The Dissolute Duke(18)

‘Only a few weeks.’

‘Then you might come to see us before then.’ Camille joined the conversation for the first time, her lilting French accent beautiful. ‘My husband made a point of telling me that you speak French well, your Grace. I should enjoy a conversation in my native language.’

More couples drifted over towards them, amongst the group an old school friend of Lucinda’s. Annabelle Browne was as effusive as ever.

‘Why, I just absolutely cannot imagine what it must have been like for your husband to have spent three years in the Americas, Lucy. My brother, Anthony, was in Washington for only a small amount of time and he was most forthcoming about the primitive state of the place.’

‘I suspect that Alderworth managed,’ she returned.

‘The gold fields were dens of iniquity, I am told. It was a shame you could not have been there with him, to guide him through the pitfalls.’

‘Oh, I am certain my husband was able to navigate them by himself, Annabelle.’ The cutting she had received from Annabelle’s brother came to mind and in an effort to change the topic she looked around at the others present. But Annabelle Browne was as persistent as she was dull-witted.

‘Tony says the Duke was lucky in his windfall and that he left Georgia under a cloud.’

‘A cloud of what?’

‘Suspicion. His partner in the mining venture, Montcrieff, was killed and there was some discussion as to who would have benefitted most from such a tragedy. It seems Alderworth did.’ She smiled sweetly, setting Lucinda’s teeth on an edge.

‘I am certain had there been anything untoward, the constabulary would have moved in.’

‘But they did, you see, that is my very point. Tony said that your Duke was supposed to come before the courts in Atlanta, but—’

She stopped, aware of Alderworth’s glance upon her.

‘I was freed, Miss Browne, as an innocent man. The law has its uses after all, even though most of the time it is an ass.’ His smile was languid, the creases in his cheeks deep against his tan and in a room full of men who had spent the good part of the day getting ready for this evening’s entertainment he looked untamed—a ranging wolf amongst dainty chickens. The vibrant green of his eyes added to his menace.

Annabelle turned red and for a moment Lucinda viewed the world as Taylen might have, the innuendo and aspersion on his character a constant presence. She made herself smile as she faced her husband.

‘It is most trying when people insist on passing on false rumours, do you not think, Duke?’

‘Indeed,’ he returned, and they both watched as the woman gave her goodbyes and dragged the man she was with away.

‘I do not need you to defend me,’ he said as Annabelle Browne moved out of hearing and the anger in his voice was sharp.

‘Do you not, your Grace? I should have thought the very opposite.’ She stood her ground as he loomed above her.

‘Doubts begin to creep in if one crows one’s innocence too loudly, I find.’ He was back to his most infuriating best.

‘It is more than doubts that hold those in this room enthralled in the saga of the Alderworth family. Were I to name it I might chance … fear.’

A small flicker of doubt came into his face. ‘Do you fear me then, too?’

‘No.’ Surprisingly she did not. The answer tripped from her tongue in truth as their glances met and held, a living flame of heat that curled around sense and wisdom. She should fear him because every single thing she heard about him compromised all she had known before and just as they were finding a footing together some other new and terrible story pushed all accord aside leaving only this … attraction.

It would never be enough, she knew, tragedy and disaster trumping proper judgement and good sense. But she could not help it.

Intrinsically flawed.

And she was.

Lucinda was looking at him as though he might stab the next person who came to talk to them. The aspersions just aired, he supposed, as the face of Lance Montcrieff rose up in memory, an accident with their rudimentary stamp mill in Ward’s Creek slicing through his thigh just below the groin.

It had taken less than ten minutes for him to bleed out, despite Tay’s efforts to staunch the flow, and Tay had held his hand through every long and harrowing one of them, willing his friend to live even as breath dulled and stopped. Gold took no account of the integrity of its victims, for if it had it would have been him lying there with cold blue on his lips and death in his skin, thousands of miles from home.

Another loss. Another brush with the law. Another woman without a husband, another child fatherless.

