One Dance with a Duke (12 page)

At the warm solicitude in his voice, her resolve nearly crumbled. For something like twenty-six hours now, Laurent had been urging her to reconsider this whole enterprise. If she said no, even at the last moment, Amelia knew her brother would support her decision. He’d done the same ten years ago, when she’d been unable to stomach marriage to that horrid Mr. Poste.
Never mind the money
, he’d insisted,
your happiness is worth more than gold
.

When she’d been granted that reprieve, Amelia had felt nothing but relief. At the age of sixteen, she never could have conceived that Papa’s debt would balloon so catastrophically, nor that a country widower’s suit would be the last she’d entertain.

Amelia lowered her voice to a whisper. “This is an opportunity, Laurent. An opportunity for
us
. Once I am a duchess, I can help our brothers in ways even you
cannot. The alliance will greatly improve Michael’s chances of marrying well. Perhaps I can secure a living for Jack, get him out of London and away from his unsavory friends.”

Her brother shook his head. “I fear Jack may be a lost cause.”

“Don’t ever say that. If Mama were here, could you say that to her face?”

“If Mama were here, could you marry this man? She wouldn’t have wanted this for you. She wanted her children to marry for love.”

“And yet you defied her,” she said gently.

After Papa died, the debts had mounted higher and higher still. Laurent had made the very sacrifice at which Amelia had once balked: he’d married, sensibly and disaffectionately, to secure the d’Orsay family’s future. She loved him for it and often despised herself for leaving him no other choice. “I can’t cry off this time, Laurent. It isn’t only about the family. I want my own household, my own children. This may be my last chance. I’m not sixteen any longer.”

No, she was older and wiser—and undeniably lonelier. And disagreeable as his demeanor might be, the Duke of Morland compared favorably to Mr. Poste. Morland wasn’t thirty years older than she. He had straight teeth. He didn’t reek of tallow and sweat. He knew how to kiss. Properly.

And he was a duke. A duke with six estates, who would settle twenty thousand pounds on her, and some property besides. In her shortsighted, selfish girlhood, she’d let slip one chance to help her family. If this man saw fit to offer her security and children, Amelia supposed she could promise him punctuality in trade.

“Are you absolutely certain?” Laurent cast a wary glance at the duke. “I’ve no compunction about tossing him out on his ear, if you like.”

“No, no. You are very good, but I am decided.” She truly believed the sentiment she’d expressed to the duke the other night, during their waltz. Contentment was largely a matter of individual choice. “I am decided, and I will be happy.”

Spencer was displeased. Greatly displeased. Twelve minutes now. He could have been married already, perhaps even ordering the carriage for their departure. Instead he was standing here awkwardly in the center of the room, watching his intended bride confer with her brother in heated whispers.

Damn it, he hated weddings. He didn’t remember ever attending any others, but he was certainly making this one his last.

To think, not an hour ago, he’d been congratulating himself on his brilliance. He needed a wife, and here was his chance to obtain one without the nuisance of a courtship. When a man of his wealth and station proposed marriage to a lady of hers … They both knew she couldn’t possibly have refused.

But she had no problem keeping him waiting. Spencer didn’t like being made to wait. The waiting was making him uneasy, and he didn’t like feeling uneasy.

This was why he’d insisted on a small, private ceremony in her home. If there was no crowd, no music, no fanfare, he reasoned, he would remain perfectly calm and in control. Except that now a ten-minute delay had him fretting like a schoolboy. And that fact had him resenting her further, because he was intelligent enough to realize that this churning tempest inside him must mean
something
. Something about him, something about her … something about
them
, perhaps? He didn’t know. He just wanted to marry the woman, take her home, and puzzle it out in bed.

“Your Grace?”

His head whipped up. Lady Amelia stood before him. And whatever exorbitant sum he’d paid that dressmaker, it hadn’t been nearly enough.

Standing with her hands clasped behind her back, she played her figure to its best advantage. Her waist was trim and defined, her hips cuppable, her bosom delectable. Silk covered those lushly proportioned curves, clinging in all the right places. Its silvery, iridescent shade reminded him of dew on heather, or the belly of a trout; and it contrasted pleasantly with the warm, milky texture of her skin. She was all softness and sleekness, and his gaze slipped over her easily even as his thoughts snagged. He wrestled to make sense of her, define her, understand what it was she signified to him and why. He couldn’t say she looked elegant or stunning or beautiful.

