Blame It on the Duke (The Disgraceful Dukes #3)

by Lenora Bell

  “Well, I hope so, since you’re the bridegroom.”

  Marry Alice. Keep roof over father’s head. Send Alice to India. Resume life of dissipation.

  He’d had weeks to think about the terms of their agreement.

  Weeks to imagine Alice’s tutelage in vivid, glorious detail.

  Which must be the reason he’d stayed celibate throughout their engagement, though there had been plenty of prodding by his more unscrupulous friends to enjoy his last days of bachelorhood.

  Her mother had kept Alice occupied with a whirlwind of fittings, social calls, and whatever else ladies did to prepare for weddings, but Nick had visited her several times, thinking to steal a few more heated, lingering kisses.

  Unfortunately, her parents had never left them unsupervised again.

  Probably too worried he’d ravish the lady.

  Which, given the opportunity, he would have seriously considered, as every time he saw her, it struck him anew what an unusual and arresting combination of beauty and brains she possessed.

  The papers were fascinated by the wedding, and wagers were flying fast and furious in the clubs as to how long the marriage would remain amicable.

  What they didn’t know was that the union would remain more than amicable, because it required only a temporary exchange of affections.

  Every gentleman who’d ever attended one of his disreputable entertainments would be there to smirk as he tied the noose.

  To hell with them. This was the perfect, expedient union.

  Or it would be if he made it to the church in time.

  Nick searched the room, flinging clothing left and right. “Don’t stand there laughing, you hairy arse.”

  “You’re buggered any way you look at it,” Lear said cheerfully.

  “This is bad. Very bad. Help me find my coat.”

  “I’m not a valet,” Lear said.

  “Neither is Berthold.” He was a former champion prizefighter and a middling valet, but Nick kept him on because Berthold wouldn’t have been able to find other employment.

  “If I don’t make it to this wedding you can kiss my business good-bye,” Nick reminded Lear. “No more Portuguese red or oak-barrel Jamaican rum for me. So you’d best find my boots. And find Berthold, too. He ought to be able to help.”

  That lit a fire under Lear. “Right. I saw old Bert sleeping in the hallway.”

  He strode to the door. “Berthold,” he bellowed.

  Nick’s purported valet stumbled into the room, rubbing his eyes. “You needn’t shout.”

  “Pull yourself together, man,” Lear barked. “We must assemble this miscreant of a marquess into a respectable member of society, fit to wed an innocent heiress before God and the jaded eyes of the ton.”

  Berthold’s bleary eyes widened. “What time is it?”

  “Nearly too late,” said Nick irritably. “Where’s my best beaver topper?” He hadn’t seen his best hat for days.

  Berthold started guiltily. “May have been sold to pay the butcher’s bill.”

  “Christ,” roared Nick. “I have to reach that church before we all starve.” He threw a shirt over his head and buttoned the neck.

  “Here, have mine.” Lear handed over his sleek top hat.

  As Lear and Berthold helped him struggle into his tight-fitting tailcoat, Nick’s mind raced across town, picturing Alice standing at the altar all alone, wearing something frothy, with diamonds in her light brown hair and tears sparkling in those big turquoise eyes.

  Some other fellow in the congregation might see all that divine beauty and volunteer to wed her then and there.

  Panic flared like brandy touched by a flame.

  He shoved a hand through his hair and grimaced at his disheveled reflection in the glass. “Good enough,” he announced.

  “Wait,” cried Berthold. “I’ve got to shave you.”

  “No time. Saddle Anvil.”

  Berthold hastened from the room.

  “Looks like rain,” smirked Lear. “You’ll be soaked.”

  “But I’ll be there,” Nick said grimly. “I promised Alice I’d be there. Damn it, Lear. What’s wrong with me? I had one assignment, and I’m already mucking it up.”

  Within minutes, he was swinging onto the broad back of his favorite black stallion.

  Anvil pawed the gravel, eager to be given his lead.

