How to Deceive a Duke (15 page)

Chapter 30

“W
e were lost in the hills above Burgos, you see, had no idea we’d crossed enemy lines. The French were on the march, and we were in great danger of being cut off and slaughtered.” Meg’s eyes widened as she listened to Stephen Ives. He laughed.

“What?” she asked.

“You look exactly like the poor young soldiers, terrified, listening to the French drums. They got closer and closer—”

“What did you do?”

“I?” He laid a hand on his chest. “I advised the lads to load their muskets, fix bayonets, and pray.”

She blinked at him, picturing the flash of the steel, tasting the fear and the rising dust. Hyde Park, the other riders, the lovely morning, all fell away.

“Nicholas, however, mounted Hannibal with his sword drawn. He burst out of cover scant yards in front of the French column, yelling insults in French that would make a whore blush.” She blushed herself, but he was staring off into space, as if he were watching the scene. She could almost see it herself. Nicholas riding low over his saddle, galloping across the field, his dark hair blowing back, his thighs gripping the horse.

“He drew them away from us. They followed him, and we were able to slip away.”

“How remarkable,” Meg murmured, her heart pounding.

“Yes. Hannibal is a fine horse indeed,” he teased.

“Was he—” She remembered the scars on his body, the fine white lines and deeper marks.

“Shot in the shoulder and captured,” Stephen said. “We feared we’d never see him again.”

Meg bit her lip, her hands tightening on the reins. She’d kissed that scar.

“That was the first time he was captured. He escaped, of course, and he brought back three maps and a French captain willing to tell tales if only he might be spared the fate his countrymen had planned for Nick. That’s where he earned the nickname Devil, you see. The poor Frenchman kept calling him that, over and over. Our lads picked it up, and Nick was Captain Devil Hartley thereafter.”

Meg felt a frisson of astonishment in the pit of her stomach. “Then it’s not because of—”

A peal of feminine laughter filled the park, and Meg looked up.

Temberlay, her husband, the Devil himself, was chatting with a carriage full of ladies.

She hadn’t known he was back in London, hadn’t asked, or been told, yet here he was, a living caricature from a scandal sheet, kissing the hand of a giggling debutante, looking at her with that rogue’s grin that turned a lady’s insides to jelly. Meg knew that feeling well. She took a fortifying breath and straightened in the saddle.

“Now I know why they call you Devil!” the chit cried, setting a hand to a flushed cheek. The rest of her companions twittered and preened like a nest of noisy birds.

Meg felt her own face heat, and she shot Stephen a sharp look. His story was suddenly far less believable.

He held up a hand. “No sugared almonds, Meg, I swear.”

“Shall we ride on?” she asked tartly.

Nicholas’s head came up as if he’d heard a siren’s call, and he met Meg’s eyes across the grass. His smile faded. Anger made her sweat, despite the chill in the morning air.

Every woman in the open carriage gaped at her for a moment before they fell to whispering and casting speculative glances at husband and wife.

Meg’s stomach knotted. More gossip.

She watched her husband’s eyes slide to her companion, and narrow.

“Nick! You’re back!” Stephen said, riding forward.

“I thought you had a Russian grand duchess to chaperone,” Temberlay said coolly.

Stephen’s smile faded at the rebuke. “And who were those lovely ladies you were flirting with?” he countered.

Meg started at them. It looked, even to her inexperienced eye, like they were
jealous
of her. She’d once seen two of Rose’s beaux come to blows over which lad would have the pleasure of helping her across a mud puddle on a country walk. They’d circled each other like dogs fighting over a bone until Meg had aided her sister herself.

She pressed her horse between the two men now. “Good morning, Your Grace.” She stared after the departing ladies. “Please don’t let us delay you. Your companions are escaping.”

“Good morning indeed, Maggie. Did you miss me?” he asked.

“Not at all. If I wish to see you, I need only look at the scandal sheets,” she said. She turned to Stephen with a sweet smile. “Is this the hero you’ve been telling me of, Stephen?”

