I Married the Duke (28 page)

“Yes, that’s fine, Parsons. Thank you.”
Accident
. Christos and Ravenna had come to him apologizing for their parts in Arabella’s visit to Fletcher’s house. He assured them she would have done it without their encouragement. No one else knew the truth. Christos had tried to tell him about the story they invented to explain both their disappearances from the wedding and his loss of sight, but he didn’t want to hear. It was done. He was blind. Society could believe what it wished. That was an end to it.

Fletcher knew, of course. He had not come to Lycombe House since. Probably busy burning all those files Arabella had seen.

“My lord, three of the tenant farmers from Combe are with me: Goode, Lambkin, and Post.”

Luc nodded and hoped he was looking in their direction. “What news from the land, gentlemen?”

“Milord, we’ve come to you with a petition.”

Subtly, he adjusted the angle of his head to face the voice. “A petition? That sounds downright revolutionary of you, Goode.” He guessed it was Goode who spoke. Arabella would know. He wished she were here with him to read these men, as he could no longer read anything. He should have called her. He needed her.

“Not at all, milord. It’s only that, you see . . . we’re afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“With the new little duke, God bless him, we’re— Well, we hoped with you as duke matters would be settled. But our wives and our boys are afraid now and we’ve got to do something for it.”

“Of what precisely are your families afraid, Goode?”

“Of
who
, milord.”

Luc drew a slow breath and nodded.

“We need your help, milord.” This came from another of the men. Lambkin? “We’re that desperate.”

“I do know a thing or two of desperation, Lambkin.”

They responded with silence to that.

“Tell me.”

“The bishop—that is, her ladyship’s brother—he came around last year telling us we had to give him our quarterlies. He told us to tell Mr. Parsons that the duke wanted it all to go to charity. Well, when we told him them rents weren’t anybody’s but ours and the duke’s and we’d only give them over to Mr. Parsons, he got all friendly and said he’d like to take our boys for a school he’d made for country folk. It’s a charity place, so the boys can learn their letters and arithmetic and be clerks in town someday. He said he needed some good farm boys to get the place going and he’d like ours as much as anybody’s.”

“He told you that, did he?” Luc said. “What did you think of it?”

“We didn’t trust him, milord. Never mind that he’s supposed to be a man of God.”

“Why not? Did you, perhaps, see the bishop’s generous offer a threat in response to your refusal to give him your rents?”

“Yes, milord.”

Silence. One of the men shifted his feet.

“You see, milord,” Lambkin finally said, “my youngest son—my Toby—he stayed after church one day when the bishop was preaching at the parish, to help with cleaning up as he does. He’s a good lad.” His voice crackled. “That day Toby came running home with a tale that made my missus weep for a fortnight.”

“I see.”

“Milord.” It was Goode again. “We’re asking you to help our boys. It’s them or Combe.”

A
FTER THEY DEPARTED,
Luc made his way—slowly, awkwardly—back to his bedchamber and penned a brief letter. He had no idea if it was legible, but he could not dictate it to another. He would be obliged to ask Miles to read the response. That was enough.

On the front he printed Fletcher’s name, and he gave it to the footman whom Arabella had assigned to sit outside his door—Claude, the same footman Luc had ordered to follow her about Combe. He told him to deliver it by hand and wait for a response.

The footman did not move away.

“What is the trouble, Claude?”

“Well, Cap’n . . . maybe you could tell me where you want it to go?”

“You cannot read the name and direction.”

“Nope, Cap’n.”

“Hm. I never realized quite how poor my penmanship was before.”

The footman smothered a guffaw.

He made Claude memorize the message and then threw the letter into the fire. The sailor had been midshipman for seven years on the
Victory
. He was quick-witted and loyal, the very reason he had brought him to Combe with Joseph to look after Arabella. He simply had to trust him now. He had no other choice.

T
HAT NIGHT,
L
UC
did not retire to the library. With steps he had counted a hundred times that afternoon in practice, he went to the door between his chamber and Arabella’s and opened it.

He heard her quick intake of breath. Surprise, or alarm?

