The Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order (26 page)

Her delicate condition only exacerbated her emotional turmoil. Mere weeks after their tryst, Prudence began to notice unsettling changes. Tender, swollen breasts were the least of it. She became emotional at the slightest provocation. A month later, with her regular-as-clockwork courses undeniably late, she knew.

Pregnancy overset her in unexpected ways. The miracle of it overwhelmed her as did the anxiety to keep it secret. Her mood gyrated between euphoria, remorse and fear. As her emotions fluctuated wildly, every nerve in her body seemed to require thorough dousing with tears. Not that frequent soakings calmed her the slightest bit.

Prudence stumbled down Henrietta Street, her mind a tangle of contradictions.

When the cottage came in view, angry tears burst forth in torrents. She ran upstairs and sobbed on her bed until she fell asleep exhausted.

Unbeknownst to her, Mrs. Mason came to the cottage an hour later to make the evening meal. Missing her in the kitchen, she climbed the stairs to find Miss H. curled up in her bed fast asleep. Mrs. Mason quietly left her in peace.

When Prudence finally stirred, it was dark and probably quite late. There was a slight chill in the air. It felt wonderful on her skin.

Her brain slowly began to function.

Why had the duke looked surprised — no, displeased — to see her? He may turn her out of her home and store but she had every right to be in Bath. She planned to vacate both buildings before the deadline his man of affairs set. She would leave Bath and disappear on the continent afterward. He and his apocalyptic friends needn’t hover to make sure she didn’t filch the silver in the meantime.

With Murphy’s help, she’d already began to pack up the apothecary shop, the reference works, notebooks, dried herbs, poultice blends, emetics, purgatives and miscellany. She regretted leaving behind the built-in cabinetry. She would miss the orderly, encyclopedic storage of her medicinal plants but there was nothing for it.

The large copper distiller at the cottage was a different matter. She’d raze the dairy shed if necessary to remove her precious distiller.

Moving it, however, would have to wait. There were late-season herbs and roses to distill before Murphy disassembled it and hauled it away on the ox cart she hired for the job. Fortunately, Lady Abingdon agreed to store it until Mrs. Mason could resume production.

There was so much to consider before she left. So much to remember. So much to conceal! Her head throbbed. To distract herself, she fetched quill and ink to compose a list of household things she bought herself and could rightfully take with her. She didn’t bother lighting a candle. Moonlight was sufficient to enumerate items on a scrap of paper.

When she heard the scrape of his boot on the windowsill, she realized too late she had forgotten to close and lock her window.

• • •

Ainsworth climbed in the bedroom window to find Prudence sitting in bed fully dressed with quill in hand and a lap desk balanced on her crossed legs. Even in the pale moonlight, he saw she was no happier to see him than she had been that afternoon. It didn’t bode well but he would not stand by while some bloody sailor pranced off with his damned duchess. His hand patted unconsciously for the antique velvet box in his coat pocket.

The time had come for action and if nothing else he was a man of decisive action. Ainsworth would show his wayward apothecary beyond all doubt that she was his to love, honor, cherish, tease and tup silly. Especially tup silly. He planned to charm her then claim her and thereby consign any doubts she had
—
and Captain Dorset
—
to the briny deep where they belonged.

He congratulated himself on his excellent plan.

A moment too late, Ainsworth realized he had to ease into his plan of action with a few well-chosen lines. He’d rehearsed what he wanted to say so many times and in so many different ways, he found himself at a standstill.

The duke understood the danger in having an important conversation too often in one’s head before having it with the intended party. Truly eloquent bits got jumbled together with rather awkward bits and occasionally conflated themselves with the think-it-but-heaven-forefend-saying-it bits. Also in one’s imagination, one may stop mid-sentence and change course or start over from scratch.

A wise man knows conversation obsessively played out in one’s mind rarely goes smoothly in reality. In actual discourse, doubling back only leads to confusion, frustration and mischief. The ensuing chaos inevitably obscures one’s heartfelt point and infuriates both parties. Ainsworth understood this but plunged in anyway.

“You said you’d always be glad to see me, Miss Haversham, yet you didn’t look happy today.” The duke teased cautiously.

