Her Mystery Duke (31 page)

“She sent for me.”

There. That was not exactly a lie, was it?

“I am surprised she would even venture to do such a thing.
She takes herself and her reputation so seriously.”

“I suppose she must. Being common-born yet married to a
duke’s brother must be a tremendous pressure upon her.”

“I suppose.” David downed the remainder of his drink and
then set the glass down on the sidebar. “It seems very early for bed.”

“I am past exhausted, David.”

“I had wanted to discuss again the prospect of your
accompanying me to Scotland.”

“To tour that asylum?” Jeanne was surprised that he would
bring this subject up again. Why wouldn’t he understand?

David took in that pale, startled look on Jeanne’s face. She
would close herself off again. She would hide. Well, he wouldn’t allow it. He
had to know she had the strength to face this fear. If she couldn’t face this,
how would she ever face all the trials that marriage to a duke would bring?
“Yes, I want to take you on a tour of that asylum, among other things. We can
delay our return so I might take you to my estate.”

Or he might marry her in Scotland. It all depended on how
she responded the tour and if she agreed with his ideas for their life going
forward.

He took a deep breath and pushed back the urge to reveal
more of his thoughts than he should. Better to wait and see if she was capable
of becoming a more open, stronger person. He didn’t like to believe this
reluctance to embrace life fully was really the true Jeanne, but then again he
didn’t want tie their lives together if she couldn’t bear up under everything
that would be expected of a common-born girl who marries an older, titled,
powerful man.

“Jeanne, don’t you ever want more from life than you might
have expected to have when you were in your garret with your father?”

She wouldn’t look at him. That maddened him. He folded his
arms and tried to wait for her answer. Finally, his patience evaporated and he
exhaled sharply.

She looked up, her expression surprised, as though she
didn’t know she’d just closed him out. In truth, she could be hurtful at times.

She also could be damned obstinate. But he couldn’t exactly
order her to go with him anymore than he could order her to love him. Still, he
couldn’t understand how he’d been so wrong in his assessment of her. He’d
thought he had perceived the flame of idealism in her soul. He couldn’t help
trying to further persuade her. “Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to see how
a more progressive asylum might differ from the place where your father lived?”

“David, I have tried to explain. I can’t bear to see people
who are like that. I can’t bear the futility and waste of their lives.”

“But surely your experience with your father created some
better sympathy for individuals who are afflicted. We live in a time of
dramatic changes and one of those changes will be a more humane view of the
insane and improved treatment for them. Isn’t there something in you that
demands to be a part of that movement, in memory of the suffering your father
went through?”

She sat, hugging her bent knees and staring down at the
coverlet. “You suddenly sound like you’re giving a speech in the House of
Lords.”

“I can’t help that. It is my life.”

“Your life is giving speeches in the House of Lords or crusading
on the part of the insane or the sick or the poor or whoever else needs a white
knight to defend them.”

He chose to ignore the bitter tone that had crept into her
voice. He’d placed her on the defensive. “Both. They have been inseparable
endeavors for me. I want to see our country improved for all. I also want to
see prison reform, repeal of the poor laws, better and free education for all.
But one person can only do so much. So, yes, crusading for the insane could be
said to be my life.”

“It is not my life.”

“I am saying I want it to be your life, too, Jeanne.”

“You are not listening to me. You don’t see me clearly. I am
still just that girl who lives in her garret and writes insipid, meaningless stories
for children with no moral messages in them. I just want to be left alone and
to have my peace.”

Her shoulders sank and she looked so woebegone that the
sight pulled at the center of his chest. He went to sit beside her on the bed
and took her hand. “I don’t believe that you simply want to be left alone and
to not have your life count for something higher.”

“You must believe it. It is who I am. You must accept me or
reject me but I cannot be more than I am.”

“I see in you such compassion and kindness—and why you want
to deny this, I do not know. Why you want to waste the potential for your
talents—that I also do not understand.”

