The Dastardly Duke (7 page)

Before she could reply, Julian swept her into his arms. He hummed the music to himself as he moved her around the floor. At first she tried to follow his lead. Then, abruptly, she pushed him away.

“I will not let you put me on display like this,” she said, blushing furiously. “Everyone will be staring at me.”

“There is nothing to be ashamed of,” Julian said charitably. “You stepped on my toes a few times, but that is to be expected from a beginner—”

“Stop it!” She stamped her foot and made as if to flee, but there was nowhere to go in the tiny cottage.
Dejected, she sank into a chair. Tears of mortification rolled down her cheeks. “I cannot dance, and both of us know it. I am not like the other women. I am
deaf.
I cannot pretend otherwise. If there is any kindness in you, you will not parade me across the dance floor like a ... a trained animal.”

“Some of us rise every day and pretend to be something we are not,” he said coolly. “You have an infirmity, it is true, but you also have the intelligence to see that your defects have only the power you grant them.” Now where had that bit of wisdom come from? How easily it had rolled off his tongue, as if mastering one’s demons was child’s play.

“You talk as if I have but to assume that I am entitled to be treated as any other woman and it will be done,” she retorted. “It is not so easy as that.”

Damn her perceptivity! “And yet, you do it remarkably well,” he snapped, “I have never met a more high-handed wh”—he caught himself—“young woman.”

She stilled. Her solemn gray eyes searched his face. Finally she sighed. “I should like to try again.”

Julian held out his arms. After a moment’s hesitation, she stood and walked into them. He began to waltz her around the little room. Unfortunately, however, there was more stumbling than waltzing.

“One-two-three. One-two-three,” Julian barked, but she was looking at her feet and did not notice. She held herself so stiffly that she had not a prayer of catching the beat from him.

As she stepped on his feet for the fifth time, Julian halted the painful exercise. “You are making this difficult.”

She eyed him uncertainly. “I am doing my best.”

“You seem to think you must learn some intricate trick, like that trained animal you accuse me of trying to make you into. All you need do is relax.”

“Relax?” Her lips parted on the words and remained so, as if the concept stunned her.

Exasperated, Julian pulled her close. When she tried to push
him
away, he merely held her tighter. “Stop struggling,” he ordered. “Put your hand in mine and pretend as though you have not a bone in your body. Lean into me, if you must. Let me do the work for both of us.”

Her impossibly intent eyes regarded him carefully, then closed in concentration. She took a deep breath. He felt her relax into him. Her hand grew supple and her breathing became even and slow.

Slowly, he drew her into the dance. She did not tense or stumble, nor did she resist his force but rather leaned into it like a leaf that flew wherever the wind willed. A few strands of hair had come loose from under that hideous cap she wore. They tickled his nose as he whirled her around. Her body fit his amazingly well, he noticed. Now she was moving perfectly with him. He marveled at her powers of concentration. His, on the other hand, had gone disturbingly awry.

Suddenly and inexplicably, he stepped too deeply into the figures. She would have fallen had not he pulled her tight. In that moment, as her slight form pressed against him from his chest to his knees, Julian decided that the dancing lesson had continued long enough.

But where his mind was willing, his body was not. Somehow, his arms would not obey his brain’s command. Instead of setting her away from him, he held her tightly within the circle of his arms.

Her eyes fluttered open and regarded him in confusion. He was struck by how many different shades of gray they contained.

Their gazes held. Staring into those mesmerizing gray depths, he could not think of a single thing to say.

Then he remembered who it was he held in his arms—a woman whose body was only a tool to be used when expedient. No matter that she looked the picture of untried innocence, no matter that her deafness made her seem achingly vulnerable—Hannah Gregory was not what she seemed.

But then, neither was he.

His lips curled into a harsh smile. “The lesson is over, Miss Gregory. You will be so good as to remember your place.”

Flushing deeply, she stepped out of his arms so quickly that she crashed into the divan behind her and toppled backward onto its cushions.

