Your Wicked Heart (16 page)

It was that swallow—that small jerk of his throat—that undid her. For it was proof of what he had never shown her before: vulnerability.

Why . . . she
believed
him. He did love her.

He
loved
her.

For the space of a heartbeat, she did not speak. This moment, in this musty room with its threadbare carpets, the landlady no doubt eavesdropping at the door—this moment was the beginning of it all.

The beginning of her true adventure.

And it would last forever.

With five words, she set forth on the path: “Yes,” she said hoarsely. “I will marry you.”

And as he laughed, a loud and lovely laugh of relief, she leapt forward into his arms. His laughter lingered as he kissed her mouth, her cheek, the tender spot beneath her ear. And then, with his lips against her earlobe, he said, “Not simply for safety, I hope?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Safe? You’re a kidnapper!”

The gasp that came from the other side of the door made her giggle. And then, sobering, she cupped his cheek and looked up into his eyes.

“And I love you,” she said. “Kidnapper that you are.”

His breath caught. Gently, very gently, he stroked her lip with his thumb. “May I . . . kidnap you now?” he asked. “For the sake of good form.”

“I think you must,” she said gravely. “For I owe the landlady three pounds, and I don’t have it.”

“I have a few rings you could sell,” he said. “And one in particular.” Slipping a slim gold band from his finger, he smoothed it onto her thumb, where it dangled.

She made a fist to keep it in place. “Lovely,” she said. “But I think I’d like to keep this if you don’t mind. I will give Mrs. Primm some other payment.”

“Forget Mrs. Primm,” he murmured, and picked her up, causing her to yelp with glee.

“But you’ll have to set me down,” she gasped, “or you’ll shock her into apoplexy.”

“And if I can’t bear to release you?”

“Then perhaps you may kidnap me in . . . a quarter hour?”

He sat down on the sofa, still holding her in his arms. “An excellent idea,” he murmured. “A quarter hour, then. And until that time . . . how shall we occupy ourselves?”

Smiling, she slid a hand around his nape and pulled his mouth to hers.

Continue reading for an exclusive excerpt from

That Scandalous Summer

by Meredith Duran

Available from Pocket Books February 2013
 

PROLOGUE

London, March 1885

His brother’s town house felt like a tomb. Beyond the brightly lit foyer, the lamps were turned down, the windows shuttered. One would never have guessed that the sun was shining over London.

Michael handed off his hat and gloves. “How does he fare today?”

Jones, Alastair’s butler, had once been the epitome of discretion. But this question had become their daily ritual, and he no longer hesitated before answering. “Not well, your lordship.”

Michael nodded and scrubbed a hand over his face. Two early morning surgeries had left him exhausted, and he still reeked of disinfectant. “Any visitors?”

“Indeed.” Jones turned to fetch the silver salver from the sideboard. The mirror above it was still covered with black crepe. It should have been taken down already, for his brother’s wife had died more than seven months ago. But those months had unearthed a series of revelations. Infidelity, lies, addictions—each new discovery had darkened Alastair’s grief for his duchess into something more ominous.

That the mirror remained shrouded seemed fitting. It was an accurate reflection, Michael thought, of Alastair’s state of mind.

He took the calling cards from Jones, flipping through them to note the names. His brother refused to receive company, but if the calls were not returned, the gossip would grow louder yet. Michael had taken to borrowing the ducal carriage and one of his brother’s footmen, waiting on the curb for a chance to leave his brother’s card without being seen. Had the situation not been so dire, he would have considered it an excellent farce.

He paused at a particular card. “Bertram called?”

“Yes, an hour ago. His grace did not receive him.”

First Alastair had cut himself off from friends, suspicious of their possible involvement in his late wife’s affairs. Now, it seemed, he was spurning his political cronies. That was a very bad sign.

Michael started for the stairs. “Is he eating, at least?”

“Yes,” called Jones. “But I am instructed not to admit you, my lord!”

That was new. And it made no sense after the note Alastair had sent last night, which he must have known would provoke a response. “Do you mean to throw me out?” he asked without stopping.

“I fear myself too infirm to manage it,” came the reply.

“Good man.” Michael kept climbing, taking the stairs by threes. Alastair would be in the study, scouring the afternoon newspapers, desperate to reassure himself that news of his wife’s proclivities had not been leaked to the press. Or perhaps desperate to
find
the news—and to learn, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who else had betrayed him.

But he would not learn the names today. Michael had already checked the papers himself.

A wave of anger burned through him. He could not believe they’d been reduced to such measures—reduced
again,
after a childhood in which their parents’ marriage had exploded slowly and publicly, in three-inch headlines that had kept the nation titillated for years. It went against the grain to think ill of the dead, but in this instance, he would make an exception.
Damn you, Margaret.

