Darling Duke (Heart's Temptation Book 6) Page 10

  His mother stared, brows flying to her hairline, forehead creasing with a series of deep grooves wrought by age and judgmental living. “Your Grace?”

  And well she should gawp at him, for he could not honestly recall the last time he had ever opposed her. Perhaps, he thought, he should have been more firm with her. He certainly ought to have made her aware of her place as the dowager. He was the duke, a man grown. She did not rule him. Rather, her future rested in his hands. Why had he never realized as much before this moment?

  He met her gaze, hands clasped behind his back, and stopped his pacing so that she could receive the full brunt of his censure. “You will apologize for calling Lady Boadicea a hoyden,” he elaborated, even if a part of him could agree with her blistering assessment.

  His betrothed was wild and improper, a true hellion, and he little knew how to cope with such inhibition. But cope with it he must, for she was his hellion now, and for some odd reason, the thought of her laid low, possibly hurt far worse than her stubborn nature allowed her to realize, left his chest with a searing ache and his gut with a hard knot of worry.

  “Bainbridge,” his mother exclaimed then, as if he had wounded her.

  He drew no quarter, for his mother had overstepped her bounds. While his betrothal to Lady Boadicea had been sudden and forced, and while she was as manageable as a wildfire, she was still the future Duchess of Bainbridge. His wife. His, full stop. And for the first time, that knowledge sank into him, imbuing him with a new sense of possessiveness. No one could insult Lady Boadicea now. Not even his mother. “You will apologize, madam.”

  His mother’s nostrils flared, the only sign of her pique. “Forgive me, Duke, Lord Thornton, Lady Thornton. I did not intend to insult Bainbridge’s bride.”

  As apologies went, it was tepid at best. Insincere at worst. But the dowager was saved when the door to the duchess’s chamber opened, revealing the bespectacled Dr. Martindale with his shock of fiery red hair, carrying his physician’s satchel.

  Spencer forgot about his mother’s apology. Forgot about everything that wasn’t Lady Boadicea. “How is she, Doctor?”

  The doctor blinked, but if he was taken aback by the vehemence of a man who was not yet wed to the patient he’d just seen, Dr. Martindale didn’t dare reveal it. “Lady Boadicea is fortunate. The fall appears to have rattled her, but will leave her with no permanent damage. Naturally, a fall from a horse at that speed could have resulted in grievous injuries. However, all she requires is some rest, and I daresay she will be right as rain in a few days’ time.”

  Relief hit him like a fist to the gut. He almost doubled over, so tremendous was the force of it. “Thank you, Dr. Martindale.”

  “Rest is paramount, however, to recovery,” the doctor cautioned. “Lady Boadicea ought not to overtax herself, whether by merriment or other means. I understand that you have a great deal of festivities planned, and I urge caution in her participation.”

  The doctor’s vagaries didn’t do enough to satisfy Spencer’s worries. “Did she strike her head, Doctor?”

  Dr. Martindale shook his head. “I was unable to find any evidence, Your Grace. Likewise, her ladyship advised that she did not recall such an impact. In my opinion, Lady Boadicea will recover nicely if forced to indulge my strict orders.”

  Strict orders. Nothing in the English language sounded less suited to Lady Boadicea Harrington. Spencer grimaced. “Your orders being?”

  “Rest above all else.” A cautious smile flitted over Dr. Martindale’s countenance. “When is the house party at an end?”

  “Four days hence,” he clipped.

  “Ah, yes.” The physician stabbed at his spectacles with his index finger, shoving them over the bridge of his nose. “I recommend that her ladyship disengage from the remainder of the house party. Several days of rest will be just the thing for a full recovery. Fortunately, you have the rest of your lives ahead of you, and this temporary withdrawal will be a trifling matter in the grand scheme of all your days.”

  Days of Lady Boadicea cooped up in her chamber. Or, to be precise, cooped up in the duchess’s chamber, the chamber adjoined to his. For he daren’t move her now. She was an invalid. Wasn’t that true? How could it be anything but proper to place her where she belonged? Spencer’s mouth went dry. Dear God. He would secure himself another chamber. At once.