“I—” Stephen began, but Meg inclined her head to the big white stallion under her husband’s rump.

“You’re quite right, he is a magnificent horse!”

She urged her own horse on, ignoring the stunned silence from Nicholas, the bark of laughter from Stephen.

“Stephen?” she heard Nicholas ask. “She calls you Stephen?”

“I am pleased to say she does. Many people do, don’t they, Meg?”

“Meg?” Nicholas demanded through gritted teeth.

“Everyone calls me Meg, Your Grace. Except you,” she said tartly.

“And just what have you been doing in my absence, Duchess?”

“Well, I met her at Fiona Barry’s ball,” Stephen said, falling in to ride on Meg’s other side.

“Fiona?” Nicholas muttered, and looked sharply at his wife. “You met Fiona, and survived?”

She studied her gloves and didn’t bother to reply.

“Meg has charmed half the
ton
in your absence, old friend, and only half because the rest haven’t had the pleasure of an introduction yet.” Stephen sighed. “I am among the fortunate.”

She gave him a gracious smile, just to annoy Nicholas.

“Just what have you been doing to charm these poor mortals so, Maggie?” he asked.

Meg felt her face flame anew at the innuendo. Her hands were shaking simply because he was riding at her side.

“She waltzes divinely, for one thing,” Stephen said. “Almost as well as she rides.”

“Indeed,” Nicholas said, and she felt his eyes slide over her. “Do you ride often?” he asked her, nudging his horse closer. She knew he was judging the way she sat her horse, the set of her gloved hands on the reins.

“She’s an excellent rider,” Stephen said.

“Still here, Lord Ives?” Nicholas asked, looking at him with irritation.

He laughed. “Perhaps I should take my leave, Meg.”

“Don’t feel you must,” Meg said sweetly as he picked up her hand, and kissed it.

“I’ll see you this evening at Lady Hilliard’s ball. Save me a waltz?” Stephen said.

Nicholas plucked her hand out of Stephen’s grip. “Apologies, Ives, but
my wife
will be unable to attend the party tonight. She’s dining with me, at home, alone.”

They both turned to gape at him in surprise. Stephen recovered first. “Then no doubt I shall see you at another time, so we might continue our conversation, Meg.”

She watched him ride away, her heart sinking. She was alone with Nicholas. “That really wasn’t necessary, Your Grace.”

“Shall we continue to ride?” he asked. She nudged the stallion on. She wondered how long he’d been back, what he’d been doing, but she was afraid she knew. Trills of feminine laughter still followed them.

“You sit a horse well,” he said. “And that habit you’re wearing is quite fetching. Tell me, do you ever ride astride?”

She sent him a scathing look. They were back to meaningless flirtation. How had Rose borne it? She scanned the park, ignoring him. She wanted to ask him to finish Stephen’s story, but her tongue stuck to her teeth in his presence.

“I ask because the stallion you’re riding is named Devil’s Whim. He needs a strong rider, yet you handle him as if you’re quite used to having a stallion clasped between your thighs.”

Meg nodded graciously to a passing rider, and didn’t bother to reply. She felt a bead of sweat slip between her shoulder blades.

“You’ve tamed him, I suppose, like the
ton
. He likes you. I almost envy him his position under your sweet—”

With a gasp, she kicked the stallion to a gallop, felt his powerful muscles tense in a burst of speed that carried her away from Nicholas’s merciless teasing. She gave the stallion his head, and leaned over his neck, and let the wind cool her flaming cheeks. Had he come back simply to torment her? She almost wished he hadn’t come back at all. Almost. She let a smile tug on her lips, and spurred the stallion on. Let him catch her if he could.

Chapter 31

F
or a moment, Nicholas thought Devil’s Whim had bolted. He hadn’t planned to tease her. He’d been—what?—
jealous
of Stephen Ives? He looked again at his wife, and wondered if he had reason to be. Stephen
talked
to women. Nicholas either charmed them or seduced them, but he didn’t hold conversations with them.

