Love Letters From a Duke (27 page)

She closed her eyes and sighed. In a flash she saw what would happen next: She’d free him, explore him as he had her, but not for long, for her body was ready. As hot and ready as he was, if his ragged breathing and erection were any evidence. He’d fill her, love her, ruin her. And there would be no turning back.

Her eyes sprang open. For as much as she wanted to urge
him on, she wasn’t so lost that she hadn’t forgotten entirely where she was.

Or who she was. And what her future held.

As much as she wanted this man, there was another who’d claimed her first, and despite all of Jamilla’s assurances of Englishmen, Felicity wasn’t inclined to go to Hollindrake’s bed anything else but innocent, well at least in the narrowest and most important definition of the word.

This wasn’t about what was right for her, but also for Tally and Pippin, and there would be no hope for them if she did this. None whatsoever. She wouldn’t be just ruining herself, she’d be destroying their chances at making any sort of good marriage.

“Stop,” she whispered.

“Not until you admit that you would rather kiss me than him.” He cheated by kissing her again, leaving her utterly breathless and unable to answer.

At least for a wild, tangled moment. But there was more to question than just admitting what they both already knew. He was asking too much.

For her to give up everything. All her years of hard work. Of preparation. Of dreaming and wishing for a life free of insecurity and the whims of society. He was asking her to give up everything and leave Tally and Pippin to fend for themselves.

“No,” she gasped, struggling out from beneath him, away from the lure of his heated body, no matter that she ached to be back in his embrace. “I cannot.”

They sat on either end of the window seat, glaring at each other, their bodies both trembling with need—one that Felicity now stubbornly refused to give in to.

“Demmit, Felicity, this isn’t a game,” he told her, coming forward. “Just admit that you want me. You want me to be your duke.” His hands reached for her.

Yes. From the first moment I met you I wanted you to be
him.
How easily those words would solve everything. But she could no more admit that than tell him the rest of it.

She had fallen in love with him.

So she shook her head and did what had recently come so easily to her. She lied. “I only wanted to know how to kiss.” And then she cast Jamilla’s look at him, smiling as she did it, as if it was all just a great lark.

She rose from the bench and turned her back to him.

“Do that again, Miss Langley,” he said, spinning her around and hauling her up against him. She thought he was going to kiss her, but to her shock and disappointment, he didn’t. “And I will strip you of your gown and ruin you utterly. Completely.”

Do it
, clamored every part of her body.
Let him ruin you. Utterly.

For one trembling moment she nearly put his promise to the test, but the light in his eyes told her that such folly would have her on her back before she could draw another breath. So she looked away and masked her desires. Closed her eyes and wished she’d never let him into her life, let him ruin everything—even without taking her innocence.

For he had stolen her heart, and that, she imagined, had to be worse.

After a few moments he let her go and stormed away, stalking toward the back of the house, his footsteps rumbling through the empty corridors like rolls of thunder.

“Oh, Tally, please promise me you won’t tell Felicity. You mustn’t. Can’t you see that?”

Tally wasn’t as convinced, for as much as she loved a good romance, she was worried about her cousin. If anyone suspected that Pippin was helping Captain Dashwell, there would be consequences, and they hadn’t the connections needed to save Pippin from the fate that would await her.

“You must promise me not to see him again,” Tally told
her. “If he comes around, you must send him packing. ’Tis best for you and for him. You see that, don’t you?”

Pippin nodded, swiping at the lingering tears on her cheeks.

The two girls turned to go back into the house when all of a sudden the kitchen door swung open and a great oath exploded from the opening.

“Damn that woman to hell!” Thatcher came marching out into the garden and went striding down the path as if his boots were on fire. As he approached the grotto where they stood, they shrank back, concealed from his sight by the tangle of weeds and a rickety arbor, heavily laden with untrimmed rose canes.

“Oh, Duchess has him riled,” Tally whispered.

He sailed right past their hiding spot, muttering, “Deny me, will she? I’ll teach her a lesson she won’t forget.” He strode out the doorway and into the alley in the blink of an eye.