  He understood the need for urgency. He had a taste for fine oats and expensive fillies and wouldn’t take kindly to being thrown into inferior lodgings.

  “Trample anyone who stands in our way,” Nick instructed. “There’s a young lady counting on us.”

  Grumbling of thunder outside the church.

  Sunlight darkening to gloom.

  Wind keening to the coming rain.

  Murmurs growing louder; a gathering summer storm of scandal.

  Alice ripped off another pearl. She had quite a pile gathered in the folds of her gown. Before long her wedding gown would be entirely denuded of ornamentation.

  This was growing ridiculous.

  Heavy rain began pounding the roof and splattering against the windows.

  “Mama, please. We mustn’t—”

  “Wait.” Her mother twisted toward the entrance. “I heard a noise.” She clasped her hands. “It must be Lord Hatherly. It simply must.”

  “It was only thunder, Mama.”

  But as she opened her mouth to argue for their departure, the wooden doors of the church gusted open and Hatherly appeared, dark as a storm cloud against the gray stone backdrop.

  “Oh! Thank the dear Lord. We are saved. He is here,” exclaimed Lady Tombs. She rose to her feet, pulling Alice along with her.

  The pile of pearls she’d amassed in her skirts skittered across the marble floor, making their escape.

  Alice nearly ran after them.

  She wasn’t feeling at all thankful.

  She’d already given up on him in her mind.

  The entire church fell silent. Even the organist ceased playing.

  His eyes met Alice’s, glinting like rain on wrought iron.

  He handed his water-soaked beaver hat and black cloak to a footman and walked purposefully down the aisle, his shoes leaving wet footprints on the red carpet.

  He shook his collar-length brown hair, shedding water in a wide arc, showering the gaping wedding guests.

  She shivered as if the drops had hit her own skin.

  As he strode toward her his gaze never wavered. In his eyes she read an apology.

  And a promise of moonlit kisses . . . and long, sultry summer nights.

  He flung himself onto one knee in front of her and grabbed her hand. “Do forgive me, my love,” he said loudly. He flipped a lock of wet hair away from his eyes. “My carriage wheel flew off halfway to the church. Nearly lost the coachman.”

  Mama clutched the lace at her throat.

  “After I made certain the fellow would live, I rode the rest of the way,” Lord Hatherly continued. “I rode as hard and as fast as I could.”

  Such a deliberate emphasis he placed on hard and fast.

  Several members of the congregation gasped, hanging on his every word.

  Some were probably hoping for a scandalous last-second jilting.

  Alice contemplated fulfilling their every fantasy by snatching up a piece of religious statuary and smacking the marquess across his aristocratically hewn jaw before making her escape.

  She could clearly imagine the fun the newspaper editors would have tomorrow: Bride Bludgeons Bridegroom with Blessed Saint and Bolts.

  Of course, she’d do nothing of the sort. She needed him too much. The plan was already set in motion. The scholars in Calcutta were waiting for her to arrive with the lost chapters of the Kama Sutra. Well, they were waiting for Fred to arrive, but they’d have to make do with her.

  “Lord Hatherly, please stand up,” she hissed. “You’re making a scene.”

  “Not until you forgive me, my darling,” he said loudly.

  He was
a consummate performer; she’d allow him that. It almost made her giggle, the sight of the arrogant Lord Hatherly down on his knees, playing the attentive, besotted bridegroom of her mother’s dreams, the assembled witnesses hanging on his every word.

  He winked at her and her anger dissolved.

  He was here now, and everything could go on as planned.

  She could make him pay for his tardiness later.

  “Well then . . . I forgive you,” she proclaimed loudly.

  A sigh rippled across the room. Her friend Thea caught her eye and gave her a brief, encouraging nod.

  As he rose, he took the opportunity to whisper in her ear. “I’ll make it up to you. Tonight. When we begin our lessons.”

  Alice felt her cheeks heating.

