Why do you say that?”
His bleak look seemed to vanish, only to be replaced by an enigmatic lack of expression. “Do you know the grand occasion this ball is in honor of?”
“I believe it is being held in your late grandfather’s honor,” she whispered.
“Yes, it is. It’s a celebration, you see. Though not to celebrate his life, Lady Sophie, but rather to celebrate his death.”
“His death?” she asked. Surely, the Duke didn’t mean he had wanted his grandfather to die?
“Indeed,” he confirmed. “As far as I’m concerned, the old codger can burn in hell.”
Goodness. It seemed there was no end to the man’s penchant for being shocking. “But saying such a thing is…blasphemous.”
The corners of his mouth stretched into a tight smile as he brought the cheroot to his lips, and then he clamped down on it with his teeth so he could light it. The end of the cigar glowed red in the lamplight, and smoke curled around his head. “Hadn’t you heard, my dear? I am the Devil Duke. My very existence is blasphemous. Now run along, or else I will assume you wish me to show you just how much of a devil I can be.”
The expression on his face was dark and heated. And suddenly, Sophie felt alarmed— not of him, but rather of her own response. Because rather than scare her, as she was sure had been his intention, his words had instead inflamed her body, sending a thrum of desire through her.
Then just as suddenly, the thought that she could actually be attracted to a rake felt like someone had thrown a bucket of ice over her head. She would not allow a man of his ilk to charm and beguile her, as her mother had allowed Sophie’s father to. She’d vowed that a long time ago, and not even the Devil Duke, with his sinfully handsome face and equally seductive body, would sway her.
She spun around and fled into the night.
Chapter Two
London, 1856
Devlin Markham, the eighth Duke of Huntington, slowly reclined back in the gold brocade chair and resigned himself to being lectured. Indeed, the lady seated in front of him was the only person he was actually obliged to listen to, and regrettably, she was elaborating on her seemingly favorite topic: his bachelor status and her subsequent displeasure in it.
“The obvious lack of respect you hold for your title is easily witnessed by all. If we did not know of your shrewd business acumen, we would think you nothing but a halfwit who was led around by his nether regions!”
The Queen was never one to mince words.
Though slight in stature, Queen Victoria sat across from Devlin in an ornately carved high-back chair, her back ramrod straight, wearing an expression that told all who looked upon her that she was not to be trifled with. Unfortunately, the irate look in her eyes was one Devlin was becoming all too familiar with. And one he couldn’t charm away, as he could with other ladies.
Well, all except for Lady Sophie Wolcott, who seemed to share the Queen’s particular distaste for his reputation. Though he’d spent the better part of the last year traveling and hadn’t seen Lady Sophie since she’d fallen out of a tree in his gardens, he’d often found himself thinking of her. Only because she, like the Queen, was so immune to his wiles. It was somewhat of a mystery to him.
The Queen continued, “Though we have overlooked your many dalliances in the past, we are not prepared to continue doing so.”
“Your Majesty,” he placated as his thoughts returned to the matter at hand. “You are, of course, correct, and in due time, I shall ensure that the duties to my title are taken care of.” He wouldn’t, of course, not after vowing when he was ten never to let himself be vulnerable to anyone again, but the Queen didn’t need to know of his true intent. “However, presently I am focused upon ensuring the success of this endeavor, which requires your signature on the contract.”
“We are not prepared to sign any contracts with a known Lothario. It would not be a fitting example for the Queen of England to set to the other nobles that look to us for guidance.” Her round, soft face still managed to look quite stern as she practically vibrated with displeasure, every inch the monarch she was.
“But Your Majesty,” Devlin cajoled, “the signing of this contract would herald England as being the most progressive nation in the world. With your consent, we will be able to proceed with installing a transatlantic telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean. Just imagine it! You will be able to send a letter to the President of the United States within minutes, instead of weeks. You would be seen as one of the greatest leaders in history for generations to come.”
As a major investor in the Atlantic Telegraph Company—and the only co-owner with a title—Devlin had volunteered to request an audience with Her Majesty on behalf of the company. His goal: to persuade her to open up the British Empire’s maritime borders to allow ATC to lay a telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean.
He’d expected questions from the sharply intelligent Queen, but he knew that the company’s plans were sound, and he’d trusted that she’d be delighted at the opportunity for Britannia to take this astounding invention to the next pinnacle of progress.
What he hadn’t expected was that his personal life would be what stood in the way of the project’s success or failure.
Devlin hadn’t thought investing a good chunk of his liquid fortune into Atlantic Telegraph to be the riskiest of gambles. But now…? While he could weather losing the funds he’d sunk into the project, the repercussions of failing would be too wide-reaching. His business reputation was on the line, and that was something he would not risk, not when he’d spent years cultivating it. And there were far too many people who would love to see the “Devil Duke” fail.
He would not give them, or his grandfather’s ghost, the satisfaction.
“Do not attempt to sway us with charm or flattery. We will not be deterred.” The Queen broke into his thoughts, emphasizing her speech by smacking the delicate lace fan she held against the palm of her other hand. “You are a Duke, for heaven’s sake, Devlin. Never have we had to have such a conversation with a peer of the Realm before on such a topic! Honestly, if it were not for the esteem my dear husband holds you in, we should certainly never be considering your proposal.”
“I do appreciate the Prince’s friendship and his faith in me, Your Majesty.”
“Good. Then you understand we cannot have members of the nobility cavorting as you do, with no thought to the sanctity of marriage, when Albert and I believe in its merits so greatly.” Her eyes flicked to the towering portrait of the Prince Consort on the far wall. “If we put our support behind your business endeavors, it would simply appear to others that we were condoning such immoral behavior, which we assure you is certainly not the case.”
Normally, Devlin could figure out how to talk his way out of any sticky situation, but the Queen was doing a formidable job of boxing him in. “This project is going to connect the British Empire with the rest of the world, almost instantaneously. Imagine the trade and enterprise boom it will create.”
