Darling Duke (Heart's Temptation Book 6) Read online

  He hoped.

  “His Grace’s singular kindness aside,” the Duchess of Cartwright said in tones to rival Wenham Lake ice, “I’m afraid the damage has been done. He should have had a care for propriety, regardless of your…injury, Lady Boadicea.”

  Bloody hell. It would seem that not even her old friendship with his mother would be sufficient reason for her to turn a blind eye to what she’d witnessed.

  His mother’s face had lost all color. She had always been a handsome woman, but the last few years of unrest had aged her. Her stern gaze snapped into his, and she straightened her spine, a grim cast to her thin mouth. “Bainbridge, I’m afraid you must marry as expediently as possible. It is the only recourse for what we have seen.”

  Admittedly, the sight that the two duchesses had intruded upon had to have been damning. He’d been pleasuring Lady Boadicea, his hand between her glorious thighs, not remotely in the same region of her anatomy as her ankle.

  His cheekbones went hot. He did not like this realization: the depths of his own depravity. “You are correct as always, Duchess, which is why I will marry Lady Boadicea as expediently as possible.”

  Lady Boadicea’s bright eyes swung to his, the alarm in her expression more than evident. “You cannot mean to marry me,” she whispered.

  He ignored her. The dye was cast, and his own inability to resist temptation was the cause. It had been some time since he’d last felt this low and abominable. He would have to wed Lady Boadicea Harrington, regardless of how distasteful he found the prospect. The answer was plain and clear on the Duchess of Cartwright’s face. She would not overlook his egregious conduct. Mauling an innocent lady—Harrington or no—beneath one’s own roof just wasn’t done.

  And his mother couldn’t withstand any more scandal. He couldn’t ask it of her. Nor could Harry’s fledgling career as an MP survive the bitter knowledge that his brother had abused and tossed aside the woman he’d once longed to make his bride.

  No, he would marry the Harrington chit.

  Even if it killed him.

  “It would be my greatest honor to make Lady Boadicea my duchess,” he lied.

  o blinked, her gaze swiveling from the duke to his outraged mother and the red-faced Duchess of Cartwright as his bald pronouncement hovered in the silence of the library. He had offered to marry her. She’d allowed him to kiss her senseless, to lead her to a piece of furniture, lift her skirts. Good heavens, she’d allowed his touch on her most intimate place, where she’d never let another man take such shocking liberties. Worse, she’d enjoyed it.

  What had she done?

  She’d fallen down the rabbit hole, just like Alice, that’s what. Perhaps next, a mouse would appear and begin to explain William the Conqueror to her. It seemed every bit as likely as marrying the haughty man at her side.

  Yes, that was the explanation for her inability to steel herself against the persuasive kisses of a man who had derided her as a tart masquerading as a lady. A man who thought she wasn’t good enough to marry his brother.

  Her skin went numb as realization assailed her. She hadn’t been worthy of the matrimonial prize of his brother, but he’d had no compunction about touching her himself. Because he imagined her the sort of lady he could trifle with. He thought her fast. He thought he could offer her a furtive coupling in his private library—after mocking her—with no repercussions.

  And she had proven him correct.

  She would not marry such an oaf, a man who believed himself her better because he’d been born the heir of a duchy and she hailed from a family laden with scandal and eccentricities. She would be her husband’s equal, or she would have no marriage at all.

  Not to mention the matter of Lord Harry, who was a dear friend. She was aware that he imagined he harbored tender feelings for her, even as what she felt for him was platonic. Still, she wouldn’t hurt him for the world by suddenly marrying his brother.

  “No,” she said to the room at large. Three sets of eyes swung her way. So she said it louder, this time with more force, holding her head high with a dignity she didn’t feel. “I must decline any such offer.”

  Bainbridge was first to react, his lip curling in what was either amusement or a sneer—she couldn’t be certain. “You must decline.”

  She inclined her head. “Regrettably.” And then she smiled, her brightest and most entrancing smile, because the part of her that waved the flag of her tattered pride wanted him to know that she didn’t feel a single dram of regret at turning him down.