“Mary, you may go now,” she said, her voice composed. She was on the right side of the chamber, perhaps at the dressing table. He tried to imagine the space but felt disoriented. He had come into this chamber only once, the evening she told him about the ring and the prince and her dream—the dream that she had given up for the families of Combe.

The bed was straight ahead, three yards away perhaps. He remembered that much. He’d thought about it quite a lot.

The maid’s quick footsteps passed between them. The door clicked shut.

“Are you unwell?” Skirts rustled softly, swiftly. Then she was before him, her scent of summer roses and wild lavender inside his head and all around him. “May I help you?”

“I haven’t come for help,” he said awkwardly. He had prepared a speech, and a rather good speech at that. She liked his teasing—when it didn’t infuriate her—and he wanted to charm her now. But nothing came to his tongue. “I had a speech prepared,” he mumbled. “I—”

The brush of her fingertips across his jaw was the caress of heaven. He steadied himself against his need. She curved her hand around his neck and drew his mouth down to hers.

She kissed him tentatively at first, then more surely, then with hunger and urgency quite like he was feeling. He ran his hands down her sides and tugged her close, wanting her against him, such a slight little thing, but strong. And eager. She tried to burrow closer, her hands sliding beneath his waistcoat.

He swept her up in his arms and stepped forward. She broke her mouth free.

“Left! Go left!”

He halted.

She laughed, sweetly, lightly, and the knot of anger around his heart unwound.

After a brief misdirection to her ear that started her giggling again, he found her mouth and kissed her hard. She drew away.

“Left, one step. Then forward two. Then left one,” she whispered a little breathlessly, and nuzzled his jaw. She wound her arms about his neck, her fingers slipping into his hair. “You will learn the route if you do it often enough, you know,” she added almost shyly.

“Often, hm?”

“Or . . . perhaps you wish to make this excursion just this once.” Her voice was smaller.

He stepped to the left, then forward twice, then to the left, and laid her gently down on the mattress. Slowly, he bent to her, finding her with his hands then his lips—her brow, her cheek, her mouth. “Just this once in this half hour, at least,” he said, and kissed her again. She wound her arms around his neck and gave him her sweet mouth and tongue and her soft breasts pressed to his chest.

“But, little governess,” he said, tasting her, drinking in her eager beauty in the supple dampness of her mouth. His fingers sank into her satin hair. “I suspect I will need more lessons before the night is through.”

Her hand stole beneath his shirt, and her breaths deepened upon a sigh. He had never known such a beautiful sound. It filled him with longing and profound satisfaction at once. She stroked him, her palms smoothing across his skin. She wound her leg around his back, digging her heel into his buttock. Her scent was everywhere, her body perfect beneath his. He pressed her into the mattress and she arched to him with a soft moan.

“Many more lessons,” he said huskily.

“Then, my lord,” she whispered in his ear and nibbled on it, “I am the right teacher for the job.”

I
T TURNED OUT
that her husband did indeed require many more lessons. There were textures that he demanded to be allowed to spend time memorizing, and then memorizing again to be certain he knew them by heart. Then there were hands and legs and other parts of her that had to be traced with fingers and often his tongue; so he could create a mental map of the landscape, he insisted. At times, especially the occasions involving his tongue, Arabella felt that she became the student rather than the instructor.

She gave herself up completely to education.

He repeated lessons. She protested, saying it was not necessary for him to do so if he did not wish, that really he had already been an exemplary student from the start, that he had not actually needed any instruction. But her protests were remarkably weak, and he would not hear of it. He applied himself diligently.

She slept in his arms.

When he climbed from her bed shortly before dawn, he kissed her lips and her brow, and she invited him to visit her schoolroom again that evening. With a handsome smile and a gallant bow, he said he would be happy to return for further instruction.

Then he grasped the bedpost, tilted his brow to it, and quietly requested her assistance to navigate the treacherous strait between their bedchambers.

As she fell into sleep she wept, though she did not know if her tears were of grief or joy.

L
UC STEPPED ONTO
the bridge in the freezing drizzle and knew he was the greatest fool alive.

If so, he was a happy fool. A happy fool whose wife deserved much better than a blind lover and a defunct duke.

