A Duchess to Remember (26 page)

She would not exchange a single one of her cousins for the pain and worry of loving them, of fearing for them, of one day losing them. Life was so precious. To be lived just once, with honor and kindness but with valor, too.

The motto of the Westruthers came back to her, as clearly as if she heard Montford speak those words in her ear:
To a valiant heart, nothing is impossible.

“Now, dearest,” Rosamund was saying, “shall we try this new way of doing your hair?”

Cecily shook her head. “No, I…” Shakily, she rose from her dressing-table and looked at the clock. “No, I think I need to go out. There’s something I must do.”

Rosamund stared at her. “
Now?
But, Cecily! What about—?”

She snatched up her gloves and bonnet. “Do not worry. I’ll be back soon.”

Cecily did not make it as far as the hall before a footman handed her a letter.

She almost put it in her reticule without looking at it, but the handwriting caught her eye. It was Norland’s.

Cecily ripped it open and read:

Dear Cecily,

When your guardian informed me of the Ministry of Marriage’s decree against our union, I was, in short, astonished and appalled.

However, upon finding myself suddenly at liberty, my entire existence underwent the most surprising transformation. The scales fell from my eyes, as it were, and I realized that I had long harbored a tender emotion toward one who is known to you intimately.

I dare to hope this news will not distress you unduly. We have always been good friends, you and I, but now I believe there is one who lays claim to a higher place in your affections than I could ever win.

By the time you read this, I shall be on my way to Cambridge to beg Miss Tibbs to do me the honor of being my wife.

Your affectionate friend,

Norland

“Merciful Heavens!” Cecily stared blankly at the letter in her hand. The world seemed to have turned upside down.
“Tibby?”

“My lady?” The footman still hovered at her elbow, awaiting her wishes.

She glanced at him, then back at the letter. Dear God! How could Norland be so stupid? She could not let this happen!

“Thomas,” she said to the footman, “please have the carriage brought around and send for my maid. Tell Saunders to pack quickly for an overnight stay.”

The news was so unexpected, she could scarcely comprehend it. And yet … and yet it had been there, all along, as plain as the nose on her stupid face.

Norland’s attentions to Tibby during his weekly visit to Montford House. It was
Tibby
he’d come to see, not Cecily! Norland suggesting that Tibby live with them. A tactless, awful gesture, but he had acted out of love, even if he had not recognized it at the time.

And Tibby! Tibby’s reaction when Cecily told her of Norland’s proposition had been awfully strange, hadn’t it? And almost immediately afterwards, Tibby’s sister had taken ill. Had that been a mere coincidence, or had Tibby run away from an intolerable situation and lied about her sister’s bad health?

Rather than stand by and watch the man she loved marry Cecily, Tibby had removed herself.

Oh, but Cecily had been so cursed offhand about her marriage, hadn’t she? Good Lord, Tibby must have wanted to scratch her charge’s eyes out for the casual way she’d behaved toward Norland. The way Cecily had outlined her intention to ignore Norland as much as possible once they were wed.

And all that time, Tibby had been forced to remain silent. What agony she must have suffered! For Cecily was willing to lay odds that Tibby knew her own heart far better than Norland had known his.

“Carriage is ready, my lady.” Saunders, Cecily’s maid, arrived, carrying a bandbox.

Cecily came to herself with a start. “Oh! Of course. Yes, there is no time to lose.”

At that very moment, Rand was admitted by a footman into the hall. There was a letter in his hand; she didn’t need to see the seal to know it was from Norland. And from the look on his face, she realized Rand had known.

He’d known about Tibby and Norland all along.

Chapter Eighteen

Clutching her own letter, Cecily stared at Rand with a shocked, bewildered look on her face. That expression cut him to the core.

Damn him for a fool! What had he thought she’d do? Cry freedom and leap into his arms? He ought to know it was never that simple with her.

He gestured to the paper in her hand. “You’ve heard, then.”

