The Heart of a Duke (13 page)

He stopped at the door, his face serious.
"Making Farrish fall in love with you should be the easiest thing
in the world, Ellie. You are eminently lovable, no matter what Alex
says behind your back."

Her laughter was a bit watery.

"Thank you for your confidence. I'm not so
sure."

"I am." His pronouncement was
firm. Peter opened the door, then paused with one hand on the
wooden frame. "Oh, and Ellie? If he touches you before the wedding,
I'll be forced to break his fingers. So don't make him fall
too
hard, all
right?"

Chapter Ten

"What are you doing?"

Jacob turned from his narrow-eyed
contemplation of the earl's study door to find Elle watching him a
few yards away. What
was
he doing? Attempting not to shove the door open
again and shout and rail and pound his fist on her grandfather's
desk like a child denied.

He drew in a breath and released it. "Nothing
at all. I was speaking with the earl, but I'm finished now. Would
you like to walk outside with me?"

"It's raining."

Right.
The rumble of thunder overhead reminded him of the deluge
that had started at dawn. Jacob felt like an idiot. "Yes. I had
forgotten."

They lingered in the corridor awkwardly for a
moment.

What to do? He wasn't one for cards or parlor
games in general. Chess, perhaps, though he didn't have the
patience for it today. Or the concentration. Difficult to focus
when one had less than twenty-four hours until he was irrevocably
married to an unwilling woman.

"Perhaps we could just sit in the library
and... talk?" Elle asked.

She must mean talk to
him
, but after the way
she left the dining room the previous evening, Jacob wouldn't have
thought she'd want to spend any time with him at all, much less
have a cozy chat.

"Talk?"

Plump lips the color of wild strawberries
curved upward with a hint of laughter. "Yes. That thing people do
with their mouths, and then sounds come out?"

He could think of something he'd rather they
be doing with their mouths than talk. But that would only hasten
the wedding he was starting to think was unavoidable.

"Yes. Fine. Perhaps the library." Jacob
inwardly winced at his brusque acceptance when her smile faded. He
hadn't meant to be so terse, but it was difficult to resist the
urge to run a finger down the soft skin of her cheek.

Clearing his throat, he tried again. "I would
enjoy spending time with you. I'll let the housekeeper know we'd
like tea, if that sounds agreeable."

"Yes. That would be fine, thank
you."

Watching her walk toward the library, Jacob
clenched a fist against his thigh, hating the tension between them.
With a muttered curse, he left to hunt down a footman.

A few moments later, he stepped into the
library to find Elle curled up on the large sofa in front of the
fireplace, leafing through a thin booklet. A steady fire was
crackling in the hearth, slowly drawing the chill out of the rainy
Scottish morning air, but even as he watched, she shivered and drew
her feet higher under her skirts. Spying a knitted blanket hanging
over the back of one of the nearby chairs, Jacob grabbed it,
wishing she'd let him warm her instead.

The material was soft, but not as soft as the
skin on the back of Elle's neck his fingers brushed as he settled
the blanket around her shoulders.

"Why don't you want to marry me, Elle?" He
spoke in a low voice, attempting to control the emotion that surged
within him at her nearness.

She looked up, her eyes wide. "I thought I was
clear on the subject."

"Humor me, please."

"You don't love me. I don't want a husband who
doesn't love me."

Jacob turned away, frustration filling him.
"You keep saying that. What if I do love you?"

Stunned silence made him turn around. Elle's
lips parted, her face pale. "Please don't do this."

"Do what? Profess my love?"

"Profess
false
love!" She shot out of her
seat, her movements jerky. "Is this what Grandfather and you were
speaking about earlier? How to ensure my compliance?"

"No. God, no. I think we're both smarter than
that, love." Jacob started to laugh, the ridiculousness of his
situation too much for him.

The old adage,
be careful what you wish for
,
certainly was holding true for him. He was going to marry the woman
of his dreams in the next day, but it was all a bloody
disaster.

The hell with it.

"I love you, Eleanore Barnaby." He looked
straight at her, caught her gaze, and held it. "I think I've loved
you since we were in swaddling clothes together, and I'll still
love you when you get fat and wrinkled, and your teeth fall
out."

Elle laughed against the palm she had pressed
to her mouth, her eyes shiny with unshed tears.

"I can't stop myself from loving you; I never
could. You were never mine to love, but that didn't stop me
either." He gave a rueful shrug to cover the thundering of his
heart. "All I could do is endeavor to hide it from the world the
best I could."

Elle moved into the circle of his arms, a look
of wonder on her face.

"Every time I turned around for years, I
tripped over you. Giving me your toy soldier set when you were ten,
I thought you were trying to keep me from playing with you and
Langley by distracting me." Elle slid her hands up his arms to link
behind his neck. His breath caught and tangled as she smiled up at
him. "When you stayed behind when Langley deserted me at a ball,
when you took his place at musicals, every time you stayed when he
left, I thought you were shielding him from me."

"I was," he said, his voice rusty. His hands
found her waist, fingers fisting in the material of her dress
despite his intention to remain in control.

"Were you?" Her smile was slow and sure. "I'm
not as convinced as I used to be."

Jacob just shook his head, unable to summon a
defense when she slid her fingers through his hair in that manner.
She played with the curls at the nape of his neck, and he shivered
at the delicate touch.

