Read Seducing the Duchess Online
Authors: Ashley March
Seducing the Duchess (16 page)
Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “You are
trying
to change.”
trying
to change.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I saw you in Henley-in-Arden, with Joanna.”
He lifted a brow.
“You gave her a gift.”
Philip laughed, a charming, easy laugh, one that put her on edge. “You’re jealous,” he said.
She wanted to laugh right back at him—a laugh of wonder that he might suggest such a thing. But instead her pulse raced and she had to force herself to not look away.
“No, not jealous,” she replied. “Just surprised.”
He cocked his head to the side, inviting her to come closer. Charlotte didn’t budge. “Why are you surprised? You knew I intended to woo her.” He paused. “Perhaps you wanted a gift as well?”
“My freedom is all I need. Besides, you already gave me the harp.”
“Ah. Well. I suppose I am simply a very generous man, because I did indeed purchase a gift for you in addition to the one for Lady Grey.”
Her heart hammered at his words, and though she told herself he was only trying to purchase her continued cooperation, it refused to return to a normal pace. Why must she become so excited when Philip sought to give her something? She’d received countless gifts from other men over the years, and none of them had brought this same breathlessness or anticipation.
“Come here, Charlotte.”
She stayed at the windows.
“Please.”
It might have been the deepening of his voice in that single syllable, or perhaps the fact that she couldn’t recall the last time he had said “Please.” First her hands left the wall and then her feet moved soundlessly over the carpet, until she stood before him.
He picked up the package and held it out to her. Wordlessly, she took it, her fingers sliding against his. Charlotte removed the paper wrapping and looked down at the small box in her hands, then up at Philip.
“I won’t like you any better for this, you know.”
“No, I did not expect you would,” he answered quietly.
Her curiosity piqued, she lifted the lid of the box.
“They are a bit more reserved than your usual pieces,” he said.
“Yes.” She could not look at him. Whereas the harp had been the fulfillment of a childhood dream, the small earbobs were somehow much more intimate.
As if he had searched for the oval sapphires specifically, pictured her wearing them.
“Why did you buy these?” she asked, her voice soft.
He said nothing, until she finally had to lift her head and meet his eyes. “Philip?”
She didn’t know what she was looking for—a hidden message in his gaze, a glimpse of vulnerability, maybe—but all she found was the calculating gleam of his silver stare.
“I hope you will wear the earbobs for our supper tomorrow evening.”
Charlotte closed the box, berating herself. She should know by now that he always had an ulterior motive. “You have kept to your end of our agreement. I will also keep to mine.”
“The supper will be a test of sorts, to see what I have learned from your lessons thus far.”
“The ideal-husband lessons, you mean.”
“Yes. Up to now we have been alone. Tomorrow evening we will have guests, and you must help me to be at my most”—he paused, tapped his finger on his jaw, then grinned—“dashing.”
“And the earbobs—”
He stood abruptly and advanced toward her, around the desk, until he was no more than a few inches away. “Simply a gift for a beautiful woman.”
Charlotte lifted a hand to her brow. “Why, Philip, I do believe I feel a bit faint. Such flattery, such kindness.”
“Shall I catch you?” His gaze had risen to follow the upward movement of her arm, and his expression stilled, his eyes shuttered as he focused behind her.
Charlotte lowered her arm and peered over her shoulder. All she could see was a portrait hung upon the wall over his desk, of a man whose silver eyes matched the streaks in his black hair. His face was hard and lined, and the same sense of unease crept over her skin that she’d felt whenever she saw him as a child.
The old duke. Philip’s grandfather.
She glanced back at Philip. “He always was rather scary-looking, wasn’t he?”
His attention never wavered from the painting. “I’d forgotten it was there,” he said, his voice low and distant, almost as if he didn’t realize she was still in the study.
Charlotte gave a half laugh. “And not only there, but in the drawing room, the music room, the dining room. Not to mention my bedchamber. I cannot tell you how discomforting it is, trying to go to sleep while he glares down at me.”
Only then did Philip shift his focus to her, a small quirk showing at the corner of his mouth. “I can imagine. You may not remember, but there’s another portrait in my bedchamber as well. After he died, I could not sleep for weeks. I was convinced his ghost would come out of the painting and haunt me.”
He turned, a cautious movement, but Charlotte noticed it was enough so he could no longer see the portrait behind him.
She wasn’t certain why, but she felt suddenly protective of him, of the young man he’d once been. She edged closer, until their arms touched. She looked with him toward the opposite end of the room, at the low fire burning in the hearth, a buffer against the chill of the darkening sky.
“He thought very highly of himself, didn’t he?” she asked.
“Yes.” Then, after a small pause, as if he felt obliged to give an explanation, he added, “He was a duke.”
“You’re a duke, also, but you’re nothing like he was.”
Even as she said it, it came to her as a surprise. She knew the sort of man Philip was: selfish and manipulative. The old duke had been the same way.
In the past, she would never have defended him, rather claiming that they were cut from the same cloth.
And yet now there were differences. Perhaps Philip had changed, despite her initial disbelief. There were glimpses of kindness and warmth, of real humor and generosity, that she could not even remember seeing in the time he had courted her. Oh, he had been gallant then, and considerate, but not nearly as . . . as human.
Philip made a mirthless sound, something that others might have mistaken as a chuckle. Charlotte, however, recognized it for what it was: a warning, to her, to the entire world, not to come too close. Not to show sympathy for a man who neither needed nor desired any.
She brought her hands together in front of her, joined by the box which contained the elegant sapphires.
“Thank you for the earbobs,” she said.
She felt him shrug against her side. “As I said, it was simply a gift for a beautiful woman.”
