She felt his anger pulsing over her. His large body was shaking. He was angry? She shook her head against his shoulder. “He said nothing. He just wanted to seduce me. I dealt with him, your grace,” she added, terrified that he’d go after DeWitt.
She felt him stiffen taut as a bow string pulled tight. “No, please, you were right about such an occasion as this. At least half a dozen gentlemen have tried to seduce me. There’s really nothing to it after the first three. DeWitt is a horrible man, but I would have shoved him over the railing if he’d tried anything. Who is he? How do you know him?”
“He hasn’t been in London very long. I met him through Drew. He’s Lord Hampton’s secretary, from the Lake District, I believe. He’s involved in all his lordship’s political maneuvering. Now tell me, why did you come out here alone?”
He tried to pull away from her, but she wouldn’t let him go. She stayed close, holding his lapels with her fists. “I wanted to be alone for a moment. There was nothing else. I saw that you were dancing. You were dancing with every lady here. You only danced with me once. Please, may we leave now?”
What the devil was going on here? He wanted to yell at her, but knew it wouldn’t gain anything. He said, “Very well. But you will have to release me.”
“I don’t want to, but I will.” She did release him but left her hands flattened against his chest. “Thank you,” she said, looking up at him. “Thank you for coming after me.”
She’d disarmed him. He had to shake his head. “Damn you, I came after you to beat you for being such a fool as to come out here alone. When I saw DeWitt follow you, I nearly threw my dancing partner into the punch bowl.” He gave her a smile that held still a bit of anger, and she saw it plainly since she knew him so well. But he hadn’t yelled or ranted or run after DeWitt and pounded him, thank God.
“Thank you,” she said again. She stepped away from him, her reticule held tightly to her chest.
He said from behind her, “DeWitt has a reputation that isn’t at all nice. I’ve heard it said that he likes to hurt women. He likes them at his mercy, both in bed and out of it. He was certainly wrong to follow you, wasn’t he?”
“I did spit on him,” she said, still so frightened and guilty that she wanted to fold up and let the cold freeze her to her soul.
“What would you have done if that hadn’t worked?”
“I would have kicked him in the groin. My father told me to do that, as an extreme measure to stop a man.”
“That would be the result, certainly. Now, if you would excuse me, I want to speak to DeWitt, teach him a very small lesson that would perhaps better his manners and his judgment.”
She grabbed his arm with strength she didn’t know she had. “No!” A black eyebrow arched upward. “No,” she said again. “Please don’t go near that man. He isn’t honorable like you are. I know it. He’s the kind of man who would laugh and smile to your face and slip a stiletto in your back the moment you turned away. No, don’t go after him. Please, forget him. Please.”
She looked distraught, even terrified. Because she was afraid for him? Evidently so. He was again disarmed, and annoyed.
“Please,” she said again. “I want to go home. Please don’t go after him. He’s not honest and good like you are. He’s an animal.”
The duke flung back his domino and took her arm. “Let’s fetch my mother, then, and we’ll leave.”
She laughed. “If you had a cutlass right now, the image would be perfect. Oh, dear, I’m actually laughing instead of shaking in my slippers.” “What damned image?”
“You looked like a pirate when you flung back the domino, the moonlight behind you.”
He groaned. “Listen to me. If I were a pirate, I’d be wise to have you flogged. No other woman has ever made me see myself as you have. Let’s go.”
An hour later, when he stopped at her bedchamber door, she said, “Do you remember your promise to me?”
“Which one would that be?”
“I could return to Chesleigh whenever I wished to.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I want to return to Chesleigh tomorrow.” He was silent overlong. Finally he said, “Would you like to tell me what’s going on?” “I want to go back to Chesleigh.” “Why?” he said, his voice very low, very gentle. “Tell me why you want to leave.”
He blinked in surprise when she said suddenly, “Now that Napoleon is back in power, what will happen?”