  She’d been thinking about those lessons. Preparing for them. She’d nearly translated the whole of the Kama Sutra chapters. But there were still some words and phrases whose meaning eluded her.

  All would be revealed tonight.

  Sir Alfred nodded to the priest, who moved to his post and opened his Book of Common Prayer.

  “Shall we begin?” The priest’s flat blue eyes pierced through Alice, daring her to lose her nerve. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony . . .” droned the priest in his dry, raspy voice.

  Hatherly’s rain-soaked pantaloons were practically painted onto his powerful, thickly muscled thighs, Alice noticed.

  He caught the direction of her gaze and gave her another intimate wink.

  She swiftly tore her gaze away and stared at the stained glass window.

  The priest droned on about the holy estate of matrimony, enjoining Hatherly to love her, comfort her, and forsake all others.

  Ha, Alice thought. Not much chance of that.

  “I will,” Hatherly lied blithely.

  He didn’t seem at all concerned that the entire ceremony was a lie and that they barely knew each other in any meaningful way.

  With a sudden rush of confusion, Alice wondered whether holy matrimony was truly only ink blotted on a registry. Or should a wedding mean something more? Would she come to regret tying her fortunes to his, despite the freedom being a married woman with a disinterested and otherwise occupied husband could afford her?

  “Miss Tombs?” The priest’s voice rattled through her mind.

  Alice snapped back to the room. “Pardon?”

  “Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him . . .”

  Obey him? Serve him?

  The priest stared at her expectantly.

  Hatherly tapped one foot on the marble floor, crushing one of her runaway pearls.

  She couldn’t promise to obey and serve him.

  What if he decided to interpret those words literally and keep her in England as his scullery maid?

  “Having second thoughts, Dimples?” Hatherly whispered in her ear.

  “You know I won’t obey you, right?” she whispered back.

  “You’ll obey me in bed,” was the extremely inappropriate response he delivered with a smoldering look that made her cheeks too warm, as if she’d fallen asleep next to a burning candle.

  “And I won’t serve you, either,” she whispered.

  “I’ll serve you, young lady,” he responded with a devilish grin. “You’ll receive just what you deserve tonight.”

  The priest glared so ferociously that Alice nearly giggled. “The Lord might smite you for that, Lord Hatherly.”

  How did he overcome her resistance and dissolve her fear with only a few playful words? Her body had gone boneless with longing, and her thoughts had flown ahead to the wedding night.

  Alice darted a backward glance at her best friends. Charlene was frowning, probably thinking about her warning to Alice.

  Be very, very careful, sweetheart.

  “Ahem.” The priest cleared his throat. “May we continue?”

  “Remember,” Hatherly whispered. “My solicitor is finalizing the contract you asked me to prepare. You’ll go your way and I’ll stay right here.”

  She’d completely forgotten the contract. The set of rules and parameters for their convenient arrangement. If both of them followed the rules, everything would go as planned.

  Hatherly pressed her hand. “Take a deep breath,” he said. “And trust me.”

  The sound of excited whispers swept through the room. Every second of delay meant the tantalizing possibility of scandal.

  “Miss Tombs?” the priest asked again.

  Alice inhaled deeply. “I will.”

  Chapter 7

  A wise man having a regard for his reputation should not think of seducing a woman who is apprehensive, timid, not to be trusted, well guarded, or possessed of a mother-in-law.

  The Kama Sutra of Vātsyāyana

  Of course Alice hadn’t expected showers of rose petals and a doting husband to carry her across the threshold.

  This wasn’t a romance, after all. This was an adventure story. In one month’s time she’d be boarding a ship for the East.

  But no bridegroom at all?

  Hatherly had refused to attend the traditional wedding feast her mother had proposed. And directly after the ceremony he’d instructed her parents to deliver her to Sunderland House with no delay, prompting titters and scandalized gasps from the assembled guests.

  Alice’s lady’s maid had gone back to their home to fetch Alice’s cat and a change of clothing.

