Duke Ever After (Dukes' Club Book 5) (5 page)

“It doesn’t bother me,” she said loudly. “Nothing I haven’t seen before and I highly doubt it bothers you.”

He contemplated the stairs then he contemplated the door to the library. A strong part longed to bolt up the stairs, to his room, and a bottle of whisky. The other part knew he was in a quandary.

If any of the other house guests had discovered him in such a state he’d have been able to pass it off as nothing with ease. Just another shade to his odd character. Cordelia? Not on his life. The woman was as sharp as a freshly tended razor.

“Come along,” she ordered, undeterred. “Your nakedness near the fire will only speed up the warming process.”

Derek bit back an appreciative laugh. Cordelia was one of a kind. Not the kind for him in any long term capacity. But he did admire her. 

He took a long breath.

Lady Rosamund had shaken him today.

Over the long years, he’d never had trouble wearing his jovial mask. He wore it easily. And there was only one small person he ever showed his true face to.

And yet, he found that today, he’d damned well wanted to be himself with Lady Ros.

That was the real reason he’d raced away from her. Oh, it was true he’d no wish to incur the Duke of Blackburn’s wrath or to be made a martyr on the marital altar. But even more so. . . He couldn’t be seen.

A lifetime of shoring his true self up depended on it. His mother’s memory depended on it.

No one.
No one
except his son could ever know him.

So, it was imperative he convince Cordelia that naught was amiss.

Squaring his shoulders, he sauntered into the library, infusing his step with the swagger renowned to the Duke of Aston.

“Where’s that drink then?” he drawled.

Cordelia eyed him up and down then shook her head. She headed towards the grog trolley and poured out a small brandy for herself and a large one for him into the beautifully cut Waterford snifters.

She stretched out her arm, offering him the drink. “Best get yourself in front of the fire before you lose your most precious assets.”

“Dear Duchess, it would take more than a little cold to divest me of my manhood.”

“I was referring to your fingers and toes.”

“To a man? Those are not the most precious assets.”

“Men are fools.”

“I shan’t argue.” He took the drink and immediately drank half, savoring the beautifully textured, velvety brandy. Lady Cavendish was not cheap when it came to comforts and her guests.

He neared the tall fireplace and savored the sensation of fingers of heat reaching out to touch his icy skin.

He’d survived winters in Russia. He’d sailed into iceberg infested water which had seen his and his men’s hair crust with ice. Cold didn’t bother him. Today, he’d hardly felt it. Not even his bare feet had protested.

That was why he’d somehow completely forgotten to charge off in the direction of his clothing which he had neatly folded by the loch.

Oh no, he’d charged directly for the hunting lodge, determined to get as far away from that wild, red-haired siren as fast as he may.

He knew what happened to sailors who listened to the voices of sirens. They crashed on the rocks. And he had far too much at stake to do any crashing.

“If you don’t mind, I shall sit,” she said. “My belly has gotten rather heavy.”

“You carry your cargo well, though.”

She beamed and, immediately, her hand came to rest on the large swell beneath her breasts.

It was on the tip of his tongue to suggest it might have been better for her to stay in London rather than risk the roads into the Highlands when she was big with child, but he knew such a thing would be foolish.

Cordelia would no more stay safe by the fire than he could settle down to the family estate and do naught but look after the fields and tenants.

To ask her to do such a thing would be to ask the Cordelia they all knew to die.

Too many men would be all too happy to do such a thing.

Not he. He knew the cost of denying one’s true self. Every year, one got a little harder. A little colder. A little more desperate.

She sat with amazing aplomb given her disproportionate figure. “Now, tell me about her.” 

“There is no her to tell.”

Cordelia rolled her eyes. “My dear Aston, I am a woman of intelligence.”

He took another drink before saying, “God help me. I know it to be true.”

“Then why deny the truth?”

“Fine,” he groaned, wiping a hand over his face. “If I tell you, will you keep it to yourself?”