  “Thank you, Dr. Martindale.” He took a deep inhalation in an attempt to corral his thoughts. “Your expertise is most appreciated.”

  The doctor took his bow and left.

  Spencer looked to his mother, his mind already made. He was sick to death of all attempts to make merry. He wanted quiet. Fewer eyes and ears that did not belong within the walls of Boswell Manor. “We will cancel the remainder of the house party. See that the guests are notified and transportation arranged wherever necessary. Lord and Lady Thornton, naturally, will remain on with Lady Boadicea.”

  Twin flags of outrage appeared on his mother’s faded cheeks. “We will do no such thing. The Marlow family has never failed to host this house party. Not in decades, Bainbridge. I refuse to countenance such an outrage, and all because some silly miss went off in flagrant disregard of your authority and had herself thrown from a horse.”

  In that moment, he rather wished it had been the dowager who had been tossed from Damask Rose instead of Lady Boadicea. He compressed his mouth into a flat, uncompromising line. “You go too far, madam,” he warned her.

  “How dare you?” In her dudgeon, she didn’t bother to hide her affront for the benefit of their audience. “Have you not already done enough to hurt this family? You are a disgrace to the Marlow line.”

  Yes, he was, wasn’t he? For thirty-three years, he’d attempted to do everything right. He had married the young lady of his father’s choosing in an effort to beget the perfect heir. He had lived a life of staid propriety. He had learned the business of making an estate as large and lavish as Boswell Manor profitable. He had buried himself in the price of wheat and the planting of fields and the dairying of cows. He had devoted his life to being the best Duke of Bainbridge he could be.

  And what had his efforts gained him? A mad wife who’d killed herself before him, a son in the grave, the resentment of his mother and brother both, and a betrothed who was most certainly everything he did not seek in a bride.

  “I’ve heard enough,” he snapped at his mother, drawing the line at allowing her to emasculate him before the Marquis and Marchioness of Bloody Thornton. “You will leave this chamber and you will do as I say, or I shall have you removed to Marchmont Hall.”

  His mother blanched. Marchmont Hall—a crumbling affair from the Plantagenet era—was drafty, dank, overrun by mice, and it smelled like nothing so much as a sheep farmer’s worn old boot, manure and all. “You would not be so cruel.”

  Spencer didn’t say anything, merely returned her stare.

  She straightened her spine. “I will do as you wish, Duke.” With a departing, insincere pleasantry for Lord and Lady Thornton and an agitated twitch of her skirts, she was gone from the chamber.

  He turned to the marquis and his wife, who had watched the ugly exchange with his mother unfold with guarded expressions. “I apologize on the duchess’s behalf. I fear her…agitation has left her overwrought.”

  “A kind way of saying she’s as subtle as a bear,” Thornton said with a commiserating nod. “My own mother suffers from a similar affliction. I can empathize, Bainbridge.”

  Lady Thornton gave him a tight smile of sympathy but said nothing. If she was anything at all like her sister, she was likely biting her tongue to keep from airing her opinion. Lady Boadicea, however, would not have even bothered to keep a bloody word to herself.

  Thoughts of that particular flame-haired siren had him pacing toward the closed chamber door keeping her from him, intent. He didn’t give two goddamns whether it was proper for him to enter the duchess’s chamber while she was within. He needed to see her. And he didn’t wish to examine why his need was
such a pressing concern. It simply was.

  “Your Grace, I do not think a personal audience with my sister a wise course of action just now,” Lady Thornton called to him.

  He stilled, his hand on the knob, and looked back at her. “Nothing that I’ve done in the last three days has been wise, my lady. I dare not break form by acting with reason now. But by all means, feel free to accompany me within.”

  “Leave the door ajar,” she relented, frowning. “We will allow the two of you a moment of privacy.”

  He nodded, and in the next breath, he crossed the threshold into a chamber he had not entered in years. It should have taken his breath, filled him with the soul-clenching anxiety he had come to know whenever he was reminded of his wife’s death. Instead, his gaze lit on the still form on the bed, and all he could think about was her.