Swallowing, he pulled himself back into the ballroom on Audley Street with its chandeliers and wide curtained alcoves, marbled pillars and liveried servants.

A gentle England that had not been his for a long, long time. He had forgotten its beauty and peace, he thought, as his wife swayed unconsciously to the beat of music, deliberately not looking his way.

‘Would you dance with me again?’

He expected her to refuse, but she did not. Instead he found her fingers within his outstretched hand and then they were on the floor amongst the other couples, the music of a waltz beginning.

He had always liked the way she fitted into him, her head just under the curve of his chin, liked how she allowed him to lead her, an easy flowing dancer with a light and clever step.

He did not usually dance at these social occasions, but spent the hours in the card rooms drinking away the night.

‘How did the man in America die? The one Annabelle spoke of, I mean?’ Her query was soft and he could think of no other of his acquaintance who might have asked this question so directly of him.

‘His name was Lance. Lance Montcrieff. We set up a stamp mill outside Dahlonega to crush the ore from the tunnels and release the gold. When the sapling holding the structure broke and it all came down on him, he never stood a chance. We were ten hours from the nearest township, you understand, and a lot of that was over rough terrain.’

‘Why did they blame you?’

‘Gold has the propensity to make fools of every man and a rich claim incites questions. I was the one who would profit most from his death, after all, and there was no one else about to vouch that my story was true.’

Her breath hitched against the skin at his throat. Another truth she did not want probably. Another way she would be disappointed in him.

‘Trouble never seems very far away from your door, your Grace. Do you ever wonder why?’

Shaking his head, he was amazed when she let him pull her closer, their bodies now touching almost like lovers. The firm daintiness of her breasts rubbed against his chest and he pushed his groin against her own in a quiet statement of intent.

Slender fingers tightened on his hands. Their bodies talked now in the smallest of caresses, almost accidental, never hurried—

a slight pressure here, a small stroke there, too new for words, too fragile for any true acknowledgement. Taylen had never been in a room before and felt so removed from everybody in it. Save her. Save his wife with her straightforward questions and her unexpected allegiance.

‘What is Edmund Coleridge to you?’

‘A friend who has helped me to laugh again.’

‘That is all. Just the laughter?’ He did not care for the hesitation in her words or the sudden stiffness in her body.

‘Why all these questions, your Grace?’ She smiled as she asked, a smile that made her look so beautiful, with her deep-set dimples and pale spun-gold hair, that he had to glance away.

‘My father may have had no problem with being cuckolded, Duchess, but I most certainly do.’ He did not like the unease he could so plainly hear in his words.

‘Three years of absence makes your insistence on celibacy rather hard to take, your Grace. Perhaps I should inform you that a woman, contrary to belief, has as many needs as a man.’

‘Needs I wish to fill, sweetheart, and tonight if you would let me.’

He felt shock run down through all the parts of her body in a hot and hard wash, and was glad for it. If he had been anywhere else save in a crowded ballroom, he could have used such a reaction to persuade her to take a chance on him. Such an easy seduction. He had done it so many times before, after all, and not one woman had ever held complaint.

Yet as he gritted his teeth those faceless paramours dissolved into the ether just as they had done for a while now, lost to him and formless, lovers with the word skewered into only faithless lust. The broken promises of his childhood bound into the present.

When the music stopped they came apart and he was glad for the distance as he went to find a drink.

Lucinda felt giddy. A ridiculous word, she knew, but it explained her lack of certainty entirely. Taylen Ellesmere threw her into a place that was without compass, directionless and wanton.

Wanton? Another word she smiled at. Tonight her vocabulary regarding misdirected emotions was growing and she did not wish for it to stop. Already she looked for him across the room, tall and dark amongst a sea of others.

She was like a moth to his light, fluttering unheeded, waiting to be burnt. Her brothers had warned her, her sisters-in-law had told her stories about him and none of the tales had been kind. Yet still some invisible bond drew her to him, the wedding ring circling her finger a part of it, but nowhere near the total. Her nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms as she pondered her intentions.