Nobody's Duke (League of Dukes Book 1) Page 11

  Her hand shook as she knocked, tentatively at first. She was not even certain this was where Clay resided. It was entirely possible he was kept far from the main house because of his status. It was definite that her presence here, unchaperoned, unannounced, and uninvited, would raise brows and cause a stir. She was in danger of doing her reputation irreparable harm.

  But he was worth it.

  And she deserved an answer.

  She knocked with greater conviction.

  The door swung open, and a silver-haired butler frowned down at her. “How may I help you?”

  “I am here to see Mr. Ludlow,” she announced, as if she were not likely bedraggled from her travels and her traipse across the park. As if it were perfectly proper for an unaccompanied young lady to appear at the front door of the Duke of Carlisle’s home and demand an audience with his bastard son.

  She swallowed.

  The butler’s frown of disapproval intensified. “Mr. Ludlow is not at home.”

  Ara remained undeterred. “Where has he gone?”

  The butler blinked, obviously not being accustomed to such dogged persistence. “I am afraid I cannot say.”

  The man was bluffing, and she had not risked everything to come here to find Clay only to be turned away at the door as if she were a beggar woman asking for coin. “If you please, sir, let him know he has a friend calling. I am certain he will see me.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Does this friend have a name, madam?”

  She stared right back at him, unrepentant. “No. Tell him it is a friend who was expecting to see him, and he will know precisely who I am.”

  “You may wait within,” he announced haughtily, as if he were the duke himself, allowing her entrance at last.

  Giving the butler her sunniest smile—one she did not feel in the least—she swept over the threshold and fussed with her dress as she waited. Oh heavens, she must be a sight. Grass blades were stuck to the ribbon-trimmed hem of her riding habit, and her smart little boots felt sodden. Inhaling deeply in an effort to wrangle her misgiving, she shook the wrinkles from her two-tiered skirts and tried to squelch any worry longing to rise to the surface and consume her.

  The butler’s reluctant decision to attempt to locate Clay seemed promising. If he would see her, that was. She cast her eyes about the entrance hall, which was a great deal grander than the entry Kingswood Hall boasted. It rose two stories so it could be overlooked from a variety of alcoves and arches above. Marble statues stared blankly down at her, as if judging her for her rashness. Perhaps former Dukes of Carlisle? She could not be certain. Or Greek gods and goddesses, those remaining fragments of belief in the fantastical.

  The black and white floor glistened with polish. Footsteps could be heard somewhere, far off, echoing in the cavernous interior. Was it the butler? Clay? Other servants? Ara looked all around, feeling like an interloper. Feeling like a fool.

  She ought to leave. Could she simply go? Quietly exit through the door she had so recently traveled past? Race across the park with what remained of her pride still intact, find her mare and ride home as fast as she could manage before anyone was ever the wiser of her imprudence?

  Ara inched toward the door, even as more footsteps echoed. It was not too late. She could flee, and no one needed to know…

  The footsteps were coming faster now, matching her breath and her frantically beating heart. Go, you fool! Run! She picked up handfuls of her habit, ready to flee.

  “My lady.”

  His voice stayed her, low and warm and so very welcome.

  She spun about, and there he was. Her Clay. Today, he was dressed to perfection as a proper gentleman. No shirtsleeves rolled back or a lack of a waistcoat. No indeed. As she drank him in, she had to admit he looked every bit the duke’s son. And here in the grandeur of the Brixton Manor entry hall, she felt, for the first time, the disparity of their situations. Not because he was illegitimate, but because he was the son of a wealthy and powerful man. Though her father was wealthy, the opulence of Brixton Manor was beyond anything he could dream of owning. Kingswood Hall was a mere shack in comparison.

  Her gaze clashed with Clay’s. His the darkness, hers the light. She wished she could read the emotions hidden in their glittering depths. “Mr. Ludlow,” she said stupidly, staring at him as if he were the first gentleman she had ever seen.

