What A Gentleman Wants (22 page)

She thought about his reaction, worrying over every little detail. Was he angry that she’d stopped him? Surely a man like him must have women falling into his arms. Perhaps it was just his pride that was injured. Well, then she had nothing to be ashamed of! But perhaps… perhaps it wasn’t his pride. Perhaps it was something else, a possibility that made Hannah’s stomach knot.

That settled the matter. She simply must speak to him, and apologize. She needed this masquerade to continue successfully as much as he did—more so, if she were honest—and thus it behooved her to set things right. She tossed aside the book that she’d done nothing more than hold for the last half hour, and got to her feet. Molly and Celia were flying kites in the garden below the terrace where she stood, and she waved at them before turning back to the house. A footman appeared out of nowhere to open the door for her, and she murmured her thanks as she went in, only belatedly thinking how accustomed she was becoming to things like that.

Her palms were damp as she walked through the corridors toward the study. She hoped he wouldn’t be annoyed, as he had been the last time she interrupted his work. That would start things off on the wrong note entirely. And if she had guessed wrong, and he’d only been annoyed she hadn’t thrown up her skirts for him right there on the library table, she was about to make a complete fool of herself. She came to a halt outside the door, her hand in a fist, and hesitated again. She reminded herself that this would clear her conscience, that she would much rather know than not know, and forced herself to knock.

The door opened almost at once. Mr. Adams blinked at her from over his clutch of papers, then bowed. Deeply. Hannah gave a shaky smile. She knew just how he felt, intimidated and nervous about making a mistake.

“Good day, Mr. Adams. How are you today?”

“Very well, madam,” he replied, fidgeting. “How may I help you?” He stopped, looking alarmed. “That is, I hope you are well as well. And how may I help you?” he repeated anxiously.

Her lips trembled. “Very well, thank you.” He bowed again, jerkily, as if he didn’t know what else to do. A few letters slid from his grip to the floor, but he didn’t notice. “I was seeking—” She hesitated; it felt so odd to call him her husband, even if diat’s what he was pretending to be, and yet she didn’t dare use his Christian name. “The duke,” she said. “Has he a moment to spare?”

Adams wet his lips, shifting his weight from side to side. More papers fell. “No, madam. That is, he is not at home at present, I believe.”

“Oh,” she said, nonplussed. Somehow she didn’t feel reprieved.

“I believe he will be out for the rest of the evening as well,” offered Adams. “He instructed me to finish my work and return tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she said again. Dining out. Could he be avoiding her? Or perhaps… She blinked. Perhaps he had gone to a woman who didn’t stop him from kissing her. Not that it should bother her. Not that she had any right to know, let alone care. She forced those thoughts aside. Thank you. I shall speak to him later, then.“

Adams smiled nervously, bowing and scraping again. Two more letters fell to the floor, and this time he noticed, his face going white. Hannah took pity on him and knelt to help him collect everything.

“
Your
Grace!” With a horrified gasp the young man fell on his knees beside her, raking at the papers he had dropped. Hannah started to hand over the papers she picked up, then paused, her attention caught by one of them.

“This is the deed to Redley Hall.” She looked at Mr. Adams in question. The secretary blinked repeatedly and nodded.

“Yes, madam. His Grace instructed me to return it to Lord Redley. I had just retrieved it from His Grace’s study in order to send it off at once, as His Grace instructed.” She let him take the deed from her hand without protest. “He asked that I return it with your compliments, madam,” added Adams shyly. Hannah looked at him for a moment, speechless.

“Thank you, Mr. Adams.” He bowed again, twice, and hurried down the hall. Hannah watched him go, then turned and walked slowly back out to the terrace. He was returning the Redleys’ deed—with her compliments! After what he had said, she hadn’t expected that. Her steps faltered a bit as she remembered what he’d said, and what he’d almost done. Surely he didn’t think—that is, he wouldn’t expect her, in recompense, to… ?

“Mama! My kite!” Hannah started out of her reverie. Molly was tugging on her hand, pointing toward the garden. “Look, Mama, my kite is stuck in a tree!” Molly’s worried little race was flushed pink as she peered up at Hannah. “Get it down, please, Mama?”‘

She smiled, taking Molly’s hand. “I shall do my best. Celia couldn’t get it?”

