When You Give a Duke a Diamond (15 page)

The next day dawned clear and cold, the weather chilly even for this time of the year. It was equally frosty inside the carriage, as Will had neither looked at her nor said a word to her in the two hours they’d been en route to his home in Yorkshire.

Juliette was a reasonable woman. She’d lived with an unreasonable man for almost three years and then been tutored in the ways of men by the Countess of Sinclair for another year. And then she’d spent the last six years in London, fending off the advances of scores of men and playing the part of a glamorous courtesan.

She understood men.

She understood Will wanted her but was not prepared to admit he wanted her, because he was A Duke. She understood what had passed between them last night had shaken him, because it had shaken her as well. And she was smart enough to know something else was bothering him, but she didn’t know what it was.

Perhaps he wasn’t ready to share it yet, but the time for politeness and consideration—not that either of them had been particularly polite or considerate until now—had passed. It had fallen to the floor with the last of her soggy clothing in the inn chamber last night.

Juliette had no illusions that she and Will had any future together, but she did think she was owed some kind of explanation for the way he’d behaved last night after he’d made love to her. She did think she was owed a few words the morning after, so she would not feel as though she were a common whore.

But of course Will probably thought of her that way, while she… she was half in love with him. And she was a monumental fool for allowing this to happen with a man like Pelham. She wanted a husband and a family, not a lover. Clearly, Will was prepared to be neither to her.

“I don’t mean to intrude on your brooding silence,” she said, her voice splitting the tense stillness, “but I do think you owe me a few words this morning.”

He glanced up at her, his eyes shuttered and wary. What did he think she was going to do to him? Attack him? Seduce him? Neither and both sounded agreeable.

“Good morning, madam.” He had a copy of the
Times
in his hand, and he pretended to read it again. She knew he pretended, because he hadn’t turned the page in half an hour.

“Ah, so I’m
madam
again. What happened to Juliette?”

He glanced back up at her and steeled his features. “I’m sorry to say I believe last night—”

“—was a mistake,” she finished for him. “I knew you were going to say that.”

“You agree, do you not?”

“No.”

He frowned. “No?”

“No. The mistake was in you leaving my bed and spending the night in the stable—at least I assume that’s where you slept, as you smell suspiciously of horse and leather.”

He bristled. “If I have offended your sensibilities, madam, I—”

“Oh, stubble it. I don’t want your perfunctory apologies.”

His eyes went hard. “Stubble it? I am a—”

“—duke. Yes, I know, and I’m sure you know what you’re about in affairs of the House of Lords or matters dealing with… dukely things.” She waved a hand to indicate whatever those dukely things might be.

“
Ducal
matters is the term you’re seeking,” he corrected.

“Precisely. You see, you know all about dukes and ducal things, but you don’t know anything about relationships. You don’t know anything about emotions, and, if I may be so bold as to say it, you don’t know yourself.”

“And you do?” His tone was icy.

“No! But I want to.” She crossed the divide between them and sat beside him. He pushed himself into the corner. “Don’t you see, Will? I
want
to know you. Not The Duke. I want to know Will, but every time I get close, you push me away.”

He looked away. “There’s nothing to know. I
am
the duke.”

“You’re pushing me again.”

“What happened last night was a mistake,” he argued.

“You’ve already said that, and it’s a futile effort to push me away.”

He lifted his paper again. No, no. She was not going to allow him to shut her out.

“Will, why was last night a mistake?”

He didn’t answer.

“Because you enjoyed yourself? Because you took pleasure from and gave pleasure to a—” She gasped.
“Courtesan?”

He cut her a glance, and she grabbed his hand, forcing the paper down.

“Because for one instant, you forgot you were a duke and could just be a man?”

“Madam—”

“Juliette. Call me Juliette. You don’t have to be the duke with me. You can simply be the man.”

“Madam—Juliette, I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Why? Because I’m correct?”

“Yes!” He all but yelled the word. Juliette almost flinched but resolutely held his hand. He was not Oliver.

“You are correct. Is that what you want me to say?”

