A Duke Never Yields (20 page)

He bent his voice still lower, until it rumbled in his chest and rounded out of his mouth. “Now look here. You asked me to meet you tonight. Don’t be afraid, my brave girl.”

Snap, snap
.

Wallingford whipped around.

A shadow emerged from the trees, catching the hint of moonlight, crackling the fallen twigs with its footsteps.

His breath caught, suspended like a bubble in his throat.

The shadow took another step, directly into some unexpected gap between the trees, and the moonlight fell upon its modest white headscarf and the face beneath.

Wallingford’s breath left him at last, in a gust of utmost pain. The brickwork in his chest crumbled into dust.

But that was all inward. Outwardly, of course, he remained exactly the same.

“Lady Morley. This is charming indeed.” He maintained perfect control of his voice: not a waver. He folded his arms and swept his gaze up and down the elegant curve of her body, exactly as one expected of the Duke of Wallingford.

What the devil was she doing here? Accident, or design? Had she written the note? Or was her appearance here an extraordinary coincidence?

Lady Morley gave no sign. Her voice was perfectly clear, perfectly smooth. “Your Grace. You’re looking well. Courting the moonlit shades for your studies, perhaps? Or a dalliance with a village girl?”

“I might ask the same of you, Lady Morley.”

She made a shallow laugh. “Village girls are not in my preferred style.”

“Ah, more’s the pity. You’re a lover of nature, then?”

“I walk here every evening,” she said. “The cool air braces one wonderfully before bed. Dare I hope you’re picking up the same habit? You’ll find it puts you to sleep directly.”

God, the cheek of her.

“Now why do I have trouble believing this charming tale?” he said.

“Because you’ve a fiendish mind, I suppose.” She spoke without a hint of censure, as if fiendishness were a trait to be admired, or at least expected in a man of his rank. “You’re a devious fellow, and you can’t imagine that everyone else isn’t scheming just as you are. I expect you think I’m meeting Mr. Burke here tonight, don’t you?”

The thought had not yet crossed Wallingford’s mind, despite all his speculation. Immediately the hackles of suspicion lifted at the back of his neck. “Since you asked, yes. I do.”

“Then tell
me
, Wallingford, whom
you’re
meeting here tonight.”

He lifted one hand and examined his fingernails. “Perhaps I came to catch you out.”

“That won’t do at all,” she said, with another shallow laugh. “Even if I were meeting Mr. Burke tonight, I shouldn’t be so careless as to let anybody else know of it. No, the shoe is quite on the other foot. I’ve caught
you
out. The question, of course, is whom.”

“There is no question. I’ve no meeting at all.”

“Your Grace, I should never be so indelicate as to call into question a man’s command of the truth . . .”

His voice darkened. “I should very much hope not.”

“Though of course, in affairs of the heart, one’s allowed a bit of rope. After all, it would be far more shabby to expose one’s sweetheart to disgrace than to insist on an exact adherence to the facts. Wouldn’t it?”

Of all his reasons for coming to the orchard tonight, crossing verbal swords with Lady Morley ranked dead last on the list. It was time to end this interview. Wallingford drew a deep breath and said, “We have strayed, Lady Morley, rather far from the point at hand. Are you meeting Burke here tonight?”

“I’m not under any sort of obligation to answer your question. Why don’t you ask him?”

“He’s not here, at present.”

“Isn’t he?” She looked about. “But I thought you said I was meeting him! Dear me. What a dreadful muddle. Perhaps I got my times mixed up. Or perhaps it was the seventh tree, twelfth row instead of the twelfth tree, seventh row. I burnt his note, you see, in the fireplace.”

Wallingford gazed at her shadowed face, at the pale and dark of her in the moonlight, impossible to read. “Well played, madam. I commend you. My friend Burke, I must concede, is an exceptionally lucky man.”

“Mr. Burke is twenty times the man you’ll ever be, Your Grace.”

The words hit him in the chest. He opened his mouth, but there was no air with which to make a sound. He could almost hear his own grandfather’s scorn-soaked voice, could almost hear the Duke of Olympia repeating those very words.

Has the conduct of your entire adult life ever suggested your usefulness for anything else?

