The Hallucinatory Duke (7 page)

He shrugged. “Mainly I’m trying to backtrack and figure out some way to take you up on that offer of sex.”

Amelia finally smiled, but she still shook her head. “Sorry, but like I said, it was a bad idea. Maybe I was thinking of appeasing the duke in some way, but frankly, I’m tired of being jerked around by a hallucination. If he’s all that interested in sex, let him have sex with
your
hallucination.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, neither of them seems interested in the other. Unless they’re getting together to compare notes after they make you and me climax. Separately, unfortunately.”

“Argh! You’re just planting more and more unpleasant pictures in my mind. I think you’d better go now.”

Jack’s shoulders slumped, then his eyes brightened. “I can’t leave yet. You haven’t explained to me why the Hardwicke Act is so relevant to our situation.”

“I don’t want to talk about any of this again tonight. Call me tomorrow. In the meantime, try researching the Hardwicke Act online and read up on it yourself.”

“I’ve done that. It didn’t help all that much, but I’ll try again.” He grabbed the bag containing his laptop. “Look, I’m sorry if the way I reacted to your suggestion upset you. I’m just not accustomed to having visitors from the past, and I know you’re not either. Let’s continue the research and maybe we’ll figure out what’s going on.”

“Sure,” Amelia responded. She had a hand on his arm, gently herding him towards the door. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Well, I certainly have renewed motivation to get rid of these damn visitors,” he announced. “Because I’ve got a strong feeling I’m not getting lucky until we do.”

Amelia laughed. “Getting rid of them might prove lucky in more ways than one.” She opened the door and held it while he stepped outside. “Give me a call tomorrow and we’ll talk about when we can get together.”

He agreed, said goodnight, and she closed the door and locked it behind him. Somehow, she didn’t think she’d ever felt lonelier than when she turned back around to an empty apartment.

Chapter Six

The duke arrived at his usual time, around three-thirty in the morning. Amelia had been asleep for less than two hours although she’d gone to bed early, simply because she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

She’d tried to continue transcribing the diary after Jack left, but Martha had gone back to writing her usual boring entries and Amelia couldn’t tolerate any more repetitive complaints about the weather or the servants. She then tried calling Julie, who wasn’t answering her cell, which Amelia took to mean that she was out with her new boyfriend. She even tried calling her parents, but she got their answering machine, then remembered it was bingo night at the Club.

She was so lonely she was tempted to call Jack and ask if he still wanted to know about the Hardwicke Act, but she decided that that was simply too pathetic. There was nothing left to do but go to bed, but then she couldn’t sleep. Her mind insisted on reviewing all of the facts she had been able to garner about her and Jack’s mysterious visitors. She was thinking about the duke when she finally dropped off to sleep.

She awoke with him stretched out beside her. He was lying on his side, facing her, and had pushed her nightshirt up above her breasts. When she opened her eyes, he started easing his hand down across her stomach towards her pussy.

“Oh no, you don’t,” she yelped, swinging at his jaw with her left hand. She was right-handed, though, which possibly explained why she missed his jaw and hit his ear.

“Oh!” He jerked his hand off her belly and slapped it to his ear. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I’m sick of you molesting me in my sleep, you pervert. Get away from me.”

“Molesting you? My dear woman, I hasten to point out that you have not raised a single complaint in the last two weeks. Now you accuse me of molesting you. Frankly, I think you should be thanking me.”

“I’ll thank you to get out of my bed and stay out. Furthermore, I’d like to know exactly who you are and what you’re doing here.”

He answered in an aggrieved tone. “I would have thought that what I have been doing would have been perfectly obvious. I’ve been servicing you.”

“Servicing me?” Amelia screeched. Suddenly aware that the duke’s hand again rested on her bare stomach, she slapped his arm away and pulled the sheet up to cover herself. “I don’t need servicing. I just need to know who the hell you are and why you’re really here.”

His dark eyebrows drew together. “I’ve warned you about your language.”

“And I’m warning you that if you make my thigh burn again, I’ll…I’ll… I don’t know what I’ll do, but it won’t be pretty.”

