What I Did For a Duke (24 page)

He came against her belly, his release wracking him almost brutally, her name—his new hallelujah—on his lips.

The hands of the clock were on the one and the six. His eyes were closed. Hers were open. She watched his eyelashes shuddering. He looked a decade younger and limp with bliss.

“The thing is, now you expect it to be like this always,” he said suddenly.

Like “this.” Like exiting your body prematurely for Heaven and crashing back to the earth like a falling star, brilliant and spent.

The clock face was neatly divided by the gold hands now. He would leave soon.

And she thought she didn’t need to ask what time of night his wife and baby had died. She was almost certain she knew the answer.

“Isn’t it?” she whispered.

She was suddenly afraid.

He inhaled and folded his arms behind his head, and pressed it into the pillow, and sighed out a breath. She looked into his furry armpit, that achingly splendid curve of his bicep, and marveled at herself for the intimate knowledge she now possessed of him, and how little shame she felt about it. He was quiet, eyes open now and aimed at the ceiling, where the shadows of the fire fitfully danced.

And then he tipped over on his side and looked down at her, frowning slightly, as though she were an arithmetic problem.

She was tempted to reach out and gently smooth out the lines around his eyes, wondering if sadness or squinting into the sun or just the inevitable process of growing older had caused them.

She pictured his arm bent in the shape of a baby.

She felt the pain of his loss inside her like a savage hook. She wanted to reach into him and take it out, as though it were shrapnel. But the pain was old to him, and somehow it had become a part of him. He could bear it and speak of it. It had shaped him; he had accommodated it. He had loved and he had lost and it had made him who he was.

But it was new to her. She wanted to cry for him, because she was truly sorry he’d known any pain at all, and she was angry, too, and didn’t know why. Life was, quite simply, unfair. It killed wives and babies, it made young men long to propose to the wrong women.

A line for his wife, a line for his baby, and a line for . . .

Pure contrariness.

The ones that appeared about his mouth when he smiled she liked very much.

She would never say this to him aloud. At least not yet. But she suspected he was wrong about love. Very wrong. He had loved truly and he had suffered pain. In deciding to marry Lady Abigail he’d been protecting himself against that sort of pain again, for he hadn’t loved her. And in making love to someone he desired but didn’t love, someone who in fact loved someone else, he was doing precisely the same thing.

They found forgetfulness together. Passion had its uses.

Would she become like him, she wondered, should Harry in fact propose to Millicent? Avoiding love in order to avoid pain?

“No,” he said finally. He was almost whispering, too. “It
isn’t
always like this.”

He wasn’t smiling now.

“You’re telling me the truth?”

A
little
smile now. And the lines. “I’m telling you the truth.”

Her turn to turn over and cross her hands behind her head. “Hmm.”

“Hmm, indeed.”

“And this is good?”

“Can you imagine it ever being better?”

This was a very unnerving question, indeed. She could not. She mulled it, troubled, but didn’t answer. She was too drowsy and thoughtful.

“I can assure you it . . . it has never been like this,” she thought she heard him say, as sleep closed in on her.

And at some point it claimed her fully, because she awoke before dawn in a chilled room beneath the blankets, and he was of course gone.

A
nd on his way back to his bedchamber, Moncrieffe quietly passed Ian’s room. He paused.

And out of pure deviltry, he gave the door one hard thump with his fist.

He heard a tremendous crashing sound and a great thud, as though Ian had leaped out of his skin and fallen out of bed.

But Alex was back in his room even before Ian reached the doorknob of his.

B
ut when he got there, he stared at the bed, and found he couldn’t yet get into it.

He ought to have been exhausted by the lovemaking. He ought to have lost consciousness the moment his head pressed against his pillow. But he was enervated and stunningly alive and afraid. He wanted a cigar, because he was in need of the obscuring comfort of a cloud of smoke, and he wanted to think, and he needed something to do with his hands.

So he wandered back down to the library, poured himself a drink, clipped a cigar and lit it.

He sucked it into life, settled onto the settee, sorted through the variety emotions that paraded by for his consideration, and admitted something to himself. The most compelling of them was fear.

He was afraid.

Again.

He breathed in, and sighed out, but that didn’t help.