“I want you to be honest with me.”

“Honest? Fine. Bedding you last night was a mistake because I am the Duke of Pelham. I cannot afford to forget who I am. I cannot make the mistakes others do.”

“Why not? Are you not human?”

He shook his head as if to say this was not the point. “Of course, but my behavior was… not acceptable. I must be better than everyone else.”

“Because you’re a duke?”

“No, because I’m William Henry Charles Arthur Cavington, Viscount Southerby, Marquess of Rothingham, and Duke of Pelham. From birth, I have been tutored in three fundamental tenets—dignity, decorum, and honor.”

“Don’t forget a tedious routine and an obsession with punctuality,” she mumbled.

He ignored her. “I violated all three of those tenets last night with you.”

“You certainly know how to flatter a woman, and I would be deeply offended if it wasn’t all complete rubbish.”
And
if
I
wasn’t falling in love with you
.

“Rubbish?” His mouth gaped open. Clearly, no one had ever spoken to him thus.

“Yes. Who told you to follow these tenets? Who made all these rules you adhere to—no,
cling
to as though they were the last piece of shipwreck debris in shark-infested waters? You keep telling me you’re a duke. Well,
act
like a duke! Make your own rules.”

“Act like a—” He stared at her, not blinking, not moving, not breathing. After two minutes she was afraid she had shocked him into some type of coma. And then he reached for her. She drew back, taken off guard, but he pressed a hand to her cheek. “Make my own rules.” His tone was incredulous.

“That was my suggestion.”

“Might I make a suggestion?”

“Of course.”

“Stop blathering and kiss me.”

Before she could argue that she was not
blathering
, he cupped her chin and brought her mouth to his. Tenderly, so tenderly she wanted to weep, he kissed her.

She kissed him back, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him tight against her. Why couldn’t he be this man all the time? Why did he have to retreat back to Pelham and his stupid dukely—or ducal—or dukefied—ways?

He broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers. “It was my father,” he said, his voice so low she almost couldn’t make out his words over the clatter of the carriage wheels. “My father was the man who ingrained these ducal tenets into me from birth.”

He didn’t apologize, didn’t say she was right—had she really expected him to do so?—but he was making an effort. She didn’t speak, wise enough to know that anything she said now might hinder him from continuing.

Oh, don’t think, Will. Just speak. Just tell me.

“The fifth Duke of Pelham was a hard man. Serious. Dignified. Strict.”

In other words, unapproachable and incapable of love. Juliette’s own father had spoiled her, doted on her. Perhaps she’d been too spoiled. Perhaps that was why her brother hated her and had turned his back on her. Family could be a curse and a blessing.

“And your mother?” she asked.

“She died when I was ten,” he said, then clenched his jaw. “No, that’s not true. My father threw her out of the house. I never knew why and never knew what became of her. I heard a few years later she died on the Continent, alone and penniless.”

“Oh, Will!” She reached for him, but he moved away.

“She’d been dead inside long before that. My father was like your Oliver in some ways. Things must be done his way or not at all. She disappointed him, and one did not want to disappoint my father. Before me, three children had died at birth or shortly before. She mourned those children, but mostly I think she mourned the girl she had been—beautiful, lively, full of life. I saw paintings of her when they were first married. She was radiant.” He looked at Juliette. “She shone, like you. People told me when she walked into a room the light and sound clustered about her. She was a lodestone. But once my father got his hands on her, secluded her in the country, she withered away.”

Juliette clutched his shoulders and felt sorrow and pain for the little boy with a mother too dead inside to love him, and a father who did not tolerate even the slightest disappointment. She could barely imagine a childhood like that. Her parents had been so indulgent of their only daughter when she’d been young. If she’d grown up as Will had, would she have realized the way Oliver treated her was wrong? Would she not simply have accepted there was no love in the world, and this was the way life was meant to be?

“I had a dog,” Will said quietly, leaning his head back against the squabs and closing his eyes. “Like your Brownie, but I called him Hunter. And he was a hunting dog from the best stock.”

