I Married the Duke (17 page)

“How can you jest about this?” she cried.

He came forward, took her face gently between his hands and brought his mouth an inch from hers.

“I jest not. We are wed. Truly and validly.” His breath feathered over her lips, and all the life in her seemed to heat up.

She had trusted him, believed in his honor, given him her body, and all along he had been lying to her.

“If I tell you to release me,” she said, his scent and warmth all around her, tangling her thoughts as he always did, “you will do so.”

“Are you certain?” His voice was deeply husky. His lips brushed hers like a whisper. She closed her eyes against the sensations of her weakness.

“Yes. I am certain. Release me now.”

For a taut moment he did not move. Then with a snarl he released her and backed away.

“What do you want of me?” he demanded. “Another apology? A dozen apologies? Then you have them.” He threw forth his hand. “I was wrong. I made a mistake. I was accustomed to playing that part and saw no reason to inform you otherwise.”

“I don’t care why you lied to me, only that you did. Don’t you see?”

“I see that given the outcome, you are making a mountain of a mole hill.”

“You forced me to marry you under false pretenses!”

“I have never forced you to do anything.” He advanced on her again, coming as close as he could without touching her. “But I will now, little governess. I will force you to care. I will make you care more than you can bear.”

“Now you threaten me?”

“How you can consider that a threat, I have no notion.”

He was a lord. She finally understood his arrogance and authoritarianism and persistence. He could have any woman he wanted. He could not truly want her, poor, a servant with a sharp tongue. He was like other men after all. When she would not allow them to have her, they had sought to ruin her. Like those men, he simply wanted to win.

Now she was entirely in his power, his wife, his to command not for the duration of a brief journey but for a lifetime. The panic that she had felt so many times with him threaded through her afresh.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “I
cannot
be married to a lord.”

“You cannot be married to a lord,” he repeated without inflection. “You are the most difficult woman I have ever known.”

“Given that, I wonder that you could want me.”

“You wonder,” he said, his gaze shadowed again with that bewildered need she did not understand. “You wonder, do you?” He kissed her, at first the softest caress, taking her lips and making her feel him. Then it became possession. She welcomed it, leaned into him, pressed her palm to his chest, felt his life beneath her hand, and parted her lips for him.

It was too brief. He released her.

She covered her lips with her fingertips and turned her face away, seeking control. He reached up as though to pull her hand away, then halted and instead backed up.

“God
damn it
.” With a swirl of his coattails, he pivoted about and strode to his horse.

She watched him mount from the ground despite the wound that must still pain him. He circled the horse about and, with the dogs barking and leaping, spurred away. She watched him go.

He always left her. Only once had she walked away from him, but each time he made her need him, she watched him go. He expected to win and it was entirely possible that he would.

S
HE RETURNED TO
the chateau in the gathering dusk to find a parade of carriages lining the drive and servants laden with traveling trunks and bandboxes hurrying about. The butler stood in the center of the commotion, directing the flurry of activity.

“Monsieur Brissot, who has arrived?”

“The queen has returned, mademoiselle. I advise you to attend the princess
tout de suite
.”

Arabella passed through the busy servants and swiftly to the princess’s chambers.

“Oh dear, Bella. I thought we might be spared Maman a bit longer. Alas, it is not to be.” Jacqueline shrugged her square shoulders, then she grinned. “So I have asked the
comte
to throw a party.”

It seemed he had told no one of his marriage. She understood nothing of him, only that he was unpredictable and authoritarian and he made her positively weak with longing.

“I thought you disliked society,” she managed to say.

“I do mostly. Only, Maman must always have something upon which to direct her thoughts. Since lately that direction has been my marital prospects, I thought to give her something else upon which to turn her attention. At least for a few days.”

“Is the party to be soon?”

“The day after tomorrow. The
comte
was excessively keen on the idea. Everybody around is to be invited.” She grinned. “Before the ball gowns and waltzing commence, however, you must teach me something utterly practical so that Maman will be immensely impressed with your instruction and double your wages.”

