How to Tame Your Duke(23)

"Ha-ha! Greek iambics on Christmas Eve. What an optimistic fellow you  are, Mr. Grimsby." Freddie scraped his greedy spoon through the brandy  sauce. "No, no. It's this: I think you should join us in the drawing  room this evening for the traditional gift-opening and wassail and  whatnot. After all, you're quite a member of the family now, what with  Pater saving your brains from being splattered about the ballroom floor  and all that. It creates a sort of intimacy among us all. What do you  think, Pater?"                       
       
           



       

Emilie's fork, on the way to her mouth with its precious cargo of plum pudding, came to a halt in mid-flight.

She cast a panicked glance at Ashland's face.

The duke was eating his pudding. He finished, swallowed, and wiped his mouth.

He will say no. Emilie put her fork back into motion. The plum pudding turned mysteriously to ash in her mouth.

He has to say no. It's impossible. It's unseemly. It's . . .

Dangerous.

Ashland seemed unaware that he was about to deliver a verdict of  world-shattering importance. His face betrayed no emotion at all. He  folded his snowy white napkin next to his plate with dextrous movements  of his left hand.

Emilie's insides burned, but her hands were as cold as ice. Say no, she pleaded silently.

Ashland gazed at his son, and a smile-a smile!-lifted his firm lips. The  same lips that had pressed against her wrist, Emilie thought. The same  lips that had hovered above her hair in the quiet electricity of the  sitting room at Ashland Spa Hotel.

The duke put his hand on the arm of his chair, as if preparing to rise.

"I think that's a fine idea, Frederick," he said. "At the very least,  Mr. Grimsby will elevate the tone of the conversation, with his Greek  iambics." He turned to Emilie with his pirate's face, managing to look  both masterful and uncivilized with that black leather half-mask  gleaming next to his silver hair.

"What do you say, Mr. Grimsby? We're a dismal pair, Freddie and I, but it's better than waiting until Boxing Day, eh?"

"I . . ." Emilie swung helplessly for an instant. She had presents for  them, of course, plucked from the shops of Ashland Spa a week ago. A  book for Freddie, a fountain pen for Ashland. Miss Dingleby had always  offered gifts at Christmas to her charges and their parents, so Emilie  had bought the tokens just in case it was expected.

"Oh, come now, Mr. Grimsby," said Freddie. "The tree's been put to  rights. Besides, I daresay poor Lucy's standing outside with the  mistletoe this very moment, just waiting to waylay you. You're much  better off with us. Safety in numbers and so on."

Emilie glanced in horror at the imposing door of the dining room.

She picked up her wineglass and slugged down the remainder with reckless abandon.

"Yes, of course," she said. "I should be delighted."





TEN




It was only four o'clock on a crisp Tuesday afternoon when the Duke of  Ashland mounted his horse and signaled the groom away, but it had seemed  like the longest day of his life.

The entire week, in fact, had dragged along as if towing a load of Yorkshire boulders in its wake.

Only a week, since he had stood at the window of his room at the Ashland  Spa Hotel and watched the carriage carry Emily away from the rear  portico. Only a week, since he had peeled back Emily's glove and pressed  his impulsive lips against her pulse. Only a week, since he had sat  down in his shame and misery and scribbled that hasty note, begging her  to see him again. To let him bask in her sunshine again, to feel the  innocent warmth of her, her knowing serenity, glowing like a beacon of  promise.

His horse moved into a willing trot, and the frigid air sliced his  cheeks. He hardly noticed. Physical discomfort was simply a fact, a part  of his life; he had long since learned to accommodate it. To welcome  it, almost, as a hardship to be overcome.

He reached the end of the long Ashland Abbey drive and turned into the  lane. The wind had stilled, as if frozen in place by the sudden influx  of winter; the sky above, so unnaturally pure and blue today, was  already losing its color in anticipation of sunset. The sight of the  white sun lowering in the east made his blood race.

The early winter evening was arriving.

Would Emily arrive, too?