He had the decided feeling that if he didn’t share the experience with her, she’d worry him like a dog with a bone only adding more and more significance to the occurrence the more he resisted. And he wished her to know that there was no significance. None. Not a jot. Not a bloody, blazing iota.

“Of course,” she said. “Loose tongues, sinking ships and all that.”

He laughed. “Well done on the nautical reference. My sailor self—“

“Pirate.”

“Privateer.”

“Six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

“Not according to the law,” he pointed out.

She shrugged, grinned, then took a small drink. “You boarded and plundered ships.”

He lifted his glass in salute. “With permission of the government.”

“I am surprised you care about permission, truth be known.”

He laughed merrily. “I am overly fond of my neck.”

“It is a nice, manly neck.”

“I thank you.”

She shifted on the chair, grimacing slightly as even such movement was exceedingly difficult. “Now, out with it.”

He paused, eyeing his brandy. Where did he begin? At the beginning, he supposed. So, he said quickly, “I met our neighbor’s sister today.”

She stared. “Our neighbor, as in the Duke of Blackburn?”

“Yes.”

“You mean the fellow that seems to have a stick permanently lodged up his rectum?” As if realizing her summation was hardly flattering, she added. “Poor fellow, he really is a nice man.”

“Yes.”

He’d met the Duke of Blackburn the other day, also swimming.

Cordelia had met him in an altogether different capacity and had seen how easily riled the man could become.

She took a small sip of her drink. “And I take it she’s not like her brother.”

Different? Where did he start to even explain? “If two could be more different one would assume she had been cut from a very different cloth."

“Or different side of the bed?”

He hid his cringe. People spoke so easily of such things in jest and the truth was the
ton
was full of bastards. Babies who’d been born to mothers released of their vows to atrocious love lives once they’d produced the heir and the spare. Most husbands didn’t give a whit. They were far too busy rogering chorus girls and actresses or Cyprians to care. After all, wives weren’t for love.

In fact, he wasn’t sure that the vast majority of the
ton
had any other knowledge of love except the love of perpetuating their existence and keeping it exclusive from the rest of the world.

His bastardy, he knew, was far more rare. Not many men in history would willingly place a bastard at the helm of a dukedom intentionally.

The man who had called himself Derek’s father had risked it all to prove to the world that dukes were potent and that the Aston dukedom was still filled by men as virile as when the first duke was created by Henry VII.

“She’s unique,” he finally managed.

“She must be to have you traipsing about in a blanket.”

“If you must know, we met swimming.”

“Mad. Absolutely mad.”

“I thought so, too,” he agreed. “A lady? Swimming in the loch in December. Takes a very devoted swimmer. Like myself or her brother. You know I met him in the loch the other day as well.”

“Bold persons.”

Aston nodded silently. He didn’t need to say how much he’d admired Lady Rosamund from the moment she’d offered him her first pithy salute of greeting. She was the sort of woman who could travel jungles and never blink an eye.

That was if she was ever to go.

“Yes,” he conceded. “Well, boldness is a fine trait but I’ll not be spotted naked with a dukeot sister.”

“Yet here you stand naked with me.”

“That’s different. For one, you’re not naked. For the other, you’re married.”

She sighed. “Yes. All true. It’s the world we live in.”

He leaned towards her and waggled his brows, feeling the need to be his usual outrageous self. “But I’ve never felt the need to do anything with your person, Duchess. Lady Rosamund? I could worship her until the stars burned black.”

“My, my. That is saying something. And I’m glad to hear I’ve never entered that part of your mind.”

“I admire your brain and that alone, madam.”

“And Lady Rosamund?”

“I must admit to being enraptured by both, so I hied myself away. Lingering in her company will see me with the noose about my neck. I don’t ruin virgins. And I don’t get forced down the aisle either by enraged brothers or society’s dictates.”

Cordelia tilted her head to the side, examining him a long moment. “You’re a funny fellow.”

“Thank you.” It was the only thing to say when someone said something that was about to proceed with an assessment of one’s dubious character.

“You’ve no care for you own reputation. None. And yet you’re determined to protect Lady Rosamund’s.”

