I Spy a Duke (15 page)

When Abermont entered the room, she popped up from her seat, executing a hasty—albeit highly flawed—curtsy to him. “Your Grace.”

Instead of returning her greeting with his usual perfunctory nod, Abermont waved his hand dismissively. “We needn’t hold to such proprieties. In truth, I’ve never liked being curtsied to. Makes me feel rather uncomfortable.” He smiled, making her heart thump precariously. She’d shared her secret with him, and now he’d let her in on a confidence too—much smaller than hers, yes, but it was more to bond them together.

She nodded. “Very well.”

Abermont poured himself a cup of tea, adding cream and a lump of sugar. “I’d far prefer brandy in the evening, but I figured you’d like tea.”

She lifted her cup. “That was thoughtful of you, Your Grace.”

He sat down next to her, crossing one long leg over the other. “Please, James. Your Grace was my father.”

James.
A perfect name for him. Somehow at once steadfast and intriguing.
 

“Vivian,” she said, though it felt so intimate to call each other by their first names. Partners, indeed.

“Well then, Vivian, I’ve set the wheels in motion for investigating your brother’s death. I have personally promised a substantial reward if they turn up information on Sauveterre’s location. I’m also looking into
why
your brother was targeted.” He spoke with the same calmness as when he received her report on Thomas’s progress. As if he hadn’t opened up a new avenue for her. As if this wasn’t the greatest gift he could have possibly given her.

“Thank you.” Though those two little words were a small outpouring of her gratitude, she couldn’t make them sound less effusive. While he was nonchalant, she was a bleeding heart torn open in front of him.
 

“I’ve also increased the number of patrols by my guards, so you are sheltered here. That said, do not venture outside the gardens. While you may visit the stables, I’m sorry to say that any trail rides must be reconsidered.” Abermont—James— gave her a sympathetic smile.
 

She nodded. While she’d miss riding, she wasn’t sure she’d even feel secure in the gardens. These precautions made her feel safer, but Sauveterre could be anywhere.

“Now I have a matter to discuss with you.” He leaned in, holding her gaze. “It’s of a bit more intimate nature, though.”

Tingles shot down her arms, flooding her fingers, when he said “intimate.” She gulped for air, the room suddenly hotter than it had been a moment before. The fire in the grate had already burned out; she could not blame it. Nor could she look away from him.
 

She’d thought that one moment in the garden was a chance encounter, as much in her mind as the many nights spent dreaming of his touch. What it would feel like to have his muscular body atop hers, the glide of his lips along hers, the pine and leather scent of him overwhelming everything else.
 

Then he held her gaze, his gray eyes like the most turbulent of waves crashing down upon her and rendering her helpless to swim back to the shore. She wondered what he saw. Her hair was not golden, but instead the color of straw. Her chin was too sharp. Her nose was crooked.
 

Yet this man, with his aquiline nose and strikingly black hair and that extraordinarily capable way in which he solved every problem, stared back at her with the same deep interest.

She blinked. The world around her crackled back to life. It had been just a minute or two, but in that short span of time she felt things shift.

And she did not have any idea how to proceed.

But James was, as she’d come to expect, in control of the situation. He continued as though nothing had happened. “I think I’ve come up with a solution that will allow me to make sure that you are kept secure, while also solving a predicament of my own. You see, the Season is about to start, which means every vulture with a daughter of marriageable age will be lined up to snare my time. The very last thing I want is to be the most sought-after bachelor in London.”

“I see,” she said, but she didn’t see at all. What did this have to do with her problem? And not to seem ungrateful, but why were the duke’s marriage woes on the same scale of importance as her
life?
 

James’s steady gaze never left her face. “So I believe you can help me as I’m helping you. I want you to become my duchess.”

Vivian blinked. She must have heard him wrong. The Duke of Abermont could not have proposed marriage to her. She wasn’t his peer. She wasn’t even the peer of his steward. Men who were one step away from royalty did not enter into matrimony with governesses, and certainly not governesses who had admitted to spying upon them.

James looked at her expectantly, as if he considered his request a logical one. She’d misunderstood him, then. A rational man like him would never consider such a preposterous request.
 

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” She hated how breathy her voice sounded. How hopeful. Still she clung to the foolish illusion that the duke saw her—really saw her, as if the breadth of her soul could be conveyed in a week’s worth of conversations.

“I asked if you’d marry me,” he said, enunciating each word with such pristine pronunciation she knew there could be no mistake.
 

The drumming of her heart slowed. Every muscle in her body seemed to become tighter with this confusion. She knew now she’d heard him correctly, but how was she supposed to respond? Marshaling her wits, she closed her mouth. She couldn’t think of anything to say, anyhow.

He pursed his lips. He’d expected an immediate acceptance. He was duke, after all.

“I want you to be my duchess, Vivian.” Abermont made a sweeping motion with his hand to the garden. “All of this could be yours too.”

While she loved Abermont House dearly, this could never be. How could she possibly belong here, as part of the family she’d betrayed with her reports to Sauveterre? In the home Sauveterre would know to search for her?
 

Her, a duchess! The concept was insane. Unless, of course,
he
was insane too.
 

“Are you mad?” The question popped out of her lips before she could stop it.

His brows furrowed. “Most assuredly not.”

She swiftly jumped to the next most reasonable explanation. He was punishing her for her duplicity. “Then this must be some sort of awful joke. You’re bamming me, Your Grace, and I do not find it amusing.”
 

He directed a reproachful glance at her. “I asked you to call me James.”
 