He shook his head. “Napoleon is a man who must rule, not just one city or one country. He must have everything. He will never stop, never. There will be war, nothing else will stop him. Didn’t you know? Wellington is now with the Prince of Orange in Brussels. Perhaps a month from now? Two months? It will be bloody, but you know, I’m not a doomsayer like many of our countrymen. The fact is that Napoleon decimated his army on his ill-advised invasion of Russia some two years ago. He has inexperienced boys now swelling his ranks. Wellington will win, he must.” “I know he will as well. Thank you,” she said, not looking at him. “I will leave in the morning, Edmund with me, if that pleases you. There is no need for you to escort us back to Chesleigh.”
“Don’t be a twit. You’re under my protection. Naturally, I’ll take you and my son back to Chesleigh.”
She looked as though she’d argue, then shook her head. “Thank you,” she said again, turned on her heel, and went into her bedchamber. She closed the door quietly behind her.
He stood there, staring at that damned door. She was on the other side. All he had to do was open that door and go to her. He knew if he did, he would make love to her, probably make love with her until they were both unconscious. His hand was on the doorknob. Then he drew it back.
He would see her in the morning. He planned to see her every day for the rest of their lives. But first, he knew, he had to find out what was holding her back from him. What was wrong? He shrugged. He would find out everything he wanted to know about her. The problem was probably something niggling and insignificant, and he would fix it. Even if it was something more than insignificant, he would fix it. Wasn’t his son always telling him that he was the strongest papa in the world, and the smartest?
He was whistling at he walked to his bedchamber.
“You don’t have to return with us, your grace. Surely there are so many more interesting things for you to do here.”
He gave her a lazy grin. “No, not this time. I’ve decided you need my guilding hand, Evangeline. I’ve decided that whenever I let you out of my sight, you flounder, nearly get yourself seduced, and then when I come to save you, you don’t want to let me go.”
She hadn’t slept well, had dreamed of Edgerton slipping into Edmund’s bedchamber, a length of rope in his hands, or a stiletto, or just his hands, his fingers, that could squeeze the life out of a child. She wanted only to leave London.
“I won’t rise to your bait,” she said. He let her be. She didn’t look at all well.
Marianne Clothilde said as she held Edmund against her side, “My son will take care of you two, Evangeline. Leave everything to him. You look tired, my dear. Just beg Edmund to let you sleep. Perhaps he’ll be good enough to allow it.”
“If she promises to make the weather warm again, Grandmama, then I’ll let her nap with me.”
“You are a sainted child,” Marianne Clothilde said, kissing her grandson. “I imagine Evangeline will be able to deal with something as easy as England’s weather.”
“That’s what I thought,” Edmund said. Marianne Clothilde kissed him again. “Thank you for your kindness, your grace,” Evangeline said. “I hope I will see you again.”
“Oh, you shall. I fancy you and I will be seeing quite a lot of each other in the future. Now, dearest, may I speak to you for a few moments?”
When Evangeline had taken Edmund from the drawing room, Marianne Clothilde said, “I wish you luck. There is something wrong here. Leaving with no warning, it makes no sense. I haven’t a clue to what it may be. Do you?”
“Not as yet. If there is something bothering her, I shall wring it out of her.”
“I’m glad that Edmund is so very fond of her. I don’t suppose you’d ever use your son as a lever, would you?”
Her handsome, very confident, sometimes arrogant son raised an eyebrow and said, “Damnation, Mother, do you think I will have to stoop to such a level as that?”
“It’s possible. Evangeline is a strong-willed young woman.”
He started to say that she would do what he told her to when he realized that if he said those words, his fond mother would likely laugh at him. Actually, he’d probably laugh at himself. “I’d even use Bunyon if it would gain me,” he said. Marianne Clothilde said as she turned to look up at the portrait of the late duke, “It’s a shame that she was just a child when your father wanted you to marry. I fancy that things would have turned quite differently had she been Marissa’s age.”
“Father liked to tell me that if I always looked to the future and didn’t whine about the past, only corrected my past mistakes, then all would work out and I would be a better man.” The duke swept up his mother in his arms and hugged her tightly. “I miss Father as do you. Do you know that he was right? Do you know I fancy that a widower and a widow are well matched?”