She swallowed hard. “Yes. I’ve heard. And I’m going to put a stop to it.”

She swept past him and marched out the door and down the steps to the awaiting carriage.

After a stunned moment, he went after her and arrived on the pavement to hear her give instructions to the startled coachman that he was to take her to Cambridge. Reasonably enough, the man demurred that he needed instructions from the Duke of Montford before he’d take Cecily so far afield.

To her maid, Rand said, “Wait here.”

Rand glanced up at the coachman. “I’ll talk some sense into her. Drive around town until I tell you to stop.”

He followed her into the carriage, and after only a few seconds’ dithering, the footmen put up the steps and closed the door. He saw that Cecily fumed and fretted at his interference, but he would not let her do this.

“How dare you override my orders?” she flashed at him.

“Montford’s coachman wasn’t going to drive you to Cambridgeshire, for Heaven’s sake! Have a little sense, Cecily.”

“But I must go after Norland,” she said impatiently. “You don’t understand!”

Her urgency made his stomach churn. He gripped her hand. “It’s over, Cecily. Can’t you see that? For God’s sake, let him go!”

She surprised him by returning the clasp of his fingers and looking at him in the strangest way. “Do not worry about me, Rand. Believe me, your concern is unnecessary.”

There was the oddest note in Cecily’s voice, a sort of tightness, as if the words were half-strangled as they came out. He couldn’t seem to gauge her mood, even when she sat back on the banquette opposite him and he could see her face.

“I cannot believe you are chasing Norland all over the countryside,” he said. “Good God, woman, where is your pride?”

“I am not chasing him,” she said with dignity. “Well, I mean I am not chasing him for the purpose you are thinking. Good gracious, why on earth should I wish to marry him now?”

The matter-of-fact statement made him light-headed. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Then why were you going to Cambridge?”

Her pretty mouth firmed. “I must catch up to Norland before he proposes to Tibby, that’s why.”

“But you just said—” He spoke through gritted teeth. “If you do not wish me to throttle you on the spot, you troublesome chit, tell me in plain words what it is that you think you are doing.”

“I am going to give them my blessing, of course,” she said.

Rand felt the relief of it like a series of hot and cold showers over his body. He sat back against the squabs and simply looked at her. “Couldn’t you write them a note?”

“No, no, don’t you see? I must go myself. I must be there to tell Tibby to her face that I do not mind if she marries Norland. In fact, I shall never forgive her if she doesn’t. Do you think she will accept him otherwise?”

Slowly, he said, “I see.”

She shook her head, dark ringlets bobbing. Her lips trembled a little with emotion. “I am to blame for so much suffering! Tibby ran away to Cambridge to escape an intolerable situation.” Cecily sniffed and hunted in her reticule for a handkerchief. “She loves him, Rand. I am sure of it! The things I said about him! I cringe when I think of how I took Norland for granted when all the time she must have been eating her heart out over him. No wonder she was so strange when we went to call at the cottage.”

“So you want to hare off to Cambridgeshire to assure your companion that you don’t mind being jilted in favor of her?”

She opened her eyes wide. “Of course. She is the dearest and best of creatures and she will make him the most perfect wife imaginable.”

“Just like that.” Now he shook his head—in disbelief. As the carriage bowled along, not toward Cambridge but in the direction of Hyde Park, he looked away from her.

Rand told himself he should applaud such generosity of spirit. Much as he wanted to come to terms with this sudden reversal, he could not.

He wished he could escape the feeling of resentment the suddenness of her change of heart brought up in him. Why was she so ready to give up Norland to make her old governess happy, when she’d so steadfastly refused to give him up for Rand?

Was this the same young woman who had turned her back on Rand in order to throw herself into a loveless marriage?

She spoke softly into the stillness between them. “Rand?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where I was going when that letter came to me?”

He shrugged, his jaw hardening. “I haven’t a clue.”

“I was on my way to see you. I was going to call the wedding off.”

He froze, scarcely daring to hope she told the truth.