  “Such cheek,” interrupted the dowager duchess, her voice as cold and cutting as a dagger buried in a winter’s snow bank. “How dare you insult the Duke of Bainbridge by refusing him?”

  Bo couldn’t wrest her gaze from Bainbridge, whose emerald eyes glittered with something she couldn’t define. His jaw, however, was firmed into a harsh, unforgiving angle. “Don’t be a fool,” he said for her ears alone.

  Presumptuous.

  “I’d rather be ruined,” she whispered, fury making her hands shake as she clasped fistfuls of her silken skirts to hide them.

  And it was true, anyway. She would far prefer to seclude herself in the countryside, or perhaps travel abroad. Why, she could venture to America. Her best friend Clara, the Countess of Ravenscroft, currently traveled there on her honeymoon, and her letters contained such rhapsodies of the land that Bo had longed to visit one day and take in the sights for herself.

  Freedom could be within her grasp. Perhaps the Duke of Disdain had done her a favor.

  “Lord and Lady Thornton will need to be informed,” the Duchess of Cartwright announced next.

  Ah, yes. Her brother-in-law and sister served as her chaperones for this farce. How helpful of the duchess to suggest an audience with them. “I’ll inform them myself forthwith,” she returned, tearing her eyes away from Bainbridge’s disconcerting, intent regard. She met the duchess’s gaze without blinking. If the august lady thought to make her cower, she would have to think again. “I’m certain that when I offer my explanation, they shall understand that the duke was assisting me. Nothing untoward occurred.”

  The elder woman’s gaze narrowed, her lips puckering into a displeased moue. “Your appearance at our arrival suggested otherwise, Lady Boadicea. However did your hair become so dislodged in your fall?”

  “I cannot tolerate another scandal, Bainbridge,” snapped the dowager duchess to her son. “It will be the death of me, and then you’ll have the deaths of two duchesses on your conscience. Do what must be done.”

  Another scandal. The deaths of two duchesses.

  For some reason she could not fathom, Bo’s eyes returned to Bainbridge, noting the almost imperceptible way he tensed at his mother’s veiled insinuation that he had been responsible for his wife’s death. His mouth, so sensual and full, tightened into a grim line, strain furrowing his brow. Despite herself, she knew a pang of sympathy for him. While every effort had been made to quiet gossip following the duchess’s death, whispers followed Bainbridge everywhere. All the ton knew the former duchess had killed herself.

  She’d shot herself in the head, as rumor had it. In the duke’s own presence. The Marlow family had done its part to attempt to keep the matter silent, but a scandal so paramount could not be contained.

  Without doubt, he must know what was said about him behind closed doors, and his mother’s callousness could not help but smart. For all that he was arrogant and cool, he possessed an undeniable intelligence. He was not vapid as some peers were. Of course he knew. His reaction to her earlier words had more than confirmed that.

  Bo had not even been presented at court yet when the duchess’s death had occurred, but she knew the tale as well as anyone. Lord Harry had never once spoken of the departed duchess, only of his brother. She would never have asked, knowing the common fame. Gossip was an ugly beast best left in hibernation. When riled, it could inflict all manner of havoc.

  “These young people,” sniffed the Duchess of Cartwright, lip curled,
“a generation going straight to the dogs, I say. What have we? What defines us from animal, if we have no standards, no proprieties, no proper course of order? This is an affront to every guest beneath your roof, Eloise.”

  Bainbridge remained still, features hardened as if they were honed marble. The blood had drained from his face, and he’d gone alarmingly pale. Then she noted his breathing, shallow and rapid. The unflappable duke was falling apart before her, like a poorly sewn frock.

  She shouldn’t take pity on him. He had been rude and callous. He had deemed her unworthy, and yet he would have taken her on the divan. She had no doubt that if the door hadn’t opened, if the duchesses hadn’t come upon them, he would have compromised her in the truest sense.

  She would have let him. She would have enjoyed it.

