The Art of Duke Hunting (6 page)

“You can promise on your honor never to drink a drop of spirits again.”

“I beg your pardon?”

A gurgle of laughter rolled through the night air. “This is not going in your favor, you know. You’re making it too obvious that the idea of marriage to me is more offensive to you than the trial of living your life without wine and whiskey. Or absinthe.”

He scratched the back of head. It always itched at the hairline when he was hot. “That is absolutely not true.” But he was afraid it absolutely was true.

“How about if you just make the promise and then all will be forgiven and forgotten.”

“But why on earth would you ask this of me? It’s absurd.”

“You asked for a way to thank me. This is how.”

“You sound like a governess, March.”

“Good,” she replied. “Perhaps you need governing.”

“That’s just the sort of thing to say to a man who you want to scare off.” He shook his head and chuckled.

“Perhaps I want to scare you off, Your Grace,” she said so quietly he had to lean in to hear the tail end.

“If I must address you as March, then you must address me as Montagu,” he said. “Actually, it will be a refreshing change from my cursed title.”

“All right,” she said. “Montagu.”

He took up one of her hands and kissed the back of it impulsively, before leaning in toward her startled, wide eyes. In that instant, she distinctively had the look of a lady who wanted desperately to be kissed. He knew that look very well. And he was happy to oblige since—

A rustle of footsteps and low conversation interrupted them. Roman turned his head slightly only to see a small group of people strolling toward them from the village green. He stepped away from Lady Derby.

“Hey ho,” a deep voice boomed.

Good God, it was that boorish gossip, King. Roman raised a hand in greeting.

“What luck,” Mr. King said, drawing near with a lady on each arm. Two gentlemen and another lady drew abreast. “Your Grace, I have been meaning to find you. And good evening to you too, Lady Derby. Oh dear, I hope I have not interrupted anything.” He wore a smile that pretended to know everything when he actually knew not a whit.

“Your servant, Mr. King,” Roman replied, annoyed. He refused to offer up an excuse. It would sound damning to the idiot in front of him.

The stout, tall man stopped and turned to look first at Lady Derby for a long moment and then to Roman. “Hmmm. Well, you still have not told us how you came to be aboard
The
Drake
.”

“Why do you ask, sir?”

“Out of concern, of course.”

“Of course,” Roman echoed smoothly.

Mr. King eyed him like a hungry boa constrictor regretting the impossibility of a sleeping tiger.

“So?”

“So?” Roman replied.

“The reason you were not on the manifest, Your Grace?”

“The reason?” Roman dissembled.

“Yes.”

“I see,” he evaded. “Lady Shelby, how lovely you are tonight, my dear. And how is Lord Shelby?”

The lady on Mr. King’s arm smiled. “Shelby is very fine. Shooting all the ducks he can find at the Abbey, in fact. He never stops until the frost drives him from his blinds. He—”

One of the gentlemen cleared his throat and she stumbled to a stop. “I apologize, Your Grace, I did not mean to . . .”

“Of course, you did not, madam.”

“And what finds you here with His Grace, Lady Derby?” Mr. King’s smile showed all of his teeth. “I see you managed to find accommodations very well, just as you said you would. One wonders how you accomplished it.”

“Mr. King, I find myself here the same way as you—with my own two feet. And I thank you for your compliment. It is good to see you recovered from your fright.” She was cagey dodging the “Grand Inquisitor,” as Mr. King was known in the privacy of most aristocrats’ salons.

King’s eyes darkened in the night shade of the silver birch nearby. Clearly, he did not like to be cast in the role of a coward. “I see neither you, my dear, nor His Grace is willing to be candid among friends. This typically speaks of curious goings-on, if anyone were to ask me.”

Lady Shelby tittered, she of the very orange-colored hair, and one of the gentlemen cleared his throat again.

“Mr. King, there is a fascinating hedge on the other side of this bridge. May I have the privilege of showing it to you?” Roman spoke with a certain tone. It was the bored voice he employed when something unpleasant had to be done.

“Of course,” Mr. King said, his smile widening.