“That was odd,” Pippin said.

Tally nodded in agreement. “That’s exactly what I was thinking—it usually takes Felicity a good half an hour longer to have someone storming off in such a huff.”

“No, not that. Didn’t you notice? He went to the right, not the left,” Pippin said, nodding to the doorway. “If he were going out to the street, he should have gone left. To the right there are only the other houses on the square. There’s no other way out.”

“Perhaps he just needs to pace a bit. Papa always did that when one of our nannies was being—”

But Pippin wasn’t listening, she was already tentatively opening the garden door to peer out. There in the alleyway she spied their footman, pounding on one of the other gates.

“Let me in, demmit!” he was calling out. “Let me in now!”

Tally came up behind her and looked as well. “Oh, that does it for certain. Felicity has driven the poor man over the cliff. Why, he’s acting like he owns that house.” She paused for a moment. “Whose door is that anyway?”

They both shared a look of recognition.
Hollindrake.

Slipping out and moving quietly and furtively along the wall, Pippin and Tally drew closer.

There was some benefit to reading and writing so many tragic romances—they knew how to lurk about. But to their benefit, the object of their spying was otherwise occupied trying to gain the attention of someone in the duke’s house.

But what happened next left them both feeling as light-headed as if they’d spent the morning matching Mrs. Hutchinson brandy for brandy.

The heavy latch on the door creaked as it cracked open, and from within someone said two fateful words. “Your Grace?”

Whatever else the man said, neither Tally or Pippin cared.

“Hollindrake,” Tally whispered. “It cannot—”

“It is,” Pippin said, and whirled around, about to bolt back toward their house. To Felicity.

But Tally caught her by the back of her cloak. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t you dare go back and tell Felicity that…” That their footman was her nearly betrothed. That
he
was
her
duke. Hollindrake. Neither of them dared say it aloud.

“But we must,” Pippin argued.

Tally shook her head. “Don’t you see? He
is
the lost duke. ’Tis the ending we’ve been looking for.”

“You can’t mean to suggest we allow him to continue to gammon her—”

“I do indeed.”

Pippin straightened to her full height. Tall and lithe, she towered over her more petite cousin. “I will not keep this
from her.” She pulled her cloak free and began to march determinedly toward their own door.

Tally held her ground. “If you say one word to her about Thatcher, I will tell her about Dashwell.”

Pippin spun around. “You wouldn’t dare!”

But Tally was her father’s daughter, not so much gifted in diplomacy, but brimming with his infamous audacity. “Care to wager his life on that?”

The first person Thatcher ran into as he stormed through his house was his mother. “Madame, whatever are you still doing here? I would have thought—”

“That I had engagements elsewhere?”

He nodded. “I thought you preferred your social calls to family obligations.” His words came out sharp and arrogant and he regretted it immediately. Hadn’t his grandfather’s letters said over and over, not overtly but between the lines, that he wished he’d forged a different life, a different outlook?

Not that the footman who’d been stoking the fire appeared all that alarmed by his employer’s foul mood. Why, the man appeared positively giddy with delight.

“I did, but I cancelled them,” she said, ignoring his tone and barely noting the other footman, who brought in a bottle of whisky and glasses.

“Leave us,” Thatcher told them, and the pair of grinning fools nearly tripped over each other in their haste to depart. “Whatever is wrong with the staff in this house?”

“I believe they are just happy to have an overbearing brute back in charge. You’ve turned out to be quite ducal, you know.”

“I’m hardly ducal. Grandfather must be rolling over in his grave at the thought of me, of all the Sterlings, inheriting.”

“I’d say given your current mood and your performance at breakfast, you’ve quite mastered the position.” She settled down comfortably on a sofa and patted a spot next to her
for him to sit. He shook his head and strode over toward the tray, where he poured himself a drink. “Suffice it to say your Misses Hodges have vouchers, as do the Misses Langley and their cousin, Lady Philippa.”

This took him aback. “What?”

