The Wagered Heart: Signet Regency Romance (InterMix) (24 page)
Read The Wagered Heart: Signet Regency Romance (InterMix) Online
Authors: Rhonda Woodward
Julia could only stare up at him in stunned silence at this pronouncement.
“Having said this,” he continued, “I am grateful that you have given me this opportunity to offer you my deepest—and most regrettably late—apologies for all that I have caused you to suffer this past year.”
At the simple sincerity in his voice, Julia felt heavy tears clog her throat.
They continued to swing in graceful rhythm for a few measures as the avidly curious guests looked on.
“I can only say, by way of explanation, not excuse, that I left London almost immediately after our encounter and had no notion that my friends had been looking for you. I also did not know that the people in your village would have seen your unexpected return from London as something suspect. I confess that I never gave it any consideration. I no longer wonder that you dismissed my apology out of hand—it was insufficient to the level of insult I handed you. Although I apologized, my selfish want
was to assuage my feeling of guilt for accosting you. I now completely understand your…unique way of repaying me.”
The grimness of his tone galvanized a desire in Julia to say something to lighten the dark expression on his handsome features.
“Since I could not challenge you to pistols at dawn, I came up with the only means at my disposal,” she managed to say.
His face was still grim despite the strained smile that came to his lips.
“The weapon of feminine wiles is sharper than any sword—I have learned a lesson I shall never forget. I owe you a deeper apology for accusing you of hypocrisy. You were very correct in your assessment of my arrogance. Who am I to judge your behavior when my own has been unpardonable?”
Silence held them again as Julia digested his words while they continued to dance in perfect, graceful harmony.
“But I have been a hypocrite,” she finally said, lifting her gaze to his.
The sudden, inexplicable change that came over his face caused her heart to skip a beat.
The music faded to silence. They came to a halt, and the duke drew her hand through his arm. As he escorted her back to her family, he looked down at her and said, “Miss Allard, I…”
“Julia, I believe it would be best if we returned to the townhouse.” Her uncle’s firm voice cut through the duke’s softly spoken words. “I believe we have much to discuss.”
Before the duke had completed his bow, Julia was being led from the ballroom, flanked by her uncle and aunt.
“B
ut you do not understand,” Julia stated, facing her uncle with defiance for the first time in her life.
He continued to pace, while she stood in the middle the room. Aunt Beryl looked on from the sofa with concern.
“Then explain to me what it is that I do not comprehend,” Uncle John said in a tone of great patience.
Julia sighed heavily and looked to the heavens for the words she was struggling to find. More than anything, she wished she could have followed Caro and Clive up the stairs when they had announced upon their return from the Upper Rooms that they were retiring. Julia did not blame them for not wanting to be a part of her confrontation with their aunt and uncle.
Nevertheless, she knew that she must try to make them understand her behavior at the Upper Rooms, though she scarce understood it herself. “It is so very hard to explain. But the Duke of Kelbourne is not the horrible man we thought him to be.”
“Is he, or is he not the scoundrel who kissed you in front of the world last year in London?”
“He is. But if you could have heard the sincerity of his apology…”
“He has once again caused you to be the object of scandalous speculation! Your aunt and I have heard of how thoroughly you loathe this man. Yet, you waltz with him in open defiance of the rules of the assembly rooms! Explain that.” His pale gray eyes, so like her own, gazed at her in confusion and concern.
“The duke had no expectation that I would agree to dance with him. He was giving me the opportunity to snub him in front of everyone—as a way of showing how deeply sorry he is for what he did last year.”
Throwing up his hands, her uncle cast a harried look to his wife. “This is beyond strange, Julia. I no longer know what to say to you.”
Julia did not know what to say either.
“My dear,” Aunt Beryl began gently, “do you care for the duke?”
Turning her troubled gaze to her aunt, Julia felt the truth rise up with her.
“Yes.
Yes.
” As she said the words, she suddenly and fully understood them to be true.
“Good God,” Uncle John expostulated. “How can you care for an unmitigated, degenerate rakehell?”