He sighed. “Very well. I suppose I don’t really have a right to dictate what words you may or may not use, but I at least have a right to know why you’ve been searching for me.”

“That’s simple enough. I’m being paid to investigate you.”

“Paid by whom?” he demanded with narrowed eyes.

“A man who thinks he may be your descendant.”

“I have no descendants. And if it’s someone hoping to prove my claim to the dukedom was fraudulent, he is due to be disappointed. The line of descent from the first duke is quite clear, from father to oldest son. Except, of course, in my case. I’m the third son.”

Amelia nodded and pushed herself up, bringing the sheet with her, then leaned against the headboard. “Yes, I’m aware of the deaths of your father and two older brothers. I also know that following their deaths, you and your cousin Charles were the only living heirs.”

He looked at her and frowned. “I did not know that you are acquainted with my family.”

“I’m not. I read about the unfortunate illness that claimed your father and brothers.”

“Of course. I should have realised that a woman like you wouldn’t really be acquainted with my family. Strangely, you do rather resemble Amy, but she has brown hair rather than blonde and, of course, she’s much more genteel than you.”

“Oh, really?” Amelia rarely lost her temper, but this damn duke was getting on her last nerve. She pulled a deep breath in through her mouth and blew it out slowly before speaking again. “Listen to me, Duke. I don’t want you bothering me anymore. Will you please refrain from coming here again?”

“I’m not sure that’s in my power.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something seems to keep calling me to you. At first I thought it was because you were appearing to me in my dreams, tempting me. But when I come to you, you don’t behave as I would expect a courtesan to behave.”

“Maybe that’s because I’m not a courtesan,” Amelia said, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling. “I’ve tried to tell you that all along.”

“Yes, but—What’s that noise?”

“My doorbell.” Amelia jumped out of bed and dashed to the closet to retrieve a robe. “Good God, it’s going on four o’clock in the morning. If this is Ben, so help me…”

She glanced back towards the bed only to discover that the duke had disappeared. Both irritated and relieved, she stomped to the front door and stared through the peephole.

Jack, appearing thoroughly dishevelled and somehow more handsome because of it, stared back at her.

She unlocked the door and jerked it open. Jack looked so wonderful standing there—so real and so steady and so permanent—that she simply stepped into his arms.

“Hey,” he murmured. She could judge from his slight hesitation that she had surprised him, but his reaction was everything she could have hoped for.

He pulled her close, and she rested her head against his shoulder. His fragrance, which already seemed as familiar and as comforting to her as the smell of brewing tea, filled her nostrils and soothed her jumpy nerves.

His T-shirt was soft against her face, and his warmth that seeped through the worn cotton brought with it the realisation that she’d been physically chilled by the duke’s presence. Thank heavens Jack was here now, to counteract that horrible sense of disconnect that had inundated her when she’d awoken to find the duke in bed with her.

Jack didn’t speak until she finally lifted her head off his shoulder. Even then, he still held her close, and his breath tickled her ear and sent delicious tingles dashing down her spine. “He’s been here, hasn’t he?” he asked.

She shivered and pulled back. “Yes.” She grasped his hand and pulled him inside. “I assume you’re here because you also had a visitor.”

He nodded. “That same female, of course. But tonight I forced her to talk to me, and I learned a few things. Just as we thought, she was married to the duke, but she admitted that she’d had lovers before her marriage. That’s why she’s so knowledgeable about men, but I wouldn’t let her touch me tonight.”

Amelia shivered again. “The duke tried to touch me, but I made him stop. Although he disappeared when you rang the doorbell, I felt especially unnerved this time. Chilled, even. Come on, I’ll brew us some coffee.” She headed for the kitchen.

Jack closed the door and followed her. “Ben told me you don’t like coffee.”

“I’ll drink almost anything that will warm me up and help me stay awake.” She retrieved a drip coffeemaker from the pantry and pulled a bag of coffee from the freezer.

“You freeze your coffee?” Jack had seated himself at a stool pulled up to the bar.

“Freezing keeps it fresh, which is pretty important when you only use it once every six months or so.”