“Well, I assumed you’d want your Miss Langley to have vouchers, so I went and called on the Countess Lievin. When I told her about the unusual nature of your courtship, she declared you the most enlightened man alive and most likely would have given vouchers to my butcher’s daughter if I’d asked, for she was utterly delighted with my story. Russians! They do love a star-crossed love affair.”

He held up an empty glass for his mother, the decanter of sherry in his other hand. “Why?”

She nodded for him to pour. “Why did the countess find your story so amusing?”

“No. Why are you helping me?” He was more than a bit shocked that his mother had gone to such lengths for him. As the third son of a third son, he had never thought he warranted much notice from his family, let alone this outburst of parental aid.

“Because I realized something this morning.” She reached for the glass he held out for her.

“Which was?”

“I’ve been a selfish creature for too long. First your father died, and Archie and Aldus were all grown up and living their own lives, and then, before I knew it, they were both gone. Of course, you were off God knows where with never a line or a note to tell me if you were still alive.” She pursed her lips together and studied her sherry for a moment.

Thatcher felt a frisson of guilt. Quite honestly, he hadn’t thought anyone would want to hear from him. But in this, like so many other things, he’d been wrong. Terribly so.

Lady Charles continued, “I’ve been alone for a long time, and had quite forgotten what it was like to be a mother—not
that I was ever a very good one. I can’t take any credit for the man you’ve become—which I must say you’ve done a fine job of it. Your father would be proud, as your grandfather was of you when he learned about your promotions, the accounts of you in the field.” She held up her hand and staved off the questions he was about to ask. “Today, you reminded me of Charles. Of why your grandfather always said he regretted that he’d come third instead of first. Not that he didn’t think highly of Michael and Edward, but…” She paused again, but this time she glanced away, and he thought she might even have tears in her eyes. But with a quick swipe of her hand, she made short work of them. “I’ve done you a disservice all these years. I suppose it was because you reminded me of your father so much.”

“Father?”

“Yes, your father. Charles was an impetuous devil as well. Do you know when he courted me, my parents were quite opposed to the match—a third son after all—but that didn’t stop your father. He arrived one night at a soiree they were throwing—one he had not been invited him to, so he dressed as a waiter and stole me away.”

Thatcher blinked. “I never—”

“No, of course not. By the time you came along, our lives were quite different. We were different. Obligations, our place in society, I don’t how it happened, but sadly, we changed.” She took a sip from her glass. “Your grandfather always kept the best cellars in London.” She took another sip and glanced up at him. “Now, where was I?”

“Father?”

“Ah, yes. He would find it quite amusing that you’ve inherited. As for me, I’m glad you’re the duke, and I’m even more thrilled that you’ve found your duchess.”

“Miss Langley is hardly my—”

“Pish posh,” his mother said with the wave of her hand
that was her trademark. But there was none of the coldness in it, for her eyes shone with a light he’d never seen before. “If you have half of your father’s resourcefulness, you’ll win her heart.”

He took a deep breath. “So, how did Father finally win your heart against your family’s objections?”

She laughed, a magical, warm sound that left him stunned, for suddenly she was young again and full of the brilliance that must have caught his father’s eye. She leaned over and kissed his cheek, then patted his arm. “My dear, dear boy, he did what any man in your situation does.” She rose and went toward the door. Then she turned around and smiled at him. “Why, he seduced me, of course.”

Thatcher choked and sputtered on the gulp of whisky he’d taken.

She laughed again. “Oh, yes, and then he sent over diamonds. And don’t even ask which one I preferred more.”

The very next morning, in all his ducal glory, Thatcher did not call on the
ton
’s favorite jewelers, Rundell & Bridge. At least not at first. For his mother’s confession, nay, her suggestion, had haunted him all night long.

Seduction.
He was starting to think his mother and Princess Jamilla had gone to the same finishing school. Yet, if he wanted to prove his point to Felicity—that she deserved love above all else, that passion was more vital to living than any coronet—then finishing the seduction they’d started was the order of the day.

But this wasn’t just about teaching Felicity a lesson, there was also his pride. After all, he was still a Sterling.

