The Duke in Disguise (10 page)

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Meriel hardly slept that night, and she awoke with a headache the next morning. Every time she dozed off, she saw the duke again, standing too close to her. He had lifted his hand, and in her dreams, he finally did touch her. Each time, her traitorous body awoke her, feeling all hot and trembling and…strange.
As she washed and dressed, she tried to tell herself that some women were always attracted to men they couldn't have. Maybe that was her problem. It was as if her brain just…turned off when he was near.
She had to content herself with the knowledge that she'd done all she could on Stephen's behalf. She could not dictate the duke's behavior, but perhaps she'd helped improve his discretion.
At midmorning, Meriel left Stephen in his nurse's care so that she could walk into the post office in Ramsgate. She went back to her room for her bonnet, and was heading down through the house when she passed the red drawing room. She heard the distant sound of giggling. She peered in and saw no one, but the doors to the conservatory were thrown open.
Though it was none of her business, she crept to the inner doors, then stepped behind a giant fern in the conservatory. The voices were more recognizable. It was clearly the duke, but who were the women? Because there were several. She ducked behind a palm tree, then a clump of bushes, getting close enough so that she could peer at the duke through the foliage. He had his back to her. He was dressed in his riding clothing, with boots up to his knees, and a shorter frock coat. He looked so elegant, so above her. He tapped his top hat against his thigh as he laughed.
Three maids gathered in front of him. Meriel wondered sourly if they had followed him, or if he'd found them working and had begun to weave his magic. The women were giving one another nasty looks.
He had told her he was having a difficult time choosing a mistress— foolishly, she'd thought that meant Stephen was safe from such sights for a while. The duke had not bothered to mention that he would be hosting auditions for the role!
As Meriel came close enough to hear what was going on, one of the maid's— Joan? Meriel thought— stepped forward to catch the duke's eye. She had the saucy look of a barmaid rather than a downstairs maid, but surely the duke recruited his staff even from unsavory places.
"Your Grace, you look fine in those ridin' clothes. I never been ridin' because I'm always worried I'd fall off. But if I rode with you, your firm thighs'd keep me up."
Meriel covered her face in shock and peeked between her spread fingers.
"Ladies, I'm afraid I don't have time to teach anyone to ride today," the duke said. "Have a pleasant morning."
Meriel's indignation faded as she finally saw his face. He looked relieved to be escaping.
Didn't he enjoy watching future mistresses fight for his attention?

Chapter 11

A
s Meriel walked down the dirt lane lined with hedgerows, she knew her pace was far too brisk for such a warm summer day. But she didn't care. Her bonnet shielded her face, and perspiration dampened the edges and trickled down her temple, and still she marched along, fuming at those three women throwing themselves at the duke. What if Stephen had seen that bawdy performance?
Meriel had a good mind to tell Mrs. Theobald—
But the duke's beautiful maids, personally hired, were behaving exactly as he wished.
Meriel wondered why she kept hoping that he was different. Why had she thought he'd take her warning under advisement, maybe even act on it?
She heard the steady beat of an approaching horse, and moved to the side of the road without looking back. Instead of riding past her, the horse slowed at her side. She knew who it was before she even looked up, past the man's long legs, up that broad chest to that smiling, knowing, too-handsome face.
He touched his hat with two fingers in a jaunty salute. Gritting her teeth, she looked back down at the road.
"Not even a hello?" he said.
"Hello, Your Grace."
"I sense such pent-up anger, Miss Shelby. Perhaps I should be the angry one, since you were spying on me in the conservatory."
She closed her eyes in mortification, then stumbled over a rock.
"Now, now, don't turn an ankle," he said, "or I'll be forced to minister to you."
She glanced up at him, trying to appear as coolly detached as she wished she felt. "I came upon you accidentally. The maids were giggling rather loudly, after all. It's a good thing your son was not with me."
He continued to ride at her side, his horse firmly under his command at such a slow pace.
"Ah, so that's why you're so angry," he said. "I assure you, I did not seek those women out."
"They wouldn't seek
you
out if they didn't think they might be rewarded."
"Ah, but they do offer me opportunities to narrow down my options."
"But you promised— "
"Promised?" he interrupted. "I said I hadn't chosen. That was all."
Had she only hoped there'd been a promise buried in his words somewhere? She couldn't walk any faster, but she could ignore him.
"Can I give you a ride into town, Miss Shelby? After all, my thighs are firm enough."
She sent him an indignant look, but she saw that he was enjoying her reaction.
"Is that a 'no'?" he asked.