“I had not expected to see you.”

“Obviously. On Captain Dorset’s arm often these days?” The duke’s reply had a sharp, accusatory tang to it. He still smarted over his friends’ studiously blank faces while meeting his nearly betrothed hanging on the arm of some over-familiar sea salt. “What the devil are you about, Prudence?”

“So many questions, Your Grace.” She set the quill down and placed the lap desk aside. “I have a question for you. What will you do with the cottage now that it’s yours?”

“Pardon?” Her question staggered him. Petty jealousy gave way immediately to squirming guilt.
She knew
. It was too late. His grand plan of action burned to cinders in her molten glare. “May I light a candle? I would like to see you while we discuss this.”

“If you must.”

He helped himself to the unused taper, which he took over to the coals in the fireplace to light. He handed the flickering candle to her and she placed it back in its holder beside her bed. She stared at him; he retreated to the middle of the floor to pace.

“This and the Trim Street building? What purpose do they serve in the vast Maubrey holdings, I wonder?” She continued conversationally. “Apart from disrupting my ability to make a living.”

“I plan to give them to you,” he said, disconcerted that she deduced his original motive for the purchase.

“You’re giving me the deeds to both now?”

“Not
now
but I will eventually.”

“Oh. On what will it depend?”

“Are you implying I would try to
bribe
you to marry me?” He huffed. The thought
had
crossed his mind but her implying it only stung him into higher ducal dudgeon. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Then you’ll forgive me, Your Grace, if I cannot puzzle out your logic. You are going to give me properties from which I’m about to be evicted?”

“Evicted?”

“According to your Mr. Sterling we must vacate by the end of the month.”

“That was a mistake. You don’t have to go.”

“Ah.” She smoothed her gown’s wrinkles over her legs. “So, you will allow me to remain here in Bath?”

“Not exactly,” he hedged. “Perhaps if we begin again.” He reached out to her but she leaned away. “Prudence,” he admitted. “I acted in haste. I did it before we met. I warned you, I could be hasty at times.”

“And vengeful.” She plucked at the counterpane. “But it doesn’t matter in the least any more.”

Her reassurance did not reassure him. That was not forgiveness he heard but something else entirely. Her wistful tone alarmed him. “Doesn’t matter? Why on earth not?”

She shrugged.

His alarm turned to panic. “Pray, don’t be hasty!”

“Oh, I won’t be. I’ve had weeks and weeks to consider what to do.”

“And you’ve come to your senses?” He suggested hopefully and held his breath.

“Indeed I have.” She frowned. “I’m going on a voyage, to ‘ship out’ as they say.”

“Ship out?” He exclaimed, “The devil you are, Prudence! You’re going to marry me not some bloody naval captain! I’ve made that abundantly clear, haven’t I?”

“Please,” she snapped. “Please, don’t. There’s no need. I don’t regret what we did. Not at all. But if you do this, you’ll make me sorry, don’t you see? Please don’t. I couldn’t bear it.”

“Bear what?”

His heart hammered in his chest as she stammered, “If you bring up marriage again.”

His Grace stared dumbstruck. His mind raced. He should’ve climbed in the window, seduced her in silence and dragged her to the nearest vicar in the morning, fine points of propriety be damned.

“May I ask why?” He struggled to remain calm enough to listen to her answer.

“I heard all about your dutiful visit to Sir Oswald.”

“How do you know that?” The duke cried.
The pudgy baronet gave his bloody word!

“So it’s true!”

“Why would I deny it?” He snapped.

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“Because the baronet,” he said, his voice coldly emphatic, “happens to be the head of your family!” The more defensive he felt, the angrier he became. How had things spiraled so decidedly out of control?

“Why bother? You made it abundantly clear to Sir Oswald and Lady Dabney you offered for me out of some idiotic sense of propriety.”

“Why shouldn’t I, Prudence?”

“Because Sir Oswald and Lady Dabney hurtled down here to accuse me of trying to ‘entangle’ yet another Duke of Ainsworth.” She slapped the bed. “Only this time, they were right. Without meaning to, I have entangled you because
you
,” she jabbed her finger in his direction, “feel obliged since we...after we…Oh, you know!” She flopped back into the bank of pillows behind her and glared at him. “What a pointless exercise.”