  Bainbridge wasn’t the sort of man she liked. He was not droll. He was not open and giving as Lord Harry was. Aside from his talent at kissing—unparalleled, in her estimation—and his fine face and form, he had nothing to recommend him, unless one was the sort of lady who was keen for a ducal coronet. Which she most definitely wasn’t.

  Why, then, should she care when he appeared unable to speak or move? Why should she notice his upset? Why should she be so aware of a man who only deserved her contempt?

  It didn’t matter. Her mind was settled. She was empathetic to a fault. Dear Lord, Cleo would have her hide for this. As would the rest of her sisters, should word reach them. Bo barely contained a wince as she made her next play.

  “Very well. I accept the honor, Your Grace.” For the moment, she added silently, if only as a way to rescue the both of them from this untenable situation.

  His eyes connected with hers, but he said nothing. He appeared neither relieved nor appreciative. And certainly not pleased. This man didn’t want her as his wife any more than she wanted to take him as her husband. The realization shouldn’t affect her, but somehow it nettled all the same.

  To hell with him. She was doing him a favor, and he could sort the rest on his own.

  She stalked across the chamber next, taking care to affect a limp in accordance with their nonsensical story. She stopped before the duchesses and pinned them with her most uncompromising stare.

  She addressed the Duchess of Cartwright first. “Bainbridge was being gentlemanly and gallant, and he is undeserving of your scorn.” She looked then to his mother, who had blanched. One couldn’t determine whether it was from Bo’s sudden acceptance of Bainbridge’s suit or from Bo’s crass method of confrontation. “A mother ought to speak better to her son. I only hope that when next we meet, it will be under more favorable circumstances.”

  The dowager stared, mouth open as if she meant to form a setdown, but none was forthcoming. Bo sailed forth, between the duchesses, over the threshold, and down the hall, feigning a halt in her gait as she went.

  She had a great deal of explaining to do to her dear sister. And she also had a battle plan to form, for there was no way she would actually allow herself to be married off to the Duke of Bainbridge. No way indeed.

  ady Boadicea Harrington had championed him.

  And it was bloody mortifying.

  Not just because he was the Duke of Bainbridge, hailing from one of England’s most esteemed families, and he should have been capable of defending himself to a pair of silver-haired biddies. But because she had seen him, truly seen him, at his weakest.

  Three years later, and thoughts of Millicent’s death still broke him. Still rendered him immobilized and numb, powerless.

  Because death was a common enough word, meant to cloak and shield, to insulate polite society from the ugly, disgusting truth. The truth was covered in blood and brain matter. The truth was a single shot firing into his wife’s head, the splatter of scarlet on his wallpaper, the warm spray of blood on his face.

  She had done it before him, raised the gun, pulled the trigger. And she had done it in his private space, his study, so that he would never again cross the threshold without recalling what had happened within its walls, without hearing the reverberation of the shot, the sickening sound of entry, the suddenness of it all. The sight of her eyes, open and stunned. Her body falling to the carpet in one swift thump. And the blood, seeping, seeping.

  In the aftermath, he had attempted to oversee the redecorating of his study, finding solace and distraction in useful tasks, and he had found a curious little thing beneath the sole of his shoe. Further examination had proven it a shard of Millicent’s skull. He had fallen to his knees, shaking, retching, and he’d never again returned to that chamber. All further attempts at salvaging the carpet and removing the blood stain had been abandoned.

  He had instead employed an architect to redesign a series of small chambers into his private library, the room in which he now sat, staring into whisky in his hand. Perhaps it was fitting that his sole haven in Boswell Manor should also be the setting for his ruination.

  A sturdy knock sounded at the door, breaking into the grim silence of the moment, and he knew who it was at the other end. He tossed back the remnants of his whisky and poured himself another. He didn’t often imbibe, as it sometimes served to enhance his disquiet, but the interview ahead of him seemed to merit nothing less than a thorough foxing.

  He was still reeling from the spell he’d had earlier, and now he had to face the one person he had sworn to never betray. Spencer’s skin went cold. More whisky went down his throat, singeing with its mercurial strength.