"You can leave, Your Grace," she said, then realized she'd ordered a duke about like a servant.
But he only touched his hat again, grinned, and veered off the road between two hedgerows and across a pasture. She watched him ride and hated that she appreciated the sight.
That evening, after taking Stephen up to his bed, Meriel was coming down the grand staircase when she saw the duke confronted by the maid Joan outside his study. The woman boldly tried to press up against him, but he managed to step aside without looking like he was deliberately fleeing.
But that was the impression Meriel received anyway. Hanging back on the stairs, she watched the maid flounce away in disappointment. The duke retreated into his study, and Meriel stared at the closed door.
She could not understand him. Before her arrival, he'd been a man who seduced his servants and ignored his son and his duties, if the whispers she'd heard about his finances were true. Since her arrival, he'd befriended his son, taking him fishing and training the wolfhounds. He was avoiding the women he'd picked as his conquests, avoiding the parties he so loved, though the invitations arrived every day, and he seemed fully recovered. And then there was that first day he'd ridden up alone and started toward the servants' entrance instead of the main portico. And now people were accusing him of cheating at cards?
What was going on?
She sat down on the stairs in contemplation, watching the coming night creep up over the windows to darken the corridor.
Maybe she'd been thinking about this all wrong. The duke was young yet— twenty-five, or so she'd heard. Perhaps he was just finally maturing. Today alone there had been several chances to take advantage of a number of women, and he'd looked as if he couldn't get away fast enough. The thrill of taking meaningless mistresses must have run its course.
Now she had to prove it.
She found herself knocking on his study door before she could think of a plan and its consequences. When he called for her to enter, she went in as if she owned Thanet Court.
The duke wasn't sitting behind his desk, far enough away from her. He was near the door, studying a county map framed on the wall not five feet away from her.
She closed the door, leaned against it, and just looked at him. There was no smile on his face now, just an odd intensity that seemed to warn her. She wouldn't believe it. He might smile and flirt, but she had logically figured him out. He would not try to press his advantage over her. She refused to consider that her deductions might be wrong.
But between them sprang up a crackling tension she hadn't anticipated, and had created no defense against. There was an ache deep inside her that she'd never felt before, a need she had no answer to. He stepped closer and she couldn't think, didn't want to escape, although the door was at her back.
She kept telling herself that he'd changed, that she couldn't be wrong about him, even as his face was above her, his body too near. His hands came down on either side of her shoulders, and she was trapped within the confines of his arms.
He still didn't touch her; she knew she was taunting him with her silence and her acquiescence. But he wasn't the same man anymore; he'd changed—
And she kept thinking that as he leaned near, and the warmth of his breath spilled over her. She looked up at him, her heartbeat so loud in her ears, she barely heard him say, "Stop me."
"I don't need to," she whispered, trusting that he would control himself.
She suddenly realized that he didn't take her words as she'd meant them, and then it was too late.
His mouth touched hers with a brief, exquisite sweetness that caught her by surprise, that made her forget every logical plan she'd woven to protect herself. Then he pressed harder, his lips moving across hers, tasting, seeking entrance, she knew.
Somewhere inside her a logical voice cried out that she'd kissed before, that because she knew what to expect she should be in total control. But she wasn't. She was left with a drenching of passion that made her will not her own anymore.
She put her hands on his chest to steady herself, but that was a mistake. He was warm and solid, and she could feel his heart beating quickly in time to hers. His groan vibrated through her hands. His arms came around her, crushing her to him, and she gave no thought to escape. She only opened her mouth and surrendered what he demanded, what she, too, wanted. His tongue swept into her mouth, and she boldly met it with her own. He surrounded her, filled her, excited her beyond reason. His hands swept down and cupped her backside, pressing even more of her against him. Through her clothing she felt the strength and heat of his body, and she wanted nothing in between them.
And it was that thought that finally doused her with logic, and her control came screaming back in horror to overcome what she'd lost.
She twisted her head away and broke the kiss with a gasp, pressing her hands hard against the chest she'd just struggled to be near. He let her go immediately, and she was once again flat against the door, wide eyes staring at him, her spectacles crooked, wanting to deny what she'd just experienced.
She'd been wrong again, so terribly, completely wrong, it had cost her her self-respect, her governess position, and her chance to help Stephen grow into the man he could be. What had she been thinking, that this man, this
duke
, could be other than the powerful, selfish nobleman he'd been raised to be? He hadn't changed at all, and neither had she. She still could not trust herself.
"Meriel."
