The Wicked Ways of a Duke(51)

“What are you laughing about?”

He glanced up to find Prudence standing in the doorway. She had changed into a pink traveling suit, but his mind flashed back to three hours earlier when he’d watched her coming up the aisle of St. Paul’s on her uncle’s arm in her white silk bridal gown. At that moment, he’d felt a piercing, painful joy in his heart like nothing he’d experienced before, and looking at her now, he felt it again. She was the loveliest, sweetest, most luscious thing he’d ever seen in his life, and he still couldn’t believe he had won her with nothing but love.

She gave him a puzzled look. “Aren’t you going to tell me why you were laughing?”

He picked up a handful of correspondence and grinned. “I was thinking of a bonfire. We could make it a party. Invite my mother, and your relations, and all our indebted friends. They could bring their bills, too, and we could throw them all on. There would be so much to burn, we’d probably end up burning Milbray’s house down. That could be a lark.”

She studied him for a moment without speaking, then closed the door. To his surprise, she locked it before crossing the room and moving around the desk to his side. When he rose to his feet, she entwined her arms around his neck. “Any regrets?” she asked him.

“Not a one,” he assured her, and slid his arms around her waist. “I’ve never given a damn about paying the bills. I just hope you don’t come to regret marrying me. It isn’t going to be easy, you know.”

She smiled at him. “It’s going to be far easier than you realize.”

He found that enigmatic remark and the smile on her lips baffling. During the past four weeks, they had discussed their financial situation many times, deciding which debts to pay, making a stringent household budget, determining how to survive during the coming months on the advance Marlowe had paid him for his first book. “We’ll barely have enough to live on,” he reminded her. “What’s easy about that?”

“No, no, we’ll have plenty, my love. You see…” She paused and took a deep breath. “We still have the money.”

Rhys stared at her, uncomprehending. “Darling, what are you talking about?”

“All that business about the trustees disapproving you? That was…umm…rather a deception on my part.”

“A deception?” He stiffened, pulling back from her. “You lied to me?”

She nodded, still smiling. “Yes.”

“But what about the trustees?” He picked up the letter from the pile on the desk. “I have their refusal to approve right here.”

“Well, yes, but that’s a lie, too. Mr. Whitfield agreed to play along with my idea, and wrote you that letter at my request.”

“What?” That a lawyer would lie didn’t surprise him in the least, but Prudence? He couldn’t credit it. She had a hopeless sense of middle-class morality. “You lied?”

She bit her lip and nodded in confirmation. “I’m afraid so, yes.”

“For four weeks now you have been leading me to believe that we are going to be poor as church mice, and all the while—” He stopped, unable to quite believe how thoroughly he’d been duped. “All the while, you were deceiving me?”

She gave him an apologetic look. “I had to do it, Rhys. I had to know for certain if you were genuinely in love with me.”

“But all you had to do was agree to marry me in April after the money was forfeited.”

She shook her head. “That would never have worked.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Darling, I’d never have been able to hold out against your charms until April! You’d have finagled your way into a wedding by Christmas, and the shadow of doubt would have remained in my mind, no matter how I tried to ignore it. I had to be sure.”

Rhys shook his head, trying to understand the consequences of what she’d done. “You’re not joking about this? We really do have the money after all?”

Her smile widened. “One million pounds per annum, give or take a few thousand, of course.”

“My God.” He rubbed his hands across his face. “My God.”

She laughed, her arms tightening around his neck. “Speechless for once?” she teased, and kissed him. “No glib answer? No charming offhand remark?”

“Not a one. You’ve flummoxed me. Absolutely flummoxed me.” Rhys looked into his wife’s big, beautiful dark eyes, where he’d seen no trace of deception whatsoever during the past four weeks, and he shook his head. “You lied to me,” he murmured and frowned. “I’m not sure I like it. Doesn’t seem like quite fair play, Prudence, really. We were supposed be learning to trust each other, remember?”

She sighed, studying him with concern. “Oh, dear.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Please don’t go all upright and honorable on me now. I love my devious duke and his wicked ways.”

“Oh, I’m still wicked, darling,” he assured her. “And I’m going to spend the rest of our lives showing you just how wicked I can be.”

“Starting tonight?”

“No.” He slid his hand down her hips. “Starting right now. You did lock that door, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“Then kiss me, tipsy girl.”

And when she did, Rhys enjoyed the lush taste of her mouth so much, he knew he’d learned the wrong moral lesson from this entire affair. Honesty might be the best policy, but wicked ways were a great deal more fun.