  Lady Boadicea Harrington, who was rather too still and too small-looking and far too pale in the big, canopied high tester for his liking. He crossed the rug, grateful for his mother’s managing nature, which had led her to strip every last remnant of Millicent from the room. The wallcoverings, the paintings, the drapes, even the bed itself, were different. It smelled different too, like a room that needed to be aired out more often, and sweet, like jasmine and lily of the valley.

  “Duke,” she greeted him at the same time as her scent.

  “How are you, Lady Boadicea?” A gruffness he could not like had entered his voice. His pulse leapt as he awaited her answer, and the ever-growing dread in his gut made itself especially known.

  “Rather as if I’ve fallen from a horse at breakneck speed.” Her wit, at least, continued to remain intact. She attempted a smile, but winced as she shifted herself in the bed.

  “Let me assist you.” His hands went to her arms without thought as he tried to help her achieve a more comfortable position.

  It was a grave miscalculation on his part, for she’d changed into a loose nightdress to aid in the doctor’s examination, which meant that only a fine layer of fabric separated her skin from his. The heat of her, the supple curves of her arms, burned into his palms. Devil take it, he grew more depraved by the day, finding the mere grasping of a lady’s limbs arousing whilst she was in her sickbed.

  “You need not aid me,” she protested. “I am fully capable of tending to myself. And you ought not to have brought me here. I’m sure it will be remarked upon and present even further fodder for gossipmongers. I would like to return to my chamber at once.”

  She was right about that. He should have had a care before bringing her to the duchess’s chamber. But he’d been half out of his mind with worry, and the only place he could conceive of bringing her was the place that was nearest in proximity to himself. That was a rather sobering realization to make as he stood there with his hands still upon the betrothed he didn’t want, breathing in her sweet fragrance as though it was as essential to him as air. Odder still was the fact that in that moment, he could swear that it was.

  There was nowhere else he would rather be. No one else he would rather touch. No other lady could so vex him and yet so render him incapable of resisting her. She was wrong. And right.

  Astounding.

  He blinked. Nothing made sense, but the coil of fear inside him unwound itself and dissipated beneath her bright-blue regard. He counted at least a dozen freckles charming the bridge of her nose. Where else did she have them? When she was his, he would strip her bare and investigate every lush curve of creamy flesh with his lips and tongue, seeking to find each golden fleck.

  Perhaps he was the one who had suffered a fall. Or at the least a sharp blow to the head. That was the only explanation for such absurdity.

  “Bainbridge, are you well? You’ve gone pale all of a sudden.” Lady Boadicea’s voice lacked its customary sting. She sounded almost…concerned. For him.

  Even more astounding.

  “You are remaining in this chamber,” he ordered, still unable to remove his hands from her person. Instead, he moved them in a slow, upward caress, over her rounded shoulders. “Dr. Martindale insists you are to have rest, and rest you shall have.”

  A vee furrowed her smooth brow, but did nothing to detract from the lovely picture she presented in her white nightdress, her hair loosened and trailing down her back in arresting contrast. “I can rest in my assigned chamber, Duke. If you will only see that my lady’s maid is sent to me, I will change and be on my way. I shouldn’t prefer to wander about the halls in my nighttime attire.”

  “No.” His thumbs traveled the enticing ridge of her collarbone, and he wished it was her soft skin he touched rather than uninspiring cloth. He could not ever recall being so entranced by a lady’s clavicle. And why did her uttering of the phrase nighttime attire make his mouth go dry again? “You will remain here, where you belong.”

  As he said it, he realized the truth of the statement. Soon, she would be his wife. This chamber would be hers. If it would satisfy propriety, he would marry her tomorrow and have done with it. There was nowhere else he wished her to be.

  Except perhaps in his bed. Beneath him. Or astride him. His cock went painfully hard, which was the devil of a thing to occur when Lady Boadicea was a bloody invalid and they had yet to wed.

  “I do not belong here,” she argued, “in the chamber that belonged to your wife. I am sure there must be painful memories—”

  “There are none,” he interrupted, irritated by the undertone of sympathy in her voice. “The room has been furnished anew, according to my mother’s tastes.”

  Lady Boadicea wrinkled her nose. “She appears to have an unmerited affinity for all shades of yellow.”