He spurred Hannibal in pursuit. There were few riders in her path, and she flew down Rotten Row unimpeded. Hannibal caught up easily, and he rode alongside her. She kept her eyes fixed on the track ahead, a look of utter exhilaration on her face. It caught him in the gut like a punch. He wondered if she was aware of his presence, and now he really did envy the damned horse. She rode like an extension of the animal’s powerful body, neck-or-nothing.

Her fetching little hat flew off and sailed away, and she barely noticed. A lock of hair was coming loose from the prim coif, floating behind her. He swallowed, remembering how it felt to be wrapped in her hair, kissing her.

Obviously she wasn’t recalling any such intimacy, though her expression was almost as blissful as it had been when he made love to her. Today it was all for the damned horse—and bloody Stephen Ives.

He’d been surprised to see his friend this morning, surprised to see Meg laughing with him, smiling at him.
Talking
to him.

He’d spent a week brooding at Temberlay. All he could think about was Meg. He’d read David’s journal. Wycliffe had been as much a victim as David had been, had left his family penniless. Had it contributed to his death? He understood why Meg had played the desperate gambit, and taken her sister’s place. He almost admired her, though it didn’t change the fact that he knew almost nothing about her. Would she make a good wife, a loving mother?

He’d returned to Town yesterday, and hadn’t been able to think of how to begin a conversation with her. He’d stayed at his club, and risen early to ride and think.

Then he looked across the park and met her eyes. And Stephen Ives’s.

She was so innocent, so inexperienced, so ripe for seduction, especially from a charming, intelligent man of excellent character like Stephen. No doubt she would have chosen to marry a man like him if she’d had the chance. Would she, the daughter of a righteous champion of female virtue, take a lover? Surely Stephen wouldn’t betray him that way, but he remembered the admiration in his friend’s eyes as he’d looked at Meg, the regret when he’d left her.

Nicholas had had enough. He leaned over and grabbed the reins of her horse, checking her wild ride. His grip was iron, and Devil’s Whim obediently slowed and came to a halt, breathing hard.

She glared at him, her chest heaving, her eyes glowing. She looked like a woman who had just been bedded, or should be.

Without a word, he dismounted and reached up to haul her out of the saddle. Before she could protest, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

Her resistance was token at best before she melted against him, kissing him back with a hunger of her own. She’d missed him. He felt a surge of pride. He could take her home, have her now, but that wouldn’t fix anything but the damned inconvenient erection he was sporting. He pulled back.

“We have to talk,” he said. Unable to resist, he kissed her neck above the high collar of her riding habit. “This isn’t the place. To talk.” She sighed and leaned up to kiss him again, but he stepped back and brushed his fingers across her lush lips.

“We need to have a conversation, Maggie, get things straight between us.”

She blinked. “Then you were in earnest about our dining together this evening?”

He hadn’t actually planned to insist on dinner. It had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, to lay claim to her and take her back from Stephen, but he nodded. “At eight-thirty.” He promised himself that he wouldn’t touch her, wouldn’t kiss her between courses, wouldn’t ravish her on the dining table.

“To talk,” he repeated.

“To talk,” she panted, and he swallowed a groan.

Chapter 32

M
eg ate supper all the time. It was an ordinary thing. At balls and parties she talked and laughed and flirted between bites and sips, and so did her companions. Why was it so difficult now?

Meg glanced at her husband. Nicholas was concentrating on the soup, a delicious cream of cauliflower. She stifled the urge to get up and race down to the kitchen to thank the cook, not just because the soup was excellent, but to get out of his company, where she could think.

“Please thank Mrs. Parry for the soup,” she murmured to Gardiner as he refilled their wineglasses.

Nicholas looked up at her expectantly, as if she’d made a comment of unusual complexity. “How was your visit to Temberlay, Your Grace?” she asked.