Roman strode away while Mr. King waddled as fast as his overflowing girth would permit.

And then Roman allowed himself the pleasure all of the ton would have killed to enjoy. He hoisted the man onto his tiptoes by wrenching his knotted neckcloth with one fist. “Now see here, King. Let us agree on this one point. It matters not how much I detest those who feed on other’s privacy, and how much you relish it. If I hear one breath of gossip regarding me attributable to you, I shall tell the world of your cowardly behavior last night. It is very simple, no?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Your Grace,” he gasped. “My intention was not to insult.”

“Of course not. And by the by, you are not to say a word about Lady Derby either.”

“I cannot imagine why I—”

“I can,” Roman interrupted dryly and released the man. “Good night, sir.”

He crossed back to the group of people who were not even trying to appear disinterested. He bowed to them with hauteur and turned on his heel without a word. Roman grasped Esme’s hand and placed it on his arm, nearly tugging her to walk back to the inn. “Why pray tell,” he ground out, determined to change the topic, “were you going to Vienna?”

“I refuse to reply until you answer my request.”

“And which request was that?” He had a bad feeling in the pit of his gut.

“The one which you will stop drinking all spirits as a measure of your gratitude to me for saving your hide last night and for allowing you to escape parson’s mousetrap, Your Grace.”

“Montagu, damn it.”

“Do you always blaspheme in front of ladies?”

“Do you always make unreasonable demands?”

“It was not a demand. It was a request.”

“A bloody absurd one.”

“The best ones are, Montagu.”

“What has this to do with last night?”

“It has everything to do with it if you think about it. Did you not find yourself on a ship in the middle of a storm because of an obscene amount of spirits?”

“I meant what has this to do with what happened between us?”

She paused and looked into his eyes. “It is important to me.”

He sighed and scratched the back of his neck again. “Fine. Whatever pleases you, March.”

“Do I have your word, Montagu?”

What in hell?

“Between gentlemen, their word is law,” she reminded him.

“This is not between gentlemen. This is between you and me. Two people who confided in each other on the eve of near death.”

“So are you proposing that we remain confidants?” She smiled.

He shook his head. He would never, ever, ever, understand the female mind. “It would seem there is little choice in the matter, March.”

Roman realized later, much later, when he was alone in his chamber that if she wanted to be a confidant, why hadn’t she confided more about herself to him? What in hell was really so important to her in Vienna? Was there any reason to leave the epicenter of the world—London?

And why did he even care? He would give his eyeteeth right now for a glass of his finest brandy. Hell, he would give them for fine wine, or even swill. His head ached again. A pox on all females who wanted to be treated as gentlemen.

E
sme was certain she would sleep like the dead after so many eventful hours. It was not to be. She tossed and turned, dreaming fitfully of a shadowed figure on a ship, swinging about a mast and hitting his head. And of her not being able to reach him in time before he was dragged to the side of the ship only to slip over the railing and be swallowed by the sea. And then Lionel was in her arms and making love to her as he had always done, so slowly, so kindly, so lovingly, and so often drunkenly. But then his dazed eyes changed from brown to piercing sky blue and she pulled away only to find she was in the Duke of Norwich’s arms and he was taking her with such force while terror colored his face.

The next morning she dragged her weary bones from the twisted sheets and gratefully accepted the ministrations of the inn’s maid. She knew exactly what she was going to do today to restore her balance.

She nearly skipped out the front entrance of the Horse & Hound, bypassing the dining room and any chance of seeing the duke who had dogged her dreams.

Esme set her easel high atop a sea cliff, facing the chalk-white crags jutting into the sea in the distance. She set her watercolor paints on top of a stump and splashed water from her large flask into a cup. She carefully unfolded her spectacles and perched them on the end of her nose.

She sat motionless before the beauty of the scene in front of her and studied the play of sunlight on the water and the texture of the rocky ledges. It was not Italy, to be sure, but it was a delight to have new scenery to paint.