She rolled her shoulders. The very listlessness of the act
increased his vexation with her. “I can’t be the person you envision, David.”

“Can’t you see that I am trying to create a place for you in
my life? That I am trying to envision how our lives could be entwined?”

“I am a part of your life, David. I am your mistress.”

He had to tell her the truth of the matter. “I need more
from you.”

She slipped her hand from his and stared at her lap. “You
wanted only a mistress. You went to great pains to make sure I understood and
those were the terms I accepted. I never led you to believe I wanted to be
included in your political life or any other part of your life. I am just here
for your leisure hours and to give you comfort. In return, you provide me with
a very luxurious existence. It is enough for me.”

“It is no longer enough for me.”

Finally, she looked up at him. Her face was pale and her
eyes wide. “It must be enough. It is all I can give you.”

“I am trying very hard to keep sight of the girl I fell in
love with. However, I am beginning to wonder if she was only a mirage.”

“That’s unfair. You wanted me to occupy a very limited space
in your life. Now you’re changing the terms, expecting things from me that I
can never give.”

“I am trying to love you, fully, completely. Not just as a
well-cared-for plaything to occupy me when I am doing nothing else and to be
set on a shelf at all other times.”

“That’s very insulting, David. I do not sit on a shelf
waiting for you to come for playtime. I have my own interests, my own life.”

“Keeping yourself walled off from others? Spending your time
alone, indulging your imagination purely for your own amusement—this is what
you want from life? It is a miserable excuse for aggrandized self-pity and
indulgence.”

“Aggrandized self-pity and indulgence? That’s how you term
it? I call it peace and emotional safety.”

Her feckless approach to life began to pall. He’d never been
able to shrink from life like that.

Duty. Service. Reputation. Honor. All these things had been
impressed upon him from his birth. Beat into him, literally with a cane. His
father, so cool and dignified in public. So demanding and full of rage in
private. He had given David no quarter. The dukes of Hartley had always given
of themselves to king and country. Mostly in politics.

David had given and given and given. Everything.

Now he wanted something for himself.

Jeanne.

“Be what I need you to be.” The duchess of Hartley must be
as bound to service and duty as the duke. He had no choice in the matter.

“David…”

“If you loved me, you would.”

She blanched again and her eyes widened. “That’s unfair!”

Maybe it was. He knew he was being completely irrational.
Dictatorial. Demanding. He couldn’t stop himself. “Before I met you, I had
peace in my life.”

Now he was constantly unhappy. Unsatisfied with his life.

Her eyes narrowed. “You were not happy. You were bent on
driving yourself into an early grave with your work.”

“I was happy,” he insisted.

“You were not happy. You had wrapped yourself into a shroud
of grief and guilt. All over a woman who never truly cared for you.” Her face
scrunched up in an expression of pure disgust. “Thérèse.”

She spat the name.

“You’ll take that back,” he demanded.

She fisted her hands at her sides. “I shan’t. I hate your
Thérèse. You have made a martyr of yourself over her. You have taken a perverse
pleasure in the self-punishment of it.”

He hated her for saying that. He hated himself for hating
her. She was only speaking the truth. But he didn’t feel like giving quarter.
“I had peace in my life before you. I was happy with my life.”

Hurt flashed in her eyes. It almost softened him. Then she
lifted her chin. “I had peace as well. And I was truly with my life.”

“You are as much a liar as you accuse me of being.”

She folded her arms across her chest once more. “Well, at
least we agree on one thing.”

“And what is that?”

“We are both unhappy now.”

“I can’t continue with you that way.” The words surprised
him but it was the truth. He couldn’t continue with her as they were doing. He
took a deep breath. “We’ve come to a crossroads, I see.”

“What are you trying to say to me, David?”

“I am saying that if you won’t even try to overcome your
prejudices and fears, if you won’t take the smallest step to overcome the
wounds left by your experiences with your father, then you aren’t the woman I
thought you were.”