“I believe,” Marianne Clothilde said, “that you and your father are two of the best men who have ever graced the earth. I loved him with all my heart. I don’t expect Evangeline to feel any less about you.”
Chapter 32
The duke’s face was perfectly straight, his voice perfectly even as he said, “… And then Bunyon swore to my father that the bully did indeed fall off the bridge. He also swore that I’d been standing at least ten feet away, that I couldn’t have been responsible. To which my father said, ‘I already know that my son’s a devil, Bunyon. That he’s also a magician comes as no surprise.’”
Evangeline laughed. “Did the bully know how to swim?”
“As I recall, Teddy Lawson was torturing other children the very next day.” “Whatever happened to him?” “The last I heard, he was a vicar somewhere in the Cotswolds. Life is interesting, is it not?”
Her head went down. She drew stillness over her as if it were a shield to protect her. He frowned at her bent head. “You didn’t answer me,” he said. “Don’t you agree that life is interesting? That life prepares sometimes very unusual dishes to put on your plate?”
“Yes,” she said, raising her head again, still not looking at him. “Life is so unexpected that I sometimes want to die. No, I didn’t mean that. How silly of me to say such a ridiculous thing.”
It was a start, the duke thought. They’d been back to Chesleigh for only two days. He already knew that she’d suffered pain in her short life; the sainted Andre had departed this life, and her father and mother had also died. But there was something else, and it was different. He felt immense frustration. Why had she wanted to come back to Chesleigh, and with so little warning?
He leaned his shoulder against the mantelpiece, a glass of brandy in his hand, and looked thoughtful a moment. He said abruptly, “Perhaps you would like to come with me to Southampton. We could sail to the Isle of Wight. If it pleased you, we could remain at my house in Ventnor for several days. Edmund loves it there, as I already told you. It would be a rare treat for him.”
She felt fear, panic, and a terrible regret well up inside her. The instruction given to her by Conan DeWitt was that she meet one of Houchard’s men the following evening at the cove and he would have further orders for her. “No,” she said quickly. She saw the puzzlement on his face and added quickly. “That is, I’m a dreadful sailor. I have a fear of boats, even big ones. I know it makes no sense, that it’s stupid, really”—she fanned her hands in front of her—“I just can’t help it.”
He’d finally caught her in what seemed to him to be an utterly meaningless lie. He said, “Ah, a good swimmer, but afraid of the water.” “No, just boats.”
“You know, Evangeline, you don’t have to lie in order to remain here at Chesleigh. Or is it Chesleigh itself that holds you? No, that isn’t it. As I recall, you couldn’t wait to leave here just a very short time ago. And now you’re back again. It doesn’t make sense, does it? Perhaps you just don’t want to be in my company. Are you thinking I’ll try to seduce you? Rid yourself of such a notion. That is something altogether different; our coming together is something that is between you and me. I truly believe you’d enjoy Ventnor.”
A headache was building ferociously over her left eyebrow. “I’m not worried about seduction. I’m not worried about anything. I want to stay at Chesleigh. I love it here. I don’t want to leave.” “Until you beg me to take you to London again?” “I don’t fancy I will want to go to London again.” “Why the devil not?” She just shook her head, not looking at him, not saying anything at all. He pushed away from the mantelpiece, snapped down his glass, and strode over to her. He grabbed her arms and pulled her to her feet. He shook her. “Damn you, we’ve been home now two days. You’ve done your best to avoid me. I wanted to go riding with you, and you pleaded the headache. You’re skulking around like a damned shadow, that or a convict hiding from the magistrate. What the devil is wrong?” He eyed her with growing frustration. “There’s nothing at all wrong.” He let her go and began pacing. He said over his shoulder, “I hate games, Evangeline. If you find my company distasteful to you, then all you have to do is say so. I won’t order you to leave Chesleigh. I won’t kick you into a ditch. If you don’t want me, damn you, just tell me. I assure you that I’ve never forced a woman in my life. By God, every time I’ve touched you, you’ve gone wild for me. We’ve gone wild for each other. Now, tell me, what’s going on?” In the next instant he pulled her up tightly against him, his arms wrapped around her, so close to her that he could smell her scent, feel the steady beat of her heart against his.