T
HE QUEEN WAS
not impressed. When she entered her daughter’s chambers before dinner, she gave Arabella one sweeping glance and said that now that the court had returned her services would no longer be needed in the evenings, distant cousin to an earl or not. Jacqueline protested but the queen went to the chamber door and opened it herself. Arabella left happily.

The prince’s objections overruled his mother’s directive. A minute before the dinner bell rang, Jacqueline flew through the door of Arabella’s bedchamber.

“Hurry. You must dress for dinner.” She went to the clothes press. “Reiner has insisted that you join us. The
comte
seconded. He is quite the gentleman.” She gaped at the empty drawers. “Arabella, have you no other gown but the gray one you wear everyday?”

“I am—was—am in mourning,” she stammered.

“Then you might at least have two gray gowns,” the princess said with the practical sense of a girl that had not gone a day in her life with fewer than three dozen gowns. “I’m afraid I have nothing so drab, but all white and pastel, as Maman insists. So you must wear color tonight.” She went to the door. “Now make haste. The longer we make everybody wait for dinner, the more they will stare at us when we appear, and I should dislike that excessively. It is one thing to be stared at when one is the most beautiful woman in the county like you, but another altogether when one is me.”

T
HEY MADE HASTE,
but everybody stared anyway. Arabella only felt the gaze of one person.

Then he ignored her entirely—not only throughout dinner, but for the next three days. Gracious and welcoming to the queen and her courtiers, including her ladies-in-waiting, whom he treated with utter charm and deference and without any particular show of arrogance or authoritarianism, to her he said nothing at all. As the household whirled into a frenzy of preparations for the party, he did not seek her out or even come within speaking distance of her. No one else spoke to her as anything but the princess’s governess, Miss Caulfield. Even the earl had ceased to send her studying glances; he had largely disappeared from company.

No one knew the
comte
’s wife resided beneath the roof of Saint-Reveé-des-Beaux, and Arabella began to believe that she had imagined their interview in the vineyard.

W
HEN A MAIDSERVANT
came to her chamber bearing the gown Jacqueline promised to lend her for the party, she shook her head.

“This cannot be intended for me.”

Draped on her bed, it was a confection of pink gauze and the finest, thinnest silk, with tiny cap sleeves and stars picked out in silver beads across the bodice and overskirt. It was a gown fit for a princess, certainly, but not for the hired governess, no matter how much her charge liked her.

“Mais oui, mademoiselle,”
the maid said earnestly. “The princess, she chose it from her gowns and had it tailored especially for you for
ce soir
.”

“But I cannot accept another gift—”

“You can.” Jacqueline poked her head in the door, a box in her gloved hands. “This one.” She came forward, removed the lid, and drew forth a glittering crescent of diamonds.

“Princess,” Arabella whispered. “You should not have done this.”

“I didn’t.” Jacqueline placed the sparkling tiara above the gown on the bed, as though dressing the coverlet for the party. “It is from the
comte.
”

The maid’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Jésus, Marie, et Joseph
.
”

“Clearly, he admires you,” the princess said. “As well he should. And he isn’t the only one. I’ve seen at least four of Reiner’s courtiers casting you interested glances down the dinner table—and two of them married, the philanderers.”

Arabella stared at the delicate tiara, a sprinkle of diamonds fanning out from a gathering of gems in the center set in the shape of a rose. “I cannot wear it.”

The maid made a moue of displeasure.

Jacqueline peered at her. “Do you dislike the
comte
? Really, Bella, if a man gave me a tiara this lovely I would wear it whether I liked him or not. All of my tiaras are royal heirlooms, thoroughly ugly and old-fashioned. This one is perfect.”

He intended to follow through on his threat, after all. He did not know that extravagant gifts meant nothing to her.

She dressed and left the tiara on the bed. But the princess barred the door and forbade her to leave the chamber unless she wore it.