His voice saying her Christian name so intimately broke the frozen spell that held her in place.
"Let me go," she whispered, straightening her spectacles.
"I'm not touching you."
"Then back away!"
He took two steps back. "Meriel— "
After flinging open the door, she ran up the stairs, thankful it was late enough that no one would be wandering about to see the tears of defeat and humiliation that dampened her cheeks.
How had such a serious misjudgment happened again? The last time she'd trusted her emotions, not only had she discovered that her parents had lied to her about their finances, but her father had committed the ultimate act of cowardice by killing himself, leaving his wife and daughters to face the ruin of his finances alone. And Meriel hadn't seen it coming, hadn't understood his desperation. After that, she'd given up trusting her emotions, feeling betrayed by her own nature.
With the duke, she'd told herself to use only logic. Hadn't she read the signs in his personality? She could have sworn that no emotion played a part in her judgment that he'd matured.
But the duke hadn't changed— he'd just made his choice in mistress, and it was
she
. No wonder he'd avoided the other maids.
She ran into the nursery suite, careful to remain quiet even though her chest heaved with silent sobs. She would have to leave first thing in the morning. The prospect of abandoning Stephen made her cry harder, but she had to begin packing. Reaching the schoolroom first, she opened cupboard doors and started pulling her books and papers out onto the desk. Something toppled backward, deeper into the shelf, and she cursed silently. After wiping her wet face with both hands, she drew a chair over to stand on. She swept her hand inside—
And hit something hard and wooden. It felt like a storage crate, but she had to be certain it wasn't something of hers that she'd forgotten about. Reaching for a candleholder on the desk, she brought it up to set on the edge of the cupboard. She could see books within the slats of the crate. The name Richard was written on the outside in a childish scrawl.
Gooseflesh broke out along her arms. She found herself pulling the crate out, balancing it against her chest, then turning to set it on the desk. After hopping to the floor, she looked inside. Besides books, a blank slate, chalk, and papers were stacked haphazardly, some of the writing still legible though faded. "Richard O'Neill" was scrawled across several, and the date of 1822. Each book had his name inside the cover, with dates ranging from 1820 to 1830, and as the years increased, the difficulty of the books did, too.
The duke would have been in the schoolroom at the same time, and since he was too young for the first few dates, it had to be someone older. With an Irish name like O'Neill, she couldn't imagine it would be a cousin. A ward of the old duke's?
She shouldn't care; she had to pack and leave this place before she embarrassed herself further.
But it was a mystery that called to her. She couldn't just let it go, even if it was only a distraction from the turmoil of her thoughts.
Watching to make sure she wasn't seen, she ran to the library, carrying a candle that shook with her hurried steps. Once inside, she closed the door behind her and went to the massive Bible on display on its own podium. At the beginning, she located the births and deaths of the family, and was amazed to see that this Bible was almost a hundred and fifty years old.
Above Stephen's name, there was only one child listed, his father, Cecil Irving, now the Duke of Thanet.
She couldn't control her nervous anxiety; something wasn't right. She kept scanning the page, looking for something else— and she found it, written in a child's uneven printing at the bottom of the page, almost hidden by the decorative border. Someone had written the name Richard, born in 1814. His parents were listed as Fiona O'Neill…and Roger Irving, Duke of Thanet.
Though there was no proof, this indicated that Richard O'Neill was an illegitimate son, brother to the current duke, older by five years. Richard himself could have written it as a child— or perhaps it was the work of young Cecil, wishing that a servant's son was his brother.
Meriel slumped into a chair and put her face in her hands, chilled although the evening was warm. These were crazy thoughts. Perhaps the duke
did
have an illegitimate brother. What did that matter?
But there was something wrong about the duke— she had known that from the first moment she'd seen his return to the estate. The reasons she'd earlier given herself for proof that the duke had "matured" now seemed like proof that he wasn't the same man.
Since Richard had been educated in the schoolroom, he must have grown up here, at least part of the time. He would know all the servants, all the neighbors; he would know the current duke's personality and behavior.
She wanted to laugh at her own stupidity. What were the odds that two brothers not identical twins could look that much alike?
She hurried back to the schoolroom and put all the books back in the cupboard, including her own. She couldn't leave Thanet Court until she knew the truth, until she could be certain that Stephen was safe. Let the duke— or whoever he might be— think what he wanted about their kiss, but Meriel would not be able to rest until she was certain Stephen's own father was taking care of him, instead of an impostor with a hidden agenda.
She needed some kind of proof, or she'd begin to fear that the real duke was dead.