“What would you like to know?”

“Crop yields, the number of acres under hay, corn, and barley, and how many sheep there are on the estate.”

“Really?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “No. The dowager said it was your first visit there in several years. How did you find it?”

“Right where I left it,” he quipped, and her smile slipped.

“You said you wished to talk, Your Grace. I am trying to make conversation. Is there a topic you prefer? We could discuss the weather or the latest fashion in ladies’ hats, or we could simply wait for the next course and lavish it with comments and comparisons.”

“It’s probably fish,” he said. “There’s a limit on what you can say about something that’s staring up at you, listening to every word.”

She laughed. “Shall we ask Gardiner to lay a penny on its eye?”

“Or you could ask the fish his opinion of Temberlay. He likely came from the river there.”

“Did you catch it and bring it back?”

“I haven’t been fishing since I was a boy.”

“With your brother,” she said, and he looked at her sharply, searched her face, and she could have bitten her tongue. “I’m sorry. I understand his death was recent.”

He ran his hand over the spiral stem of the Venetian wineglass. “It was a year ago. David and I didn’t spend much time together after our parents died. I was sent away to school when I was eight. Granddame thought it would be better for David not to have a younger child underfoot, disrupting his tutors.”

Gardiner carried in the fish and served it. Nicholas sent her a conspirator’s grin and laid a sliced almond over the eye on his plate, then hers. Gardiner looked at them with his brows raised.

“This looks delicious, Gardiner. Compliments once again to Mrs. P.,” Nicholas said. They waited until he’d glided out and shut the door before bursting into laughter.

“Do you recognize him?” she asked, pointing at the fish.

“No, but I probably dined on his great-great-grandfather at some point.”

“Did you miss home?” she asked. “When you went away to school?”

He sobered. “At first. But the education of a duke is different than what is expected for a second son. David had the finest tutors, and stayed at Temberlay to be raised by my grandmother.”

“It sounds lonely,” she murmured. “For both of you. Yet men are fortunate, being able to receive such a wide education. My father believed girls need only know enough to be gentle wives and mothers and passable hostesses, which I believe is the reason your grandmother asked Rose to marry you.”

“What
did
you study?”

She concentrated on her fish. “Oh, the usual things—manners, embroidery, watercolors, French.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Ah, but your education is broader than that, I suspect. I cannot imagine you contentedly embroidering a sampler.”

She felt her cheeks heat. “I was very, very bad at embroidery.”

“Watercolors?” he asked.

“Dreadful.”

“French?”

“Passable.”

“And Rose?”

“She excelled at singing and playing the pianoforte, and she embroiders like an angel.”

“Then thankfully you are here, and not Rose. I hate warbling sopranos, lady pianists, and embroidered anything.”

“Oh” was all she could manage in response to the compliment, if that’s what it was.

She searched his face to see if he meant it, and their eyes locked. She felt heat rise, fill her limbs, and her mouth watered. “I like—” he began, leaning closer, and she shut her eyes in anticipation of the kiss, but the door opened and Gardiner entered with a parade of footmen bearing dishes, and she sat back at once.

“Chicken,” Nicholas murmured. She frowned at the insult.

“I meant the next course.”

“With cream sauce and assorted French dishes, each in its own sauce,” Gardiner added brightly, and served out.

“If you did not sing or embroider, what did you do?” he asked once the servants had departed.

She sipped her wine. “Oh, I was a governess’s worst nightmare. I asked questions she could not answer. She would banish me from the schoolroom for impudence, send me down to see my father in the library. He wasn’t often there, so I spent my time reading.”

“What did you read?” He reached out with his napkin and wiped a bit of sauce from her lip. His eyes were on hers, interested, serious.

“Everything. History, science, botany. I tried to learn Latin as well.”

He rolled his eyes. “I detested Latin. But when
I
misbehaved and they sent me to see the headmaster for a thrashing, I went to the local pub instead.”