“Pointless!” Ainsworth’s voice rose. “The point is that you are…”

“Oh, no! Not ruined.” She assumed a rigid, corpselike pose on her bed and declared to the ceiling, “Have no fear, I won’t perish for lack of my virginity, Your Grace. I’m an independent woman who didn’t want to die a virgin spinster. Now, thanks to your kind offices, I won’t. As I said at the time, there’s no obligation. We can agree to say nothing more about it.”

“We’ll do no such thing, Prudence Haversham,” he sputtered, in equal parts panic and fury. “I’m going to marry you, damn it. And you are going to marry me!”

A beat too late, Ainsworth realized he hadn’t posed it as a question much less proposed it in a romantic manner befitting his tender feelings for her. He bellowed his heart’s desire but, devil take it, his blood was up.

She crossed her arms and refused to look at him. Without raising her voice, she said, “No, I will not.”

He bellowed back, “Why in God’s name not?”

“You know why.”

His chest rose and fell as he heaved great lungfuls of air through his nose to calm himself. Closing his eyes, he ground out more quietly, “No, Prudence, I haven’t the slightest notion why you refuse to marry the man who’s bedded you and wishes to wed you. Enlighten me.”

To his condescension, she said with dignity, “You’re only offering for me because you’re a gentleman.”

“I am
not
offering for you because I am a gentleman.”

She sighed. “And you deny it because a gentleman must.”

“Bloody hell!” He threw up his hands. “Prudence, can’t we resolve this simple, straightforward issue between us sensibly?”

“We could if you’d go away and leave me alone.”

“That is not sensible at all!” he cried his voice an octave higher in frustration.

The stiff figure on the bed said nothing.

“Fine. I’ll go but we are
not
done, not by a long shot,” he declared as he stomped to the bedroom door muttering, “You’ve done nothing but vex and confuse me from the start. Except when you’re torturing me with your God-awful tools!” He threw the door open with a bang, stomped to the top of the staircase and called out, “I was addled to think
I
would be the one to astonish
you!
”

“Oh, I’m astonished,” she retorted, “astonished you’re here and not in London with Lady Jane.”

He strode back into her bedroom doorway, “What?”

“You should be in London with Lady Jane Babcock.”

“What has she to do with
any
thing?”

“All of England knows the Duke of Ainsworth, or rather the Mayfair Stallion, is about to be saddled by Lady Jane.”

“Rubbish!”

“It’s been published. My felicitations by the way!”

“It’s published rubbish! Empty speculation, nothing more. It’s not as though
I’m
parading down the street with Lady Jane on my arm for all your friends to see.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you and that bloody,” he sputtered as she slung a pillow at his face, which he ducked. “Ship out, will you?”

“And why not? I’m free to go where I will.”

“But why set your cap at that bug-eyed barnacle? Have you no social ambition?” He exclaimed sarcastically.

“No. I do not,’ she retorted with heat. “Again, I wish you joy. Now get out.”

It was like stumbling into a bog, he thought, the more one struggles, the deeper in peat one sinks. He lurched out the door as a second eiderdown missile splatted against the back of his head. From there, he hurtled down the stairs to retreat in disarray.

A
insworth rampaged back to the house on Morford Street, tossed back a few — quite a few more than a few — therapeutic brandies in the study and fell asleep sprawled in a dainty chair.

In the morning, a bleary eyed duke followed the grating sound of laughter to the blindingly bright morning room where his three friends were mocking one another at a barbaric volume.

“Look what the dog dragged in!” Seelye piped up. Ainsworth grimaced and ran his hands through his bedraggled hair. He made his way to the sideboard and helped himself gingerly to eggs and bacon. When he sat, a footman filled his cup with tea. He shook his head slightly. The footman removed the cup, fetched a clean one and filled it with black coffee. Even this, Ainsworth eyed with misgivings.

“Raising a rumpus without us?” Clun frowned.

“Was a certain apothecary involved?” Percy teased.

Ainsworth grumbled something unintelligible.

“Pardon?” Clun asked.