As she flailed about for a helpless moment, Julian caught a glimpse of her bare legs. With a muttered curse, he reached down and jerked her to her feet.

“You need not trouble yourself—” she began heatedly, only to break off with a startled squeak as he brought his lips to hers.

Chapter
Seven

A
pulsating resonance shot from the place where the duke’s
li
ps touched hers down to the pit of her stomach, where it took up residence like a thousand fluttering butterflies. Their wings beat out a song that rivaled any she had known before silence became her way of life.

With a
sigh,
Hannah leaned into that strong, solid chest. Slowly his arms came around her. She felt safe, as she had in the woods when he had braved the dark dangers of the night to return her to safety.

But that heady song within her breast also resonated with a danger more ominous than anything in the forest that night. As his
li
ps grew more insistent, Hannah felt as dizzy and helpless as a lamb, unable to resist that pulsating force which held her in its thra
ll
. She knew she ought to be afraid, but that exhilarating song within her pushed all fear away.

Abruptly, the duke severed the kiss and took a quick step backward.

“What is it?” she murmured m alarm, steadying herself against the divan.

A contemptuous sneer settled over the sensuous lips that had moments ago met hers. “I would advise you to abandon your attempt at seduction, Miss Gregory. It will not work. I have no taste for prostitutes, as I be
li
eve I have already explained.”

Hannah eyed him incredulously. “It was
you,
sir, who kissed me!”

“Only after you treated me to that display.”

“
Display
?”
She blinked.

He scowled. “Falling with helpless abandon ... exposing your bare flesh like a practiced trollop. Clever, but ul
timatel
y ineffective.” He regarded her as if she were a loathsome specimen of insect. “I am not one of your jug-bitten, gullible customers.”

For one long moment, Hannah stared at him in disbelief. Then fury filled the places where those little butterflies had fluttered happily. “You think that I tried to—to—” She broke off helplessly.

Hannah whirled away from him. She had no idea whether he was speaking, so she raised her voice to make herself heard over his just in case.

“I have no intention of wasting whatever feminine wiles I possess on the likes of you!” She glared back at him over her shoulder.

His face was a picture of ducal disdain. “There is no need to shout.
I
am not deaf.”

“No,” Hannah agreed sweetly, turning to face him squarely. “You are merely thickheaded or a liar. I have not yet decided which.”

“What?” He stilled.

“
You
kissed me, Your Grace. Only an idiot would deny the truth—or someone accustomed to lying to himself or to others. Yes, I believe that is what you are,” Hannah finished, pleased at her insight. “A liar.”

Instantly, she walked away so that whatever mean-spirited retort he had would be lost to her. There being nowhere else to go in the small cottage, she busied herself with
strai
ghtenin
g
the larder, although its shelves were already neatly stocked and arranged. That was what came with having scores of servants to take care of such things, she thought resentfully. The man had probably never known a moment of want in his entire coddled life.

Then the thought occurred to her that perhaps one ought not speak so to a man possessed of the devil’s own temper. They were alone in this cottage, after all. There was no one to stop him from doing whatever he wished with her. Once again, her temper had clouded her judgment. Perhaps even now he was contemplating wringing her neck.

Warily, Hannah peeked around the pantry
corner
.

He had not moved. A strange stillness enveloped his rigid form. Then she saw that his lips were moving slightly. She could not make out the words.

As she ventured closer, he took no notice of her. Waves of torment filled his dark eyes as he stared straight ahead, muttering to himself.

Now she could make out the words. One word, that is. Over and over, he repeated it.

“Liar. Liar. Liar.”

Dear Lord.
The Duke of Claridge was quite mad.

“
Only an idiot would deny the truth—or someone accustomed to
lying
...
That is what you are. A liar
.”

The truth at last. She had made him see quite clearly what he had tried to forget with his fine French brandy, what he had tried to obscure with his doomed attempt at respectability. Without any definite proof of his parents’ marriage, he was living a lie. And he would live this lie until honor or conscience demanded otherwise.

And that was the rub. For he possessed neither honor nor conscience sufficient to relinquish his title and thereby brand his mother a whore.

