Romancing the Duke (23 page)

Izzy crossed her arms. So, it wasn’t enough for him to push her away. No, he wouldn’t rest until he’d pushed away everyone.

“Your Grace, I am a knight,” Wendell said. “I’m a Knight of Moranglia.”

“And what makes you a Knight of Moranglia?”

“I swore an oath.”

“Oh, you swore an oath. On what? A sword made of a vegetable marrow? You’re not a knight. You’re delusional. All of you.” He lifted his voice. “Admit it. That’s why you’re here, styling yourselves as handmaidens and knights of honor. Because your own lives are too pitiful to face.”

“You’re jealous.” She shook her head. “You’ve never known what it’s like to be a part of something like this, and you’re envious.”

“Envious,” he scoffed. “Of these men? I’ve ten pounds that says Sir Wendell here still lives with his mother.”

Wendell’s face flushed bright red. “A great many bachelors live at home until they marry.”

“Oh, yes,” Ransom said. “And what marriage prospects are on your horizon? Do you have a sweetheart? An intended? At least tell me you’ve groped a tit or two.”

Izzy stomped on his boot and ground her heel into his toe. “I said, that’s enough. If your aim was to make a jackass of yourself and ruin everything we’ve been working toward, believe me, you’ve done more than enough.”

But Ransom wouldn’t let up. “Come along, ‘Sir’ Wendell. Admit it. You’ve never even kissed a girl, have you?”

Poor Wendell. His cheeks blazed an alarming shade of crimson.

Izzy couldn’t see anything but red.

And then Abigail Pelham crossed the dining hall in determined steps, took a shocked Wendell Butterfield by the shoulders, and kissed him full on the lips.

“There,” Abigail said. “He’s kissed a girl now.”

Inwardly, Izzy cheered. Good for Abigail.

With a desperate tug, she tried to draw Ransom aside. “Now that’s enough. You’re going to apologize. We need these people. And even if you are determined to destroy your own chances,
I
need these people. They’re always here for me.”

“They’re not here for you. They are here for a wide-eyed, precious little girl with emerald green eyes and sleek, amber hair. They were never here for you.”

Oh, God.

The words came as such a blow to her, she actually fell back a step.

“
I
am here for you,” he said, taking her by the waist. “Izzy, if we marry, it doesn’t matter what they do to me. They can throw me in Bedlam and swallow the key. As long as my child is in your womb, you’ll be protected.” His hand slid to her belly. “We both know you could be carrying my heir already.”

She lowered her voice to a horrified whisper. “I can’t believe you just said that. Aloud, in front of everyone.”

She couldn’t even bring herself to look around for the handmaidens’ reactions. Much less Abigail’s. Unshed tears burned at the corners of her eyes.

All this effort. All this work. All this love in her heart. And it was nothing to him. He was throwing it away. She’d been hoping they could make it through tomorrow together—and they couldn’t even make it through this afternoon.

And to make it worse, he’d just ruined her in front of the only friends she had left.

“You need to break free of this, Izzy.” He tilted his head toward the shocked onlookers. “For that matter, so do they. You do them no favors by hiding the truth. Are you afraid they’ll find out that fairy tales are a load of bollocks, all their ‘oaths’ and vows are worth precisely shite, and happy endings only exist in your father’s storybooks? Good. I hope they do learn it. It might save some other man in my position a great deal of trouble.”

She pulled away from him. “So that’s it. This isn’t about
The Goodnight Tales
or your solicitors. And it’s not about me. This is about your pride, and Lady Emily Riverdale.”

Duncan coughed, loudly and frantically.

“Lady Shemily Liverpail,” she corrected. “Sorry. Either way. This is revenge for you. Is that it, Ransom? It wasn’t enough to ruin England’s precious sweetheart. Now you want to marry me, just to even the score.”

He shook his head. “It’s not about scores.”

“You are the deluded one.” She jabbed a finger in his chest. Poking right at that empty place where he ought to have a heart. “She didn’t leave you because of my father’s stories. She left you because you were cold and unfeeling toward her. The reason you find yourself alone and blinded and helpless is the fault of exactly one person in this room. You.”

“Izzy . . .”