  He was not, of course, but he was the most beloved.

  “Why have you come?” he asked next, dashing her maudlin sentiments.

  The blood leached from her cheeks. Yes, this had been a mistake. Perhaps he had merely been entertaining himself with their interactions. Perhaps he had been bored, and she had been too forward, and she had forever made a fool of herself. Perhaps he had not wished to hurt her feelings, and so he had allowed her to believe there was something more.

  How wretched.

  How humiliating.

  But he had kissed her with such passion, as if he wished to steal her soul and hold it for ransom. Could she have been wrong?

  “I…” She struggled to form words. Now that she was here, standing before him in her sodden skirts and ruined boots, her mind seemed to have taken its leave of her. She felt as inadequate as a discarded pair of stockings. “You said you would come to Kingswood Hall.”

  “Aye.” He nodded, his jaw going rigid. “And so, I did.”

  She shook her head, frowning at him now. “No, you most assuredly did not.”

  “I did and was denied.”

  The insistence in his tone. The starkness of his expression. The firmness of his words. It all added up to one conclusion: he was telling the truth. But how could that possibly be? She had never received word of his visit. She had spent many an hour gazing out various windows, hoping she might catch sight of him, his horse, his carriage. Anything to do with him.

  No indeed, he had not come. She would have known.

  Wouldn’t she?

  “Three days in a row, Lady Araminta,” he confirmed coolly. “I may be a bastard, but even I know when I have been made a fool. I chose not to return on the fourth day, on account of my pride.”

  Three days? Her heart thumped and fluttered with a wild, silly hope. He had come calling upon her three days in a row?

  And then, just as abruptly, her hope died, for she realized if he had been turned away day after day, it could only mean one thing.

  Her mother had acted in her father’s stead and refused to grant him entrance to Kingswood Hall, keeping it from her. Had it been the grudge he had with the Duke of Carlisle or the fact that Clay was not the duke’s rightful heir? She did not know. Indeed, it rather startled her to imagine her mother had even engaged in this level of interference, and without uttering a word to her…

  Unless Clay was prevaricating.

  Yes. That had to be it. She seized upon the explanation. “I had no word of a visitor, and believe me, I asked. I asked, and I watched, and I waited. Still, you did not come for me as you swore you would.”

  A strange expression transformed his features. He closed the distance between them, grabbing one of her hands in his. His hands, unlike hers, were ungloved, and the heat of his touch upon her absorbed into her skin, settling with the delicious ferocity of a brand. Their fingers tangled. Intertwined. Just like that, she was where she longed to be. With him again, beneath his spell, following him to wherever he would take her.

  “Come,” was all he said.

  And she followed, allowing him to tug her from the entry hall. Allowing him to lead her past more judgmental statues and busts, white and perfect and marble, all of them warning her not to allow herself to be led too far stray. But it was too late for that. Too late for caution. For regrets.

  She hoped.

  Her hand in his, him tugging her, guiding her, their fingers laced…shocking. Improper. Altogether wrong. She should not be here, at the Duke of Carlisle’s home. Should not be with Clay. Ought not to allow him to lead her away from the place where eyes and ears could see and hear.

>   But she went with him. Trusting him. Through halls and past shocked domestics who did their best to rearrange their expressions into neutrality. Until all at once, they were in a chamber, the door shut behind them. The room was cavernous and masculine, and it smelled of him, musky and wonderful and so very male.

  So very Clay.

  Their fingers were still tangled together.

  They stood, side by side, neither of them talking. She understood she had breached a boundary from which there was no return. She was standing in Clay’s bedchamber. Holding his hand in hers. She knew not where his father the duke was, but she was certain neither Carlisle nor her father would approve of what she and Clay had just done.

  It was ruinous.

  Reckless.

  No one knew who she was, and yet this was the country. Domestics had ears and eyes. They spread rumors. This—Clayton Ludlow and her weakness for him—would be the end of her.

