Mad About the Duke, page 11
How could this be?
So lost was he in the wonder of it that he barely took in their surroundings until they were already into the Lane and wedged in on either side by eager shoppers and merchants alike.
Jewish merchants with their long beards and side locks, cockneys calling out the bargains their stalls boasted, goods piled on tables in haphazard mixtures. Gowns, coats, laces all mingled with rugs, household goods, books and a little bit of everything else.
And the people! From every walk of life it seemed. Tradesmen and their wives, tavern servers and actresses, even farmers and yokels in from the surrounding countryside. With that said, it wasn’t hard to also see the shady characters milling about the byways—with so many purses about, the thieves and pickpockets were well in attendance.
He pulled Lady Standon closer than was proper, and she glanced up at him. It was like the moment in the garden when they’d gone from bantering to kissing—for as their gazes met something inside him sparked, but this time she abruptly pulled away and went to look over a selection of gloves on a table.
“You’ve never been here, have you, Mr. St. Maur?” Lady Standon said as she held a pair up for Tia to see. The girl’s nose wrinkled in dismay and they continued along, Lady Standon marching determinedly ahead of him.
“No, I can’t say that I have.”
“Delightful, isn’t it?” Tia added.
James wasn’t too convinced. “Whatever are we doing here?” he said quietly in Lady Standon’s ear.
“Looking for gowns for Tia, a new dress for me and of course, a new coat for you.”
“Here?” he looked about. In all this chaos?
“Well, yes, of course. Unless you’ve suddenly come into a duke’s fortune,” she teased. “Now come along. You act as if you’ve never bought a piece of clothing secondhand, when that jacket tells an entirely different story.”
“Yes, I suppose you’ve found me out,” he said readily. “But I don’t think I need—”
“Will your wife mind?” Tia said, poking her head around her sister’s shoulder.
“Tia!” Lady Standon sputtered even as he stammered his reply.
“Will my—”
“Your. Wife.” The incorrigible imp all but spelled it out. “Will she mind if you come home from this errand with a new coat?”
“No,” he managed to say, thinking a wife was the least of his worries. Richards would be in a foul disposition for at least a fortnight if James came home with a coat his valet hadn’t personally supervised. Why, the man would probably quit.
Tia ignored her sister’s scathing glance and blushes. “No, she won’t mind that you’ve allowed my sister to find you a new jacket, or no, you don’t have such an encumbrance at home?”
“A wife is hardly—”
“You’re married?” Lady Standon blurted out, and even as the words came out, she covered her mouth and looked as if she wished herself as far from this spot as humanly possible.
He knew exactly how she felt.
“No, I have no wife,” he said to Tia. “I am a widower.”
If he wasn’t mistaken, this appeared to be a matter of some relief to Lady Standon, but not to her sister.
She was already muttering something about “ask him if he has a garden” before she wandered over to a booth piled high with boots and slippers and all manner of shoes.
And with her departure an uncomfortable silence arose between them.
“Your sister—,” he began even as Lady Standon said, “I am so sorry.”
They both stopped and then laughed.
“She’s a wretched little busybody,” Lady Standon said.
“She is something,” he said—just what he wasn’t about to say out loud. Not when most people would probably say the same about Arabella.
Arabella. It was because of her that he’d come to Town in the first place.
Though if it hadn’t been for his errant daughter’s antics, he would never have met Lady Standon. He glanced over at her and smiled. “You needn’t worry that I’m offended. Your sister has her charms.”
“I told her not to ask—,” she began and then stopped, having realized she was giving away her curiosity about him.
Something inside James heated. “You were wondering if I was married?”
“It is just that it would hardly do to put you in a difficult situation with your wife—that is, if you had one…. I would never want to cause…oh, bother. Yes, I was wondering if you were married.”
“I can see why,” he teased, moving away and leaving her gaping after him.
“Why do you say that?” she asked, hurrying after him, then feigning interest in a parasol that was more holes than lace. “It isn’t as if—”
“You don’t remember, do you?” he asked her quietly.
“Remember what?” she said, putting down the parasol and reaching for an equally wretched reticule.
“Remember last night,” he said, watching her reaction—oh, and what a reaction it was, for she winced, then paled completely.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “I remember last night perfectly. I went to the Setchfield ball. I met the Duke of Longford. Charming man. He asked me to dance—twice, I’ll have you know.”
“Extraordinary,” he offered. “Sounds like a perfectly enchanting evening.” He paused for a moment, then prodded her a bit more. “Then what happened?”
Her gaze flitted hastily to his. “Whatever do you mean?”
“What happened next?” he repeated, crossing his arms over his chest and tipping his head to one side.
“I went to the ball,” she said. “I met the Duke of—”
“Yes, yes, I know all that,” he told her, waving off her recitation of the simple facts. “But what happened after you danced with Longford?”
“Twice,” she told him. “I danced with him twice.”
“So I heard the first time, but I’m curious as to what happened next.”
Elinor set down the reticule and moved off to the next booth, doing her best to appear nonplussed by his queries. “Why, la, sir, it was a dreadful crush. So many people, such a whirl…so many dances.”