She pursed her lips. “I’m not surprised.”

“Ah, but it was a useful education. “I learned to gamble, so when Granddame cut off my allowance for failing Latin, I had money.”

“For women?”

“For pork pies and cider. Growing boys are always hungry.” He took a healthy bite of roast chicken. “Women came later.”

“Why did you join the army?”

He shrugged. “Second sons must do something. I had no interest in the church.”

She laughed out loud, and he looked at her, his brows raised. She put a hand over her mouth. “Forgive me, but I cannot imagine you as a churchman.”

“Nor could I,” he said. “And you? What did you imagine your life would be?”

“Marriage to a churchman,” she quipped, and he chuckled.

“You would have been a dreadful minister’s wife.”

“Too much of a hoyden,” she said, and he shook his head.

“You’d kill him in bed.”

She felt hot blood fill her cheeks, and had no idea how to respond to that.

He changed the subject. “Your father bred horses, didn’t he? Is that where you learned to ride?”

“My father kept dainty palfreys for us, and we were not allowed to go faster than a trot over smooth ground.”

“You don’t ride like a lady used to palfreys.”

She toyed with her green beans. “I did not always do as I was bidden.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

She sent him a sharp look, but there was no rebuke in his eyes. “My father sold the horses before his death to pay his debts, and it still wasn’t enough.” She shook off the memory. “That’s why I enjoy riding Devil’s Whim. He reminds me of the Wycliffe hot bloods.”

“Who bought them?” he asked.

She frowned. “I don’t know. A friend of Papa’s I understand.”

“You needn’t have suffered as you did. You could have come to London once your mourning was done, married well.”

“Rose might have. She’s pretty, but we didn’t have the money or the connections to give her a debut season.”

“So Lord Bryant arranged for Rose to marry privately?”

“Hector? Not at all. He’s a bachelor. He knows nothing about debuts or matchmaking. Your grandmother’s visit was quite unexpected.”

“Who suggested you take Rose’s place, Maggie?”

She lowered her hands to her lap. “I’m afraid I’m to blame. It was entirely my idea.”

“Why?” he asked.

“For Wycliffe, for my family.” She raised her chin. “And I did not want to become a governess.”

“You would have been a terrible governess.”

“No worse a governess than you would have made a churchman.”

He lifted his glass in salute to her wit.

“It took courage, I’ll give you that.”

“I must apologize. I had no thought of how my deception would affect you. I thought you would not care, since we had not met. You made no effort to see Rose.”

She watched his hand tighten on the delicate stem of his glass, and winced, waiting for it to snap. He let go slowly, and met her eyes. “We are still essentially strangers. This time I will make my own proposal.”

Her throat closed. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

“I propose that we take the time to get to know each other.”

“Start again,” she agreed. “What if it turns out that we simply do not suit?”

His mouth twisted. “Then we shall live like most other married couples of the
ton
, I suppose. At least we have one thing in common.”

“What’s that?” she breathed, her heart beating faster at the look in his eyes.

“Desire.” He cupped her chin when she lowered her gaze. “No, don’t look away. You know it’s true. And yet . . .” He stroked her skin, leaned closer. “I think we must live without it for a time, until we know each other.”

Did knowing a person, loving their thoughts and ideas before anything else, make a bond stronger? Her father had disliked her boldness, her intellect, as much as he despised her looks. Meg swallowed, searched his eyes. “When do you wish to begin?”

He withdrew his hand from her face and shifted in his seat, closing his eyes. He was counting again. “Now,” he said. “At least, I think we just have.” He couldn’t recall enjoying a conversation more with anyone, man or woman.

As the clock struck midnight, he led her to the bottom of the staircase. He kissed her forehead. She shut her eyes, turned her face up for a better kiss than that, but he stepped back. “Good night, Maggie,” he murmured. “Meg.”

He stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched her go up alone.