Sarah's Duke: and Ellie's Gentleman (The heir and the spare, book 1) (7 page)

He opened his mouth to explain this new found realization when Lord John and Lady Charlotte burst back into the box, in a shower of laughter.

“Did we miss anything interesting?” Lady Charlotte asked, with an amused twinkle in her eye.

Sarah blushed faintly at the insinuation, but answered readily enough.

“Not at all, dull conversation. The weather, the opera...” There was a mischievous glint in her eye when she looked back at Oliver and despite his best intentions, he smiled back.

“Most definitely. How was your intermission?” He asked benignly but inside he was grinning like a loon.

The rest of the opera passed smoothly and Oliver didn’t try to interfere when Lord John and Lady Charlotte whisked Sarah home. He had made a tough decision tonight. He could not marry her and therefore had to stay away from her. It didn’t matter that he craved her touch and her company. She deserved more than what he could offer someone of her standing, which would only be an offer to become his mistress. Although there was nothing wrong with her bloodlines and her gentility, despite what she believed, they were just not good enough to be a Duchess. He had been told since birth that he was neither needed nor wanted as the heir to a dukedom and yet he had been born to it. Sarah would never survive in that world of hateful alliances and looming responsibility.

Four

The following week Oliver found himself at another ball. This one was hosted by Rupert’s mother, or he would never have attended. He stood with the hostess’s son, off to the side of the room whilst he watched Sarah dance with several eligible gentlemen.

Out the corner of his eye, Oliver saw a gentleman moving to Sarah’s side. He recognized Millington’s large frame and wavy blond hair at once. Oliver moved towards Sarah on pure instinct, he didn’t even remember making the decision to save her before he was already half way there. The terror in her eyes when she saw Millington, and the way she clasped her fan and reticule in front of her body as though such flimsy items could shield her from the man who had abused her had him frantic to reach her.

Oliver’s heart was hammering in his chest as he bowed to the gentlemen in front of him and heard Millington inviting, quite snidely, Sarah to dance. Thinking of nothing except protecting her, Oliver moved to her side and held out his hand.

“Miss Collins has promised the next two to me, Millington.”

He heard the titter go through the group at this open declaration of what would usually be seen as intent. He didn’t care.

“Y...y…yes.” Sarah stammered, placing her hand quickly in his. “Please excuse me, my lord.”

She bobbed a quick curtsy to Millington without letting go of Oliver’s hand and moved with him to the dance floor.

Oliver swept her into the dance with grace and poise. He may not have liked dancing very much, but he certainly knew how to do it.

“Oh, thank you, Oliver. I didn’t know how I was going to get away from him.” Sarah said, her relief at being in his arms evident by the way she was gripping him.

“I’ll talk to him.” Oliver announced, watching alarm spread across Sarah’s face.

“Please, no. I don’t want any trouble for you.”

Oliver chuckled softly, his heart melting even more for this woman. She was worried about him?

“I’ll be discreet.” He promised, enjoying the feel of her hand in his far too much.

“Thank you.” Sarah looked up into his eyes, the look of adoration so clear it made him swallow and grip her tight to him.

They danced their two dances and were both reluctant to leave each other’s company. Oliver felt her eyes on him and steered her towards the music room. There were two elderly women sitting on chairs, chaperoning any couple wanting to be alone.

“I love our music room at home, I’m always there with my sister.” Sarah said, walking slowly around the room admiring the different instruments on display.

“Is your family very musical?”

Another odd thing about his feelings for Sarah, he was actually interested in what she had to say. He could not say that about any female, except maybe Lady Charlotte. And that was only because she made him laugh.

“Oh, very. My mother plays the piano for the church choir and my sister and I both play the piano, flute and harp.”

“That is impressive,” he said, imagining how good she would look playing the harp. The large piece of curved wood cradled between her thighs. Biting back a curse, he turned his body to the wall, hoping she would not notice how his body had responded to that intriguing idea. Form fitting breeches were not made for being with a woman you desired.

Sarah laughed with enthusiasm, the sound healthy and strong.

“I didn’t say we played well,” she joked, making Oliver smile again. “I hope I can teach my children to love music as much as I do,” Sarah looked distracted as she absently ran her fingers over a child sized violin.

Oliver stopped short. Ladies were not meant to mention children, even when they had them. Hearing Sarah speak of her future children so casually was sending up so many red flags as to make his mind look festive.

“You want children?” Oliver choked out. Not many of his friends actually
wanted
children. An heir yes, but that wasn’t the same the thing.

“Of course. Who doesn’t?” Sarah answered with a smile.

They had reached the piano now and Oliver felt like his cravat was tied too tightly about his neck. He cleared his throat and leaned against the nearest instrument.

