The Autumn Duke (A Duke for All Seasons Book 4)

by Jillian Eaton

  It was the perfect punctuation to an imperfect love story.

  It was the happily-ever-after she’d always wanted.

  It was the end of her list as she knew it.

  Until Byron sat up and said ten little words that ruined it all.

  “I suppose I have to marry you now, don’t I?”

  Chapter Eleven

  “What? What is it?” Byron exclaimed defensively when Kitty leapt to her feet as if she’d been stung by some nettlesome insect. Except all the windows were securely closed, which meant that nettlesome insect was him. Although he really hadn’t the faintest idea why she would be glaring at him as if he’d just kicked a puppy.

  Was it something he’d said? Something he’d done? Aside from taking her virginity on a bloody sofa, that is.

  Guilt was a heavy weight on Byron’s shoulders as he waited for Kitty’s response. He knew his actions were abhorrent. He had lost control, and instead of trying to get it back when he felt it slipping through his fingers he’d thrown it away.

  And it had felt good.

  Better than good.

  Better than anything he’d ever felt in his entire life.

  Making love to Lady Katherine Dower had been…well, it had been beyond his wildest fantasies. No short order, as his wildest fantasies had been quite explicit ever since they first met. But their tryst on the sofa had exceeded them all, and what made his guilt worse was that he felt no regret.

  If Kitty weren’t shooting daggers at him as she yanked on her dress he’d be tempted to take her again right now. But she was, and he didn’t know why, because for the first time during their tumultuous acquaintance she wasn’t bloody speaking.

  “Did it…did it hurt?” he asked hesitantly, his hands twisting together behind his back as more guilt twisted within his gut. “I tried to be as gentle as I could.”

  Which he’d failed to do.

  Miserably.

  While Kitty was the first virgin he’d ever bedded (contrary to the rumors, not every duke made it their life’s mission to seduce innocents) he thought he had an idea of how things would proceed. Namely, she’d tremble in his arms while he soothed her fears as they did the deed. Of course, he should have known better. With Kitty it was always best to expect the unexpected.

  The chit had been a damned wildcat, and she’d made his blood burn like no other woman before her, despite the fact that all of the women before her had been mistresses who were exceptionally skilled at their craft. But it hadn’t mattered. Kitty had made them all pale in comparison, and he already ached to draw her into his arms and kiss her again. An uncomfortably foreign notion, given he usually couldn’t escape the bedchamber fast enough when all was said and done.

  Not that they were in his bedchamber. Or any bedchamber, for that matter. Because he’d made love to her on a sofa. A very expensive sofa upholstered in the finest fabric, but still. A sofa was a sofa, and a gentleman should know better.

  Except when he was with Kitty he didn’t feel like a gentleman.

  When he was with Kitty he felt…he felt alive. In a way he hadn’t felt in years. Perhaps in a way he’d never felt.

  Beneath his father’s iron fist he had existed in a constant state of fear and resentment. When the duke finally died he’d forced those emotions beneath the surface, but that hadn’t made them disappear. Covering a pit with wooden boards didn’t make it vanish. And when the wood eventually began to rot and decay it was only a matter of time before the boards gave way.

  So he kept putting more wood down. And nailed the jagged pieces in place with stubbornness, and aloofness, and pride. Then along came a vexing, mischievous, gray-eyed fairy who had ripped the boards away and began to fill the aching emptiness inside of him with laughter, and lust, and happiness. Because he was happy when they were together, Byron realized suddenly. Bemused, yes. Annoyed, most certainly. But there was joy there too. The kind that filled his heart with light even as it shadowed his head with doubt.

  “Lady Katherine?” he prompted when she remained cloaked in chilly silence. Hands on his hips, he watched in muted frustration as she yanked on her undergarments and then stepped into her dress. Drawing it up over her shoulders, she pulled her hair to the side then turned her back and addressed him as if he were a common maid instead of a duke.

  “The buttons, if you’d be so kind, darling.” Her voice was sweet enough to hurt his teeth, which was no doubt her intention. He considered storming out of the study in a wave of furious indignation, but if he did that he wouldn’t be able to glide his knuckles along the delicate bumps of her vertebrae, or inhale the subtle scent of her perfume, or peer over her shoulder at her breasts, the tips of which were still flushed and swollen from their lovemaking.

  “Are you done?” she said flatly when he found himself lingering a little too long over the final button. Jaw clenching, Byron slid the small pearl into its hoop enclosure and stepped away.

  “Quite,” he said, matching his tone to hers. By the time she bothered to face him he’d retrieved his shirt and waistcoat from the floor. Donning the first, he carelessly tossed the second onto a chair. A surreptitious glance of the study revealed his cravat had vanished, and his boots had suffered a similar fate. No matter. He’d call in his valet to search for them as soon as he decided what he was going to do about the problem before him. The problem he’d just made inexplicably more complicated by allowing his cock to take full command of his self-control.