Refreshing. Her appearance was refreshing, like cool, clear water on a sun-baked summer’s day. And he gratefully drank her in.

She gave him a deferential nod. “I apologize for my tardiness, Your Grace. I am ready. Has your groomsman arrived?”

He stared at her.

“You … you do have a groomsman to stand up with you? Someone to sign the register as a witness?”

He shook his head. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. “Won’t Beauvale do?”

“Laurent?” Her brow wrinkled. “I suppose he could, but I hate to ask. I’m rather doing this against his wishes. And unfortunately, he’s the only one of my brothers here. Michael’s at sea of course, and Jack—well, Jack is necessarily avoiding you.” She swept a glance around the room, finally settling it on the butler. “I suppose we could have Wycke. But surely you don’t want a servant?”

If it meant they could be married within the next
quarter hour, Spencer would gladly have opened the door and dragged in the first ruffian off the street. “He’ll do.” He made a curt motion to the butler. “Bring the curate. We may as well do it in here.”

At the clergyman’s entrance, Spencer summoned the man to his side with nothing but a pointed look and the arch of one brow.

The curate inclined his balding head. “Yes, Your Grace?”

“There’s a very generous donation in the parish’s future if you make this fast. Ten minutes, at the most.”

Frowning, the man fumbled open his liturgy. “There’s an established rite, Your Grace. Marriage must be entered into with solemnity and consideration. I don’t know that I can rush—”

“Ten minutes. One thousand guineas.”

The liturgy snapped closed. “Then again, what do a few extra minutes signify to an eternal God?” He beckoned Amelia with a fluttering, papery hand. “Make haste, child. You’re about to be married.”

Spencer scarcely heard the fevered rush of words that constituted his wedding. In principle, he agreed with the curate. Marriage should be a solemn, sacred enterprise, and the length of time Spencer took to make a decision had no correlation with how seriously he considered it. This wasn’t something he approached lightly, else he would have married years ago. Somewhere in between mumbled “I will’s” and parroted vows, he managed a brief, silent petition for a few male children and whatever other blessings God saw fit to grant them. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

At the curate’s direction, they exchanged simple gold bands. All his aunt’s pieces were at Braxton Hall; she’d have her selection of jeweled rings there. Her fingers were chilled, and irrational anger spiked through him. Why was she cold? Hadn’t the
modiste
sent gloves?

“I pronounce you man and wife.”

There, it was done.

He turned to his bride, looking her in the eye for the first time since the ceremony had begun. And he promptly kicked himself, because this would have been far more pleasant if he’d been looking at her the whole time. Her eyes were really quite lovely—large, intelligent, expressive. A patient, sensible shade of blue.

He very much wanted to kiss her now.

And as if she’d heard the thought—God, he hoped he hadn’t said it aloud—she gave a tiny shake of her head and whispered,
“Not yet.”

With a plunk, the curate laid open the parish register on a side table and thumbed to the appropriate page. Once their names and the date had been recorded, Spencer took up the quill and signed his name on the line. His was a long name; it took a while. After he’d finished, he dipped the quill again before passing it to Amelia.

She paused, peering down at the register.

As the moment stretched, Spencer’s heart gave an odd kick.
Oh, come along
.

Before she could lay pen to parchment, a commotion in the hallway disrupted the scene. Julian Bellamy stormed into the parlor, followed by Ashworth. Spencer groaned as the two made straight for him.

“What the devil do you mean by this?” Bellamy demanded.

“I mean to be married.”

“I know that much, you despicable blackguard.” Sneering, Bellamy shoved a rectangle of paper in Spencer’s face. “This. What do you mean by this?”

It was the bank draft he’d sent over yesterday morning, as promised. “It’s just as I said. I’m offering Lady Lily compensation in exchange for her brother’s token.”

“In the amount of twenty thousand pounds?”

Beside him, Amelia gasped.

“Twenty thousand pounds,” Ashworth said. “There’s no racehorse in the world worth that, much less one retired to stud.”

“I didn’t base my offer on the market value of the horse. I offered what the token is worth to me.” Spencer turned to Bellamy. “And it’s Lady Lily’s to accept or decline. Not yours.”