“No, she couldn’t! Celia doesn’t know how to climb trees like you do, Mama. We need you to help.” Hannah laughed and let herself be pulled into the garden, to where Celia stood looking sheepishly up at the stuck kite. Later, she told herself, she would simply ask him about the deed. And apologize. And promise to be more circumspect in the future, at least in front of other people.

And she didn’t let herself think about what she would do in the future, in private.

It was rather late that night before her opportunity arose.

He’d been gone all evening, as Mr. Adams had said, but he must come home eventually. It was now very late, but she couldn’t sleep. Hannah paced back and forth in her dressing gown, eyeing the door to the duke’s suite. He had warned her to knock, if she ever had reason to enter. She bit her lip uncertainly. Did she have reason? Was it a good idea to tell him now? Was it a good idea at all to approach him?

At long last, though, she heard the unmistakable sounds of someone stirring in that room, the low rumble of his voice, no doubt talking to Telman. with her ear pressed against the door, she heard another door open and softly close, and it was quiet. Her stomach fluttered.
Do it and be done with it
, she told herself. She took a deep breath and knocked.

There was no answer. He might have gone into his bedroom already. Her heart skipped a beat. She tapped on the door once more, then gingerly opened it. She would take just one quick peek, just to assure herself he was not there before she went to bed with a clean conscience.

He looked up from his seat at the table. In front of him was a large pile of money, separated into banknotes and coins. A thin book lay open next to a small glass of amber liquid. At the sight of her, he put down his pen, his eyebrows arched in surprise.

She licked her lips. “Good evening.” She had never seen him like this before, clad in only his shirt and trousers with a silk dressing gown over them. “May I have a word with you?”

For a moment he said nothing, then nodded once. He got to his feet and waited, his face expressionless.

Gripping her hands together, Hannah stepped into the room and recited the speech she had planned while pacing her own room. “I want to apologize for my actions earlier today. What I did was utterly inexcusable, and I want you to know I am very sorry. It won’t happen again. I give you my word.”

He tilted his head to one side and looked at her with unmistakable cynicism. Oh, dear. She rushed on. “I can only say that I was very much in sympathy with Lady Redley’s plight, having almost lost my own home, and when she told me about her children, I…” She lifted her hand helplessly. “I couldn’t help myself. But it wasn’t my right to forgive the debt I promise I won’t trespass on your authority like that again.”

“Ah,” he said quietly. “The Redleys.”

“But I must also add my sincere thanks for your kindness in returning the deed to them,” she added hurriedly, before his words sank in. When she realized what he’d said, and what he’d meant, her cheeks turned pink. Did he think she was apologizing for the kiss? Or rather, for stopping him from kissing her? Oh—and she had said she was sorry, and sworn it wouldn’t happen again! She didn’t know whether to laugh or run back into her room in embarrassment.

Marcus looked at the floor and sighed, trying to distract himself from looking at her in her luminous dressing gown of violet silk and lace, with those wild black curls spilling over her shoulders. He didn’t want to see her in her nightclothes, not after he’d spent the whole day trying not to think about her in no clothes at all. It was deeply alarming, how unsuccessful he had been at that. He was the duke of Exeter; women chased him, not the other way around. But today he had been unable to control his thoughts, unable to stop dunking about what might have happened in the library, what could happen if he ever came that close to kissing her again, what
would
happen if he ever took her to bed. And the truly alarming part wasn’t that he wanted to do all that, but that he was having trouble remembering what would be bad about it. It was so unsetding, he fled his own house for the entire day, resolving to keep his distance and his sanity.

But here she was, speaking of the Redleys. “I accept your apology,” he said, “and consider the matter at an end.” with luck she would take the hint and go back into her room, slip off her dressing gown, lie down on the wide, soft duchess’s bed, alone— He stopped his thoughts with an edge of aggravation. “You should consider, though, that Redley pledged the deed freely, and he should have kept his word instead of hiding behind his family.”

“Of course,” she agreed at once. “I completely understand.” Then she stood there, oblivious to his silent urging for her to leave.

“Was there anything else?” he asked, turning away from her fathomless blue gaze.

