Authors: Ashley March

Seducing the Duchess (33 page)

BOOK: Seducing the Duchess

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Somehow it seemed important to be able to remember this moment clearly.

As the last piece of luggage—a trunk with a sovereign-sized dent near the latch—was carted away, Charlotte turned to him.

“Once again, I bid you farewell.”

“Charlotte—”

She disappeared, exiting the room and rounding the corner before he could finish his reply.

He ought to be grateful. Although he’d said he wouldn’t, he knew he would have begged her to stay.

Her slippers made no noise on the stairs, so he imagined her flying down them. Fallon would be standing at the open door, would bow as she passed by him. He imagined her entering the carriage, settling her skirts for the long ride back to London.

Philip heard the shout of the coachman outside, the rumble of wheels.

She would part the curtain at the window. Perhaps her fingers would tremble as she did so. She would look out, try to glimpse him at the window of her bedchamber, remember when she couldn’t find him that her window overlooked the garden.

Philip started toward the corridor.

Perhaps she would panic and change her mind, pound on the carriage roof, order the coachman to stop—

He halted on the stairway landing, his left foot hovering above the first step down.

The rumbling of the carriage wheels continued, gradually fading away.

Philip lifted his foot next to the other. He stood that way for a long time, staring at the marbled tile down below, straining to hear the rumble return.

It never did.

Chapter 19

F
allon set the breakfast tray on Philip’s desk.

“Shall I open the curtains, Your Grace?”

“No.”

Philip blinked wearily at a point beyond the butler’s head. Sometime during the night the shadows on the wall had transformed into grotesque faces.

Thank God, he had yet to begin to talk to them.

“I hope you won’t think me impertinent, Your Grace . . .”

Philip blinked again, this time trying to focus on the gray blur where Fallon’s face should have been. This could prove to be an interesting diversion. He waved his arm in a magnanimous gesture.

“I wonder if I shouldn’t send for Dr. Barrow.”

“I’m not ill,” Philip replied, scowling.

“Of course not, Your Grace,” the butler quickly agreed.

“Do you hear me coughing?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“Do I appear sickly to you?”

Fallon remained silent.

Philip tapped his fingers on the desk. To be honest, he felt ill. Weak.

Over the past three days, he’d rarely moved from this chair and when he did he’d stumbled, the muscles in his legs quivering with each step.

Fallon opened his mouth, paused, and closed it.

“Speak,” Philip commanded.

“Perhaps Dr. Barrow will be able to provide a tonic to help you sleep.”

He didn’t have trouble sleeping. It was the dreams he needed a cure for. The dreams which had kept him in his study for the past three nights, determined to stay awake. Or to exhaust himself to the point where he fell into a sleep so deep he would be unable to dream.

But he’d failed at both. Despite his efforts, he continued to doze off—intermittent naps that kept him just short of becoming delusional. Yet it was still a state where his mind was free to torture him with images of Charlotte.

Sometimes she was laughing, her arms spread wide as she twirled beneath the sky. Or she would moan as he kissed her, caressed her, undressed her. And she would lead him to her bed, her eyes dark and sultry as she glanced at him over her shoulder.

But it was worst when she was silent. She just stared. Her mouth never moved, but still he could hear her voice softly accusing him, reciting all the ways he’d wronged her.

He always managed to wake himself up before she began to cry. He didn’t understand how he knew she was about to, but he did.

No, a sleep tonic would be of no use to him. He needed something to help him stay awake.

“Sending for Dr. Barrow would be unnecessary.”

Fallon inclined his head, then motioned toward the windows. “Please, Your Grace, at least allow me to draw the curtains. You are far too pale—”

“That will be all, Fallon,” Philip said, his syllables clipped.

The butler froze, then executed a sharp bow. “Your Grace.” He exited the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

Philip glared at the shadowed faces on the opposite wall. Then, reluctantly, his gaze shifted to the bank of windows. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep from seeking them out. As if he could see through them to the path a carriage would take in coming to Ruthven Manor.

He’d ordered the curtains to remain closed so he wouldn’t be tempted to watch for her return, and yet he kept opening them, stealing glances at the drive beyond.

It was pathetic, really.

He’d thought it had been the worst sort of hell to love her before, when he believed she hated him.

But this—knowing she might be with him now if it hadn’t been for his own bloody pride—it was unbearable.

With a low curse, Philip planted his hands on the desk and stood from his chair. He grunted, satisfied when he wobbled only a little.

The pungent smell of kippers and poached eggs wafted through the air, and he curled his lip in disgust at the sight of the covered breakfast tray.

The less he slept, the more the sight and smell of food seemed to turn his stomach.

Surely Fallon had noticed that each tray he returned to the kitchen was mostly untouched. And yet the man continued to deliver Philip’s meals at regular intervals. Yesterday he had even brought a tea tray.

A
tea
tray, replete with sugar and milk and an array of biscuits, scones, and tarts. As if Philip had ever taken tea unless the rituals of polite society required him to do so.

The entire household was coddling him, treating him like an invalid. Even his valet had entered once, asking if he would like for him to bring a change of clothing to the study.

He would change his clothes when he damned well liked.

Perhaps he would run through the entire house naked, even.

He could do as he pleased. He was the bloody ninth Duke of Rutherford.

Shuffling around the desk, he caught sight of his grandfather’s portrait. Philip returned the old man’s imperious stare with a glower of his own.