Clutching the rail, he went slowly forward. Chill mist whisked beneath the brim of his hat. But Fletcher had demanded this location and time.

Luc wondered if his old guardian was an imbecile or if he truly believed that he was one. A man did not bring a blind man to a bridge over the Thames before dawn unless he intended to deposit him in said Thames.

Clearly the bishop did not want another near miss. This time he would see to the deed himself.

Behind the muffling patter of rain, Luc could hear a heavy cart and draft horse clopping down an alley close by, the slurps of the river against the hulls of fishing boats moored on the bank, and the complaints of hungry gulls awaiting the daylight. The rain was icy, the footing slick, but he knew the sounds and scents and texture of river and sea like he knew his name and that he loved Arabella. He made his way carefully, by feel, upright, struggling to recall the lay and breadth of this bridge. He’d only seen it once or twice before.

“Are you unarmed?” Fletcher’s hushed voice came out of the darkness ahead.

Luc halted. “As required. But I’d have no use of a weapon now. Not even a blade, unfortunately. Unless of course you stood quite close and I could slide it across your throat.”

“
Tsk tsk,
Lucien. Murder is a sin.”

“Then I am damned already. What’s another soul gone to his maker at my hands for me to fear the consequences, hm?”

“Send your servant away with the horses.”

“You and I both know he is not going away until that ring is in his hand.”

There was a long silence while the rain turned to mist and Luc waited, his muscles tensed.

A whiff of stale tobacco smoke and the tang of hair oil approached before he heard the heavy breaths before him.

“You’re a good swimmer, milord,” Fletcher’s coachman said closer than he’d expected. “But I don’t think you’ll be swimming away this time.”

Luc extended his hand, palm up. The man pressed the ring into it, then grabbed Luc’s hand and with a burst of tobacco-scented breath whispered at his shoulder, “I’d kill you myself for making a fool of me, but his excellency wants to do it.”

“I am honored by the both of you.” Luc pulled free. “Now back up fifteen paces.”

“What—”

“Do it,” Fletcher said.

“Have you come as I required, Fletcher?” Luc said.

“A hood conceals my face and my servant’s. Your servant will not know us unless you have told him who we are.”

“Among the two of us here, only one man is without honor, and it isn’t me.”

“How noble of you, Lucien.” Fletcher spoke with no sarcasm, as though he were only the bishop, only the priest, mildly commenting on a truth. Even in the midst of his villainy he did not know he was a villain.

Luc lifted his hand with the ring above his head. Footsteps splashed on the bridge behind him, approaching at a jog.

“Cap’n,” Claude said as he came beside him.

Luc passed the ring to him. “Is it as I described it to you?”

“Yessir.”

“The markings and color?”

“Exactly, Cap’n. It don’t look like a fake, sir.”

There was no way to know for certain except when Arabella saw it. He could only hope that Fletcher hadn’t had sufficient time to commission a paste copy in the few hours since he’d contacted him.

“Can you see these men’s faces?”

“No, sir.”

“Where are they?”

“Three yards and another three yards farther.” Claude’s voice grinned. “Would you like me to take care of them, Cap’n?”

“No, thank you.” God bless the loyalty of sailors to their captains. “I want you to walk to the horses so that you do not lose sight of these men, but watch about you as well.”

“So they can’t jump me and take the ring while you’re standing here.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Cap’n,” he said. “I don’t like to—”

“Then I want you to mount and with the other horse in tow call to me as you leave. Ride directly to the house and give that ring to Mr. Miles, but do not tell him how you acquired it. Do you understand?”

“Yessir.” The sailor’s voice was no longer amused, instead grim.

“Go now.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

His footsteps smacked along the bridge, receding. A moment passed, then another. Hooves clacked on the cobbles.

“I’m off, Cap’n!”

The rain had become a fine mist, cold on Luc’s cheeks.

“You have your trinket again, Lucien. I trust you are satisfied.”

“Adina’s child is not Theodore’s.”

“Come now,” Fletcher chuckled. “You cannot hope to play these games now, when you are beaten. Look at you, blind, ruined. What sort of duke would you be?”