"Langley could cause trouble and make it
difficult to gain support for an appointment to the King's Court,”
she said. “And to say my father is going to be angry... well, I'm
not sure there's been a word invented for how furious he will be
that I've upset all his carefully laid plans."

Emotion threatened to choke him as
he realized that for the first time in her life, Elle had chosen a
path that would certainly damage, if not outright destroy, her
carefully constructed reputation as the
ton's
perfect princess. The greatest
wonder of it was that she didn't seem to care at all. Her face
glowed, love shining through, not a shadow of doubt to be
found.

Jacob hadn't thought it possible to fall in
love with her any further. He was wrong.

"Don't worry about my career,
love. I'll find a way to get where I was going without Langley.
He's not the only lord with influence. I
am
sorry for the trouble with your
father, though. I never wanted to cause any strife between you and
your family," he said softly, his breath stirring the strands of
hair slipping from her coiffure. Inhaling the sweet scent of her
skin, he could not resist brushing his lips over her forehead, and
she snuggled closer with a sigh.

"Perhaps after Father sees how
much I love you as well, he'll forgive me. But if he doesn't, I
will still be content, because we are together." She drew back to
look him in the eye, her gaze wary. "We
are
together, are we
not?"

Warmth infused him as he pulled her back into
his arms. He sent her a teasing grin, the cracks in his heart
filling with the joy of being hers.

S
he loved
him.

"After that declaration? I have no intention
of letting you go now. I've wanted you since before I knew what it
meant to love a woman. I'll be yours now and forever, Eleanor
Barnaby, if you'll have me."

The brilliance of her smile chased away the
last stubborn vestiges of bitter darkness in his soul. She laughed,
hugging him. "Of course I will. As soon as possible."

"Well, we are in Scotland, darling." His mouth
found her ear, and he nibbled at the perfect pink lobe as she
shivered. "We can be married by nightfall if you wish."

Elle pulled back, her wide-eyed gaze searching
his. "Do you mean it?"

"With every fiber of my body." It felt like
the world stopped spinning as she studied him, his chest tight with
anticipation.

"Well, then..." She took his hand and led him
toward the door, glancing over shoulder. The wide smile was back,
her lips curving up in mischievous glee.

"What are we waiting for?"

Epilogue

Eleanore Farrish stared up at the town house
only blocks from her family's home in Mayfair, and her stomach
flipped.

"What's wrong, darling?" Jacob's voice was
close to her ear as he stepped forward and slid an arm around her
waist.

"Nothing really. Just nerves, I
suppose."

He laughed as she turned to look
at him, his hazel gaze dancing. "We just spent two hours having tea
with your parents, and calming your father from the precipitance of
an apoplectic fit, but
now
you have nerves? I don't believe it."

He did have a point.

Her father's rage and Mama's chilly
disappointment at her marriage had been daunting, but together,
Jacob and Elle had made it through the visit. They had even managed
to come to a tentative peace, as Jacob and Father discussed the
finer parts of the new prisoner reform bill that had just passed in
the House. The marquess even shook his son-in-law's hand with
grudging respect when Jacob and Elle took their leave, and extended
an offer to have dinner at his club later in the week. Impulsively,
Elle had hugged her father hard, causing him to sputter in a gruff
manner, but she spied the flush of pleasure on his cheeks as they
left.

Perhaps the damage done to her relationship
with her parents wouldn't be quite as difficult to heal as they had
feared.

Society was a different animal
altogether, though. Jacob had been concerned her broken betrothal
to Langley and their hasty marriage in Scotland would damage Elle's
reputation, and in certain circles, it most likely had. But Val's
last letter had been full of wonder and wry amusement at the gossip
that had ripped through the drawing rooms of Mayfair. The duke may
be respected, due to his vaunted position, but he had never been as
popular as Elle. The
ton
could be a capricious beast, bestowing its favor
on whim, and taking it away just as arbitrarily.

It seemed, however, the majority of society
only saw the romance of their tumble into love, and loved them for
it.

Elle never doubted she could manage the
household of her new home, but secretly there were occasions when
she had fretted as to whether she would be the sort of wife that
complimented an ambitious barrister's career. With the support of
the peerage behind them, though, she now had confidence that her
brilliant husband would have his place in the King's Court in no
time at all.

If there was one fly in the ointment, it was
the stony silence from the Duke of Langley. Though Elle knew Jacob
didn't think she had seen the lengthy letter he had written to his
cousin after they married return unopened, she knew it hurt her
husband. It worried her that he might have lost a friendship that
meant so much to him, for his love of her. She knew better than to
interfere in their troubles, having grown up with two brothers who
fought like rabid wolves. They would have to work it out in their
own time. It would happen, she had no doubt, once Langley recovered
from the blow to his pride. The duke hadn’t cut off Jacob’s
allowance, which said there was hope for reconciliation.

And if Langley took too long in extending the
hand of friendship again to her beloved, Elle would be more than
happy to provide a little shove in the right direction.

"Well, if you need time to calm your nerves,"
Jacob mused, interrupting her thoughts. "We could go for a drive in
the park instead of going inside. But that would be a
disappointment for the servants who are waiting eagerly to meet
you."

She bit her lip, amused by the mock gravity in
which he regarded the front door. "True."

"Not to mention, we won't have any time for
ourselves before attending the opera with your brother and Miss
Bell this evening." The sensuous look he gave her sent a rush of
heat through her body and weakened her knees. Even after a month of
being married, and all that came with it, she still loved the way
he could jumble her thoughts with just one look.