Authors: Jillian Hunter

A Duke's Temptation (31 page)

BOOK: A Duke's Temptation

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“And Wickbury has thrown his broadsword in the air.”

“It’s a dramatic gesture,” Samuel said. “You do not understand the nature of creativity.”

Lily frowned. “You do not understand the law of gravity. Bucephalus is standing in the courtyard below. As is your mounted groom.”

“Change the directions, Wadsworth,” Samuel instructed the valet, who was wearing a pearl earring in his left ear and a rapier at his side. “Does that sit well with you now, Lily?”

She pursed her mouth. “It’s fine. Sir Renwick may sleep with any strumpet he chooses. I do have to wonder, though, why you gave Marie-Elaine the baroness’s part. I would like to wear a high French wig and diamond heels instead of a priest’s cumbersome clothing or a revealing bodice.”

Samuel gave a weary sigh. “She is of French descent and carries herself with a certain Gallic arrogance that suits the part. I believe she also has more experience in—”

“—everything,” Marie-Elaine said. “Do not fret, Your Grace,” she whispered to Lily. “The baroness is going to come to a bad end. She doesn’t last through the next act.”

Lily expelled a sigh. “I should have known.”

“No,” Samuel said crisply. “You shouldn’t. Not if I am doing a decent job. How do
you
know, Marie-Elaine?”

“I saw Your Grace’s notes on the carpet yesterday,” Marie-Elaine said, “and I picked them up. Naturally, I put them right down when I realized what they were.”

“Naturally,” Samuel said in a droll voice, resting his head on the railing.

“The baroness is a fraud, an assassin paid by one of Renwick’s metaphysical rivals,” Marie-Elaine added.

“All the better,” Lily said with enthusiasm.

Marie-Elaine shrugged. “If you would prefer the part, I don’t mind exchanging it for yours.”

They stared at Samuel’s down-bent head.

“No,” Lily said, her mouth lifting in a smile. “I shall remain Juliette. Our characters should be consistent.”

“Thank goodness.” Samuel straightened, full of his usual energy. “Let’s start at the top of the page.”

Marie-Elaine cleared her throat. “ ‘It was a stormy night. The moat waters crashed against the castle walls.’ ”

“Why,” Lily asked, lowering her pages again, “does it always have to be a stormy night? Why, this reader wonders, shouldn’t it be clear and starlit for once?”

Samuel walked up to her. “I like stormy nights, and I am the author. Stormy nights lend themselves to drama and to gentlemen called upon as guardians.”

“Yes,” Lily said after a short hesitation, “but he’s going to put her in the turret again, and it’s obvious what will happen next.”

Samuel raised his brow. “One more editorial and I shall have to deal with you in private.”

He turned, motioning with his manuscript to continue.

“In that event,” Lily said quickly, “let me just slip in a few tiny corrections, lest I forget to mention them later. Your referral to the Battle of Worcester is off by a mere thirteen years. A minor error. And it is a trifling mistake, to be sure, but the sun rises in the east. It does not set there.”

His eyes darkened.

“Furthermore, Your Grace,” she said, “there is a place on page—” She broke off to sniff the air. “I smell something. Are Renwick and the baroness burning herbs in a mystical incantation to weaken Lord Wickbury?”

“There are no fires in this scene,” Samuel said, alarmed.

The assembly broke apart, Wadsworth checking the fireplace at the gallery’s end, Marie-Elaine behind closed doors, and Mrs. Halford pounding down the stairs to the kitchen. Nothing was found except a scullery maid scraping the black off the bottom of the pot.

Samuel stood alone with Lily in the gallery, shaking his head in resignation. “What you smelled was probably the foul miasma of this manuscript. Obviously I am not holding anyone’s interest, or we would not be so easily scattered.”

Lily clasped his hand. “We are going to hold a private editorial. The scene will be all the better for another revision.”

She lay beside Samuel on their bed, sifting her fingers through his hair. It was still light outside. The moor seemed to be swathed in magic. “I’ve had a change of heart,” she said from out of the blue.

Samuel stirred. “Tell me.”

“I’ve decided that I prefer a hero to a villain.”

He lifted up on his elbow. “Does this mean you’re no longer in love with Sir Renwick?”

“He will always have some of my sympathy,” she said with a wistful shrug. “But it is one thing to enjoy reading about an evil character and quite another to encounter him in actual life.”

He reflected for a long time. “I am neither good nor bad. What kind of man does that make me?”

“An exceptional one.”

He turned over and lightly kissed her on the mouth. She closed her eyes and waited. She waited to be surprised, seduced, swept into another world. But when she finally roused herself, she saw her husband had left her side and was sitting at his desk.

“I shall be right back, I swear it, Lily. I have this idea—the ending for the next book.”

She scooted against the pillows. “Shouldn’t you worry about writing the rest of the story first?”

He didn’t even pretend to look back at her.

“I am trying a different approach. It is my hope that once I envision the end, everything else will fall in place. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Half the time.”

“And the others?”

“The other times don’t matter. I’m happy enough to wander about in the dark. And—”

He bent over his desk, pen in one hand, the other raised at his shoulder to forestall her. “Wait just another moment, my love.”

“As I was going to say, Samuel, we will have a little Lord or Lady Anonymous after Christmas.”

“I know,” he murmured, nodding faintly. “Yes. Tell me again later. Catch me up on all the news.”

Later—seven hours later, in fact—he got into bed beside her and gently shook her awake. “Repeat what you just told me.”

“That was yesterday!” she exclaimed. “You’ve a mind like a colander. It needs to be refilled every few minutes.”

“It was a few minutes ago that we spoke.”

She turned her head, only to find him lying beside her. His dark eyes searched hers. “I am a dunce, Lily. Is it true?”

“Your dragon’s-blood doctor seems to think so.”

He caught her face in his hands. “What shall we name this little progeny?” he asked.

“We shall have to sleep on it. Or maybe when you’re not working, it will come to you. Go on. Finish your writing. It’s where your heart is.”

“You have never been more wrong,” Samuel said. “I can write a book when I am eighty. I won’t be able to make a child then.”

“You might,” she said in a reflective voice. “Some men are capable.”

“At that age?”

“You are probably one of them.”

“I can’t see it. I would never get a page done.”

When Lily awakened the next morning, she knew by the light on the floor that she had overslept. And that Samuel had gotten up at his usual time to go to work. She wrapped a sheet around her like a toga and slipped out of bed.

At his desk she saw the freshly inked paper he had left her.

Lily,
You are my wife.
My heart is yours.
But do stop editing my work.
I love you,

Samuel

P.S. The last sentence of the next book reads:

Temptation does not have to end in tragedy.

Thank you for inspiring me.

The Bridal Pleasures Series

D
on’t miss the next captivating romance in Jillian Hunter’s new series—a story about the strength of a love that begins in friendship, a secret bond that is bound to be challenged, and the lengths a man will go to guard the woman he desires, even if he has to walk away from her to keep the first promise he ever made.

Coming from Signet Select in
October 2011.