He
was
afraid of very little, as he’d explained to Genevieve. Men confident in their skills with weaponry and with women had very little to fear. He possessed wealth and power and security. He’d known loss and lived through it, though it had turned him into a sort of sentry, patrolling the perimeters of whatever small world he happened to be visiting at the moment until the hour of midnight, the hour when things were taken from him, passed. Every night.

And he could still scarcely believe he’d told her about his wife, about Gilles, both of whom were secrets and yet not really. But then one’s defenses tend to get pummeled during lovemaking. And he was glad he had told her.

But here was the thing he feared: he wanted to talk to her every day. He wanted to make love to her every night. He wanted to know every curve and angle of her body, every hollow, every freckle, every scar. He’d never known a more clawing hunger for a woman’s body, and it shocked him, and he was clever enough to know it had only a little to do with her body. An incinerating, honest passion, the equal of his, was only the expression of who she truly was.

He wanted to know all of her thoughts. He wanted to tell her . . . well, most of his. He would ask nothing else from life if he would be allowed to protect and cherish her for the rest of his.

And yet he knew she hadn’t a clue, really, about what he felt. She was still deciding what she thought love meant. She was convinced it meant Harry. And thinking it meant Harry and believing it amounted to the same thing.

The irony was exquisite.

He blew a perfect ring of smoke and closed his eyes.
Beautiful.

He snorted. He wished for access to all the world’s languages at once, for then he would have a better word for how he felt and what she was. But he relived again the feel of her falling apart in his arms, the feel of her body welcoming his into it, and how he felt like a simpleton, entirely new and blessed, and he knew
beautiful
would have to do.

How about that? He’d been mastered at his own game. He was man enough to admit it. Men truly were simpletons.

How
had it happened?

Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life.

George Gordon, Lord Byron, had said that, and it was a dire day indeed when he found wisdom in the words of that bloody fool. But he understood. Before he’d been too young to really understand; he’d loved and he’d married as a young man will. But now he understood why someone would write things like “she walked in beauty like the night” and so forth. Because poetry was a barrier against raw emotions. It distilled them into bearable music, allowed one to accommodate them a little at a time.

Because he’d known the sort of loss that sent a man spiraling into nothingness as surely as if he’d been dropped out of the sky. He’d felt the wind of the abyss whistling behind him.

And so of course he was afraid.

Because he was staring down yet another loss.

But that didn’t mean he was a coward.

When he returned to his room he still didn’t sleep. For he knew what he would do next, and soon.

And no man slept the night before that sort of thing.

Chapter 22

T
oday the group of them were to walk out to the ruins for sketching. The day obliged them with sunny skies dotted all over with cottony clouds, but shawls were tugged closer and the wind whipped at coattails and once even took away Harry’s hat, which he’d had to chase nearly a mile, and which made everyone guffaw.

“Shoot it, Harry! It wants to get away!” Millicent called.

Genevieve pondered the internal chaos of everyone present. Apart, that was, from Millicent, who was strolling as innocently as usual alongside Harry once he caught his hat. She was excited about an opportunity to draw waterfowl, for she now embraced the opportunity to capture what she saw as the darker side of nature.

The duke had managed to subtly separate Genevieve from the rest of the crowd by striding on a little too rapidly, as usual, as though reaching the ruins were a matter of great urgency. She suspected he could not care in the least about the ruins.

She watched his seven-league legs cover the ground, and imagined him over her last night, his legs wrapped ’round hers, his lean hips plunging himself into her again and again—

She needed to stop as the blood rushed to her head, and then she’d realized she was all but dashing to catch him, as though she’d become an extension of him.

The soreness between her legs was a delicious reminder of the wildness, and try as she might—she thought she should at least try—she could not regret it.

Or feel guilty about it. She’d done it for herself; she had not been seduced, so much as she’d participated in a new world of pleasure.

And she should feel wicked. But she felt powerful. That she should know such pleasure, do something so
incredible
, made it perversely seem not only entirely possible, but likely, that Harry would realize he loved her and muster the courage to do what was right, which was, of course, propose to her.

She realized the duke hadn’t said a thing for a few minutes.

And that’s when she was worried
he’d
regretted everything.

She spent a few moments worrying so deeply about this that when he did speak he was startling as a thunderclap. As though the words had broken the surface of the day.