  He was grateful that she had not mentioned Millicent further. He had no wish to speak about her with anyone, and least of all his new betrothed.

  His lips twitched at her insouciance, and he almost allowed himself to laugh before stifling it and removing his hands from her lest he grow any more deranged. Perhaps she was making him mad via osmosis. “It is a cheerful color. Like the sun.”

  “If you stare at it, you shall go blind,” she said. “Also like the sun. Truly, Duke, we must have a dialogue about your drawing room. There is the matter of that salon as well. It’s rather akin to a venture into an old thicket, quite depressing.”

  He gazed at her, thinking how odd it was that she had repeated his own thoughts, nearly verbatim. One long curl had fallen free from her loosely gathered hair, trailing over her cheek. He fought and lost the urge to tuck it behind her ear. His fingers lingered there on the silken shell, and a strange sensation seized him.

  He withdrew his hand and straightened to his full height. Good God, what was the matter with him? “I am glad that your rapier wit has not been diminished by the fall you suffered. Have your rest, now.”

  An expression of displeasure flitted across her fine features, but despite her fiery nature, he could see signs that the incident had rattled her. She remained pale, her vibrant sky-blue gaze seemingly tired, those lush lips drawn into a thin line. “I do not like rest, Duke.”

  “Of that I have little doubt, princess.”

  o took dinner in her chamber. Well, to be precise, she took it in the duchess’s chamber, which was not currently hers but which—by actions rooted in her own foolishness—would be soon enough. Staring at it now from her perch on a horridly uncomfortable hard-backed chair, she couldn’t help but feel dazed by the realization that this unfamiliar room with its hodgepodge of excessive color and gilding would be where she slept whenever in residence at Boswell Manor.

  That thought in particular gave her singular pause, for suddenly, ensconced in the duchess’s chamber, the ramifications of the last few days seemed real for the first time. She was marrying the Duke of Bainbridge, a stranger with a dark past she couldn’t begin to fathom, who looked down his haughty nose at her and yet touched her with such tender care that it took her breath.

  What manner of man was he? Moreover, what sort of husband would he make? If Bo were to judge from his past, reas
on told her she ought to be worried indeed. Perhaps, she ought to even be overseeing the packing of her cases and her removal to the opposite end of the hemisphere.

  A knock sounded at the door then. “Bo? It’s Cleo. May I come in?”

  “Of course,” she called out.

  She’d mustered the energy to battle the pain savaging her entire skeleton long enough to move from the bed to an escritoire from the last century. She was still wearing a robe de chambre belted over a nightdress, but one hardly stood on ceremony with one’s beloved eldest sister. Cleo had checked on her after the duke’s visit, and again three times thereafter, clucking over her in concerned, mother hen fashion.

  Cleo swept into the chamber, regal and elegant, her raven hair plaited in braided coils with a few wispy curls framing her face. She wore an evening gown of navy and aubergine silk, and she was lovely as ever, even with concern pinching her expression.

  She swished across the carpet, arms outstretched. “Darling, you’re out of bed. What can you be thinking? The doctor said you must rest.”

  “I could not remain in that bed for another moment more.” She tried to suppress the frown tightening her lips and failed.

  Though Bainbridge had suggested his mother had been responsible for stripping the chamber of all remnants of his mad duchess, she still wondered whether or not that thorough redecorating included the bed itself. Exhausted, she had fallen asleep for most of the afternoon, but when she’d finally risen from the cocoon of slumber, she’d been plagued by the notion that Bainbridge had lain in that bed with his dead wife.

  It had rattled her. An unworthy surge of jealousy had accompanied the unwanted thoughts, until she’d had no choice but to leave the bed behind in favor of the godawful chair.

  “But dearest, how can you be comfortable in such an old-fashioned, ungainly beast of a chair?” Cleo demanded, taking Bo’s hands up and giving them a loving squeeze. “Why, you look positively miserable. What can you be thinking, torturing yourself so?”

  Bo inhaled, pressed her lips together, looked at the bed with its garish drapery of yellow satin and golden tassels. “I dislike the bed.”