  Another knock rang.

  He swallowed. “Enter.”

  The door opened, and his brother Harry strode through with the boisterous confidence of a young man who had never known a day of hardship. As the portal banged behind him, Spencer winced. Harry was golden to his darkness, charming and giving to a fault. His expression was open and inquisitive as he crossed the thick woolen rugs, his footfalls muted, hands clasped behind his back.

  Spencer wished for the floor to open up and swallow him.

  Sadly, the boards beneath him were not accommodating.

  And so he stood, whisky in hand for himself, another for his brother. “Brother,” he acknowledged. Good God, how was one meant to tell one’s sibling that he’d ruined the woman who was the object of his affections? That fate and circumstance and his own bloody lack of control had rendered it necessary for him to wed Lady Boadicea?

  “Spencer,” his brother greeted, raising a quizzical brow as he accepted the whisky. “Tippling in the afternoon with the house party just underway? Is there some cause for celebration of which I’m unaware?”

  Harry’s soft jibe found its mark. He regretted that his relationship with his brother was not what it should be. They were opposites in every fashion, from appearance to temperament, but he had always cared about his sibling. Had always wanted only the absolute best for him. Still, there had been a distance between them over the last seven years—from the moment Millicent’s troubles had begun until now—that he wished he could breach.

  Such a thing would be impossible after the unfortunate news he had to impart. This was the first of two dreaded audiences, but this one would affect him the most. The other was perfunctory. He was already a prisoner trapped in a cell, no need to flinch at the slammed door and the turned lock.

  “No celebration, Harry.” He raised his glass to his lips, took another long, bracing drag. The trouble with liquor was that it never got him soused enough to forget. No matter how much he consumed, the memories returned. So too the nightmares. “Drink.”

  His brother stared at him, hesitating to imbibe. “Does this sudden, funereal air have ought to do with my intention of supporting Lady Boadicea with her Lady’s Suffrage Society?”

  Hell. He’d known she was trouble. “Suffrage Society?”

  Harry smiled, resembling nothing so much as a well-pleased puppy in his exuberance for life. Oh, to be so untouched. So unjaded. Spencer downed the dregs of his glass, envious of his brother all the more.

  “Yes,” Harry said. “She and the Countess o
f Ravenscroft have begun a gathering of likeminded ladies. They mean to gain the attention of parliament. They could have a chance to be taken seriously, don’t you think?”

  “No,” he pronounced baldly, not because it was true that women’s suffrage wasn’t a cause that should be taken seriously but because he knew it was a cause that would take many years and a great deal of campaigning before anyone could accomplish change. He knew Parliament all too well, and he’d lived long enough and hard enough to no longer claim the blind hope he’d possessed in his youth.

  It had been stripped from his marrow.

  Spencer turned to pour himself a third whisky. Two bloody well wasn’t enough.

  “You don’t think the cause worthy?” Harry frowned. “Cannot you see the rightness of it, Spencer?”

  “Seeing the rightness of a course of action and knowing the difficulties of passing it through Parliament are two disparate things. Others have tried and failed before them. More still will fail long after.” Another sip of whisky. Still not soused enough, damn it. “But that is neither here nor there. You haven’t touched your whisky.”

  Somber now, his brother studied him with a penetrating stare. “What has you rattled, Spencer? I haven’t seen you like this since…”

  Although Harry allowed his words to trail off, they both knew what remained unspoken. Millicent. The astute observation made him flinch, fingers tightening on his glass. For a moment he wondered absurdly whether he could crush crystal with a grip. He envisioned it, the glass shattering, raining shards to the floor, jagged edges impaling his hand. He deserved such a punishment, and worse.

  Once, in the darkest days following his wife’s death, he had made himself bleed.

  Something was wrong with him. Clearly. He possessed some inherent form of cruelty that caused him to inflict suffering upon those closest to him. First, he had driven Millicent to her violent death before him, and now he was about to watch the light flee his brother’s eyes. What blackness lived inside him? Three years outrunning his demons had not been long enough.