“Here is what I am thinking, Genevieve.”

He stopped abruptly and turned and stood.

So she stopped, too.

But . . . something was different about him. A stillness. A carefulness. Was he . . . Was he
nervous
? Surely not. Was he
angry
? Perhaps.

He looked as though he hadn’t slept. He had faint gray shadows beneath his eyes, whereas she had slept deeper and more dreamlessly than ever before.

“Are you unwell?” she tried.

“Un—” This for some reason seemed to astonish him. He blinked. “No.” He frowned.

“But . . . is something amiss?”

“No.”

“But you look so—”

“Hush,” he said.

She was startled to be shushed by him, and not a little affronted. Confused, she obediently pressed her lips closed and folded her hands in a parody of schoolgirl obedience and waited. Glowering.

But it was a few seconds more before he finally spoke. He seemed to be listening to a rush of thoughts in his head.

“We could marry,” were the words he finally produced.

Oh.

The breath went out of her in a gust.

“Each other,” he clarified, when it seemed she would never say anything. Would just stare.

He watched her intently. The morning sun landed directly on his face. He looked his age this morning, weary.

She darted a look up the road, as though she wished she could flee in that direction. Perhaps it was an idle suggestion, a sudden inspiration, his words. Not an actual proposal. Her hands folded and unfolded as she studied him.

“I should like to marry
you
, Genevieve,” he clarified then.

And yet she still couldn’t read his face.

Oh dear God. Now she feared it
was
a proposal. Though he’d more expressed a preference than asked for her hand in marriage.

Her first thought immediately thereafter was:
I will never, ever receive a proper marriage proposal.

The second was a terrible feeling that every time a man spoke of marriage she would be rendered mute.

“Do you need me to say it in yet another way?” Tersely and a bit ironic now.

But of course he was as dignified as ever. No blotchy blushing or stammering for him. No fussing with leaves or buttons. But he was watching her carefully. And he was so motionless. All the fierceness was in his eyes. And because now she knew that when tempests of emotion moved inside him he held very still, she wanted to touch him to soothe him.

And she didn’t want to touch him this way because she was suddenly afraid.

I don’t love him.

He doesn’t love me.

Ah, but that was likely why he’d proposed. She’d come to that realization last night.

He saw in her protection from the ultimate hurt, the ultimate risk.

“But . . . we don’t love each other,” she pointed out. Practically, she thought.

His head went a little. Perhaps acknowledging this.

“And I love Harry, as you know.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Of course,” he said.

“And I’m not your sort, as you mentioned before. Too clever.”

Another hesitation. She was terribly worried he was hurt, and yet this seemed unlikely. Possibly his
pride
was hurt.

“Not my sort,” he repeated slowly, privately amused at something. “Answer me this, Genevieve. Do you suppose you
felt
like my sort the night before last?”

Felt.
Last night. Nude, sweat, sucking, tasting, clawing, kissing. Oh God. Just thinking of it made her glance at his hands and lips and he knew, knew what she was thinking, and his pupils flared hotly. He seemed almost angry.

“That’s different,” she said faintly.

“Oh?” Eyebrow up. Why, why,
why
didn’t he ever blush?

“You said as much yourself,” she protested breathlessly, confused now, and panicking a little, her face warm. Why had she thought she understood men? She knew nothing, nothing at all about them.

Why did he have to
ruin
it?

“So I did,” he humored, softly. His voice was strangely frayed. “Nevertheless, we could do worse than each other.”

Flattering.

She hesitated. Frantically searching his face for a clue to what he was
truly
thinking or feeling. Odd, she’d gone from feeling intimacy, from feeling known and possessed, to feeling utterly at sea. She hadn’t the faintest idea what to say.

“Of course we could do worse,” she soothed.

A warning flicker crossed his face. He was, as usual, intolerant of being pacified.

“But don’t you want better for yourself, Moncrieffe? Shouldn’t you want to be in love?”

He didn’t quite scowl. But she could see the tightening of his jaw, the tightening of his lips, and oh,
splendid
, now he was getting angry.

“What is the primary objection? Would you prefer that I’d kissed your
hand
?”