Bitterly, Julian’s mouth curled with hatred for the man whose blood ran in his veins. Octavius Pembroke had never done anything that did not accrue to his own self-interest. Having inherited a dukedom but no wealth to support it, his father desperately needed a fortune. Going through estate papers after his father’s death, Julian had discovered dozens of loans Octavius had been obliged to seek from his wealthy sister, Lady Huffington. Helene LeFevre, daughter of a wealthy French comte, must have seemed a perfect solution to his financial problems. To cement the alliance, Octavius had doubtless seduced her. But when her parents lost their lives and property in the Terror, he had no need for a penniless, pregnant wife.

And none for his son. After Helene’s death, the task of raising Julian fell to her sister, Lady Sommersby. Only after the rich wife Octavius finally secured died birthing a stillborn son did he come for Julian and acknowledge him as his heir.

Julian did not delude himself. The fact that his father gave him a dukedom was no proof of legitimacy. Octavius would have done anything to control his wealth through his own seed—even if it chafed to make a bastard his equal. And it must have chafed. Hate had lain in that paternal gaze.

Julian had long tried to understand its roots. Perhaps Octavius had realized Julian had no particular loyalty to the cold, harsh stranger who claimed him much too late. Perhaps, facing imminent death, Octavius had seen the futility of trying to control his fortune from the grave.

Whatever the cause, his father had detested him. And so, on his deathbed, he had inflicted an everlasting blow.

“Will you like being ‘Your Grace,’?” his father had rasped in a voice that, like the rest of him, was ravaged by disease. “Your mother would be pleased—she always wanted to be a duchess.” A sinister smile briefly enlivened his shriveled features.

The words raised the hairs along the back of Julian’s neck. Until then, he had not thought to doubt his legitimacy. His mother
had
been a duchess, had she not? He assumed that it was her declining health that prevented Octavius from fetching them from France. After her death, Julian told himself that his father did not come because he was overcome with grief.

A horrible suspicion had entered Julian’s
min
d.

“I do not understand, sir,” he said carefully.

His father’s sunken features filled with contempt. “Did you never wonder why you were sent to be raised at Sommersby, boy?”

Oh, yes. He had wondered that a thousand times. Countless nights he had lain awake in that old musty castle trying to guess why his father had not come for him. Not that he minded his aunt, Lady Sommersby, whose dark beauty reminded him of his mother. But she had had no children of her own; life in that ancient castle had been unremittingly lonely for a boy of six.

Another raspy laugh erupted from the figure in the bed. “You were an errant branch of the tree, boy. Perhaps you are not even mine. Your mother was the flirtatious sort, if you catch my meaning.”

“Now,
son
”—his tongue spit out the word like a curse— “soon you shall have it all—my name, wealth, position. Guard them well.” The bitterness in his tone had brayed louder than trumpets.

An errant branch of the tree.
Julian had stood there on the cusp of manhood, burning with a thousand fearful questions. His father breathed his last that very afternoon, taking the answers with him.

The pieces had begun to fit shortly afterward. The horrible suspicion had hardened to chilling certainty. He had been given his mother’s surname instead of his father’s. Lady Sommersby had always grown curiously silent whenever the subject of the duke came up. No birthday greetings ever came to the castle from his father. Julian never even met his sire until he was fifteen and Octavius appeared at the castle to claim him.

The excuses Julian had made over the years to explain Octavius’s behavior fell apart. He realized that his father was a cold and unfeeling cur who would never grieve for anyone, much less a woman he had seduced. Even around Lucy, the
charming
sprite of a daughter whose mother had brought him such wealth, Octavius displayed little warmth. Octavius Pembroke loved no one, least of all his son.

Charles was the only one Julian had told about that deathbed scene. His friend had loyally pooh-poohed the prospect that anything Octavius had said was to be trusted.

“The old duke was a scoundrel—not to put too fine a point on it,” Charles had declared roundly, and Julian had raised a glass with him and put the matter aside.