Charlotte nodded, though she didn’t think he saw it. Then, without another word, she crossed in front of him and left the room.
Philip wasn’t prepared for the abrupt sense of loss he felt when Charlotte left the study.
If he’d been a maudlin sort of man, or a poet—which God knew he wasn’t—he would have thought she’d taken his soul with her.
He stared after her, at the empty doorway, and considered calling for her to return. To not leave him alone.
She would come back, and tell him again in that soft voice that he was not like his grandfather. He would take her in his arms, crush his mouth to hers, and pretend she was right.
He would never admit he knew she was wrong.
Despite what he’d told Lady Grey in the jeweler’s shop, Philip held no illusions about himself, of who he was or was not.
He was a duke, just like his grandfather. And he was a damned good one, for the old bastard had taught him well. And just like the eighth Duke of Rutherford, Philip would do whatever was necessary to have his way.
A heavy knock sounded on the wooden door frame, and he straightened. “Enter.”
Fallon appeared, bowing as soon he stepped into the room.
“Close the door.” Once assured of their privacy, he beckoned the butler to come closer. “You gave the two shillings to the messenger, as I instructed?”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Fallon withdrew a piece of parchment from within his coat. “Here is the second letter.”
“Very good.” Philip took the missive and motioned him away.
He waited until Fallon disappeared and shut the door behind him before he sat at his desk again.
The letter was as he expected: Mr. Jones confirmed he had received Philip’s second letter, voiding his request for a divorce from Charlotte. He also wrote of his relief upon the arrival of the second letter, as he had feared the duke was setting himself up for a catastrophic scandal.
Philip scowled, the edges of the parchment crumpling in his grip. To hell with the scandals. He only wanted Charlotte.
After quickly scanning the remainder of the note, he crossed to the hearth and fed it into the fire.
Time would tell whether his precaution in canceling the directive for the petition had been necessary. If he was successful in wooing Charlotte as he planned, she would have no need to know he never intended to divorce her.
Charlotte had no doubt Philip was trying to suffocate her.
After years of wearing the most scandalous gowns she could, she found that the high-necked, long-sleeved, stiff taffeta dress left her no room to move, let alone breathe.
Not only that—there had already been a time or two in the past few minutes when she was certain she’d heard him snicker.
But every time she looked his way, he casually glanced at the clock nearby.
“I’m sure they’ll be here soon,” he offered, with the smallest trace of a smile. “Have I mentioned tonight how very . . . wholesome you appear?”
Charlotte tipped her chin up, partly for relief from the tight fabric scratching against her throat and partly as a show of indifference. “You have yet to mention who our guests will be this evening. I hope you did not invite Joanna. That would be quite awkward.”
“No, Lady Grey was not invited. I suppose I should warn you—”
A clatter of horses’ hooves and jingling harnesses arose outside, and they both got to their feet.
Philip crossed the room to stand beside her. “I should have told you before, but I didn’t want you to be upset.”
Charlotte ran a finger along the inside of her collar. “Why ever should I be upset? If I’m angry, it’s because you made me wear this horrid dress. Well, from this night forward, what I wear and what I do not wear has nothing to do with our agreement. I shall throw out every one of—”
“Forgive me.” Philip gripped her hand and squeezed. “I only wanted to help.”
His plea had her swinging her gaze up to search his. “What do you—”
“Your family, Charlotte,” he whispered harshly, and dropped her hand as a shadow darkened the drawing room’s entryway.
Fallon bowed with a creaking flourish. “Squire Sheffield, Mrs. Sheffield, and Messrs. Roland, Nicholas, and Arthur Sheffield.”
As he stepped to the side, Charlotte’s heart plummeted to the pit of her stomach with such speed she nearly cast up her accounts.
“Philip,” she whispered, her fingers frantically searching for something to hold on to.
He grasped her hand and laid it gently over his arm. “I’m right here,” he answered quietly. “Everything will be fine.”
She wanted so much to believe him—equally as much as she wanted to hit him for arranging the entire affair. But she feared that even with a proper dress and an elegant set of earbobs, her parents were certain to see past the ladylike accoutrements to the tainted woman she’d become.
Her mother was the first to enter the room, followed closely by her father. The skin beneath her mother’s eyes was dark, her cheeks sunken—though the downward turn of her mouth and the bulk of her girth told it was not from hunger but from sadness. There was no sadness in her father’s eyes—only the same burning anger, his eyebrows perpetually slanted.
Charlotte swallowed and gave them a weak smile. “Hullo, Mum. Hullo, Papa.”
“Charlotte, dear,” her mother said, then looked away.
Her father cleared his throat and glowered first at Philip, then at her. “Charlotte.”
Philip’s other hand came up to cover hers and, instead of jerking away, she was never more grateful for his strong, solid presence.
Roland, Nicholas, and Arthur trickled in behind their parents, each with expressions that indicated they’d rather be in hell.
At some point a nervous tickle crept up her throat, and as she stared at the miserable faces of the family she loved and had missed for so long, she could not keep herself from laughing.
This, of course, only made her father glare at her all the more, his mouth narrowed suspiciously. “Is this what you learned in London, Charlotte? To laugh at your elders?”
Other books
My True Love Gave to Me by Ava March
The Guardians (Book 2) by Dan O'Sullivan
American Buffalo by Steven Rinella
Home to Hart's Crossing by Robin Lee Hatcher
Three Messages and a Warning by Eduardo Jiménez Mayo, Chris. N. Brown, editors
You Know Me Al by Ring Lardner
Serpent Never Sleeps by Scott O'Dell
Trauma Farm by Brian Brett
New America by Jeremy Bates