“Hush for a moment, John,” Aunt Beryl said calmly. “Julia, I have a suspicion that much has transpired since you came to Bath. You have left a lot out of your letters.”
Tears trembled in her voice as Julia found the words to respond to her aunt. “Yes, so much has happened, I do not know where to begin. The duke is truly not what we thought. If you could see the way he treats his mother, grandmother, and sister—and how they treat him in return—you would know that he is of good character. If you could have seen
the kindness he has shown Mariah and Mrs. Thorncroft, you would know that he is not truly bad.”
Uncle John stopped pacing, and Aunt Beryl rose from the sofa.
“And do you believe the duke cares for you?”
Julia looked at Aunt Beryl with wide, sad eyes. She could not tell her aunt that she had caused the duke to desire her and that she had learned that, for gentlemen, desire was not love.
“Not the way I care for him,” Julia replied quietly. “I know it is passing strange that I have grown to love him after what occurred, but how can these things be explained? You have told me yourself, Aunt Beryl, that the ways of the heart are truly mysterious.”
A heavy knock on the front door halted her next words.
“Who could that be at this hour?” Aunt Beryl looked at her husband with a frown. “John, please tell the footman that we are not at home.”
Uncle John left the room, and Julia gazed at the deep concern etched on her aunt’s beloved features.
Her disgruntled uncle reentered the room, saying, “I told the footman not to answer. Whoever it is can return at a decent hour tomorrow.”
Sighing with deep sadness, Julia wanted this painful interview to end.
Before her uncle could begin questioning her again, she said, “It really does not matter what my feelings toward the duke are. I shall be returning home with you and must do my best to forget him.”
An unexpected, overwhelming thought suddenly gripped Julia. What if…
“Forgive me—I must go and see…” Quick as a flash, she raced across the room, to the foyer and out
the front door to the front steps. Breathing heavily in the sudden, cool darkness, she looked for whoever had knocked.
A little ways down the lane, by the meager lamppost light, she could see his familiar tall outline walking away.
Silently, she ran down the steps, across the walkway to the lane. He must have heard her, for he halted his progress and turned around.
Standing poised to run, Julia felt as if her heart were in her throat. Desperately, she struggled for words.
The duke took a few steps toward her and began to speak in a voice she hardly recognized.
“My apologies for calling so late. I walked here because I could not wait for my horse to be brought around. I wanted to ask why…You told me you had been a hypocrite—Julia, I must know…”
At the ragged passion in his voice, she closed her eyes and felt a thrill of joy sing through her heart. In an instant she was running to him. He met her more than halfway.
She stopped within a yard of him, trying desperately to see his features. To see if his expression matched the passion in his voice.
“I have been a hypocrite,” she began, tossing away any lingering fear of rejection. “I thought I hated you, but soon that feeling left and I did not know what to think anymore.”
He took a step nearer. “In the alcove—when you were in my arms, you had forgotten about revenge for a moment. What passed between us at that moment had been real.”
“Yes,” her voice was strong despite the slight tremulous tone.
“And when I kissed you in the storm…”
“I was not acting then, I just could not tell you that I no longer desired to hurt you.”
“I suspected you were hiding your true emotions from me. I do not blame you, I have given you little reason to trust me.”
Feeling a well of unexpected emotion rise within her, Julia struggled to speak. “I trust you now, Kel.”
In the next instant she felt herself lifted off the ground. Throwing her arms around his neck, she could barely see his face, but she felt the fierce pounding of his heart against hers.
“Julia,” he whispered roughly, as his lips met hers. Tightening her arms around him, she pressed herself against him and kissed him back with all of the intensity of her newfound love and passion.
Dragging his lips from hers, he pressed kisses to her cheek. “You are the most amazing, unexpected, beautiful, intelligent—I adore you. I have thought of little else but you since that day in London. I have loved you from the moment I saw you again in Sydney Gardens, when your beautiful gray eyes shot daggers at me. Say you will continue to lead me on a merry chase for the rest of our lives.” His lips returned to hers, kissing her with a passion that made her feel as if she were melting into his body.