  Not that he could blame the poor fellow. Kitty was…well, she was Kitty. Any man would have been a fool not to desire her and Byron did not generally consider himself a fool, although he did feel unmistakably foolish as he stood before Kitty without the vaguest idea of why she was shooting daggers at him with her eyes. He thought – he knew – she’d found pleasure in their lovemaking. And hadn’t he done the right thing by offering marriage as soon as it was over? There were many who wouldn’t. Many who would go on with their lives as if they hadn’t just deflowered an innocent on their sofa. Many who would forget what she looked like as soon as they sauntered out of the room. But if there was thing Byron was absolutely certain of in this time of uncertainty, it was that no matter what happened in the next few minutes or hours or days or years, he would never forget Katherine.

  Somehow she had become as much a part of his soul as the scars from his father’s beatings. A glimmer of beauty in the bleakness. A source of light in the dim. An answer to a question he didn’t dare ask.

  And now she wasn’t speaking to him.

  “You’re angry with me,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Indeed.”

  He waited for her to elaborate, and bit back a frustrated curse when it was clear she wasn’t going to. Obstinate woman. During every single one of their previous encounters she’d chattered away like a bloody bluebird, and now – when he actually wanted to hear every single little thought in that clever mind of hers – she couldn’t manage more than two syllables.

  “Why?” he gritted. “Why are you angry?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t.”

  “Fine.” She tossed back her head. “I am angry because I didn’t lose my virginity so you’d have to marry me! As if doing so would be such a horrible chore.” Lightning flashed in her eyes. “For your information, you’d be lucky if I even accepted your awful proposal. Which I am not going to do, by the by.”

  Byron stared blankly at her as a flicker of alarm tapped against the base of his skull. God knew he didn’t want to marry. But if he had to – and having ruined her, he did have to – then he should like it to be Kitty. For as much as she infuriated him, she also inflamed him. And while he hadn’t yet resolved himself to the matter of children, he thought he might possibly want to have a baby with Kitty. One with her spirit and his steadfastness. Except now she was saying she didn’t want to marry him, which was something he’d never considered.

  “Why the hell not?” he demanded.

&
nbsp; “Why would I refuse such a romantic proposal as, ‘I suppose I have to marry you now’?” she mocked in a deep parody of his voice that had his brows snapping together. “I truly haven’t the vaguest idea. It’s really what a girl dreams of, to be told the man she fancies has to marry her.”

  “If it’s the wording you take offense to–”

  “It isn’t the wording. Well, yes, it is the wording,” she amended before he could get a word in. “The wording was absolute rubbish. But it’s the meaning behind the wording that’s the most rubbish of all. Do you only want to marry me because we had sexual relations and now you feel obligated to do so?”

  He could have told her about the wooden boards. He could have told her she was making him feel things. Things he’d never felt with anyone else before. But that would mean he’d have to show vulnerability. That would mean he’d have to reveal his secrets. That would mean he’d have to share his hurt. And he wasn’t ready. Not yet. Which was why he kept his emotions sharply in check and said, “Yes. That is precisely why I – bloody hell!” he cried, ducking to the side when a boot – his boot – came sailing towards his head. “Where the devil did you find that?”

  “Right where I found this one!”

  This time he didn’t move fast enough and the second boot managed to clip him on the shoulder. Stumbling back – who knew the minx had the strength of a mule? – he rubbed his arm and glared at her. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “I’m being ridiculous? You just proposed marriage out of a misguided and antiquated sense of obligation! Have you made similar proposals to every single woman you’ve bedded?”

  Byron’s nostrils flared. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “Then why me?” She flung her arms wide in a gesture of anger even as her eyes pleaded with him to tell her what she desperately wanted to hear. “What makes me different?”

  He knew exactly what she wanted. What she was looking for. But he couldn’t give it to her. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Because declarations of love were only for those who didn’t know the truth; the truth that love simply did not exist. If it did, he’d know about it. Because a man who loved his child would have never have been able to do the things Byron’s father had done to him. But he had. Again, and again, and again. Which meant love was a fallacy…and Byron refused to pretend otherwise.

  “You’re not different.” His countenance hardened. “And you will accept the proposal I gave you, because I’ll be damned before I make another one. Let’s not forget you pursued me, Lady Katherine. This is what you wanted.”

  “This is not what I wanted.” She shook her head and her hair, already tousled from his fingers raking through the long satiny curls, spilled down her back in a wave of black silk. “There’s more between us than this – this wretched formality you insist upon. I can feel it, and I know you can too. What I don’t know is why you refuse to admit it.”

  “Because there’s nothing to admit,” he lied.

  Kitty rolled her eyes.

  “I like you, Byron. Only God himself knows why. You’re rude and condescending and too arrogant by half. But I like you. Mayhap…mayhap even love you. I don’t know.” Her shoulders jerked helplessly as something within his chest suddenly tightened. “I’ve never been in love before. I have no idea what it’s supposed to feel like. But I do know love should not be born out of responsibility or duty or obligation.” She wrinkled her nose at the last word as though it carried a foul stench. “I want you to want to marry me. Not because you have to. Not because your conscience demands it of you. I want you to marry me because you cannot imagine a future where we aren’t together.”

  “I’m imagining one right now,” he growled. “It’s very peaceful and quiet.”