“Ah, Evangeline,” he said. She looked up at him and saw all that he felt for her in his eyes, dark, dark eyes, the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen in her life. Oh, no, she thought, oh, no. She became aware that he was studying her, a curious expression in his eyes.
“Evangeline?”
She hated the tenderness in his voice, hated what it meant because she wasn’t worthy. She wasn’t anything that was good or wholesome or honest.
“Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She stared at him, bereft of words. She couldn’t move. He wanted to marry her? That meant he cared for her, truly cared for her; it wasn’t just that he wanted her body. No. She licked her tongue over her bottom lip. She felt him tighten. “No,” she said very quietly, so unhappy, so despairing, that she wondered how she’d go on. “I cannot. You don’t mean that, surely you don’t. You’ve just been thrown in my company too much. You like my breasts, that’s all. That’s it, isn’t it?”
He brought his thumbs under her chin and pushed up her face. “I worship your breasts. They are divine breasts. Also, I just happen to adore your company. I don’t want to spend time with any other woman, just you. I don’t want to make love to any other woman, just you. I want you to marry me. I will be so faithful, you’ll occasionally want to kick me off your hearth. And if you didn’t hear me the first time, yes, I revere your breasts.”
She pulled away from him, and he let her go. It was her turn to pace. She wanted to run but knew she couldn’t. He’d catch her. He already knew something was terribly wrong. She had to convince him that she wasn’t anything he could possibly want. His wife? Oh, God, no.
“You’re mocking me. You are amusing yourself at my expense,” she said at last. “It isn’t well done of you.”
“I suppose I did rush my fences a bit,” he said. “And here I’ve always considered myself a bit of an expert on handling women. I wouldn’t ever amuse myself to hurt you, Evangeline. Marriage is a serious business. I don’t think I could jest about how I wish to spend my life.”
She felt a nearly overwhelming burst of utter joy, but almo
st immediately she saw Edmund, dead, his lifeless eyes staring up at her. She saw her father, and he was dead as well, his white hands folded over his chest, his eyes closed, two copper pennies covering them, just as her mother’s eyes had been closed with copper pennies in her death. She couldn’t bear it, she just couldn’t. She wanted to shriek. Instead, she felt tears sting the back of her eyes, tears of rage at her helplessness.
There was no choice for her. She forced herself to turn away from him. She forced herself to say in a faraway voice, “I thank you, your grace, but my answer to your gracious offer must be no. I don’t wish to marry again. I don’t wish to be at the whim of another man for the rest of my life. I’m sorry, truly, if I’ve distressed you—”
He laughed. “I’ve never before heard that phrase, but I know it’s one that’s supposedly popular with young ladies who want to be polite as they turn down a suitor. Is this the first time you’ve had to use it?”
She had to find something else, anything. “It’s an English lady you must wed, your grace, not some half-French nobody without a dowry who has already been once married.”
He laughed again, shaking his head at her. “No, Evangeline. I don’t want an English lady. It’s a lady who is half French, who is a thorn in my side, who is more stubborn than a stoat, who loves my son as much as he loves her. Ah, and don’t let me overlook her tongue that flays me when she isn’t kissing me or looking at me like she wants to leap on me.
“You must know that the last thing I need is a dowry. As to your having already been married, it makes no difference. How could you ever think that it would? Believe me, I’ve no interest at all in some young twit who’s as ignorant as the winter is long. As to being at another man’s whims, I promise you that if I ever become an autocrat, you can pound me in the head. Isn’t that fair?”
“I don’t want to,” she said, and she knew that it wasn’t enough, but her brain was blank, only emptiness remained. “Please, don’t speak of it further.”