  “Why did you bring me here?” she asked softly, her gaze immovable, fixated upon the large, dark bed at the opposite wall. His bed. It was where he slept. Where he laid his head. Did he take off his clothing to lay in it? Did he remove his shirt?

  His chest was so lovely.

  She was not meant to have seen it, but she had, and now she could not help but long to see it once more. To touch it. Taste it. Her cheeks blazed with the fires of her shame. She could not control herself. Could not tame herself, it would seem. He had made a wanton of her. There was no going back.

  “Bloody hell, I don’t know.” He scrubbed his free hand over his face as if it could erase some of the tension that threatened to choke them both. “Your mother told me I was not meant for you, and she was right. You deserve someone of your station, Ara. I will forever be a bastard, forever walking in shame, and you do not need to suffer in silence alongside me. My father treats me as an equal in his household, and it makes it easy to forget the way of the world. It was wrong of me to consider, even for a moment, courting you.”

  Her mother. There was all the confirmation she needed. Anger rose within her, stark and swift and strong. “How dare my mother say such things to you? She had no right.”

  His thumb traveled over the back of her hand in a slow, steady caress as he turned to face her, looking down solemnly. His expression was grave. “She had every right, Ara. She is your mother, and she is looking after your best interests. She is not being selfish as I was. As I am.”

  “I did not know you came to see me, Clay.” Her fingers tightened over his as she willed him to believe her. “If I had an inkling—any notion, whatsoever—I would have been there within an instant. I would never have turned you away. You are the man I love.”

  “I cannot be.” He released her hand and turned to walk away from her, his large frame tensing with anger. “Do you not see? No one will allow me to even court you, let alone wed you because of who I am. And they are right. They are right, damn them.”

  “No,” she denied just as vehemently, going to him and throwing her arms around his waist from behind. She pressed her face in the dip between his shoulder blades, inhaling deeply of his scent. He was so vital. Everything she needed. All she ever wanted. “They are all wrong, because nothing has ever been more right in my life than you, Clayton Ludlow. Do you hear me? I do not care if you were born illegitimate to the Duke of Carlisle or to the queen herself. I will not give you up. Not now. Not ever.”

  A knock sounded at the door then, interrupting the solemnity of the moment.

  “Brother, what is the rumor I hear about you hauling a mysterious village girl into your chamber? Father will have an apoplectic fit.” The sardonic voice was muffled.

  Ara stiffened as the seriousness of the improprieties she had committed returned to her anew. She had waltzed through the Duke of Carlisle’s home with shocked servants looking on, holding Clay’s hand, allowing him to lead her to his bedchamber. There were eyewitnesses to her shocking lack of shame.

  If anyone discovered who she was, she would be ruined.

  “Damn,” Clay cursed with quiet vehemence then, echoing the vein of her thoughts aloud. “I do not know what I can have been thinking, bringing you here. You make me lose my head, Ara.”

  “Tell me you are not bedding the girl in there,” his brother said from the other side of the door. “You ought to know better than to bring quim here. Father has eyes and ears everywhere.”

  She did not know what quim meant, but she was certain it was not a complimentary word. Before she could contemplate the matter further, Clay tugged free of her grasp and spun to face her once more, his face set in severe lines.

  His dark gaze plumbed hers. “Your mother was right to send me away. There can be no future for us. No hope.”

  She shook her head as tears stung her eyes, refusing to believe his words. “There is always hope. Court me in secret if you must. We will find a way to be together.”

  Another insistent knock intervened. “Brother, I must insist on rescuing you from your folly. I know of just the place to take your lightskirts. Bodesly Inn. The serving wenches are most accommodating. I once had two in my bed—”

  “Stubble it, Leo,” Clay hollered in the direction of the door.

  She searched his face, desperate for him to see how deep her feelings for him ran. He had become a part of her. The notion of never seeing him again filled her with a hollow ache. “Meet me in the forest tomorrow,” she said. “Please.”

  He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Just once. The ghost of a caress. “Ara.”