“How old were you?” she whispered, fear coiling in her belly. She knew what was coming. She did not want to hear this, but she had pushed him to reveal his secrets. She steeled herself and raised her gaze to him.

With his eyes closed and his head tilted back, she could scrutinize his face. She loved the rich bronze color of his skin, the arrogant set of his mouth, the flat planes of his cheeks, and that classic Roman nose. He had long eyelashes, and they were auburn like the glints in his hair. She remembered he’d had a smattering of auburn hair on his chest, and then she shivered because she remembered the scratchy feel of the hair when it rubbed against her body.

“I was six. My father gave the dog to me as a gift, and I shouldn’t have trusted him. But bloody hell, I was six!” He opened his eyes and sat forward, anguish in his face. “I wanted something to love me, and that dog was the first thing that did.”

Juliette wanted to hold him and tell him she loved him. She would love him enough to make up for the little boy who hadn’t known any love. Instead, she asked, “What happened to Hunter?”

“I was late,” Will said simply, as if this should explain all.

“Late?”

“Late to dinner. We always ate at half past six. Always. Not a minute before and not a minute after. I arrived one minute late. My father was furious.”

Juliette didn’t like the look on Will’s face. She clenched her hands in her lap.

“He stalked out of the dining room without a word, marched to the kennels, took Hunter by the scruff of the neck, and threw him so hard against the wall it killed him. Then he stomped the dog’s head into the floor with his boot.”

Juliette wanted to gag. How could anyone do anything so cruel? How could anyone do that to the beloved pet of a little boy? “Oh, Will.” She reached for him. She thought he might refuse her touch again, but he allowed her to hold him. “I’m so sorry.”

“I did everything in my power never to be late again,” he said. “Until I met you.”

And she hadn’t understood. She’d mocked his reliance on the pocket watch. He looked up at her, and she kissed him gently. “You’re free now. You can make your own rules and set your own time. No one can ever hurt you like that again.”

He took her into his arms. “Of that I’m not so certain.”

His mouth descended on hers in a slow kiss that left her absolutely breathless. When he pulled away, she took a long moment to compose herself before opening her eyes. “You should do that more often.”

“I will.” He reached up and began pulling pins from her hair. When it tumbled down, he brought it to his nose and inhaled. “Your hair smells like… something. I can’t place it.”

“Lavender,” she whispered, loving the feel of his hands in her hair.

“Is that it?” He leaned down and brushed his lips across the skin of her neck. “It suits you.” He slid the sleeve off her shoulder, and she sighed in anticipation. He had such a tender mouth, and it was so skilled. He nipped and licked and kissed her until her skin burned with need for more.

“Will?”

“Hmm?” His mouth traced her shoulder as he slid her sleeve lower.

“You’re not going to…” She had to think for a moment, because his mouth was driving her to distraction. And now his hands were on her breasts, and she didn’t want to speak so much as feel. “You’re not going to shut me out again, are you?”

He paused, and she wanted to cry out in frustration. His dark eyes met hers. “No. I won’t shut you out again. I’ve given up.”

“Given up?”

“I can’t resist you. I’ve tried. In vain, I have tried. It’s no use.”

Her lungs tightened, and she found she could not draw a breath. “It’s not?” What did that mean, precisely? Did he feel about her the way she did about him? Did he think he could love her?

“I want you. I want you naked and writhing beneath me. I want you on your hands and knees in my bed. I want you above me, your hair spilling over your breasts.” He stroked one as he spoke, and she felt her nipple harden. “I want you here.” He pushed her gown and undergarments down, baring her. “I want you now.”

“I want you, too.” And when his mouth closed on her nipple, desire was all she could think of and all she knew. Need like she’d never known possessed her, drove her mad with a frenzy to take him, have him inside her, touch him until he begged for release.

She pushed him back against the squabs, freed him, and stroked him until he was all but panting. And then she raised her skirts and taunted him, taking him so slowly he was cursing her before she finally thrust her hips and engulfed him fully.