He entered the study without knocking. His brother sat at the massive desk near the far wall, the lamp at his elbow a meager aid against the larger gloom. His blond head remained bent over his reading material as he said, “Leave.”

Michael yanked open a drapery as he passed. Sunlight flooded the Oriental carpet, illuminating motes of floating dust. “Let someone in here to clean up,” he said. The air smelled of old smoke and stale eggs.

“God damn it.” Alastair cast down the newspaper. A decanter of brandy stood uncorked by his elbow, a half-empty glass beside it. “I told Jones I was not at home!”

“That excuse would be more convincing if you ever left.” It looked as though Alastair had not slept in a week. He took after their late father, as fair as Michael was dark, and normally he inclined to bulk. Not lately, though. His face looked alarmingly gaunt, and shadows ringed his bloodshot eyes.

Some wit had once dubbed his brother the Kingmaker. It was true that Alastair had a gift for wielding power—political and otherwise. But if his enemies had looked on him now, they would have laughed from relief as much as from malice. This man did not look capable of governing even himself.

Michael pulled open the next set of drapes. Not for a very long time—not since his childhood, spent as a pawn in their parents’ games—had he felt so helpless. Had his brother’s ailment been physical, he might have cured it. But Alastair’s sickness was of the soul, which no medicine could touch.

As he turned back, he caught his brother wincing at the light. “How long since you’ve stepped outside? A month? More, I think.”

“What difference?”

This being the ninth or tenth occasion on which they’d had this exchange, the impulse to snap was strong. “As your brother, I think it makes a great deal of difference. As your doctor, I’m certain of it. Liquor is a damned poor trade for sunshine. You’re starting to resemble an undercooked fish.”

Alastair gave him a thin smile. “I will take that under advisement. For now, I have business to attend—”

“No, you don’t. I’m handling your business these days. Your only occupations are drinking and stewing.”

With his harsh words, Michael hoped to provoke a retort. Alastair had ever been mindful of his authority as the eldest. Until recently, such jibes would not have flown.

But all he received in reply was a flat stare.

Damn it.
“Listen,” he said. “I am growing . . . extremely concerned for you.” Christ, it required stronger language. “Last month, I was worried. Now I’m damned near frantic.”

“Curious.” Alastair looked back to the newspaper. “I would imagine you have other concerns to occupy you.”

“There’s nothing in the papers. I checked.”

“Ah.” Alastair lowered the copy of the
Times
and looked dully into the middle distance. In his silence, he resembled nothing so much as a puppet with its strings cut. Damned unnerving.

Michael spoke to break the moment. “What was this note you sent me?”

“Ah. Yes.” Alastair pinched his nose, then rubbed the corners of his eyes. “I did send that, didn’t I.”

“In your cups, were you?”

The hand dropped. Alastair’s glare was encouraging. “Quite sober.”

“Then explain it to me. Some nonsense about the hospital budget.” Michael opened the last set of curtains, and in the process, discovered the source of the smell: a breakfast tray, abandoned on the floor. Jones had been wrong; Alastair had not touched his plate of eggs. The maids were probably too frightened to retrieve it, and too fearful to tell Jones so.

“Whoever told you that we’re lacking funds was misinformed,” he said as he turned back. Devil take these gossips. He should never have let that journalist into the hospital. But he’d assumed that the article would discuss the plight of poverty, the need for legal reforms.

Instead the reporter had fixated on the spectacle of a duke’s brother personally ministering to the dregs. Ever since, the hospital had been overwhelmed by all manner of unneeded interest—bored matrons raised on tales of Florence Nightingale; petty frauds hawking false cures for every ailment under the sun; and, above all, his brother’s political opponents, who mocked Michael’s efforts in editorials designed to harm Alastair. Had his attention not been occupied by his brother’s troubles, he would have been livid with irritation.

“You misunderstood,” Alastair said. “That was not a report of rumors. That was information. You are about to lose your main source of funding.”

“But you’re my main source of funding.”

“Yes. I’m withdrawing it.”

Michael froze halfway to the seat opposite the desk. “Forgive me, you . . . what?”

“I’m withdrawing my funding.”

Astonishment briefly silenced him. He lowered himself into the chair and tried for a smile. “Come now. That’s a poor joke. Without your funding, the hospital—”

“Must close.” Alastair folded up the newspaper, his movements fastidious. “There’s one inconvenience of treating the poor. They can’t pay.”

Michael groped for words. “You . . . can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

They locked eyes, Alastair expressionless.