  But she would not give up on them. “Please, Clay. I will be there. Waiting for you.”

  I will always wait for you.

  I love you.

  She tucked the remainder of what she wanted to say inside herself.

  He stared at her, his face harsh. Inscrutable. “You must go, Ara, before anyone realizes who you are.”

  “Tomorrow,” she repeated. “Let me make my own choices, Clay. Let me choose you, if you dare.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Here you are, lad. This knife is for you.”

  Clay handed the young duke his favorite blade. Small yet capable of inflicting damage on any assailant, the knife featured three blades that folded inside a golden case accented by repoussé. Each blade was of varying length, and it had served him well on many occasions over the years.

  Yet surprisingly, as he placed it in the lad’s palm, he felt not even a hint of sentiment. Gifting it to the boy had been a sudden decision, but it was the right one. Here was a young lad whose father had been slaughtered in a most brutal fashion, and there were now strangers infiltrating his home because of threats made against his mother. Perhaps the blade would enable him to feel some measure of reassurance, however small.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ludlow, but he cannot accept such a gift,” came the wintry voice of the lad’s mother from over his shoulder.

  He ground his molars. Of course she would object.

  He had just spent the better part of an hour training the lad in the art of fisticuffs and defending one’s self. Naturally, the duchess had insisted upon observing his lessons with the young duke, and to that effect had taken up residence in a chair on the far side of the ballroom, a book in her lap.

  He knew the reason for her presence.

  She did not trust him. How dare he, a bastard, presume to train a peer of the realm? Likely, she feared he would somehow corrupt the lad. That he would taint him. How thoroughly she had fooled him once, with her proclamations of love and her promise she would choose him. That she loved him in spite of the circumstances of his birth that would mark him for the rest of his life.

  “But Mama,” protested the lad now, his blue-violet eyes pleading with his mother. “Mr. Ludlow has given it to me, and you said one must always appreciate a gift and be thankful for it. I cannot return the blade to him now.”

  “The blade belongs to you now, Your Grace,” he said solemnly. “I could not take it back even if I wished it.”

  “
No?” The lad’s eyes went wide, his eyebrows climbing up his small forehead toward his shock of dark hair. “Why not, sir?”

  “Once a warrior gives a gift to another warrior, it is bad luck to take it back,” he lied, casting a glance toward the lad’s mother.

  She scowled and rose from her chair, shaking out her skirts with an elegant gesture before gliding toward them. The way she moved was always effortless, filled with grace. “That is pure nonsense, Mr. Ludlow.”

  “I am a warrior now, Mama,” the lad said triumphantly, and it was the most animated Clay had seen him since his arrival at Burghly House. The dark husk that once had been his heart warmed at the sight.

  “You are not a warrior,” she snapped at her son. “You are a duke. Dukes do not go about carrying weapons upon their person.”

  “Perhaps if Papa had, the bad men would not have killed him,” the lad countered stubbornly, his fist closed tight around the closed blade as if he feared his mother would wrench it from his grasp.

  She paled, stopping midstride, her black skirts swaying about her. “How do you know of such things, Edward?”

  “You must not think in that fashion, lad,” Clay intervened, lowering to his haunches so he could look the boy in the eye. “Your papa was a brave man, and the men who attacked him were cowards. They came upon him from behind. Even if he’d had a blade, he would not have been prepared for their attack.”

  “Edward, I need to speak to Mr. Ludlow alone.” The duchess’s voice cut through the air, as sharp as any of Clay’s blades. “Why don’t you run along to Miss Argent and return to your studies? Leave the knife with me, if you please.”

  “Please, sir, tell her I must keep it,” the lad whispered to Clay.

  His eyes—Ara’s eyes—were huge, pleading. A shift happened inside Clay. A sensation blossomed. There was a name for it: fondness. Yes, he liked the lad. More than liked him, actually.

  “He must keep the blade,” Clay reasserted, giving the lad a bolstering wink before glancing up at the duchess.