If he was going to spend the rest of his life with this opinionated, hard-headed, overbearing little chit, he wanted to
know for certain that she’d chosen him, Thatcher the lowly footman, over all the titles and wealth a duke could offer.

If she chose from her heart, then perhaps they could learn the lessons his grandfather had tried to impart in his letters, and that his mother had shared—not to let the obligations of Society, the outward appearances, matter more than one’s heart. If Felicity could see that, then they might have a chance at real happiness.

That is if she didn’t, as Jack had warned, shoot off his ballocks for his troubles.

And to accomplish all this he needed the perfect setting for his plan to work, and for that he needed Felicity at the Setchfield ball. And for Felicity to get there…well, it would take a little bit of magic…and a fair amount of overbearing ducal privilege.

Her mother’s old pall-mall mallets and musty books weren’t going to do it.

So with his gilded carriage, the coat of arms shining in the meager winter sunlight, he called on no less than Mr. Archibald Elliott, solicitor. The previous night he’d given Mr. Gibbens the task of locating the man before morning, and by first light his ever-efficient secretary had the directions at the ready, along with a list of the man’s other well-heeled clients, including an old friend of his and Jack’s, Alexander Denford, Baron Sedgwick, as well as Jack’s brother, the Duke of Parkerton.

This would make the task a fair bit easier and decidedly more fun, Thatcher thought as he traveled to the respectable building near the Inns of Court.

When they arrived, his footman shoved the door open so it banged on the hinges and Thatcher strode into the middle of the room and stopped, taking in the entire scene with a flick of a glance.

He found Mr. Elliott’s reception room sparsely furnished and well-ordered, much as would be expected of a man who,
as Gibbens put it, was known to be excessively frugal and cautious with his clients’ affairs. Two clerks manned the long desk in the outer office, staged as if it was their lifelong duty to protect their employer against any onslaught.

Apparently, they had never been faced with a living and breathing duke.

“I am Hollindrake,” he announced, affecting a pose that he’d seen his grandfather use on many an occasion. As a boy, he’d likened the stance to that of a bored yet hungry lion looking for some tired, hapless game upon which to lazily pounce.

The two clerks shot up from their chairs, one of them sending his skittering across the floor.

“Hollindrake?” the taller one squeaked. “I don’t think the master had any appointments with—”

Thatcher flicked off his gloves and let the ruby and diamond crusted signet ring on his hand light up the dim room. “Perhaps you don’t realize who I am. I am the
Duke
of Hollindrake,” he said, narrowing his gaze on the first fellow. “And I never need an appointment.”

Gaunt and fair, the man paled further beneath his rimmed spectacles, looking as white as his cravat. “No, no, Your Grace,” he stammered. “Of course you don’t, I’ll just get—”

They were saved when the door to Elliott’s office opened and the man himself came barreling out. “Mr. Fishman, what is the meaning of—” Of course, his words got no further than the sight of the obviously elevated person in his office.

“’Tis the Duke of Hollindrake to see you, sir,” the shorter clerk managed, before he took refuge behind his chair.

Archibald Elliott hadn’t gained an aristocratic clientele for nothing. “Your Grace, my apologies. I wasn’t expecting you,” he said, casting accusing glances at his employees as if this unexpected arrival was entirely their oversight. Swiftly he swept aside his clerks, rather like a set of bowling pins,
and ushered Thatcher into the warmth of his private office.

The clerks might have no heat and only a shared candle, but the inner workings of the solicitor’s office had Mr. Elliott cozy and warm in an elegant room that spoke of a prosperous practice. A mahogany desk, a thick Turkish carpet, a lamp on the desk, and a polished tall clock in the corner. Bookshelves lined one wall. He waved Thatcher toward a large leather chair opposite his desk and without asking went over to a cabinet in the corner, unlocking it and retrieving a decanter from the far reaches within, along with two sparkling cut lead glasses.

The rich, thick amber liquid could only be Scottish whisky, Thatcher thought. And the man’s best, if the dust on the bottle was any indication as to the rarity of its arrival upon the desk. Elliott poured an unstinting glass for his unexpected guest.