The nightjar trilled again, sharp and lonely in the rustling dusk.

“So I perceive,” he said at last. “What now, then, Lady Morley? We seem to be at an impasse. Do we await his arrival together?”

“Do as you like, Wallingford. I shall continue with my walk.” She started forward.

He could not say what devil made him reach out his hand and snare her arm, just as she brushed past. He looked down at the moonlit curves of her face, this face now beloved by the worthy and honorable Phineas Burke, his grandfather’s natural son. “A shame, Lady Morley, to waste this lovely evening,” he said softly, not really wanting her, not even liking her at the moment, and certainly not liking himself.

She shrugged off his hand. “I don’t intend to, Your Grace. Good evening.” She walked on a pace or two, and then stopped and turned back to him. “Tell me, Wallingford. Why does it mean so damned much to you? Can you not simply let people do as they please? Can you not simply look to your own affairs for happiness?”

He stared at her shadow among the blossoms. “No. It appears I cannot.”

Lady Morley turned and dissolved into the night.

Wallingford stood still, listening to the tiny sounds around him, the movements of animals and the soft rush of the wind among the trees. The temperature was falling; already the air chilled his burning cheeks, penetrating the wool of his jacket and waistcoat.

He ran a hand through his hair. He ought to have worn a hat, he supposed.

At last he turned and walked through the trees, down the terraces, past the apple trees and the vineyard. As he walked, he took the folded note from his waistcoat, ripped it into neat tiny squares, and let them flutter from his fingers into the breeze.

*   *   *

F
ifteen minutes later, when the coast was finally clear, Abigail Harewood slipped down, branch by branch, from her post among the blossoms, not six feet away from where the Duke of Wallingford had run his fingers through his sleek dark hair.

Her limbs were trembling, and not just from the effort of perching motionless in a peach tree for well over half an hour, hardly daring to breathe, as the air grew damp and chilly and the inhabitants of Castel sant’Agata came, one by one, to hide among the trees and rendezvous with one another.

You must go to the orchard!
Morini had told her frantically, when Abigail finally found her that evening, so confused and addled by her preoccupation with Wallingford that she had entirely forgotten the housekeeper’s whispered message at luncheon.
It is all a great mess! They will all do the bumping in the night together! Signore Penhallow, he is leaving too early, and that rascal Giacomo, that sneaking scoundrel, he has . . .

Say no more
, Abigail had told Morini, and off she went, spirits restored by the notion of a secret assignation in the peach orchard.

But no sooner had she scaled the branches and settled herself into her blossom-scented arbor, when Phineas Burke had settled himself against the very trunk of the tree into which she’d climbed.

She was trapped, trapped like a . . . well, like a cat in a tree.

Then Lord Roland had come along, muttering poetry, apparently waiting for Lilibet. Then everyone had run into hiding as Wallingford crashed through the branches with his glorious, heedless stride.

And then Alexandra had appeared.

Wallingford had left in the downhill direction, away from the castle. He might, of course, be going anywhere, but Abigail knew as she knew her own bones that the duke had gone to swim in the lake.

The moon was not full, but what surface it offered shone clear and bright over the terraces of the hillside. Abigail made her way down each one, finding the steps in the walls by moonlight and instinct, until she reached the fringe of olive and cypress that surrounded the lake like a bristling belt. Through the branches, she heard the faint sound of splashing water, mingling with the calls of the night birds.

She settled herself on a boulder to wait for him, near the neat pile of his clothing on the rocks, not far from the boathouse, while over and over her mind saw again the little jolt of Wallingford’s body at Alexandra’s words.

Mr. Burke is twenty times the man you’ll ever be, Your Grace
.

Abigail doubted Alexandra had noticed. It was only a small jolt, really, hardly more than a flinch. But to Abigail it had the same effect as an earthquake.

Wallingford, vulnerable. Wallingford, in pain.

Abigail clenched her fists in her lap at the memory.

She had remained in her tree, unmoving, biting her own arm with the effort to keep still. Her skin had grown wet with her tears, and then she had been afraid lest one should fall down and give her away.

Oh, where was he? Was he going to swim all night?