He was mad. He had only known her for a pair of hours. He knew nothing  of the thoughts in her head, her family, her childhood, her passions and  her disappointments. He only knew that he wanted them all. He wanted  them, he wanted her, so fiercely that he could hardly think of anything  else. He had passed through Christmas week in a dream.

What would he do if Emily did not arrive with the sunset this evening?

His heels nudged the horse into a canter. He wouldn't think about that. He would not even entertain that awful possibility.

It would be far better, of course, if she didn't come to him tonight. He  acknowledged that. Whatever pleasure he took from Emily would extract  the most dreadful penalty from his sense of honor and duty, from the  bedrock on which he had built his life in the past twelve years since  Isabelle's departure.

Ahead lay Ashland Spa, huddled into the hills. The train from York would ease into the station in forty-two minutes.                       
       
           



       

He was mad.

* * *

In another moment, Emilie was going to pick up the clock above her mantel and smash it on the floor.

That would be undignified, of course. Miss Dingleby would flatten her  brow in disapproval. On the other hand, Miss Dingleby had surely never  been confronted with a clock so loud and tyrannical, its ticking  scratches so intrusive, its quarterly chimes so relentlessly cheerful,  the whole works so worthy of the most violent annihilation.

Tick . . . tock . . . Tues . . . day . . . Tues . . . day . . . Tues . . . day . . .

"Stop it!" she said to the clock. She looked down at her right hand,  which was clenching the fountain pen with enough strength to crack the  enamel. A graceful pen, exactly the same color and make as the fountain  pen she had given to the Duke of Ashland for Christmas. Well, well, he'd  said, lifting the pen from its box, smiling, what a lovely instrument, I  couldn't have picked a finer one myself, and when Emilie had opened her  box from the duke, an exact replica had lain inside.

Everyone had laughed at the coincidence-even the duke, whose laugh  turned out to be genuine and pleasant and golden around the edges.

Of course. Even his laugh lured her in.

The pen wrote beautifully, too. She was presently composing a note to  Miss Dingleby, and struggling to make it sound as innocuous as possible:  Thank you for the lovely tea this Tuesday last; however, I feel upon  reflection that the location is unsuitable for such occasions in the  future . . .

She had trailed off at that, unsure what to write. Obviously she could  not say because the hotel staff believes me to be its owner's whore, or  because I have carried out an assignation with my employer in one of the  hotel's private rooms.

The clock scratched on. It . . . is . . . Tues . . . day . . . what . . .  will . . . you . . . do . . . it . . . is . . .Tues . . . day . . .  Tues . . . day . . . Tues . . . day . . .

Emilie threw down the pen and went to the window. The incessant howling  Yorkshire dankness had been swept away today by a rush of clear and  frigid air from the northeast. Every detail of the landscape lay before  her in almost painful detail. In the distance, a few rooftops of Ashland  Spa, tucked into the moor like a handful of pebbles. The gray slate  jumble of the Anvil, if she wasn't mistaken.

Of course she wouldn't go.

She could not voluntarily return to the back entrance of the Ashland Spa  Hotel and be shown up to that quiet room. She could not choose to  continue this . . . what was it? Liaison? She could not feed this  shameful infatuation of hers. Starve it, and it would die.

Emilie turned from the window, but not before a speck of movement caught her eye.

She tried to resist. She fisted her hand against her side with the effort of resisting.

You are Lot's wife, Emilie. Do not look back.

She looked back.

A man rode a horse down the Ashland Abbey drive. A large,  straight-backed man in a dark coat and hat; a large, well-bred horse  with an eager stride. The man looked straight ahead, but his body was  pitched slightly forward, as if humming with latent energy, as if in  eager anticipation of the road ahead. He guided the horse with the reins  in his left hand; the end of his right arm lay upon his muscled thigh.

Dizziness swirled about Emilie's brain. She had forgotten to breathe.

She drew in a deep and conscious gust of air and watched the duke as he  turned from the drive, disappearing momentarily behind the gateposts and  then reappearing at a sharp trot, his lean body moving in perfect  association with the animal beneath him.