She swiped a scalding tear from her cheek. “And do you know what? She was right to run away. She deserved better. I deserve better, too.”

Chapter Twenty-two

T
he men and women filling the dining hall were utterly silent as the last of Izzy’s footsteps faded. Ransom could feel their collective condemnation.

The echoes of her words still rang in the ceiling vaults.

She deserved better. I deserve better, too.

Ransom tugged at his cravat, loosening the restrictive knot.

It came as a sick sort of relief to hear that sentiment voiced aloud, and to know everyone around him agreed. These past few days of amiable assistance and cheerful industry had made him feel like a stranger in his own house. Dozens of people organized to help him, for no wages or discernable reward? He scarcely recognized his life.

But this sense of empty, echoing isolation . . . ?

This
was familiar. This was what he’d always known. What he’d been told, since before he could understand words. There could be no comfort for him. No kindness, no mercies. No one had ever loved him, and no one ever could.

You don’t deserve that, boy.

Ransom wouldn’t argue.

As he left the room and made his way to his dressing room, only Duncan followed.

“Duncan, draw me a bath, prepare my finest suit, and pack everything else. We’re leaving tonight.”

“For Scotland?”

“No. For Town.”

Ransom crossed the room and began tugging loose his cuffs.

They would leave for London at once. Once there, he would go straight for the bank and empty his accounts. In the event his traitorous solicitors had already frozen his accounts, he’d go to the clubs—wherever he was still a member—and beg or borrow as much as he could.

Whatever funds he could manage to raise, it all went to Izzy. She didn’t need to like him, much less love him—but he needed to know she was safe.

“Your Grace,” Duncan began, “are you certain it’s wise—”

Ransom cut him off. “No. Stop there. I don’t want any sage advice. You’re not my counselor, you’re my valet.”

“I thought I’d been promoted to butler.”

“You’ve been demoted again. Draw a bath. Prepare my suit. Pack.”

Ransom undressed while he listened to the sounds of kettles being put on to warm and the tub scraping across the floor toward the hearth.

When all sounded ready, he found the tub and lowered his body into it, anticipating the perfectly warmed bathwater to be poured over his shoulders.

What he got was a deluge of ice-cold, freezing shock. Dashed straight over his head.

He sputtered. “What the . . . ?”

“You can consider that my resignation, Your Grace.”

“You can’t quit.”

“Certainly I can. My pension was settled and prepared years ago. I’ve only stayed on in the position for the stupidest of reasons. A promise I made long ago. But today, in the dining hall, you enlightened me. You made it perfectly clear that those oaths and allegiances are . . . Was it shite or bollocks? I can’t recall.”

Ransom pushed the freezing droplets from his face. “What are you going on about? You never swore an oath. There’s no Valet’s Promise, or Order of the Starched Cravat.”

“Not to you. I swore an oath to her.”

“To Miss Goodnight?”

“No. To your mother. I promised your dying mother that I would look after you. Absurd, isn’t it? Like something from a soppy story.”

Ransom inhaled slowly.

So, it wasn’t enough that he’d been the instrument of his mother’s death. He’d ruined Duncan’s life, too. That was lovely to know.

Well, he could put an end to that torture quickly. “Consider yourself released from that promise.”

“Oh, I do, Your Grace. I do.”

Another barrage of ice-cold water crashed down over his head.

“You fool,” Duncan said, in a seething tone that Ransom had never heard his valet use before. “I’ve seen you drunk, debauched, engaged in all manner of devilry. But I’ve never seen you behave so stupidly as you did today. If you let that girl get away, you are a true idiot.”

Ransom shook himself. His teeth chattered. “It’s b-better this way.”

“Better?” Another dipper of freezing water splashed over his shoulders. “For whom?”

“For her.” He pushed the water off his face. “For Izzy. You heard her. I d-don’t deserve her.”

“Of course you don’t deserve her. No man
deserves
a woman like that. He mortgages his very soul to win her and spends his life paying off the debt.”

“Soon I won’t have a single asset to my name. I’m not going to take you and her and everyone else down with me.”

Duncan was silent for a long moment. “She loved you, you know.”

Loved.
Funny, how that one little “d” took a miraculous sentence and made it heart-shredding. “You and Miss Goodnight have a great many chats.”