“Will you play, Sarah?” He gestured towards the piano forte, not even sure why he had asked, but desperate to change the subject.

“Of course.” Sarah moved over to the piano stool, sat down and began tinkling on the keys.

She looked up and gave Oliver the most blinding smile yet and he took a step towards her, his breath hitching. He couldn’t be feeling this strongly now, for this woman. It was painful. She was wrong, yet felt so right for him.

A small group entered the room unannounced.

“Lincoln.” One of the gentlemen greeted him with a nod.

“Miss Collins was just about to play us a tune.” Oliver announced, throwing her in the deep end to see if she could handle this small group.

Sarah blushed, but kept up her head.

“Anything particular you would like to hear?” She asked brightly, glaring at Oliver behind their backs.

Someone named a difficult piece and Oliver waited to see her reaction. She simply smiled and turned to the relevant page. The next ten minutes was torture. Sarah played and sang like an angel. She had a naturally sweet singing voice and she could play anything. The level of technical skill required for the piece astounded Oliver. Whoever had suggested it had been testing Sarah’s skill. In a blinding flash, Oliver saw his life ahead of him if he married Sarah. She would be a wonderful wife. She would entertain in their home. Play for their guests, love their children.

Oliver swallowed the uncomfortable lump in his throat. She would be a wonderful wife but a horrible Duchess. What Duchess actually spoke to their children? She didn’t know a thing about society. She was awkward and shy. She was a
vicar’s daughter
for God’s sake, she would never survive in his world. He left the room with a lame excuse and a bow.

Before he called for his carriage, he managed to coax Patrick Millington into a corner in the study, alone.

“Millington, I know what happened at Lady Charlotte’s ball,” he opened with, not willing to beat around the proverbial bush.

Millington’s handsome face coloured unhealthily.

“We went for a walk in the garden. She misunderstood my intentions and she attacked me.” He blustered.

“She attacked you?” Oliver willed his clenched fists to relax.  “Is that why her dress was ripped and her back was bleeding from being scratched?” He asked through his teeth.

He could feel his temper slipping free of his control. He never lost his temper, never. But the memories of that night were coming in hard and fast, and he was wondering who would actually
miss
Patrick Millington if he went missing? He had enough money, he could make sure Patrick Millington stayed gone.

Millington could obviously see the battle Oliver was waging. Oliver watched him going through his answers before he opened his mouth.

“As I said, she misunderstood my intentions and became terrified.” He said slowly, gauging Oliver’s reaction.

He smiled grimly.

“Well then, perhaps it would be wise to leave her alone?” Oliver gave Millington a stare that belied all the power the Lincoln name had behind it.

Millington’s eyes flashed rebelliously and he opened his mouth to say something obstinate but Oliver didn’t want to hear it. Instead of waiting for him to speak, Oliver ploughed his fist into Millington’s stomach with as much force as he could muster at short range.

Patrick Millington gasped like a landed fish and fell down onto his arse, clutching his belly.

“Or I will ruin you.” Pleasure radiated through Oliver’s body as he looked at the man that would have raped Sarah, on the floor, gasping for air. With one more ducal glance at his fallen nemesis he let himself out of the study and out of Sarah’s life.

Four

Oliver managed to avoid all
ton
events for two weeks after that. He visited his club every day and he met his friends at night. He did everything he could to make it appear as though nothing was wrong. He had no interest in any of the high priced brothels he had usually frequented and even less in finding a permanent mistress. Both situations repulsed him and he was ignoring the reason for that.

He was sitting at his club with a drink in hand when Rupert swaggered in.

“Lyre!” his old friend greeted him, blue eyes bright and shrewd, glowing beneath almost black brows.

Oliver smiled up at his friend, letting his usual facade of indifference wash away. He loved that Rupert never greeted him with his new title.

“Rupert, how are you doing this uninteresting Wednesday?” Oliver pushed out a chair in clear invitation for his friend to join him.

Rupert grinned and called over a footman to order a whiskey.

“I have been catching up on the latest gossip. It looks as though another of our school friends is doing the pretty. We just can’t keep our heads out of that noose it seems.” Rupert shook his head in resignation of the fate that awaited them all. Rupert would have to marry and produce an heir, he was just putting off the task as long as possible, bedding every married woman in sight.

“Oh, who?” Oliver asked, interested for once.

“Jamie McTavish, and he’s set to marry one of our ladies.”

Oliver’s sat up and moved forward in his chair. This was news indeed.

“You jest, man? He’s lowered himself to marry an Englishwoman? I’m shocked.”

The footman set down a crystal decanter and Oliver poured a whiskey for himself and Rupert.

Jamie McTavish was a good man, Scottish by blood and birth. His parents had sent him to London for schooling and the boys had teased him mercilessly for his accent. The Scot had put his fist through a few English faces and that stopped. He had a hot temper but he loved his land and his family. Oliver admired him.

