The Dastardly Duke (23 page)

Do I take it that you object?” Charles’s gaze was unreadable.

Lucy looked away.

“Come now, my dear.” His voice filled with sarcasm. “Your aunt has gone to all this trouble to arrange your abduction. I am certain she has also seen to it that, whatever inn our driver is bound for, there is only one room available. How can you object to having your future arranged so neatly? Why, we might as well start picking names for our children.”

“
You need not talk as if the notion is so utterly abhorrent.” Lucy looked resolutely out the window, though the encroaching darkness provided little passing scenery to appreciate.

Charles studied her rigid profile. “Lucy?”

When she did not reply, he touched her chin and brought her face gently around. He was shocked to see tears in her eyes. “What is wrong?”

“You act as if being with me is the worst of all possible fates.” Her voice wobbled precariously.

He frowned. “You know that it is not.”

She pulled a handkerchief out of her reticule and blew her nose. “How am I to know anything of your feelings, Charles? You have scarcely spoken to me lately.”

Incredulous, he stared at her. “I have thrice offered you marriage and you have thrice refused me. I made an utter fool of myself with that bet in the futile belief that passion could do what my words had not. You cannot doubt my feelings. It is yours that have been at issue.”

“P-p-passion?” Lucy’s eyes grew wide. “What do you mean?”

Charles colored. “I was certain that after we spent a night in each other’s arms, your feelings would alter. That you would see the truth.”

“The truth?” Lucy eyed him speculatively. “Are you trying to say that you care for me, Charles?”

Exasperated, Charles threw out his hands. “Of course I care for you! Do you
think
I would have gone through this for anyone else?”

“Then ...
then your feelings are not so brotherly as all that?”

Charles scowled. “Why would I wish to marry my sister?”

“You never said why, Charles. That is the point.”

“Never said—” Charles broke off, perplexed. “What the devil is there to say?”

“Why you wish to marry me, of course.”

“Why I wish to—” He broke off. “You mean that was all that it would have taken ... some flowery declaration?” He scoffed. “Balderdash, Lucy Pembroke!”

Lucy eyed him in surprise. “But that is how ’tis done, Charles. All my other—”
Abruptly she halted, biting her lips.

‘“All your other suitors’?” His eyes bored into her. “I am not like the others, Lucy. I am a simple baronet, whose cuffs are frayed and whose bills are rather numerous. I have little to offer a duke’s daughter, so we might as well turn this ancient buggy around and have done.”

“I do not wish to have done,” she said quietly.

He cocked his head, studying her. “No?”

“No.”

For a long moment their gazes held. Something wordless passed between them. Charles felt his palms grow sweaty, and the sensation that gripped him in his gut rippled down to the tip of his toes and back again.

“Lucy?” he said softly.

“Yes?” she prodded, when he did not continue.

He sighed. “I love you.”

“And I love you, Charles.” Her smile was positively radiant. He eyed her strangely, unable to trust the meaning of her words.

“Will you marry me?” Tension gave his voice a harsh, shaky rasp. “I warn you, this is my last offer.”

“Yes, but only if you do not turn the carriage around.”

He stared. “Is this some new game? Because if it is
—
”

“It is no game.” Lucy met his gaze without blinking. “I want to find out
about ...
about this passion of yours,” she finished in a rush. “I know it is unseemly, but—”

With a muttered oath, Charles pulled her into his arms. The first taste of her lips nearly sent him over the edge.

“Please,” she murmured breathlessly against his mouth. “Please do not turn the carriage around.”

Charles looked down into brilliant blue eyes shaded with passion. “I would not dream of it,” he said at last.

Chapter
Twenty-
One

Julian’s carriage rolled to a stop at the Swan’s Rest Inn. Aunt Eleanor’s distinctive traveling coach was easily visible from the road, as it took up most of the stableyard. A man bent on eloping could do a sight better than her conspicuous equipage, Julian reflected wryly. Since no attempt had been made to hide the ancient contraption, Julian assumed that Charles had no illusions about the fate that awaited him.

Dawn had yet to struggle over the horizon, and he was not surprised that no one hurried to see to his team. Everyone was doubtless abed, as he longed to be. With the help of his own exhausted coachman, Julian unhitched the horses and settled them in the stable with fresh oats and hay next to Aunt Eleanor’s dappled grays.

Hannah had fallen asleep about an hour ago. The sight of her curled up on the carriage seat like a babe touched an unfamiliar place inside him. She trusted him to take care of her, of Lucy, of whatever difficulties this night brought. Her faith awed him.

He hated to wake her. As he lifted her into his arms, she stirred slightly.

Julian allowed himself a smile. He was getting used to carrying her about. For such a feisty woman, she weighed next to nothing. Nestling her against her chest stirred that strangely protective spirit within him, and a number of other confusing feelings besides.

By the time he set her down inside the front door of the inn, she was awake, although groggy.

Are they here, Julian?” she asked sleepily, looking around the empty hall. Julian had rung a bell, but no one had come. He rang again.