“I’m not speaking of Miss Goodnight. I’m speaking of the late duchess.”

Ransom steeled himself against the sharp pain of the mention. “Yet another woman who would have been better off if I’d never been born.”

“I was just a young footman, hired on when you were in the womb. Everyone in the house walked on eggshells. There’d been a stillborn child the prior year, they told me. Rumor in the serving quarters was, the doctors had warned that the duchess might not survive another birth.”

A stillborn child, the previous year?

Ransom had never known this.

“But she wanted to take the risk,” Duncan continued. “She wanted you so much. Once the birthing was over, I was sent in to remove the doctor’s case from the room. She reached out, and her hand caught my arm.” The old valet cleared emotion from his throat. “ ‘Promise,’ she said. ‘Promise you’ll show him love.’ ”

Ransom couldn’t move.

“She was delirious,” Duncan said. “Already slipping away. I knew she’d mistaken me for the duke. But I couldn’t tell her so, and there wasn’t time to summon him. The duke wouldn’t have told her what she yearned to hear, anyway.”

Damn right he wouldn’t have. His father had remained a cold, unforgiving bastard until the day he died.

“But I couldn’t let the young duchess die uneasy. So I told her,
I
promise. I promise to show him love. And for thirty years, I’ve done my best to honor that.”

Jesus. Where was another ewer of freezing water when he needed one, to mask all these other droplets on his face?

Sinking down into the tub, Ransom drew his knees to his chest and scrubbed his face with both hands. His nursemaids and tutors had been forbidden to show him kindness. But who had been there for him? Cleaned him up after every night of debauchery, stitched his wounds, slipped him into immaculate tailcoats made tighter than a mother’s hug?

Who had stayed by him these seven months, as he crawled and fumbled his way back from the brink of death?

Duncan.

Duncan, all this time.

“Now,” he scraped out. “You’re just telling me this
now.”

“I never thought you were ready to hear it before. And I was right.”

“But . . . why? There’s no pension in the world worth thirty years of serving me. It’s not as though I gave you any reason for devotion.”

“Of course you didn’t. I kept that promise for thirty years because it gave my work meaning. It gave me honor. A small, domestic kind of honor, but honor nonetheless.

“But apparently, in your view, I’ve wasted my whole life. Just another of those shite-filled vows and bollocks oaths. Now that you’ve released me from it . . .” The valet heaved a deep breath. “I believe I’ll retire to a little seaside cottage in Ireland. I’m rather looking forward to that.”

Ransom groped about for a towel or his clothing. Nothing.

“Where’s my shirt?”

“I wouldn’t know, Your Grace. That’s not my job anymore. But if I might offer you one bit of parting advice . . . You’re not in a position to be selective. If someone offers you love or friendship, take it. Even if it comes dressed in a tea tray. Also, stay away from stripes. Unflattering.”

Ransom was left blind, naked, wet, and shivering. And completely alone, just as the day he was born.

There was nothing to do but start over.

And try to get everything back.

I
zzy paced her bedchamber by the light of a single candle.

She checked the clock again. Half past two in the morning. Only nine minutes since the last time she’d checked.

Where on earth could Ransom have gone? In the dark of night, on his own? At her insistence, Duncan had gone out searching for him. They should have returned hours ago. Now, Izzy was worried for them both.

She alternated between anger at his desertion and the fear that something horrid had happened. He was a grown man, she told herself. Magnus was a faithful guide. But none of that was a guarantee against accidents or injury. What if he’d gotten lost? What if he’d fallen in the stream?

What if he’d gone to Scotland with one of the handmaidens instead? She didn’t know that she would blame him, after some of the angry things she’d said.

Lord. The uncertainty was killing her. Maybe she should venture out herself. She could take a lamp and rouse Snowdrop from her bed of wood shavings.

That was it. Izzy reached for her cloak and boots. She couldn’t just sit here and do nothing.

Her fingers trembled as she worked at unknotting the laces of her boots. Why she never unlaced them when she took her boots off at the end of the day, Izzy didn’t know. It was a lazy habit, and she’d never regretted it more than she did this moment.