“Your Grace, I am deeply honored you have chosen to call upon me. But you had only to send a note around and I would have been happy to save you the trouble of—”

Thatcher waved him off. “No need. I prefer to partake in business when the mood strikes me.”

“Yes, of course. Then let us get on with it,” Elliott urged him, pulling forth a sheet of paper and picking up his quill.

“I am here regarding a young lady,” Thatcher began.

The pen dropped to the blotter as the middle-aged man colored. “Your Grace, I am sure your own solicitor would be better able to—”

“This lady is a client of yours.”

Mr. Elliott shook his head. “I generally don’t do business with—”

Thatcher arched his brow and let his dark glance bore into the flustered man.

It only took a moment longer for the light of realization to illuminate the man’s features. “Lord Langley’s daughters.”

“Precisely,” Thatcher told him, looking up from the glass
in his hand. “You will release their funds. Immediately.”

The solicitor coughed and sputtered. “I will do no such thing.”

Thatcher had to give it to this Mr. Elliott. He had a measure of backbone. But he was about to find himself like a salmon on the hook. He could fight all he wanted, but eventually he was going to be netted and headed for the frying pan.

“I think you shall, and quite willingly, I wager.” He smiled. “The ladies would like a Season in London, and by all accounts it seems a necessity.”

“A necessity!” The man snorted. “A fine waste of money, is what it is. I dinna know how it is Miss Langley has convinced you, Your Grace, to come here and plead her case, but I will not release her funds. Not now, not until she’s of age, and then only under duress—which I am sure is why you are here. That headstrong lass has most likely badgered you to come plead her case. I don’t hold it against you, Your Grace, for in time you will grow, as I have, quite immune to her endless harangue.”

“Quite the contrary, sir. The lady doesn’t know I am here. And for the record, I find her determination admirable.”

Reaching for his handkerchief, the solicitor cleaned his spectacles and set them back in place, studying Thatcher anew. Seemingly satisfied that the man before him was nothing more than a pampered fool, he continued as if he were lecturing one of his secretaries. “Females such as Miss Langley haven’t the sense for such matters. ’Tis all shopping and expenditures and more shopping, and for what? To find some foppish fellow to marry.” He sat back in his chair, arms folded over his chest. “’Tis nothing but good money being poured after bad.”

“That might be so,” Thatcher told him, leaning forward, “but perhaps you aren’t looking at it from the right perspective, sir.” Elliott sputtered some more and looked ready to argue the point, but Thatcher continued before he could. “If
Miss Langley took her money and invested it soundly and at the end of three months showed not only a solid return, but so successful an investment that the lady would never have to worry about her security again, would you consider her plans ill-conceived?”

Elliott’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t deal in speculations. Not with my clients’ concerns.”

“Certainly, but if it were true, that in three months time—nay, make it a week—the lady would have outdone her initial investment beyond even your wildest dreams, would you hold the same opinion?”

He snorted. “I’m not inclined to such fancies, Your Grace. I am a man of business, but if—which is a very big if—Miss Langley had such an investment at hand, I might take the matter under consideration.”

“Excellent! For she has such an opportunity,” Thatcher told him.

The solicitor shook his head. “Impossible.”

“Hardly. For once you release her funds, she will be able to launch herself properly into Society, and before the end of this week she will be a duchess—her future more than assured and her father’s legacy quite trifling compared to the riches that will be at her disposal.”

“A duchess? Who but only a fool would—” the man started to say, then his eyes grew wide. “Nay, Your Grace, you don’t mean to say that
you
—”

“I do. But her funds will be released so she can come to this decision of her own accord. If it is a matter of risk that worries you, I have a note here that states I will reimburse any and all of her expenditures if she decides not to agree to my suit.”

The man studied Thatcher and then sighed. Thatcher thought for certain Elliott was going to capitulate—for really, what harm was there now that Thatcher had guaranteed the funds?