This was always how she had maintained her calm when the murky waters of sadness had threatened to overcome her in the past. Oh, no one had ever known when she had felt that way. No, that was not true. Lionel had known even when she had tried to hide it. And he had felt so guilty and made so many promises, always with a wincing grin, as he tried to cover the aftereffects in the morning.

She dabbed her largest brush in the water and washed a pale hue of sky over the parchment. There was not a single cloud.

Two hours later she swirled her smallest brush in the muddied water, tapped it gently, and carefully applied a hue of brown, gray and green shades to the bristles for the minutest touches to the greenery on top of the cliffs. Esme jarred her hand at the worst possible moment when she caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of someone walking toward her.

“Oh pish,” she exhaled, when she saw that she had ruined the painting. She quickly dabbed at the brush stroke with a cloth.

It was he. The one who had plagued her thoughts all morning. She took him straight on.

“Good morning, Montagu.” She reordered her brushes in the tall jar.

He completed the last few steps to her side. “And good day to you, March.”

It pleased her that he used the name she had requested. She looked down only to find her apron was smeared a thousand shades of brown, the result of so many hours before an easel. She felt the sting of a blush rise from her bodice. She knew she didn’t look her best, but she refused to care. It was hot under the sun.

“May I see?” he asked.

“No, it’s ruined.”

“Hmmm,” he said in that infuriating tone people use when they would instantly disagree without even examining the issue.

She sighed and moved a little for him to see her work.

For long moments he studied her painting, until the silence became so loud, she felt the need to end it. She opened her mouth but he stopped her by raising his hand in the air.

“You are a great artist.”

“It’s my dream,” she replied. “But not something that I can truly call myself.”

“So you insist I call you March for no good reason and yet you refuse to acknowledge your talent.” He sighed. “Makes perfect sense.”

“A true artist is one who earns commissions on the strength of their talent. I have yet to do so. But art is my passion, and since the day I discovered paints at the age of five, no one has been able to remove a brush from my fingers.”

He examined her and she had the worst feeling that he found her very ugly with her spectacles. She struggled against the urge to remove them. She would not try to appear more alluring. There was not an alluring bone in her body.

“You will be heralded as one of the best painters of our generation,” he said. “I am certain of it.”

She bit back the urge to deflect praise. “Thank you. Do you paint too?”

“Of course not.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Do I seem to you to be the sort of man who could be a dabbler or dilettante?”

“I’m a dilettante,” she stated without hesitation.

“No, you’re not,” he replied. “Although what is that in the right upper corner? Birds?” He turned the full force of his blue eyes on her and smiled.

She hoped he couldn’t see her nervousness at his proximity. “It’s what happens when you don’t take care and you get flustered by someone’s approach.”

He chuckled with that voice that was so deep and masculine that its effect surprised her.

“Maybe you could fix it.”

He turned his gaze back to the painting and Esme noticed his extreme squint. She grinned.

“And what is so amusing?”

She removed her spectacles, which she only used for reading and painting, cleaned the lens with a cloth and handed them to him.

He stared at them aghast. “Why are you offering those?”

“Because you need them.”

“Me? Why I’ve never needed spectacles in my life.”

She smiled. “Are you too vain to try them?” She knew how to goad with the best of them.

“How ridiculous. Norwiches are not vain. Arrogant, to be sure. And perhaps a bit too much puffery on their hunting prowess—at least earlier dukes than I. But vain? Never.”

“Really? Then why won’t you try these?” She offered again. “Or are you going to insist Norwiches are never farsighted, too?”

He rolled his eyes and snatched her small, delicate spectacles. He put them on with a deep sigh of annoyance. “See? Vanity’s not an issue. Don’t need ’em. That’s all. By the by, your eyes are . . . lovely.” He turned to her painting. “Perhaps you could turn those spatters into a flock of birds. See if you just elongate the dots and put a sweep of wings on them . . .”

Esme slipped a tiny brush in his hand. “Show me.”

He was completely engaged in studying the artwork. All thoughts concerning her eyes were obviously gone. But his compliment, the first she’d ever received about her eyes, warmed a tiny chamber of her heart, a place that rarely received compliments on her appearance.