Arabella allowed the maid to set it on her head and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked like a princess. She touched the diamond ridges with a tentative fingertip. “Why did he not give it to me himself?”

“I suspect he feared that if he tried, you might throw it at his head.” Jacqueline’s brow went up. “You have a way of putting out barbs when he is in the room, Bella, and truly I cannot understand why. If any man should inspire a lady’s suspicions it is Lord Bedwyr, not the
comte
. Why, for all that he is a naval hero and bears that dashing scar, he is the veriest puppy.”

Arabella did not believe it. He had enlisted Jacqueline’s aid so that she could not refuse his gift, and yet he had not yet told anyone the truth. He was playing a deep game, like he had played with her from the beginning, and the panic he stirred in her washed against her relentlessly.

He was not a puppy. He was a wolf.

A
CENTURY EARLIER,
a grand room for balls had been built onto the castle’s farthest end to reach across the river, completing the bridge from one bank to another. A corridor from within the arched colonnade led into the magnificently high-ceilinged room, a door at the opposite side letting out onto a trellised walkway into the woods.

Tonight the ballroom sparkled with hundreds of candles and the reflection of torches set in buoys upon the river glittering through the windows that stretched from sparkling parquet floor to stucco-sculpted ceiling. The prince’s musicians were adorned in blue and gold livery, playing brightly to fill the vast chamber. Footmen in the silver and black colors of the duke’s household moved through clusters of guests, offering wine.

The guests were likewise magnificent. This was his world, the men and women of his society of whom she had only ever caught glimpses while readying her students, gowned and garbed at the height of fashion and all with an air of sublime superiority. The ladies, their lips stylishly rouged and necks draped with jewels, turned long-lashed eyes upon her and lifted their fans to whisper.

Arabella held her chin high, unfurled the lacy fan Jacqueline had given her and went into the crowd.

The queen entered on Prince Reiner’s arm, with Jacqueline behind. Guests dipped into bows and deep curtsies as the royal party made its way to the dais, where the prince deposited his mother in a gilded chair. Then he took his sister’s hand, led her down the dais step, and came directly to Arabella.

Astonished gasps were audible throughout the chamber.

He released his sister and bowed deeply over Arabella’s hand.
“Comtesse,”
he said quietly, “I should very much like the honor of a dance with the beautiful wife of my fondest friend.”

Jacqueline gaped.

Arabella could do nothing but allow him to lead her into the set. He smiled pleasantly, and it was all as if there were nothing unusual about a prince dancing with a governess.

“You should not have done this, your highness,” she whispered when the pattern brought them close.

“I could not do otherwise. It would evidence the greatest lack of gratitude on my part to fail in soliciting your hand for the first dance. This is, after all, your house.” He smiled.

“The guests think you are dancing with a servant.”

“The guests will know differently soon enough.”

Across the glittering room Luc stood in a cluster of ladies and gentlemen. As though he felt her regard, he turned and looked at her.

The dance came to an end and the prince bowed and went off. Jacqueline glided to her side.

“
Comtesse?
Good heavens, Bella, what have you hidden from me and why does my brother know when I do not?”

“He must have told him.” She grasped Jacqueline’s hand. “I am sorry I did not tell you. I didn’t know—”

“Oh, none of that. We all have our secrets, after all, though admittedly yours is an enormous one. I don’t know why you and the
comte
are hiding this from everyone, or why you are acting as a servant when you are the mistress of this house. But—” She looked through the crowd again, this time at Luc. “I must compliment you. Your husband is very handsome.”

“I don’t know what he wants of me,” she said honestly.

The princess’s wise regard settled on her. “Perhaps you should ask him.”

He was walking toward them. Jacqueline squeezed her fingers and moved away.

Then he was before her, taking her hand and bowing over it.

“How beautiful you are this evening, duchess. As always.” He brought her hand to his lips, turned it over and kissed the center of her gloved palm. Tingles shivered over her.

She dragged her hand away. “What are you doing?”