Christ.
He knew what this was about. “The hospital was not her idea!” Yes, it had been named after Margaret, but that had been by
Alastair’s
suggestion. Yes, Margaret had encouraged Michael in the idea, but it had been
his
project.
His
creation. The one thing he could do that his brother could not. “The hospital is
mine
.” The result of nearly a decade of his sweat and toil, with the lowest mortality rates of any comparable institution in the country. “Good God! Simply because she favored the project—”

“You’re right,” Alastair said. “It has nothing to do with her. But I have reflected on it at length. And I have decided it was an unwise investment.”

Michael shook his head. He could not believe this. “I’m dreaming,” he said.

Alastair drummed his fingers once. “No. You’re quite awake.”

“Then this is
bollocks
.” He slammed his hands flat on the desk and stood. “You’re right—she deserves no legacy! I’ll call in the stonemasons today. We’ll chisel her name right off the damned façade. But you cannot—”

“Don’t be juvenile.” Alastair’s words might have been chipped from ice. “You will do no such thing. The press would have a field day with its speculations.”

His laughter felt wild. “And you think they won’t when the place suddenly
shuts down
?”

“No. Not if you manage it with some subtlety.”

“Oh, and now you mean to enlist
me
in this madness?” He drove a hand through his hair, pulling hard, but the pain brought no clarity, only added a sharper edge to his disbelief. “Alastair, you cannot
seriously
think I’ll help you to destroy that place—the place I
built
—simply to sate your need for— God knows!
Revenge?
She’s
dead,
Al!
She
won’t suffer for it! The only people who will suffer are the men and women we treat there!”

Alastair shrugged. “Perhaps you can persuade some other charitable institution to take in the sickest of them.”

A strangled noise escaped him. There was no other charity hospital in London with the resources—resources funded chiefly by Alastair, the fifth Duke of Marwick—to minister to every patient in need. And Alastair
knew
that.

Michael turned away from the desk, pacing a tight circle to contain this savage uproar of feeling. This was more than anger. It was a burning mix of shock, rage, and
betrayal
. “Who are you?” he demanded as he spun back. For Alastair always had been a fount of encouragement, both verbal and financial. Study medicine? A
grand idea
. Open a hospital?
Very well, let me fund it.
Alastair had been his protector, his champion . . . his
parent,
when he was young, for God knew their mother and father had been otherwise occupied. “This is not you speaking!”

Alastair shrugged. “I am as I have always been.”

“To hell with that! You haven’t been that man in—months!” He stood there a moment, his thoughts spinning wildly. “My God. Is this to be her legacy, then? Will you let Margaret drive us apart? Is
that
what you want? Alastair, you
cannot
mean to do this!”

“I anticipated your distress, and I do regret it.” Alastair was studying his hands where they rested, loosely linked, atop his blotter. A
bare
blotter. He hadn’t looked over his ledgers, or read his correspondence, in weeks. All of it,
all
of his business, had fallen to Michael.

He’d not minded it. As a boy, Alastair had shielded and protected him. He’d been glad to repay that debt. But now . . . now the thought of all he’d done recently felt like salt in the wound. “My God. That you would do this to
me
—”

“You’re precisely the reason I do it. And I offer a solution, if you’ll be calm enough to listen to it.”

“Calm!” A strange laugh seized him. “Oh yes, let us be
calm
!” At Alastair’s pointed look toward the chair, he gritted his teeth and sat again. His hand wanted to hit something. He balled it into a fist.

His brother eyed him from behind that desk—that overlarge abomination of a desk, from which their father, too, had lorded it over the world—like a king considering a tiresome petitioner. “I am prepared to make a very sizable settlement upon you, large enough to fund the hospital for decades.”

What in God’s name? “That would be more than
large
.” The hospital treated the poorest citizens of London, and ran entirely on charitable donations.

“Indeed. But there are conditions.”

An uncanny feeling ghosted down his spine. A minute ago, he’d felt as though he did not recognize the man across from him. But perhaps he recognized him too well.
There are conditions.
That had been one of their father’s favorite phrases.

“Go on,” he said warily.

Alastair cleared his throat. “You are generally regarded very warmly in polite circles. Accounted . . .
charming,
I believe.”

His premonition strengthened. According to Alastair’s hierarchy of virtues, discipline and enterprise ranked first; charm appeared somewhere below a firm handshake and basic hygiene. “I won’t like what’s coming.”

Alastair’s mouth twisted, less a smile than a grimace. “Perhaps
too
charming. You must know your reputation. Being glimpsed entering a widow’s town house before noon—that was poorly done.”

Done
three years ago,
in fact. “Christ, but you’ve a memory like an elephant! I’ve never been so sloppy again!” He’d never given another lover cause for complaint. He’d refined discretion to a bloody
art
.

“Your disinterest in politics does not help matters.” Alastair settled his fingertips atop the rim of his brandy glass, turning it in increments. “You are not taken . . . seriously, shall we say. But that must change. You are thirty years old. It is time you overcame your objections to marriage.”