She understood why one would restrict kissing to the hand. Perhaps Harry was simply far more sensible. Kissing lips led to boundless indiscretions and complexities.

“No! You know that I . . . You
know
what I want. It’s still possible. And . . . Well . . . I . . .”

What she wanted was for things to remain precisely as they had been. She wanted their plan to remain intact and unchanged. She wanted to make love to him at night and pursue Harry during the day.

“I like things the way they are.”

He turned and began walking onward. One step, two steps, three steps.

She followed. At first.

Until she realized she was doing what amounted to running in order to catch up with him. He blazed down the lane, and no matter how she tried she would never reach him unless she ran, frantically. She would
not
chase him. She would
not
indulge his childishness. But watching him, she had a strange panicky sense that he would keep moving and moving and eventually disappear. Like a terrible dream, in which no matter how close she came he would forever be just out of reach.

And then she wondered if he was in fact running
away
from her. The dangerous duke. Away from
her
? She halted.

“I’d rather not run or shout at your back, if it’s all the same to you. If we’re to have a conversation.”

Admirable sarcasm. It was his siren song, sarcasm. Odd, but she so seldom spoke acerbically to anyone until he’d come along. He did bring out all of her finer qualities.

He stopped abruptly. Then turned around, and she thought she saw bemusement flash over his face when he realized how far behind him she now was.

She remained dutifully motionless and waited for him to come all the way back to her.

And so he did. She was relieved. But he stopped at a distance greater than the length of his tall body from her. As if he didn’t trust himself to come closer, or was depriving her of the physical closeness of his company.

Still, the sun nicked glints from his green eyes. It was like staring at coins at the bottom of a wishing well.

What did he really wish for? Would he ever really know?

“Alex . . .” She tried his name, tentatively. Softly. Luring a frightened pet. Worried he would hate the softness again.

But she saw him soften, perhaps remembering the first time she’d used his given name.

And she saw him exhale roughly, exasperated.

She was terribly worried, and yet she could not have said why. “You’re not . . .” What word should she choose? “. . . disappointed?”

She’d chosen that word very, very carefully.

“About . . . ?”

Damn him.
His voice was even. Almost insouciant.

“Your proposal?”

“My . . . Of course not. As it wasn’t a proposal so much as it was a suggestion.”

Ah. Well, very good he’d clarified
that
.

“Good. I should very much dislike losing your friendship.”

“Should you?”

The irony in his voice made her nervous. “And you ought to be loved.”

His eyes widened again in what she feared was incredulity.

“Ought to be loved . . .” He repeated each word wonderingly, as if it was the quaintest, most naïve thing he’d ever heard.

How about that. She
also
disliked feeling mocked.

“I don’t want to marry you,” she explained conclusively then, irritably. A little desperately.

A sense of déjà vu reared: She’d also said she didn’t want to kiss him again, and look where that had got her.

“You don’t want to be the Duchess of Falconbridge?”

Was he genuinely astonished, or was the astonishment sarcastic? Argh! Her mind was a snarl of impressions and her stomach was in knots and while her impulse was to leave him straightaway—why was that always the impulse around him, and why did she always instead ricochet right toward him instead, and why did it always lead to being naked?—she wanted him to
feel
and not bat things back at her with irony.

“It has naught to do with being Duchess of Falconbridge.”

Was
that
it? His pride was wounded? For of course who wouldn’t
want
to be a duchess?

She yearned for the days when she’d been able to address one emotion at a time. When she knew precisely what emotion she felt and why and for whom. It had been forever since she felt that way.

Forever. In other words, just last week.

“You don’t mind, do you?” she asked. “That I do not wish to marry you?”

And then the sound of Harry’s laughter floated back to them from up the road, and she turned toward the sound, then lingered, helpless not to. Something in her was soothed by it, and she wanted to chase it like a butterfly. Safety. Familiarity.

“You can’t say it often enough,” the duke said with a cold, cold irony. He shook his head, as if he was amused by something.

He kept walking. And she stopped and waited while Harry hurried toward her.

“Genevieve, Millicent was just reminding me of the most amusing thing you said at Farnsworth’s house . . .”

She walked with Harry between her and Millicent. She said nothing. She felt clubbed and confused, and she was happy to be with them.

The duke walked on a few steps ahead, alone.