“Upstairs, I imagine,” he replied, unable to tear his gaze from the lovely picture she made with her eyes half closed and her hair tumbling down around her shoulders.

It had been an exhausting night. They had traveled for hours, stopping frequently so that he could inquire at inns and public houses along the way. They had spoken very little, since darkness made it difficult for her to catch his words Without bringing her face very close to his.

She no longer shied away from using his Christian name. In the confines of his darkened carriage, her softly modulated tone had wrapped around his name like a close-fitting glove. Her increasingly disheveled appearance had stirred his passions, and the long road before them had forced him into hours of teeth-gritting control.

Julian wondered if Hannah realized the consequences of this night. He held no illusion that Lucy’s reputation could be salvaged without a marriage to Charles posthaste. That issue did not concern him.

What troubled him was the fact that by going off with him tonight, Hannah had put herself beyond the pale. With his reputation, no one would really believe that they were merely chaperoning Lucy and Charles. Her clever plan notwithstanding, Hannah would be viewed as a fallen woman.

He reminded himself that a scandal would mean nothing to her. A woman of her background would scarcely concern herself with appearances. She would simply return to her former life among the sordid streets of London.

That realization brought a scowl to his face, which he turned on the ruddy-faced innkeeper who finally came running down the hall. A quantity of gold forestalled the man’s complaints and produced the interesting information that Charles and Lucy had arrived very late, registered as Sir Charles and Lady Tremaine, and taken one room.

“Idiot,” Julian muttered. Registering Lucy as his wife was unforgivably indiscreet. He vowed that Charles would wed his sister this very day. For a moment he contemplated rousing them at once, but that would change nothing. Best to let
Charles rest up for his wedding night—although from the
looks of things, he had already had it
.

Scribbling a note, Julian instructed the innkeeper to slip it under the baronet’s door. He scrawled his name in the register under Charles’s and accepted the key for what the innkeeper
said was the only vacant room.

Hannah was nearly asleep on her feet and so was he when they crossed the threshold into the tiny little attic room. Two small rope beds were slung alongside each other, and from the disheveled look of the bedding, Julian suspected that servants had been hastily ousted to make room for paying customers. He also suspected that the bedding was none too clean.

No matter. They would sleep in their clothes, grateful for a few hours’ rest. Hannah had lain down on one of the beds. Already she was fast asleep. He tucked a blanket around her and marveled at the wild tenderness she evoked in him. He had never felt so protective toward a woman, yet so filled with desire. It was not the predictable, tidy lust he had felt with others, the kind that could be satiated by a few hot moments under the sheets.

With Hannah, a man would never get his fill. There were so many sides to her—the proud side that dared him to treat her any differently because of her deafness, the shy side that blushed furiously at the thought of that night in his carriage when she had dropped her guard long enough to let him please her.

And there was a dark side to Hannah he was just beginning to understand—the side that saw herself as imperfect, damaged, that yearned for what could never be. He felt a strange
kinshi
p with that side, for he, too, lived as an outsider.

But she was whole, where he was not. Deafness had not diminished her; it was simply part of her, as much as that stubborn disposition and that delightful rebellious streak.

Why could she not accept who she was?

Kicking off his boots, Julian tried to make himself comfortable on the other bed. He could not fight her battles for her; he could only fight his own—and today, perhaps, his sister’s, though Lucy probably needed a champion as much as she needed another gown. He was not sure what they had accomplished by this mad dash north to rescue a woman who undoubtedly did not need rescuing and who would shortly wed the man they were rescuing her from.

With a heavy sigh, Julian closed his eyes.
He
was the one who needed rescuing—from this tantalizing woman at his side. He should have kept up his guard, but then he had not known what to guard against. He should have reined in these tender feelings, but they had caught him unawares.

And now, he had not the slightest idea what to do with this softness that flowed through him like warm honey.

All he knew was that when Hannah said his name, it felt as though an angel had granted him a small measure of grace.

“I did not seduce her,” Charles insisted.

Oh, no, Julian,” Lucy agreed. “It was
I
who propositioned
him
.”

“Now wait a minute, Lucy,” Charles protested. “A man has his reputation to uphold.”

“I have no complaints,” she said with a shy smile, nestling into the fold of his arm.

“This is all very charming,” Julian snapped, “but the only information I care to have at the moment is your weddin
g
plans.”

“Oh, we have no wedding plans,” Lucy said calmly.

“No,” Charles confirmed. “None at all.”

Julian
’
s fist slammed onto the table of the private parlor they were sharing for breakfast. “Enough of this nonsense,” he growled at his sister. “Or I will call your lover out and happily wipe that smile from his face.”

“You would not!” Lucy cried.

“He would indeed, my dear.” Charles patted her hand reassuringly. “But I am passably handy with a pistol.”

Lucy turned on her brother. “What a hypocrite! Everyone knows you have had more mistresses than a tree has leaves!”

“That is enough!” Julian glanced quickly at Hannah. Just his luck—by the looks of her reddening complexion, she had caught Lucy’s words.