“Yes,” came her hesitant reply. “I was wondering why you instructed Mr. Adams to return the deed with my compliments.”

Damn Adams, he thought. The man must learn to be discreet. “I had no more use for it.”

“Of course,” she murmured. “But…”

Marcus waited until he could face her dispassionately. “I returned the deed to Redley because you told him the debt was forgiven. As my duchess”—he lingered over the word in spite of himself—“your promises are backed by my word as well. It would be both insulting and embarrassing to you if I did not honor your well-meant words. I would never humiliate my wife in that way.”

Hannah felt her heart give a little sigh. She had prepared herself for a proper scolding, or at least a pointed reminder that she had violated their agreement and should mind her tongue. He had forgiven a debt of twenty thousand pounds because he didn’t want to embarrass her, even though she wasn’t his wife at all. It was charming and wonderful and dangerous all at once. “Thank you,” she said softly.

His gaze never left her. “It was my pleasure.”

Of course it couldn’t have been—he’d been angry with her when she first told him. But then, just as now, a different look had come over his face. There was a focused intensity in
that
look that should have made her nervous. Why, she already knew he thought she had come to apologize for stopping him from kissing her, which meant he had been thinking about that from the moment he saw her step into his room. His dressing room, which led straight into his bedroom.

Hannah had disliked the duke of Exeter virtually from the second she’d met him. He had been rude to her, insulted her, and coerced her into doing something she hated. But he had also held up his end of the bargain. She and Molly were housed, fed, and clothed in grand style. He had presented her to London society as a duchess, sent her a chest of jewels suitable for a queen, and forgiven an enormous gambling debt to avoid embarrassing her.

She had drought about what Rosalind had told her, about Lady Willoughby. At first his relationship with that woman had seemed a very black mark against him. The duke could have any woman he wanted, surely, so why would he choose the scheming Lady Willoughby? But something about this morning had pestered her, and it finally came to her. If he had meant to seduce her in the library—and she was fairly sure he had—why did he retreat so quickly at her thoughtless comment? A true rogue would have recognized it for what it was, a panicky attempt to avoid giving in to her desires. If he had brushed it aside and pressed his advantage, even a little bit, Hannah was uncomfortably aware that she probably wouldn’t have stopped him a second time. Instead he had literally backed away, right into the cold forbidding manner that made it easy for her to walk away from him. She rather thought, after some reflection, that had been on purpose. She knew it was a tremendous assumption on her part, one which could come back to haunt her, but Hannah was beginning to think the duke was actually rather lonely, and that she had hurt him.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said hesitandy, catching sight of the table behind him again. He lifted one shoulder. She wondered what he was doing with a pile of money. Counting it, in the middle of the night? Was this what the wealthy did?

“I was going to have a cup of tea,” she blurted on impulse. He arched a brow, then glanced toward the bell. “Oh, no, don’t ring for one. I go to the kitchen myself and get it,” she babbled on. “The servants have mosdy gone to bed by now.”

His other eyebrow went up, but without looking disapproving. He looked merely surprised. “I see.”

She smiled uncomfortably, steeling herself. If she were wrong… if she had merely annoyed him by coming to apologize… But he was looking at her in that intense way again, as if he wanted to see inside her mind. She nibbled the inside of her lip for a second. The worst that could happen was that he would say no, and think her a provincial simpleton. “Would you care to join me?”

He didn’t move. “I wouldn’t wish to intrude.” But he was still looking at her.

Hannah shook her head, the largest movement she could manage under that piercing gaze. “You wouldn’t be.”

For a moment he remained where he was, unmov-ing, and she thought he wouldn’t accept. “It would be my pleasure.”

They walked down the stairs together, side by side but silently. Marcus knew he ought not to have accepted her invitation. He was flirting with danger as it was, his prized self-control perilously close to snapping. What in God’s name had come over him?

So she was an attractive woman; London was full of them. So he wanted her; she wasn’t the first. But she also confounded him and tipped him off balance nearly every time they met. He didn’t understand why this drew him to her again and again, why he hadn’t already dismissed her and put her firmly in her place. The irony of it was almost enough to make him smile, that the one woman in London who couldn’t wait to be away from him was the one he couldn’t stop thinking about. David would shout himself hoarse with laughter to know his joke had taken this twist.