She tried to answer him without speaking.
In the sitting room, Aunt Beryl and Uncle John stood looking out of the window.
“I am going out there at once! They are embracing openly on a public street!” Letting the drapery fall back, Uncle John made a move to the door.
Aunt Beryl placed a restraining hand on her husband’s arm and gazed lovingly into his concerned eyes. “Come and sit with me, my love. Evidently embracing our niece in public is a habit the Duke of Kelbourne is not likely to break.”
1817
O
n a fine spring day, the Duke and Duchess of Kelbourne were taking a leisurely stroll down a very fashionable street in London.
Suddenly, the duchess stopped and looked up at her husband in delighted surprise.
“Kel, this is it!” She gestured to the storefront they had just passed. “This is the shop I stepped out of that day.”
“I believe it is,” said Kel. Reaching down, he took her gloved hand and raised it to his lips.
“Gracious, that day seems a hundred years ago. So much has happened since. What was the wager? Dame Fortune? A boxing match? I no longer recall,” she said with a tease.
Turning her hand palm up, he pushed aside the top of her glove. Then he placed a warm, lingering kiss on her wrist, before gazing passionately into her eyes. “My darling Julia, do you not know by now that the only thing wagered that day was my heart?”
Keep reading for a special excerpt from another Regency Romance
by Rhonda Woodward
MOONLIGHT AND MISCHIEF
Available January 2013 from InterMix
1816
“By damn. Queens, you say,” Lord Haverstone drawled, tossing down three jacks with a flick of his wrist.
Across the table, Lord Brampton stared down at the playing cards with a dumbstruck expression. Swallowing several times, he slumped back in his chair with his mouth open.
“I won?” Even with the evidence before him, Lord Brampton could not quite believe that he had finally come out the victor in this intense game of chance.
Leaning casually back in his chair, Lord Haverstone looked past Lord Brampton to the awed expressions of the keenly attentive gentlemen standing around the table. They, like Brampton, continued to stare in surprise at the haphazardly splayed cards.
Picking up a heavy crystal goblet, Lord Haverstone drank the last of a very fine brandy. Soon, a murmur grew among the small crowd of bucks crammed into this corner of White’s. No one could recall Stone, as he was familiarly known, ever losing a significant amount of money at cards.
And it is a rather significant sum
, he thought, disliking the unfamiliar feeling of self-disgust. His luck and wits had rarely failed him, but he had to own that he had been reckless in the last few hands.
Well, good fortune cannot run forever
, he mused, philosophically dismissing his disappointment over the loss.
“I really won?” Brampton asked again. His bushy gray eyebrows came together in surprise.
An ironic smile came to Stone’s lips as he pushed his chair back and rose from the table. “It would appear so, Brampton. May I call upon you in the morning to settle the matter?”
Not surprisingly, Stone did not have the prodigious sum of seventeen thousand pounds on his person.
Brampton dragged his gaze from the cards still resting on the highly polished table to look at the earl with shock-glazed eyes.
“Pardon? Oh! Yes, at your convenience, Stone,” Brampton said, turning his dazed attention back to the table.
Some of the blades who had witnessed this unprecedented event laughed a little in understanding of Brampton’s reaction.
Giving a jaunty salute, Stone moved through the parting crowd, noting wryly that it looked as if the entire membership of the club had witnessed the last few hands.
The ever-alert majordomo met him near the door with his hat, walking stick, and gloves.
Taking his time, Stone pulled on his gloves and made sure his hat rested upon his head at his preferred angle before leaving the club and stepping into the misty night.
He was several strides down the narrow, dimly lit street when his senses alerted him of footsteps approaching from behind.
After a few more yards, he whipped around to confront whoever had the nerve to sneak up on him on the darkened street.
Beneath the yellowish glow of a streetlamp stood a startled young man. Although Stone found the younger man’s face familiar, he could not quite recall his name.
“My apologies, my lord, I-I was about to announce my presence,” the young man said in a quick, nervous voice.
Stone perused the young man’s features for another moment. Now he recalled him standing among the bucks who had watched the tensely charged battle of skill and luck several minutes ago.