“Life is cruel enough without willingly setting the wolves at one’s doors.”

“I thought you liked to play with the wolves.”

“I do. Was born with them you see. That chit? She’d be eaten alive.”

“Perhaps you underestimate her.”

“Are you suggesting I ruin her?” he asked in mock indignation, though in truth, he was rather stunned that even the progressive Cordelia would say such a thing.

Cordelia shrugged. “From the way you’ve responded, I think you should marry her at once. Humans are much like wolves and swans. I do believe we recognize our life mate on sight.”

“Do you, my love?” a deep voice said from the doorway. “I thought you were going to murder me for a good long while when we first met.”

Cordelia’s entire being lit up as she spotted her husband the Duke of Hunt leaning against the gilded doorframe. “I almost did, you know. Several times.”

Hunt grinned, crossed to her and swept her up into his arms. He sat then tugged her onto his lap. “Bloodthirsty wench.” 

“Oh, there would have been very little blood,” she teased.

“Ever efficient, my duchess,” Hunt replied, teasing a lock of her hair behind her ear.

Aston felt himself experience that duality that had been all too common as of late. When in the company of Hunt and his wife or the Duke of Darkwell and his duchess, he felt both alarm and fascination.

He longed to stare. To see the genuine love and affection that he had never known.

That was not entirely true. He did know love. The purest love in the world. The love for a child.

But this was different. This was a love he couldn’t fathom. The love of two adult people who accepted each other entirely.

Derek tossed down the last of his brandy. “Well, I’ll be going.”

“You’ll be putting breeches on, you arse,” Hunt growled lightly.

“Your wife suggested I warm myself before the fire.”

“Well, one should expect to be cold if all one wears is only a blanket.”

“I lost my clothes after a swim,” he defended.

“If you go swimming in Scotland,” Hunt replied flatly, “one should especially expect to be cold. Go to your room. No one wants to see your naked person.”

Aston knew what he had to do.

There was only one thing. After all, he had a reputation to keep up.

So, he strode toward the open door. Once he was sure his front was out of view, he dropped his blanket, trailing it along the ornate rug behind him and allowing his arse to be in full glorious view of the Duke of Hunt.

Cordelia let out a peal of laughter.

Hunt groaned. “Scarred. Scarred for life, old man.”

“I hear the envy in your voice,” Derek retorted and he strode from the room, knowing the sooner he went back to his merrymaking, troublesome self, the sooner he’d be reminded that young women like Lady Rosamund should never even enter his lusts. . . Let alone his deepest thoughts.

Chapter 5

Derek strode over the heather-covered ben, drinking in the crisp, windswept air forcing himself to think of anything but
her
.

Lady Rosamund.

Wild, Highland lass.

Adventurer.

Beautiful, odd goddess.

Ah, yes. She was all those things. And she was one other thing. A damned dangerous wench with the power to see him well and truly married.

And that?

That was never going to happen.

It might seem strange, after all the trouble that his father had gone to that Derek would let the
direct
line die out. If he owed it to anyone to marry and have a son, he owed it to his mother.

But he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Because if he started doing what he was supposed to, his father would have won. That cold bastard deserved to lose. Again and again.

There was also the simple fact that women died in childbirth. . . His own mother. The mother of his son. . .

He feared for Cordelia. He couldn’t help it.

Women took death into their hands and faced it in a way no man could ever know when they took to the child bed.

He heaved out a sigh. It was a dark thought for such a glorious place.

He tried to focus on the rugged hills and the smoke curling up from the distant chimney of his destination.

At present, distraction was essential because, despite all his own reasons for never, absolutely never, seeing Lady Rosamund again, he kept feeling his feet try to wander over the hills to the Duke of Blackburn’s estate.

And Cordelia kept giving him knowing looks.

Marry the girl, indeed! Life mates, indeed. He as much believed in soul mates as he did sea monsters.

Though when he looked at Cordelia and the Duke of Hunt. . . It was difficult not to see the hints of some fabled, eternal bond.