“Gotcha,” Jack murmured.

As soon as she got the coffee started, she turned back around and propped her elbows on the counter across from Jack. Their faces were almost touching, so she closed her eyes and inhaled the fragrance of his aftershave, a delicious blend of citrus and spice that screamed
male, male
and that entered her bloodstream like an aphrodisiac. She straightened and took a step back. Based on their conversation earlier that evening, she figured they’d end up in bed sooner or later, but she also knew that now wasn’t the time. “So what happened this evening?”

“After I left here, I went by Ben’s. He’s more than ever convinced that we’re legitimate descendants of the Duke of Durbane and he’s getting impatient to prove it.”

“So what else is new? Literally, I mean. After you left Ben and went home. Was Amy waiting for you?”

“No. She arrived after I went to sleep. But I woke up when she touched me. This wasn’t a dream.”

“What did you do?”

“I told her to leave, that I didn’t want anything more to do with her.”

“And what did she do?”

“She was already irritated with me, and my refusal to let her touch me merely made her angrier. She claimed that I am bothering her, rather than the other way around. But before that she said something I
really
didn’t understand. She said I should stop romanticising the past. I started to tell her I wasn’t romanticising anything, because I don’t know what the hell is going on, but she didn’t wait around to listen. I blinked and she was gone.”

“You know, this whole thing is getting stranger and stranger.”

Jack rubbed his eyes. “Is that coffee almost ready?”

Four short beeps from the coffeemaker provided the answer he was looking for.

Amelia opened a cabinet door and pulled out a couple of mugs. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Black.”

“Good. I have cream, but I don’t have any of that artificial sweetener that Ben likes so much.” She poured two cups and set one on the counter in front of Jack.

Jack wrapped his hands around the mug. “What happened between you and the duke tonight?”

“We had a conversation.” Amelia picked up her coffee and blew on the steaming liquid, then set it down again. “I don’t know what year he’s coming from, but he mentioned Amy, so I’m guessing it was after they were married.”

“And we know now that she’s the one visiting me.”

“Why either of them would be visiting either of us is a question I can’t answer, unless it’s because Ben has us researching them. But I’ve researched a lot of people from the past during my studies and this is the first time any of them have ever visited me.”

“It’s almost as though they have something to hide.”

“Or something they want us to discover.”

“If that’s the case, why don’t they just tell us whatever it that they want us to know and then go away?”

Amelia shrugged. “Beats me.”

Jack took a sip of coffee. “I did a lot of reading before I went to sleep tonight but I still don’t see why you and Ben are so interested in the Hardwicke Marriage Act, unless you think Amy’s mother was illegitimate.”

“Oh, there’s no doubt that Miss Comstock was illegitimate. What makes her being born on the wrong side of the blanket important is the fact that she and Mr Pennycut were married by licence and she was a minor. This means, according to the law at that time, Miss Comstock didn’t really have parents, which means no one could have given her the required permission to marry as a minor, thus making the marriage void.”

Jack stared at her. “Did no one think it important at the time of Miss Comstock’s wedding?”

“I’m sure they didn’t. After all, no one could have foreseen that the Pennycuts would have a daughter, Amy, who would grow up and attract the attention of Jackson Lattimore, third son of the Duke of Durbane.”

“Third son? Oh that’s right, he was third in line for the dukedom. I believe Uncle Ben said Jackson’s father had expected him to go into the church.”

“That’s correct. But then illness struck the neighbourhood. The duke and both the older sons died within days of each other. Suddenly Jackson became the sixth Duke of Durbane, and little Amy Pennycut was a duchess.”

“So I’m assuming this is when her mother’s illegitimacy became important.”

“Yes, particularly to one person. Jackson and his cousin Charles were the only living heirs to the dukedom, meaning Charles was next in line. However, if Jackson and Amy had a legitimate son, he, of course, would precede Charles. Charles questioned the legitimacy of the duke’s marriage to Amy based on Amy’s mother being illegitimate and a minor, which would have voided her marriage and made Amy illegitimate. It’s believed he did this after discovering that Amy was expecting a child.”