However, to his surprise, Elliott refused. “Nay, sir. I have
a duty to Lord Langley. And I consider my obligation to his daughters equal to what I would want done for my own lasses. I will not release her funds, for if she refuses you, the barn door will be open, if you understand me. I’ll never be able to get that filly back into any sort of fiscal responsibility.”

Thatcher had to admit this Mr. Elliott had an agile mind; that, and he obviously knew Felicity.

However, he still had one last card to play.

“Sir, you have a fine list of clients,” Thatcher said, glancing down at his signet ring, going for his grandfather’s favorite leonine pose yet again. “Including, I believe, Baron Sedgwick.”

“Yes, yes, Lord Sedgwick trusts my judgment on all his business dealings.”

“And the Duke of Parkerton,” he offered, naming Jack’s brother.

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Elliott said, shifting in his seat.

“Good friends of mine. All of them. I would hate for them to remove their business and legal dealings from your office—”

“Sir, that is most high-handed!”

Thatcher shrugged. “That and a few comments dropped at White’s in a fashion that would make them heard by one and all—”

“Uncalled for! Why you’d ruin me!”

“Sadly, yes. You’d be left with no clients at all. Definitely would make this whisky out of your reach,” Thatcher pointed out, draining his glass and smiling. “Release the funds, Elliott, and you have nothing to worry about.” He rose to his feet and flicked at an imaginary bit of lint on his sleeve.

Elliott scrambled up as well. “No good will come of this! She’ll spend it all before the week is out.”

“She’ll be the Duchess of Hollindrake before the week is out and it will matter not.”

Elliott’s brow furrowed again, for it appeared the man
found this possibility more alarming than losing all his clients. “She’ll be insufferable,” he warned.

“I have every hope she will be,” Thatcher told him. “Here is the initial list of what she requires. I have taken the liberty of having the staff and household requirements sent over. But the rest of it, the notes of credit for her modiste and other necessities, I leave in your capable hands.”

“Mark my words, this is utter folly,” Elliott complained, his face growing mottled with rage as he looked at not only the first page but the three that followed. “If she were my daughter—”

“Yes, quite right, you mentioned a daughter,” Thatcher said. “And is Miss Elliott out in Society?”

This personal turn of questioning seemed to set the solicitor on edge. Pry as he might into the affairs of others, apparently he wasn’t used to having his own privacy scrutinized. “Yes. In our own limited circles, of course she is,” he said. Yet the man wasn’t ready to concede any further points. At least so he thought. “However, she hasn’t the ridiculous expectations that Miss Langley seems to suffer under—”

“Does Miss Elliott have sisters who are also out?”

The man’s jaw worked back and forth. “Four, Your Grace.”

“You have five daughters at home waiting to find husbands?” Thatcher whistled. “No wonder you work such long hours. But tell me, why aren’t any of them married?”

The question was so blunt, so personal, that it left Elliott nearly speechless. “They are modest young ladies. Not prone to prancing about—”

Thatcher didn’t let him finish. “Perhaps if you were to loosen the purse strings a bit, let the fillies out of the stable, as you so eloquently said earlier, they might have a chance to find a man—”

“Dear God, sir, you sound like my wife,” Elliott interjected, having recovered from his shock.

It was most likely meant as an insult, but Thatcher could only grin. “Perhaps, Mr. Elliott, you should listen to your wife more often.”

“Give regard to my wife’s opinions? Are you mad?”

Thatcher moved to the door and there he paused, his hand on the latch. “Perhaps. But maybe not. I’ll make you a deal, Elliott. You loosen the purse strings for the Langley sisters and follow my instructions there”—he nodded to the list still clenched in the man’s hand—“and I’ll invite you, your wife, and all five of your daughters to the ball my aunt is throwing at the end of the week. I will instruct my mother to obtain vouchers for the young ladies as well. She has a talent for these things.” He glanced down at his ring again and then back up at the man. “Then I suggest you meet with Miss Langley and beg her forgiveness over your pigheadedness, as well as seeking her assistance in seeing your daughters properly matched.”