“He has a bit of a fortune too, from what I understand. So, who has he found? He didn’t stoop to finding an heiress I hope.” That would definitely not fit with the picture he had of Jamie.

“No, he’s about to offer for a lady of good but low born family and no money,” Rupert confided in hushed tones.

They all knew that beauty was indeed the most important thing in a wife, but breeding and a dowry came close behind that.

“Good on him, although I’m sure she makes up for it in beauty. Do you know her name?” Oliver asked the question, although it would be unlikely he knew the young lady.

“A Miss Sarah Collins.” Rupert announced as Oliver was taking a drink of his own whiskey.

Oliver choked and spluttered, coughing half his brandy across the beautiful polished wood of the table. Air wasn’t getting into his lungs properly, a moment of panic assailed him as he wheezed and slammed his hands down.

“Are you all right?” Rupert helpfully bashed Oliver on the back with his large fist making his lungs seize.

It took several minutes for Oliver to get his breath back, and for the footmen to get the table cleaned and reset. He took several long breaths, concentrating on the flow of air into his aching lungs and attempting to calm his thundering heart.

“Sarah Collins you say?”

“Yes, it seems she’s quite a beauty and with half a brain as well.”

“She has more than half a brain,” Oliver yelled across the table, scowling at his friend.

Rupert’s eyes flickered dangerously and Oliver swallowed the lump that rose in his throat. He had a wicked temper when roused.

“You know her?” Rupert asked, flicking a piece of lint from his jacket sleeve in an obvious attempt to defuse the situation.

“Yes I know her,” Oliver snapped again, unable to hold in the torrent of emotion pouring from him. His heart was galloping in his chest and a hot sweat had broken out on his forehead. He took a long drink of his whiskey and embraced the burn that slid down his throat, draining the glass before he could speak again, gasping against the alcohol’s effect on his mouth.

How had she found someone so quickly? It had only been two weeks.

“I met Sarah Collins a month ago at Lady Charlotte’s birthday ball. She was attacked by that animal Millington in the gardens, and I found her and helped her to get home unnoticed.” Oliver confided in his friend, eyes darting around the room quickly to make sure no one nearby heard him.

“Are you serious? I hadn’t heard anything about that.” Rupert whistled low and his eyes widened in surprise.

“No, we tried to keep it quiet for obvious reasons. She needs to marry this year.”

“Well, she’s found her husband it seems. McTavish is working out a settlement before he talks to her father. Sounds like he’ll have to travel to Somerset, though. The father never leaves.”

“Yes, she told me.” Oliver said absentmindedly, not concealing his knowledge of Sarah to his friend.

So the beautiful little vicar’s daughter had found a decent husband all on her own. She could not have chosen better and pride fluttered in his chest. Jamie had a small but profitable estate and enough money to look after her brother and sister if he so chose. He was also not even thirty and a nice man. Yes, she’d done well indeed. His stomach was knotted, but he tried his best to ignore it.

“How well do you know her?” Rupert twirled his glass between his fingers and stared into the golden liquid as though it contained the secrets of life.

“Well enough to know she’ll be a wonderful wife,” Oliver admitted quietly. He couldn’t say that about any lad of his acquaintance.

“She won’t care about being buried in Scotland for the rest of her life?” Rupert asked.

Oliver shook his head. No, she would not. She would be happy as long as her family was set up. She would watch over McTavish’s tenants, give him children,
share his bed
. A sudden vision of the big Scot covering Sarah’s small but lush body with his own flashed before Oliver’s eyes and he saw red. He clenched his teeth and let out a small groan as jealousy ripped through him. Before he could control his wayward emotions the fragile crystal of the whiskey glass shattered in his hand.

Gasping as pain sliced through his palm he jumped up and away from the fragments of glass. Rupert rushed over to him, wrapping Oliver’s palm quickly in his large white handkerchief.

“You are having no luck with your whiskey today,” he joked, wrapping the wound tightly and tying it off. “I think that may need a few stitches,” he motioned towards the butler and in a few concise statements Oliver’s drinks were put on his account, and he was in his carriage, on his way home to be met there by the surgeon.

As Oliver sat in his bedroom in his family’s town house getting his hand stitched up he marveled over his response to Sarah’s upcoming betrothal. Did he really care that much who she married? He didn’t think he had gone a day without his thinking of her or a night without dreaming about her since the moment they’d met, but did that mean he had the right to interfere in her life?

When he awoke the next morning in a hot sweat, amidst a nightmare that consisted of Sarah in her new life, happy and contented whilst he grew old and bitter with some faceless Duchess by his side, he knew he had to do something.