“And
I
never asked to be the brunt of your teasing.” She launched herself up from her seat, running to the door. But there was no one listening in the hall.

“What are you doing?” He eyed her quizzically.

“I’m looking for your sisters. Or Thomas.” She scowled at him. “I should have known you wouldn’t help me, after what I’ve done to you.”

“No one else is here.” James stood up. He crossed the room swiftly, his strides devouring the space between them until he was right beside her.
 

He laid a hand on her arm, and suddenly everything was warmer around her. Softer, in a sense. How could she possibly be objective when he was so near? She was lost in the way her stomach flip-flopped, in the speed of her own beating heart.
 

“I’ll find Sauveterre, Vivian, and I will do everything in my power to make sure you aren’t harmed.” He spoke with the utmost seriousness, as if he was making an earnest pledge he’d take with him to the grave. “When I agreed to work with you, I meant it. What I am suggesting is the natural extension of our partnership.”

He angled her head closer to his, and her breath caught in her throat as she waited for him to say those magical words again.

I want you to be my duchess.

Her heart panged for a life she’d never dared to consider possible. A life that
shouldn’t
be possible. But when James watched her like this, his eyes so kind and blastedly gentle, she found herself doubting whether social mobility was really such a catastrophic notion.

“I don’t understand,” she said. How little accustomed she’d been to not understanding things. She’d always been considered remarkably quick-witted, perhaps to her detriment since she’d never caught the eye of a suitor before.

But Evan’s death had changed that. Now the act of living, carrying on through grief, perplexed her.

James walked back to the sitting area, and she followed him. They sat down on the same settee, on opposite ends. “Marriage is like an equation. You and I are both variables. You need someone to protect you from Sauveterre, and I need a wife before the start of the Season.”

She blinked. While she knew the rich treated matrimony more as alliances than pairings of the heart, she’d never heard it explained in such a...commercial fashion. Hardly the impassioned proposal she’d always dreamed of receiving.

She peered up at James. His handsome features might as well have been chiseled in stone, for all the emotion they conveyed. “In this equation, as you put it, why insert me? You could have an amiable partnership with any number of women. Women who haven’t spent the last six months with an agenda.”

“I could, perhaps.” He did not sound interested in that prospect at all. “But I don’t want them. I want the woman who demanded I let her bandage my hand in the study. The woman who won’t take no for an answer, even when it’s her own safety we’re debating.”

Her cheeks flushed. In that description, she sounded almost...strong. Like she’d been when Evan was still alive.

Then he continued, and the spark that had lit within her was dimmed by his practicality. “I’ve seen the way you are with my brother, and my sisters like you. What I want is a wife who already knows my family and can fit in seamlessly.”

Significantly less flattering, yes, but given her current predicament, did it matter
why
he’d chosen her? The comfort of routine could not be overstated. He was not home often, but when he was, the entire atmosphere of the house changed. Lord Thomas adored him, and the servants were devoted to him.

That thought sobered her. The man had servants. Sweet Mary,
she
was one of his staff! It was absurd to consider this.
 

Surreptitiously, she allowed her gaze to travel down the length of his frame to his starched cravat with its mail coach knot, at once dignified yet simple. To the cut of his coat, accentuating his broad shoulders. To his tan breeches showcasing his muscular legs, and his gleaming top boots with the silver tassels. All that power in one man. Could he protect her from Sauveterre? He seemed to think so.
 

He was the finest male specimen she’d ever laid eyes on, and he couldn’t be hers. But oh, how she wanted him to be.

She forced her eyes forward. “Surely, you must be able to find those qualities in someone of your own class. I have no ways of increasing your stature in society. If anything, a bond with me would decrease your influence.”

His lower lip curled when she said “influence.”
 

“I am the Duke of Abermont,” he said, as though that title contained every bit of information she’d need. When she did not show any sign of comprehension, he shrugged. ““The Spencer family is the third richest in all of the empire. Do you really think that the
ton
shall dare question my choice? If I present you as my wife, they will accept you. They are but a herd of cattle, easily rounded up and shown direction.”

“How unbecomingly you speak of the people you consider friends.” She could not curb her scorn, so surprised was she by his callous words.
 

He drew himself up, no longer appearing so at ease. “Let me make one thing clear to you,” he ground out, the force of his words pelleting her as if they were stones. “Greater Society is
not
my friend. I consider few people truly my companions. Lord Haley, Mr. Drake, and a few others you are not acquainted with yet. The rest are mere acquaintances I associate with because my position demands it. Were I not duke, I would dispense with their company entirely.”

“It must be a horridly lonely existence.” She lifted her chin, refusing to cave. Given she’d spent six months under the scrutiny of his servants—the majority of whom refused to speak to her once they’d found out her relation to a viscount—she knew a few things about loneliness. “I repeat then, why
me
? What do you think I will add to your exclusive club?”

“Because you see me.” His steely gaze sent a shiver of awareness up her back. In that look, she saw the emotions he held at bay, shimmering beneath the surface. “And I desperately need someone who will see the man behind my title.”

Barely, just barely, she resisted the urge to press her palm up against his chest once more and feel the beat of his heart against her flushed skin. He was first a real, raw man before a duke.
 

Did she truly know him? She’d thought she’d drawn an accurate summary of his character over the last six months. With his close friends and family, he was apt to laugh and be merry. Yet in casual society, he was dour and reserved. What if underneath all this pomp and circumstance, he was as lost as she was, just waiting for someone to salve the wounds of the past?