Now that she’d made the decision to go out in search of him, her anxiety had intensified. And unlike her usual heart-pounding terror in the dark, this fear had a defined shape and edges she could grasp on to.

Because this wasn’t imagined fear. Not anymore. This was genuine terror for the safety of someone she cared about. Someone she
loved.
She loved him, and it didn’t matter that he’d sabotaged all their hard work and future happiness today. If he was out there somewhere, hurting in the dark, she had to help.

And then—just as she’d finally worked loose the knot on her second boot—she heard noises in the courtyard. She ran to the window.

Oh, thank heaven.

He was home.

He was home, his arm slung over Duncan’s shoulder, and he was . . . laughing.

Laughing?

Her fear was gone. In its place, she knew a rush of pure fury.

Izzy stormed down the staircase and into the great hall, just in time to greet the returning men.

She wrapped her arms about herself to stop her trembling. “Ransom. I’ve been worried sick. Where have you been?”

Duncan seemed to know his cue to clear out. “I have some . . .” He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. Then turned his head to look over his shoulder. “The laundry. Need to . . .”

“Just go,” Izzy pleaded.

He went, and gratefully.

“My thanks,” Ransom called after him. “For all of it.”

Duncan paused and bowed. “It was my honor.”

“So?” She hugged herself tight. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been . . .” He gestured expansively. “Making friends.”

Making friends? She couldn’t have been more astonished if he’d answered, Chasing unicorns.

“Where?” she asked. “And with whom?”

“Well, I started at the vicarage. Wendell Butterfield was there for dinner with the Pelham family. Then, after a few hours, I went to the village inn. When their public room closed for the night, I moved on to the seedy tavern. The Musky Boar, I think it’s called. Charming, sticky little place, filled with interesting types. At least one or two of them could read.”

“Read.”

“Yes,” Ransom said. “You see, that’s what I’ve been doing. Moving from place to place all evening. I needed something read aloud to me, and I couldn’t ask you. Something important.”

“Oh? And what was that?”

“
The Goodnight Tales.
”

She felt his answer like a blow to the knees. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. It became clear to me today, if I had any hope of ever understanding you, deserving you, much less winning you back—I needed to know what was in those stories. And now, thanks to Abigail and Mr. Butterfield, and the kindly patrons of the local drinking spots, I’ve been through the entire saga. Start to finish. Not that the tale is finished, of course. I’ve some questions for you about that.”

No.
No.

Not him. Not Ransom. The one man who didn’t treat her like some insipid little girl in a fairy tale but as a full-grown woman. A beautiful temptress of a woman, with interesting ideas and sensual wit.

Now that he’d read all those stories, he’d be just like Lord Archer and Abigail and everyone else.

Izzy reeled away from him before he could do something soul-destroying. Like pat her on the head. Or offer her a sweetmeat.

He sang out, “Put out the light, my darling Izzy, and I’ll tell you such a tale.”

She choked back a sob. “How could you?”

“How could
I
?” he asked. “How could
you
? That’s what I want to know. I must say, I have some sympathy for those people who write you so many letters. No wonder they’re deranged. Ulric’s been left hanging for more than a year now, and Cressida’s still stuck in that tower . . . You must tell me who the Shadow Knight is. I need that much, at least. I have my theories, but—”

She buried her face in her hands. “This is terrible. Not you, too.”

“Yes, me, too. I’m a full-blooded Moranglian. A convert to the wondrous enchantment that is
The Goodnight Tales.”
He stretched out on the sofa, folding his arms beneath his head and facing the ceiling. “You warned me the first few years were rubbish. I’ll give you, you were right on that score. Juvenile and predictable, for the most part.”

“Predictable?” Against all logic, Izzy was a bit miffed.

He went on talking. “But then, somewhere into Cressida’s second kidnapping, the story started to change. Like a good whisky aging in a barrel. There were deeper layers, more shadings of emotion. And the words painted such vivid pictures. I could see it all happening in my mind. So clearly, as if it were taking place before me, but the story kept taking me by surprise. By the time we reached the end—or the
Not
The End—I was riveted to my barstool. The tavern didn’t even exist. I found myself wishing I were half the man Ulric is. I don’t mind saying, I’m rather taken with Cressida.”