“Yes, I know,” he said. “Twice with Longford. But you know the Setchfield ball; it is never over until there is some scandalous doing. And I can’t help wondering—”
The lady stilled, then slowly turned to face him. “You, sir, are no gentleman. You were there, weren’t you?”
He nodded, trying to keep the smile from his lips.
She came stalking forward and whispered so her sister wouldn’t hear, “What happened?”
James laughed. “My lady, I never kiss and tell.” He winked at her, then sauntered off.
When he glanced back over his shoulder, her face was as red as the crimson velvet she’d admired the day before, and he knew one thing for certain.
If she hadn’t remembered much of their passionate garden interlude before, she did now.
If James thought he’d bested her, he was sorely mistaken.
For after a few moments, Lady Standon straightened her shoulders and followed him, a determined click to her boot heels.
One day he would realize that sound as a sure sign he’d overstepped himself, but today he was too full of his own mischief to realize that Elinor Sterling was not a lady to be bested easily.
“How are your reports going?” she asked, changing the subject completely.
“Reports?”
“On my list of dukes,” she said, smiling sweetly, as if their previous conversation hadn’t happened.
“Oh, yes, the reports,” James said. “Actually, I have a meeting with a close associate of the Duke of Avenbury later today.”
“Truly?”
“Yes.” He paused, then glanced at her. “Unusual choice, Avenbury, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I wondered about him. His entry in the Bachelor Chronicles was smudged, and I could only make out the barest bits of information, though I could make out the words ‘most likely.’”
It took James a moment to sort out what she’d said, not that he understood much of it. “The Bachelor what?”
“The Bachelor Chronicles,” she corrected, waving off a merchant holding up two gowns for her to examine. “This is so embarrassing, but I suppose it does no good to conceal it from you, of all people. The Duchess of Hollindrake has kept a journal of sorts.”
James felt his head begin to ache. The Duchess of Hollindrake? Now there was trouble in muslin if ever there was. “A Bachelor Journal?”
“Chronicles,” Elinor corrected. “She’s been working on it for years.”
Years? James cringed inwardly. That meant the former Felicity Langley had probably been keeping it when she’d been one of Miranda’s students. The first time he’d met her, at Jack and Miranda’s wedding…
Your Grace, I have some questions about the dukes of your acquaintance…
That impish, busybody female! Now he knew what she’d been up to!
“She’s compiled a veritable encyclopedia about all the bachelors in England.” She paused and glanced over at him. “The eligible ones, of course.”
“Of course,” he managed to agree. Good God! That was like giving the devil a list of likely prospects.
Then he paused. Demmit! What did this journal say about him? Enough condemnation apparently that Lady Standon had crossed him from her list.
Or had the duchess’s sister Thalia and their cousin Lady Philippa used their lurid imaginations to add a lengthy passage about the Tremont curse of madness? Knowing how those two loved embellishment, such an entry would likely deter even the most desperate of debutantes from giving up her spinsterhood to step one foot into Parkerton Hall as its mistress.
Even to be a duchess.
Not that he was looking. Not in the least.
“So that I understand this correctly,” he said, “you have based your future marital happiness on the scribbling of a schoolgirl?”
But instead of seeing the sense of his words, she laughed. “A duchess, sir. Felicity Langley is now the Duchess of Hollindrake. As for my future well-being, I haven’t any presumption of finding happiness within the bonds of marriage. I’m getting married to a duke, after all.” Then she continued on to join her sister in front of a gaudy display of gowns.
James came to a stop. No intention of finding happiness? Just because she was getting married to a duke?
Well, of all the presumption! That a duke couldn’t make a lady happy. Couldn’t love a woman to distraction and give her every bit of joy and contentment she deserved.
He could do all that and more. Or so he believed until he stumbled a bit on the uneven cobblestones as a wry thought pierced his convictions.
As you did with Vanessa?
We married young, he argued with himself. Still, he had to admit that he’d taken his wife’s affection for him as genuine without much effort on his part. He had never thought to do more…had never thought it necessary.
“You don’t think a duke is capable of love?”
She cocked a wry brow. “Sir, I was married to Edward Sterling. My experience says otherwise.”
The lady had a point there. Still…“Was it truly so bad?” he pressed.
Turning her back to him, she chose not to answer. Couldn’t answer.
James felt her anguish cut through his own heart. He drew closer to her, resisted the urge to hold her, and said softly, “I am ever so sorry, Lady Standon.”
“As was I.”
Straightening, James felt an overwhelming desire to rise up in defense of himself and his fellow dukes, but then he faltered as he tried to think of what it was exactly he would do to make a wife happy.
Besides the obvious choices of jewels and flowers. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what to do to make a wife happy…it was just that he hadn’t had much practice. Vanessa had died when Arabella was born, and James had never remarried, her betrayal at the end having torn his trust in two.
Of course, he’d showered his mistresses with affectionate tokens. Yet he winced as he recalled that Winston had taken care of ordering those things up and having them sent over.