  Hatherly had given a commanding performance as a bridegroom so eager for his wedding night that he would suffer no delay, leaping astride his huge black stallion and setting off at a breakneck pace.

  So where was he? Surely his mount had conveyed him to Sunderland more swiftly than her father’s carriage.

  A frisson of anticipation swept her frame when she thought of his whispered promises in the church. She had to admit she was impatient for the sun to fade and the moon to rise.

  Alice stared up at the massive mansion with its tortured gargoyles and spindly turrets, black against the gray sky, so unlike the usual blank stone faces of London town houses. She’d learned that the estate had been constructed by the eccentric first Duke of Barrington, and was quite unique among London’s grand houses for its size and its sprawling gardens and lawn.

  “It’s very . . . fanciful,” Alice’s mother said doubtfully, in her high, tremulous voice.

  “It’s a bloody lunatic’s nightmare,” her father replied. “Knock it all down, I say. Build something more modern. What a waste of a prime location. Right near Green Park. Perhaps I should have accepted the house after all.”

  “Oh no,” Mama stated with conviction. “The marquess was a much better investment.”

  The sun broke from behind the gray clouds and Alice shaded her face with one hand, raising her head to study her new home. “I think it’s a fascinating mélange of building styles,” she said brightly.

  The sunshine illuminated every architectural vagary—here a narrow battlement; there a soaring turret aiming for the heavens.

  The effect reminded her of a description she’d read of the ruined Sun Temple in Kashmir. How the Karkota Dynasty architect had used influences from China and Rome to create something new, and wholly unique, carved from stone and cleverly constructed to dance with the sun’s rays, using light as much as limestone to create a place of worship.

  Fitting, as this house would be the place where she completed her translation of the Kama Sutra fragment she possessed, in precise and correct detail—once all the mysteries of carnal pleasure were revealed to her and she could find the right way of expressing the sensations the ancient sage had meant to evoke.

  Most of her possessions had been sent ahead, but Alice hadn’t been willing to entrust the Kama Sutra to a footman. She carried it in a small valise.

>   Hodgins carried Kali in a wicker basket, and the maid stared at Sunderland House with a mistrustful expression. A yowl from Kali reminded Alice that her poor cat didn’t like being shut up in the darkness for too long.

  “Hush,” Hodgins whispered sternly, addressing the basket.

  Alice cracked the lid of the basket. “What have we agreed to, Kali?” she whispered. “I’m having some misgivings.”

  Kali glanced up at her with wide, doleful yellow eyes, as if to say she had grave misgivings about baskets, and there had better be a bowl of milk in it for her.

  Alice hadn’t had a chance to tell him she was bringing a cat with her. Not that she would have accepted any objections.

  “There doesn’t appear to be anyone waiting to greet us.” Mama shook her head disapprovingly. “I must say I expected more from a duke.”

  He is a mad duke, Alice wanted to remind her mother, but refrained.

  “Well we can’t leave the girl here at the front door.” Sir Alfred marched to the door and pounded the heavy black iron knocker against the plate.

  There was no response.

  Her father pounded harder, going quite red in the face.

  Finally the door creaked open a few inches.

  “Yes?” a quavering voice said.

  “I say, inform His Lordship that his bride and her family are here.”

  There was a pause. Alice couldn’t see the butler since the door was only cracked open.

  There was the sound of more voices from inside the house.

  “He hasn’t got a bride,” came the answer.

  Alice stepped forward and her father moved away. “Yes, he has.”

  The door opened wider.

  The tall, thin butler was wearing a white, curling wig that sat slightly askew on his head, as if he’d donned it only a moment ago. “No, he hasn’t.”

  Alice placed her hand on her hip. She was tired, hungry, and she longed to be rid of all these heavy pearls. “Look here,” she said sternly. “I’m Lady Hatherly. We were married not one hour ago. Now go and fetch my lord husband.”

  The butler’s jaw dropped and his lips flapped open, giving him the appearance of an astonished codfish.