“You wouldn’t like that very much, would you? No, of course not. It wouldn’t be
proper
.”

He was still lucid enough not to expect a response from the inanimate object, so he continued toward the door, his arms spread to either side for balance.

He turned around. “I wasn’t proper the day I took off my clothes and swam nude in the pond. Anyone could have seen me. The servants or Joanna or anyone in the whole bloody world could have seen me in all of my bare-assed ducal glory.”

His gaze drifted to the windows, and when he began to shake, it wasn’t from weakness but from rage. He narrowed his eyes at the portrait again. “Damn you,” he muttered low.

It bore repeating.

“Damn you.”

He shouldn’t have stopped with Charlotte’s bedchamber. He should have taken down every last painting of the old duke.

His grandfather didn’t deserve to be recognized or honored. He had never done anything to merit Philip’s respect or love. Everything he’d done had been to manipulate him, to control him.

Philip wove his way back to the desk and flung aside the domed cover of the breakfast tray. It bounced and rolled across the carpet, finally careening into the leg of the sofa. Steadying himself with one hand, he speared a kipper with the fork and crammed it in his mouth, glowering at his grandfather’s silent sneer as he chewed.

At length, once he’d cleared away all of the kippers and eggs, he sank back into his chair and waited. Tapping his fingers together, he contemplated the portrait.

Hanging it in the gallery wouldn’t be sufficient. Neither would moving it to the attic, to be tucked in some dark, hidden corner.

Minutes passed. He could feel his strength returning, his mind clearing as if a fog had been swept away.

Standing up, he walked to the portrait and removed it from the wall. It was large, and heavy, and though he tried to carry it, he wasn’t yet strong enough.

He ended up dragging the portrait to the door, where he leaned it against the wall. He would have a footman put it somewhere out of sight until he could determine what to do with it.

His face itched, and he rubbed his jaw. The thick stubble didn’t scrape his palm, but tickled softly. He needed a shave. And a bath.

And
a change of clothes, though he might dismiss his valet if the man so much as smirked.

He made his way along the corridor toward the stairway, halting only a few times to steady himself.

He would find Charlotte. If she wouldn’t return to him, then he would go to her. He wasn’t certain what he would do then, but at least she would be near.

She wouldn’t welcome him, of course. She’d made that clear. But perhaps if they crossed each other’s path—not too frequently, and never for too long—she might begin to detest him just a little less.

As he passed the library, his grandfather’s bust caught his attention. He’d never before realized how very arrogant a man the old duke must have been, to have commissioned an artist to sculpt his likeness.

But then again, he had also hung countless portraits of himself throughout the house.

“Arrogant” might not be a strong enough word.

Philip stopped in front of the bust, surprised at how much it resembled the actual man. He reached out to smooth his hand over the wig, the grooved texture of the clay cool beneath his palm. The nose was too short, the slight hook at the end noticeably absent. But the mouth and the eyes were the same. Thin lips, though not curled, still somehow gave the appearance of a sneer. Narrowed eyes, the gray clay as cold as the silver ones they were meant to duplicate.

Philip dropped his hand.

Except for the wig, it could have been a bust of himself.

Was this what Charlotte saw when she looked at him?

Once again he studied the replica of the man he had feared but never loved. He had the same haughty arch to his right brow, the one Philip used when a condescending stare didn’t send London’s fops scurrying away fast enough.

His grandfather had raised him to be a proper duke. Observing all social niceties to a fault. Scorning those who deemed themselves his equal.

Arrogant. Callous. A man to despise.

Philip began to breathe faster, the air rushing in and out of his nostrils. The darkness of his childhood, the pain he’d thought had disappeared, returned to grip him.

With a low oath, he clutched the bust between both hands and lifted it above his head. Hurling it to the ground, he watched it shatter into pieces against the tile. Although a shard ricocheted, slashing across his cheek, he didn’t flinch.

He was not the same man as his grandfather.

He never would be.

“You are a horrible friend,” Charlotte muttered to Lady Emma Whitlock.

“I only introduced you.” Emma stared after Lord Forshaw, a frown drawing her blond brows together. “I still don’t understand how he could step upon your toes so many times. It was a
quadrille
, for heaven’s sake.”

“Yes,” Charlotte said drily. “Apparently my bosom is most distracting.”

Emma looked down at her own bodice and sighed. “I should like to be distracting.” She glanced up quickly. “Not for the sake of any suitor, of course, but simply for my own vanity.”

And that was why she and Charlotte were friends. The earl’s daughter was the only woman in London who didn’t suspect Charlotte of trying to steal her beau, fiancé, or husband. Emma far preferred her own imaginary heroes and villains to any of the men of the
ton
.

“Your bosom is delightful,” Charlotte said. “There, now that your vanity is appeased, you may either go with me or I will leave you stranded here.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “You must admit, the evening hasn’t gone as poorly as you thought—”

“Everyone is staring at me.”

“Everyone always stares at you,” Emma pointed out. “And besides, he did kidnap you. If I weren’t looking at you already, I’d stare at you now. You are far more interesting than I.”

Charlotte’s laughter stuck in her throat as a tall man with dark hair walked across the room beyond Emma. Her heart raced.

But no, it wasn’t Philip. His shoulders were too narrow.

BOOK: Seducing the Duchess

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