He’d done very little.
Actually, nothing at all, if he was feeling honest, much as Miranda had implied the other day.
Then he glanced up, looked at Lady Standon and realized he didn’t know any more about marriage than he knew about her and her demmed list.
And, he discovered, she also knew very little about shopping for gowns.
For the lady stood across the crowded lane holding up a crimson gown. Sleeveless and cut low, it was adorned in a froth of gold lace—both expensive and utterly gaudy. It was the most outrageous piece he’d ever seen and he didn’t need much imagination to know what she would look like in it.
Or without it.
Nor did it appear that any other man in the vicinity had much trouble envisioning such a sight as well, for several had stopped to leer at the fetching lady and her scandalous choice.
He crossed the lane in about two strides and plucked it from her hands as she held it up for Tia to examine.
“Put this back,” he said in the tone he usually reserved for one of his errant relatives. He shoved the gown at the vendor, who in turn glared back.
“Such a shame, miss. Would look lovely on you,” the seller said, ignoring James’s black, scathing looks. “Perhaps you should take it, if you are looking to find a new one, that is.” His brow wrinkled with disapproval as he glanced at James.
“I am,” she said.
James leaned over and said in her ear, “He thinks you are looking for a new patron. A new lover. Not a husband.”
And instead of being incensed at the insult, Elinor shocked him a second time. “I know well enough what sort of gown this is.”
“You know what you would look like wearing that gown?”
She paused. “You think I would look like a courtesan in this gown?”
“Yes, exactly,” he told her.
“And that it is too enticing?” she asked, eyeing it as the vendor held it up again, hoping to gain his sale.
“Far too enticing, Lady Standon. That gown is anything but proper.”
“So it is,” she said, nodding in agreement.
“Well, that is good news. Here I’d thought perhaps the lessons from last night had gone by the wayside,” he said, with his usual ducal disdain.
And probably a little more pompously than he should have.
Not probably. Far too pompously.
For there in her eyes burned a mischievous light.
She turned to the vendor. “I’ll take it.”
If Mr. St. Maur thought the gown scandalous, it must be outrageously so, Elinor realized. And that was exactly what she needed.
She hadn’t the time or patience for a long courtship. If she was going to entice either duke, Longford or Avenbury, to marry her without the long wait of banns, she needed a gown that would ignite a man to act.
Quickly.
Mr. St. Maur’s puritan reaction to the crimson velvet only solidified her first suspicions she’d had about the gown when she’d spied the hint of red poking out from behind a sapphire brocade.
In it, she’d be a duchess in no time.
“You are not buying that gown,” he told her.
Elinor ruffled at his tone. Slowly she turned around. “Pardon?”
“You are not buying that gown,” he repeated. “How can you when you know exactly what sort of dress that is?” He stepped between her and the vendor.
“Yes. One that makes a man forget himself.” She artfully dodged around him and paid the fellow, who had, in his vast experience in dealing in such gowns, become adapt at wrapping them up quickly and finalizing the sale before an outraged husband or patron could protest.
As she gathered up her treasure, she heard the unmistakable huffy sigh of disapproval behind her.
Elinor was under no delusions that just because she’d bought the gown he wasn’t finished with his lecture.
Irritating, arrogant fellow. Who was he to ring a peal over her head? She hadn’t been the one to lead him out to the garden last night…to pull him into her arms…to act so scandalously…
Well, she had had a bit of a hand in that last one, but the rest—well, how dare he imply she was the one who needed to be put in sackcloth!
Besides, who would have thought that a man who kissed so divinely could sound as stuffy as a vicar? Then he spoke, and it turned out he could be the vicar’s vicar when it came to being high-hatted.
“What sort of example will you be setting for your sister?”
He dared to bring Tia into this argument? When everything she was doing, everything she was giving up, was for her sister? Oh, this deserved a response that would ruffle the reverend’s collar that must be hidden beneath that ill-cut jacket of his.
Elinor grinned wickedly him. “A very married one.”
He threw up his hands and paced back and forth in front of her. “You will not go out in that gown,” he said, wagging a finger at her.
“Mr. St. Maur,” she said, “is that the best you can do? Order me about?”
He yanked off his hat and raked a hand through his hair before he plunked the tall beaver back onto his head. “Yes. It is. I order you not to wear that gown.”
Once again she came right up to him. It was shameless and reckless, for this close it was easy to ignore his tyrannical rant and think of him only as that enticing rake, the dangerous stranger she’d entrusted with her future happiness.
Certainly, he was angry with her. Furious, even, which in itself made Elinor shiver. For there was something all too tempting about provoking this man, to see just how perilous he could become.
His lips, hard and smooth, capturing hers…how his tongue swiped over her lips, demanding entrance…how she surrendered so willingly. The way her body clamored in triumph that this man, this glorious man, was no gentleman.
And wasn’t that exactly what she found so fascinating about St. Maur? That he was no gentleman?
Yet she couldn’t help but wonder, what then? Discover the truth about how much passion could exist between a man and a woman only to have to give it up for marriage?