The slender, dark-haired woman stepped forward. “I’m very grateful, Your Grace, but you know I cannot accept.”

“If you find my offer insufficient, we can discuss more generous—”

“It’s not that,” Lily said. “Your offer is beyond generous. It’s charity, and I cannot accept it in good conscience.”

Bellamy cut in. “She cannot accept it because Leo’s token is gone.”

“Gone?” Amelia said. “Gone where?”

“Precisely what I’d like to know.” Bellamy shot Spencer a murderous look. “Care to tell us, Morland?”

“How should I know where it’s gone? Wasn’t it with Harcliffe’s belongings?”

Ashworth shook his head. “We’ve gone through everything, twice. It wasn’t on his body, either. Must have been stripped by his attackers.”

“Simple robbery, then,” Spencer said. “Or perhaps he’d already lost it in a wager.”

“Never,” Bellamy said. “Leo would never have risked that token, and you know it. You know you had no other way of getting it from him.”

“What the hell are you suggesting?” A cold, leaden weight settled in Spencer’s gut. “Surely you don’t mean to suggest I had some hand in Harcliffe’s death?”

Bellamy only raised his eyebrows.

“Surely you don’t mean to suggest it,” Spencer
repeated coolly, “because if you did slander my character in such an outrageous, unfounded manner, I would have to demand satisfaction.”

“So you can get my token, too? Pry it from my cold, dead hands?”

Amelia wedged herself between them. “Why are the two of you so determined to kill one another? Mr. Bellamy, with all due respect and sympathy—your charges make no sense. If His Grace already had possession of this token, why on earth would he offer Lily twenty thousand pounds for it?”

Fortunately someone in the room had some sense. And more fortunate still, she was the one he was marrying.

“Guilt. Blood money, to ease his conscience.” Bellamy gave him a cold stare. “I’ve remembered something, Morland. You were there in the card room the other night, when Leo and I made plans to attend the boxing match.”

Was he? Spencer supposed he could have been, but he certainly hadn’t been paying attention to Harcliffe and Bellamy. His sole focus had been winning Faraday’s token. “What if I were? So were a dozen other gentlemen.”

“None of them had a reason to kill Leo. You’ve destroyed fortunes in pursuit of Osiris already. Why should I believe you’d stop at violence? You knew exactly where Leo was going to be that night. You knew I was meant to be with him. Were you hoping to get us both in one blow?”

“You’re mad.”

“You’re sickening,” Bellamy said. “My gut twists, to think I almost allowed you to marry Lily. And it makes perfect sense, why you wouldn’t. Imagine, sitting across the table from her every day for the rest of your life,
knowing you were responsible for her brother’s death. Keeping company with your own damning guilt.”

“Stop this,” Lily said. “Julian, you don’t know what you’re saying. This is nonsensical. We have no reason to believe that missing token had anything to do with Leo’s death. And simply because His Grace declined to—”

Bellamy ignored her. “Couldn’t stand the thought of it, could you? No, you’d sooner pay Lily off.” He jerked his chin toward Amelia. “And shackle yourself to the first available female just to settle the matter.”

It had been fourteen years since Spencer had lashed out at a man in a moment of blinding white fury—but he hadn’t forgotten how to land a punch. His knuckles made a satisfying thwack as they connected with Bellamy’s jaw, sending the man sprawling. The bank draft fluttered to the carpet as Bellamy struggled to his feet.

Spencer hauled back his fist for another punch, but before he could swing, Beauvale leapt forward to grab his arm.

“You see?” accused Bellamy, rubbing his jaw. “He’s dangerous. He wants to kill me, too.”

“I do now,” Spencer ground out. He shrugged out of Beauvale’s grip.

“And need we guess who’s next? Everyone knows what you did to Ashworth at Eton.”

“Oh, do they?” Spencer turned to the soldier. “And what, precisely, did
I
do to Ashworth at Eton?” Damn it, he’d been sent down for that fight. He’d tacitly accepted all the blame. The blackguard had better not sell him out at his own wedding.

Ashworth shrugged. “Obviously something less than killing me.”

“Julian, please.” Lily went to Bellamy’s side. She touched a finger to the corner of his mouth, where blood oozed from his cracked lip. “I know you are hurting and
angry. I know you want someone to blame, some means of avenging Leo’s death. But surely you’re mistaken.”