She made a funny face and looked away. “You might not believe me, but it’s true. You said I was afraid, and you were right. I realized…” She hesitated, licking her lips. “I was getting ready for the wedding this afternoon and Jane was there. Do you know my cousin, Lady Roxdale?”

He blinked a little at this seeming non sequitur.

“She was big with child, you see.…” Cecily’s mouth twisted a little. “She will have her baby any day now. And I’ve been terrified. What if something happens to her? It is not uncommon for women to die in childbirth. What if she leaves me, too? How on earth would I bear it?”

She paled, as if realizing what she’d said. Of course, she knew his own mother had died in childbirth. “I’m sorry! I—”

“Don’t be,” he reassured her. “You are right to be concerned, of course. I’m sure everyone who loves her feels the same.”

Her voice was hollow. “But I asked myself, Would I trade the years of knowing and loving my cousin Jane for the safety of never losing her? Of course not.”

She met his eyes. “The answer seemed so obvious, so simple when I asked myself that question about you.”

He’d been holding his breath all through her long explanation. Now he couldn’t breathe if his life depended on it.

With a rustle of skirts, she moved to kneel before him in the confined space between the two seats. She took his hand in her small one and turned her face upward. Those brilliant dark eyes gazed into his, unshadowed by flippancy or denial.

And that was when he knew.

“I love you, Rand,” she said in a broken whisper. “I’ve finally found the courage to love you.” She bit her lip. “I don’t know if you even want me now, but if you will have me, I am yours.”

He took a deep, shaky breath. “Cecily, my beautiful, infuriating, clever idiot,” he said, and pulled her into his arms. “Come here.”

*   *   *

There was a different flavor to this kiss, thought Cecily dimly. It was equally desperate and as full of passion as their others, but the taint of betrayal and fearful apprehension was gone.

She was giddy with the freedom of it. Terrified, too, but it was an exhilarating, swoony sort of terror. The thrill of finally giving in to her desire made Cecily feel unexpectedly powerful. Invincible. As if there was no trial of the heart she couldn’t face.

Somehow, she was half beneath Rand on the banquette seat in the carriage, offering her throat to his devouring kisses, running her hands over his big shoulders, cradling his jaw as she kissed him back.

Rand gasped for air and muttered something in her ear about damned confined spaces, yet despite the awkwardness of it all, he managed to set her body on fire with his touch.

He’d turned her into a throbbing mass of melted woman. She thought she might go mad if he didn’t put an end to this great chasm of need inside her.

“Shouldn’t do this,” he said, taking her mouth again. “Not in a carriage. Not for your first time.”

She kissed him back, smoothing a hand over his short hair. “I don’t mind,” she panted.

Oh, please, let us do this in the carriage!
She wanted to scream it, but that would shock the coachman even more than he was already. Rand had pulled down the blinds at some stage to shield them from prying eyes.

“No.” He drew back. “It’s not enough. I want to see you, taste you, touch you.
All
of you, not just the bits I can reach while we’re in this damned shoe box.”

She looked at him, at the amazing eyes now darkened to brandy, the short hair ordinarily so neatly brushed now looking rakish and disarranged. The flush on his lean cheeks.

His cravat had disappeared somewhere along the line, and his shirt lay open to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of manly chest. She’d done all that to him, she thought with no small measure of smugness. She could not wait to see what other havoc she might wreak on his appearance.

Having denied herself this pleasure for so long, it seemed a crime to abstain another second. “Please?”

She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him. Soft, clinging, coaxing kisses.

“Please, Rand,” she whispered, smiling against his lips. “Take me. I don’t want to wait.”

*   *   *

Rand wished he might capture this moment on canvas. Lady Cecily Westruther begging for him to take her in a fast-moving carriage as they circled London for the umpteenth time.

But the very masculine satisfaction he took in that notion was swamped by another very masculine feeling, one of acute and urgent discomfort in his nether regions that was not likely to be assuaged any time soon.