“You are putting very strange terms on our arrangement. I
never led you to believe I would share your interests.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders. “I know it is not your
fault. Neither of us is to blame.”

She shrunk from under his touch.

He shook his head. “Jeanne, I can’t keep living like this. I
come here and I spend so many idle hours. I do it because I must have
connection with you. But I am not a man who can long enjoy idle hours. I need
the woman in my life to share my interests, to share my crusades. We don’t
share anything but bedchamber interests.”

And if all that were true then she would never be the wife
for him. He didn’t want only a mistress with whom he spent so many idle hours.
He couldn’t keep spreading himself between two lives. He wanted and needed a
true partner in life.

“What do you propose we do now?” Her voice sounded so
strained that the pressure in his chest returned and increased as though his
heart were being crushed.

“Perhaps I should offer you a pension and put your name on
the deed of this house. Then you can have your isolated quietude and peace all
the time.”

“And you can return all your energies to your political
crusading.”

He couldn’t tell what she was feeling from her voice. She
had resumed that old prickly, falsely hardened exterior. And if he left her,
that is how she would go through her life. That hurt most of all. That he would
bear the responsibility for her withdrawal, her feeling of a final rejection
from men. From life.

But if he stayed with her and she refused to grow, he would
begin to resent her. He knew this as sure as he breathed. He leaned closer to
her and placed a kiss on her cheek. Her flesh was cool. Not even by a catch of
her breath did she respond to the gesture.

He had bared his heart to her and made a plea that she come
at least halfway and try to meet with him for a true sharing of their souls.
And it had closed her off to him, made her hard again. That hurt most of all.

He pulled away from her and stood. He crossed the chamber
and poured another drink. But when he put it to his lips, the taste was sour.
He drank it anyway.

“What shall we do, David?” Her tone was flat.

“We should not make any decisions tonight. I shall go to
Scotland and in the meantime perhaps we shall both sort out our thoughts
better.”

“But you believe we shall part upon your return?”

If only she’d show some emotion about the subject. If only
she’d
try
…

The detached look on her face was at odds with her lush,
full-bosomed body, her full sensual pink mouth and large blue eyes. It was also
at odds with his memory of her ardent responses to his lovemaking.

Yes, he could go to her and initiate some carnal activity.
Give her discipline and she would perhaps cave to his demands. But this was
something altogether different from their carnal life. This was something that
must come from the most independent part of herself. She must give to him from
that part of herself.

“David? Shall we part upon your return?”

“I cannot say. But it appears more a possibility than not at
this moment.”

Chapter Twelve

Jeanne spent the morning after David’s departure in the
parlor. Her morning chocolate had developed a film and long grown cold. Despite
the fire, she huddled on the settee in blanket, shivering.

She had lied to David. She hadn’t been happy living alone in
her garret. She had been numb. Dead inside.

Now he wanted to end their agreement. She was no longer
enough for him. She could never be enough for him.

She would never be warm again.

“Miss Darling, there’s a gentleman here to see you.”

Listlessly, Jeanne looked up. Mrs. Wilson was wiping her
hands on her apron, her nervous habit.

“A gentleman?”

“He says his name is Bernard Barrymore.” Mrs. Wilson sounded
incredulous.

“Oh.”

“Miss Darling,” Mrs. Wilson had lowered her voice. “Is he
really
the
Bernard Barrymore?”

There was a girlish gush to the matron’s voice. Any other
time it would have made Jeanne hard-pressed not to laugh. “I didn’t realize you
were fond of the theatre, Mrs. Wilson.”

“Oh, Miss, everyone adores Mr. Barrymore’s plays. They are
the best. Is he-he really the one?”

“Yes, he’s the one.”

“Shall I show him in?”

The last thing Jeanne wanted was to receive company,
especially not an old lover. Her most bitter critic. But if she wouldn’t see
him then he would think she was afraid to face him or that she cared one way or
the other about his negative opinions of her. Better to face him and let him
see that he was unimportant to her now.