Abigail tucked up her knees under her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. Beneath her bottom, the boulder cast a numbing chill that spread up her back and into her legs. The evening was already cool, and the breeze from the lake was even colder. He would catch his death if he weren’t careful.

A single cloud passed before the moon, like a wraith.

The splashing grew louder and more distinct. Regular, like a metronome. It must be Wallingford.

She couldn’t stifle the gust of relief that left her body as he rose from the water. He didn’t see her at first. The moonlight caressed the planes of his body, turned him to silver, even his dark wet hair, which he wrung out in swift motions of his hands.

He was so beautiful, made in such exquisite proportion, lean and strong, glittering with water, his shoulders flexing and his quadriceps curving in tight arcs into the tendons of his knees. He reached for his shirt, gleaming white under the moon, and rubbed himself dry with it; he slid his drawers up his legs and tied the string at his waist, his body set in magnificent profile to hers, perhaps twenty feet away.

He bent to the rocks and reached for his trousers.

And froze.

A little gust of wind brushed Abigail’s skin, making her shiver.

“Miss Harewood,” Wallingford said, in a low voice, “is that you?”

She cleared her throat. “Well, yes.”

“Ah.” He put one leg in his trousers, and then the other. “And I suppose you’ve been sitting there for some time?”

“Quite some time, in fact.”

He drew up the trousers and buttoned them, neither slowly nor hastily, his eyes fixed on the rocks before him. “You followed me down from the orchard?”

“Not quite.” She cleared her throat again. “Burke was there, you see, and Penhallow turned up . . .”

“Penhallow!”

“Yes, it was all rather . . . rather like a comedy . . .” She choked. “I came down when I could. I knew you would be here.”

“How did you know that?” He put his wet shirt over his gleaming shoulders and began to button it.

“I’ve seen you swimming here before.”

“Of course you have. I should have expected nothing less.” He tucked the shirt into the waistband of his trousers and picked up his waistcoat. He seemed impervious to the chilling effect of wet cloth on a breezy night. “I suppose you realize this must constitute a violation of the wager. I could demand the ladies’ forfeit this instant.”

“You could,” she said. “But that was the flaw in the wager all along, wasn’t it? We never actually laid out the rules. What was permissible contact, and what was not.”

“Watching a man dress himself is permissible, in your notion?”

“I closed my eyes at the crucial moment,” she lied.

He had his jacket on now; he was straightening his sleeves. He turned to her.

The tears welled up in her eyes again. Even in the darkness, she could pick out the severe arrangement of his features, could see how cold and hard he was.

She blurted out, “You’re beautiful.”

“You’re mad.”

“Please, Wallingford.” She rose from the boulder, limbs stiff, and held out her hands. “I never meant to hurt you. I hope I haven’t.”

“Hurt me? I beg your pardon?”

Oh, he was so cold. She stepped down from the boulder and tottered toward him.

“Are you all right?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes, only stiff.”

“How long have you been sitting there?”

“Not that long, but the tree . . .”

“The tree?”

She smiled and stopped, a few feet away from him. She counted it a victory that he had held his ground. “The tree above you, in the orchard.”

A strange expression crossed his face: a softening, a relaxing of the muscles about his jaw and his eyes. “Then it
was
you who sent the note?”

The
note
? What note?

No one could ever accuse Abigail Harewood of slow wits. She hesitated only an instant before she answered, “Yes. Yes, I sent you the note,” and held out her hands.

Wallingford snatched them with his own. “Thank God,” he said, looking at her fingers.

“I wanted to meet you, away from the others,” she went on, hoping to God she was getting it right, “but then everybody began turning up, and I didn’t want to embarrass you . . .”

“Oh, God, Abigail.” He took one hand and pressed it to his lips. “I thought . . . I thought it was all a trick . . .”

“It was never a trick. Please believe that of me. Please, Wallingford. Look at my face.”

“No, I can’t.”

“But you
do
believe me. Say you do.”

He sighed. “I don’t know. I think I do. My God, your hands are frozen.”

“I’m quite all right.”

“You’re shivering. You’ve brought no shawl with you, foolish child, nothing at all.” He released her hands and took off his jacket. “We must get you back.”