****

Sarah stood at the entrance to the ballroom, waiting for her mother who was still handing her coat over to a footman. This was the night she expected a proposal of marriage from Jamie McTavish, and after only two weeks of courting! She should be elated, blissfully happy about the turn of events. She had succeeded in finding a man that would not only look after her family but would more than likely be a good and kind husband to her.

Then why was she not waltzing around the room with happiness? She turned her face towards the wall and grimaced. She knew why. Because she still missed Oliver. There was something just missing with Jamie. There wasn’t any of the spark or excitement that she felt with Oliver.

Sarah and her mother were announced as they stepped into the large, opulent room. There was a quadrille playing and the hum of conversation already surrounded the well heated room.

“Good evening, Miss Collins.”

Sarah turned to smile at the Scottish devil himself, who bowed low to her. She held her hand out to him.

“Please call me Sarah, I told you to last night.” She reminded him with a small smile.

“True,” he conceded with a grin.

Sarah looked into his blue eyes and knew that this man would be a good husband. He was handsome in an unusual way and looked as strong as an ox.

“But I was hoping to wait to use it at a special moment...” He let his voice trail off and her stomach lurched. “If that would be all right?”

Sarah was light headed all of a sudden, black spots swimming before her eyes.

“Of course,” she forced out, breathless although she wasn’t even moving.

“You look a little pale my dear, would you like to sit down?”

Yes
,
I would love to.
But first she needed a moment to compose herself.

“Thank you Mr McTavish, as usual you are so thoughtful. But perhaps you will excuse me as I need to go to the ladies retiring room.” She smiled politely. He seemed to like her smile and her mother had instructed her to use it as much as possible.

“Of course,” he bowed again and smiled in return.

Sarah walked along the plush carpet of the hallway. She was making her way to the retiring room when someone came up behind her. She moved slightly to the left so the person could go around her, but instead she felt a firm hand grab her under the elbow and she was steered into a room off the corridor.

The candles were lit in the study which Sarah was grateful for. She gulped and took a fast breath as she felt the rising panic in her chest. The door closed behind her and she swung around to see if her abductor was the man of her nightmares, or her dreams.

****

“I have heard that Jamie McTavish has been courting you.” Oliver was unable to hold in his feelings any longer. He knew he should have opened the conversation with small talk or at least a greeting, but as usual he could not remain aloof when he was within touching distance of Sarah.

Sarah blushed but didn’t look away. The air around them seemed to crackle with tension and Oliver swallowed hard.

“He has.”

Oliver waited for her to continue but she didn’t. That was it?

“I have also heard you have entranced him so thoroughly that he is on the verge of offering you everything you want.”

Oliver knew he sounded like a jealous idiot but he just couldn’t stop the flow of venomous words falling out of his mouth. He had seen her standing with the Scottish laird and been blinded to anything except the need to pull her into him, behind him, anywhere that she would be safe from all other men.

Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “And pray tell, how did you come by that information when you haven’t been into society since I saw you two weeks ago?” 

“I go to my gentlemen’s club every day. Just because I don’t go to balls designed to trap men into marriage, doesn’t mean I have disappeared.” 

Had she really forgotten about him already?

Sarah’s shoulders slumped a little and she sighed. “Oliver, why did you pull me in here? What is it you want?” 

Oliver pulled her into his arms without a thought and claimed her mouth with his. She was soft and warm beneath him, his hands trembled as he slid them around her back and pressed her closer. He had barely got a taste of her before she was pulling away from him.

“What are you about, Your Grace?” Sarah stiffly pulled out of his arms.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” Oliver apologized, already breathing hard. Blood was pumping through his body, making his heart race and his loins ache.

“No, you should not.” She agreed, eyeing him warily.  “Oliver, I must go, if we’re caught here...”

She trailed off just as he had at the opera, repeating the same warning. At the time it had seemed sensible but coming out of her mouth it sounded like an accusation.

“Yes I know. You wouldn’t want to lose your husband before he’s properly caught.”

Sarah gasped and there was a sudden silence in the small room that was deafening.

Did I just say that?

“What do you mean by that?”

Oliver took a deep breath in through his nose and stared at the blonde angel before him. She made him want to do unspeakable things to her. Starting with ripping that perfect pale green gown from her delectable body. She couldn’t become another’s wife. She just couldn’t.

“I mean exactly what I said. Getting caught in here with me would destroy your chances of marrying McTavish and him saving your family. That is all you want isn’t it?” Oliver knew he was just being plain vicious now but couldn’t call the words back.

Sarah’s breath caught and tears swam in her eyes as she spoke.

“I think we should leave because you don’t want to marry me. Isn’t that what you have said to me over and over again? Or are you suggesting that I should have waited for you to propose marriage?”