If memory served, this nervous-looking buck was the son of a wealthy tradesman. Town seemed to be full of such creatures this Season. However, this young man had not seemed such an encroaching mushroom as some of the others.
“You wanted to speak to me?” Stone did not bother to keep the edge from his tone. He was in no humor to give consequence to overly familiar pups.
“Y-yes, my lord. I wanted to say that I am sorry that you lost.”
Stone allowed his frown to deepen. “Your name, sir?” He watched as the younger man swallowed hard.
“I am Steven Thorncroft, my lord,” he said as he performed a passable bow.
Stone shifted to casually lean on his ivory-tipped walking stick, and his cold gaze held Thorncroft’s for a silent moment. “Permit me to give you a bit of advice, Mr. Thorncroft. Never console a gambler on his losses.”
Even in the poorly lit street, he could see the flush come to Thorncroft’s cheeks. Although Stone was satisfied with the wince that crossed the younger man’s features, annoyance flashed through him when Thorncroft made no move to depart.
“Thank you. I will remember.”
Despite the exceedingly late hour, a few other pinks of the ton, on horseback or in carriages, passed them. Stone turned to take his leave when the young man quickly spoke up.
“There was one other matter that I would speak to you about, my lord, if you would be so kind as to give me another moment.”
Stone’s innate politeness halted his progress. “Yes?”
“The Season is almost at an end, and although I have no doubt that you will be occupied in the coming months, I would like to extend an invitation to for you to come to a house party at my parents’ estate in Chippenham.”
At Mr. Thorncroft’s rushed speech, a dark, finely arched brow rose over one of Stone’s light blue eyes. Examining the younger man more closely, Stone had a strong suspicion that he was holding his breath.
“Egad, are you foxed?” Stone drawled, mentally recanting his earlier assessment that Thorncroft was not an encroaching mushroom.
The younger man gave a choked, nervous laugh. “I am a bit, or I would never have the nerve to ask you. You see, my lord, when I saw you lose such a vast sum, I immediately thought of my sister.”
At this odd moment, Stone almost guffawed. “Why Does she go about losing fortunes as well?”
“No, she hates gambling,” Mr. Thorncroft said quickly. “I thought of her because not only is she quite pretty, but my father has settled an enormous sum upon her. More than enough to recoup a fortune lost in gambling.”
At this singularly unique explanation, Stone so forgot himself that his usually unreadable mask slipped. He found himself staring at Mr. Thorncroft in complete astonishment.
“Damn me, are you offering your sister as a way to save me from ruin?”
“Not until the two of you have a look at each other,” Thorncroft said, taking the question seriously. “Under the circumstances, I did not think it would hurt to ask. But I beg your pardon if you feel I am overstepping myself.”
The sheer unabashed, yet somehow self-effacing, cheek of the invitation disarmed Stone completely. Suddenly his chest began to rumble with laughter. At the baffled look that came to Thorncroft’s features, Stone tried to restrain his amusement, but he failed. He could not recall finding anything so droll in recent memory.
Deep, genuine laughter shook his shoulders for some moments before his mirth subsided enough to respond to the young man.
“Thorncroft, our encounter has been an unexpected pleasure. Unfortunately, I have plans for the next few months, but I will be hosting a house party of my own at Heaton in the fall. It would be my greatest pleasure if you would bring your sister and stay for the whole six weeks.” He suspected that Mr. Thorncroft would prove quite an antidote. No doubt his friends would find the pup as amusing as he did.
The look of shock and joy that came over Thorncroft’s face softened Stone’s amusement. He thought the younger man looked the way old Brampton had some minutes ago.
“We—would be truly honored, my lord. This is most kind of you,” Thorncroft stated in a rush.
“Excellent. I shall take my leave of you, Thorncroft. I look forward to seeing you at Heaton the first of October.”
With his look of surprised pleasure increasing, Thorncroft made a flourishing bow. “Thank you, my lord. Until October.”
Lord Haverstone turned and strode up the street before Mr. Thorncroft had time to complete his bow.