Undaunted, Lucy continued: “I always looked up to you, Julian—not for your careless womanizing, of course, but for your determination to be yourself, heedless of society’s expectations. But now it seems you are just like everyone else—you wish us to appear respectable when we are not!”

“Not respectable! Coming it a bit too strong, Lucy, Charles warned.

Julian’s gaze went from his sister to Charles, who was looking remarkably sanguine about the whole matter. Something was not quite right. “What exactly is afoot here?
”
he demanded.

Lucy merely bestowed an adoring look on her lover. As Charles met Julian’s gaze, an oddly mirthful gleam lurked in
his friend’s eyes.

“I am probably the only man in England,” Charles said mournfully, “who has carried a Special License in his pocket for the entire season.” He sighed. “Hope springs eternal, or so Pope said.”

“A Special License!” Julian stared. At last the man had shown some sense. “Then there is no impediment to your being wed today.”

Lucy promptly burst into giggles.

“We were wed last night,” Charles said quietly, “though I cannot say what would have happened if I had not had that piece of paper with me—”

“I can,” Lucy interjected.

Charles silenced her with a glance. “We roused the local vicar just before midnight.” He grinned at Julian. “Consequently, today you have the pleasure of addressing your sister’s husband.” He put his arm around his wife. “I am the luckiest man in all England.”

Julian was too stunned to speak. But Hannah rose quickly and enveloped Lucy in a hug.

“I am so happy for you!” she cried. Julian found himself staring—not at his wayward sister, but at Hannah and the delighted smile on her face.

Lucy erupted in more giggles. Hannah joined her. Charles looked as pleased as he could be.

For some reason, Julian suddenly felt miserable. He shook Charles’s hand, wished his sister well, downed the rest of his coffee, and wondered why the morning suddenly felt so empty. It might be small of him, but the sight of the two laughing women and Charles’s self-satisfied smile plunged him into despair—as if he had suddenly come face-to-face with what he could never have.

He had to leave. He rose abruptly, but just as his hand found the door, Charles’s words brought him to a halt.

“Hold, Julian,” he said softly. “You cannot go without informing us of your intentions toward Hannah.”

Julian frowned. “My intentions?”

“You have compromised her as surely as I would have compromised your sister had we not been wed,” Charles said quietly.

Julian heard Hannah’s shocked gasp.

“Nothing happened,” she protested. “We simply came to find you and—”

“And spent the evening in a closed carriage and the waning hours of the night in the same bedchamber,” Charles pointed out. “You are not to blame, Hannah,” he assured her. “But Julian knows what is what.”

Julian scowled at Charles. “Nothing improper occurred. And even if it did, it is none of your concern.”

“On the contrary, my friend. You are speaking of my cousin.”

Julian stared. “You know that’s a lie.”

Charles regarded him calmly. “
I
know, as does everyone in this room. But the world thinks Hannah is my relative. If her reputation is destroyed, it is I who must see to it. And I will, make no mistake about it.”

“Oh, no!” Lucy looked appalled. “You will not fight a duel!
I cannot bear it!”

“There will be no duel,” Hannah said firmly. Her chin was set in that determined look Julian had come to know so well. “Julian is right. There was no harm done. I will not allow you to fight over a reputation that never existed in the first place.”

“Now wait a minute, Hannah,” Charles protested. “This is not your concern.”

“It is every bit my concern,” she declared. “I do not care a fig about my reputation. A woman in my position cannot afford to.” Her gaze moved from one to the other. “I appreciate your assistance, but I have my own life to live. I will decide my fate, not any of you.”

Then she walked swiftly from the room. All eyes promptly turned to Julian. He shook his head. “Stubborn woman,” he muttered.

“What are you going to do?” Lucy demanded.

Hannah
could not disappear from his life. He would not allow it. “Go after her,” he said grimly.

“And then?” Charles inquired with a mischievous grin.

Julian merely glowered.

The mail was due in a hour, the innkeeper informed her.
Hannah
purchased a ticket with some of the money she had intended to give Dr. Itard last night.

Had it only been last night that Julian had swept her out of the doctor’s office and into his carriage? Had it only been this morning that she had wakened to find those dark, brooding eyes staring down at her?

So much had happened in so short a time. Was it possible that he cared for her just a little?

She had seen the way he had looked at her in the carriage last night. Not just with lust—although there had been that—but with the eyes of that motherless boy of six who wanted badly to believe in feelings that endured. And with the eyes of a man who had taught himself to be strong even when they did not.

There was kindness in him, no matter that he tried to hide it. It was as if that part of him had been unused for so long he had forgotten it existed. His contemptuous veneer was meant to repel the faint of heart, but her own heart had been strengthened by hardship and she knew that veneer for what it was: armor that existed in the unspoken hope that it would one day be unnecessary.

Only a man of character would die a little inside when he knew himself helpless to resolve the dilemma of his birth. Only a man with the courage to face the truth would torment himself when the truth proved elusive.