  She went to him and splayed her hand over his heart. “What happened?” she whispered, gray eyes wide and imploring as she peered up at him beneath thick ebony lashes. “What made you afraid of intimacy?”

  He glanced purposefully at the sofa, then looked down at her and arched a brow. “You didn’t think I was afraid of intimacy when my tongue was on your–”

  “Not physical intimacy.” She swatted his chest. “Emotional intimacy. I know you’re capable of connection, or else your sisters wouldn’t adore you as much as they do.”

  “Yes, they adore me so much they went behind my back to invite a dozen unwanted guests into my home.” His eyes narrowed when Kitty’s gaze darted away. “You had something to do with the house party, didn’t you? I knew it,” he said when she bit her lip.

  “The entire thing was my idea,” she admitted. “But only because I needed a way to see you! And you needed to see other people. Those aren’t unwanted guests out in the parlor. They are your neighbors and your friends.” She toyed with a button on his shirt. “I don’t know what made you so closed off, Byron, but I do know you need to start opening yourself up. There’s an entire world out there. An entire life, just waiting for you to live it. And you’re missing it all by keeping yourself from everything and everyone.”

  “I don’t need to do anything,” he said flatly. Capturing her wrist, he drew her hand away from his chest. “My life was perfectly fine before a loud, meddlesome debutante interrupted it.”

  Kitty tilted her head. “Is it me? Am I the loud, meddlesome debutante?”

  “Of course you bloody well are.” He flung out his arm. “Do you see anyone else standing in the room ordering me about?”

  “I’m not ordering you. I’m just–”

  “Making presumptions about things you know nothing about.” Releasing her, he stalked across the room and glowered out the window. The sky was a calm, pleasing blue – a direct contrast to the tension simmering inside the study.

  He could feel it in the back of his neck. He could taste it on his tongue. The tension invoked memories he didn’t want to remember. Memories he’d struggled for years to suppress. Memories of a dark room and a long belt and brimstone burning in his father’s eyes.

  “Don’t come any closer,” he warned when he heard the soft rustle of Kitty’s skirts. If she touched him now…if she showed him any kindness at all, he was afraid of what might happen. To his control. To his resolve. To his heart. So he did what any wounded creature would do when they were cornered. He lashed out.

  “You aren’t the woman I would have chosen to marry, but you haven’t given me much choice, have you?” he said with a bitter, scornful laugh. “I presume this is what you were after all along. The title of duchess. A large estate. Endless wealth. Well, you can have it. You can have it all. But not without cost. And that cost is your silence.”

  “That isn’t what I–”

  He cut her off. “I won’t be nagged every bloody second of the day. If you want to be my wife, you’re welcome to the position. We’re certainly physically compatible. But we’re not going to be sharing tea every morning and going on rides through the park or having dinner together every night. You’re welcome to your private affairs and you’ll leave me to mine. This is not – nor will it ever be – a love match. So you can accept my proposal for what it is, or you can leave. It is up to you.”

  When he didn’t hear anything, he turned around.

  Only to discover she’d already left.

  Chapter Twelve

  With her heart in her throat and tears on her cheeks, Kitty fled the study. She started up the stairs, but the murmur of voices coming from the parlor just across the way had her abruptly changing direction and bolting for the back of the manor instead. The musicale had ended, but the last thing she wanted to do was have anyone see her like this.

  Disheveled.

  Distraught.

  Destroyed.

  Stumbling out onto the rear terrace, she ran down the steps two at a time and across the lawn to a large apple orchard. The red fruit was ready to be harvested and had pulled the leaves and branches down low, shielding Kitty from view as she leaned back against one of the gnarled trunks and buried her head in her hands.

  She hated to cry, which w
as why she tried to avoid it all costs. But there was simply no stopping the torrent of tears as they streamed down her face, nor the sound of her muffled sobs as her chest convulsed and her shoulders shook.

  Whenever she tried to stop her tears just came faster, and eventually she simply gave in to the pain and the grief and the frustration until her body felt as if it were a rag that had been rung out. When the last tear had dripped off her chin she dried her eyes with her skirts and cast her gaze heavenwards, searching for some sign of hope through the slivers of blue sky peeking through the leaves.

  Kitty was not an overly religious person, but she very much believed in fate and the signs that accompanied it. Unfortunately, to the best of her knowledge, there was no bird or breeze or fluttering leaf that could give her what she wanted. Although she wouldn’t be opposed to a bird doing its business on Byron’s head. That was a sign she would understand loud and clear. But it seemed she wasn’t even to be granted that much, for although she searched and searched there were no were birds to be seen.

  Or dukes, for that matter.

  Absently finding a yellow flower amidst the grass, she mindlessly began to pluck off the petals one after the other. He loves me, she thought silently, her mouth twisting in a bitter smile as she recalled the silly game she’d often played as a child. She yanked off another petal and watched it drop unceremoniously to the ground. He loves me not. Because he doesn’t love anyone. Because he’s an unfeeling brute who wouldn’t know love if hit him in the middle of his forehead!

  On a hiss of breath she snapped the flower stem in half and threw it aside just as a pair of shoes appeared at the edge of the orchard.