Anything But a Duke

by Christy Carlyle

  “I wonder who he is,” Miss Ashby mused. “What sort of a gentleman would cause her to risk this kind of scandal?”

  “One she’s enamored with?”

  Miss Ashby shot him a scowl. “Infatuation, perhaps. She’s never allowed out on her own often enough to have made the acquaintance of any young man without her family’s permission.”

  “Infatuation has led to many marriages.” He thought immediately of Nick, Duke of Tremayne, who’d gone to Sussex to reclaim his ancestral estate after inheriting a dukedom and come back as smitten as any man he’d ever known.

  “Do you plan to be infatuated with whatever lady you choose to marry?” She didn’t look at him as she asked the question, though they walked side by side.

  “No,” he told her honestly. “I intend a practical transaction.”

  “You do like exchanges.” She tipped her head his way and tripped over a stone on the path.

  Before he could reach for her, she’d laid her hand on his arm, hanging on tightly for a too brief moment before letting go.

  “Exchanges are fair,” he told her as they continued walking. “But there are always factors one can’t predict.”

  “Such as?” She stared at him as she walked.

  He found it difficult to look into her eyes. The lady had a fierce determination to get answers, and he understood it. He wanted to know things too. But there were secrets he didn’t wish to share, deeds he couldn’t bear to revisit.

  The curiosity in her gaze was dangerous, and the way her mouth trembled when they looked at each other too long was pure temptation.

  He looked out across the field to where Miss Grinstead and her gentlemen friend were standing face-to-face. They’d clasped hands, as if they’d sealed an agreement.

  “Mr. Iverson, what is it that you can’t predict?”

  All his vows to avoid Diana’s gaze were useless. He’d always liked the curiosity he saw in her eyes. The truth was that he wished for her to know him. Not as an investor who’d negotiated her into playing matchmaker, but as a man who longed to know her too.

  “Infatuation, Miss Ashby,” he said hoarsely.

  She stopped and turned to look at him, not noticing that Miss Grinstead and her paramour had progressed from holding hands to embracing. He pointed toward the pair.

  “Grace!” Miss Ashby called out, and the couple sprang apart.

  Miss Grinstead gazed back at them in shock, followed quickly by resolute determination.

  “You cannot speak a word of this to Mama, Diana,” she said with surprising calm when they’d gathered on the far side of the half-constructed building. “I will choose the time and place to tell her. And Papa.”

  “Tell them what?” Diana kept her gaze focused on Miss Grinstead’s young gentleman.

  Aidan could almost hear her mind buzzing with questions.

  “Mr. Hambly and I plan to marry.” The blonde beamed at the young man beside her. “He asked and I have accepted.” Then she shocked Aidan by turning her gaze on him. “I am sorry, Mr. Iverson, if you were hoping to make a match.”

  “I did entertain that hope.” Aidan found her bluntness appealing, but he also admired her courage.

  “First we’ll need your father’s approval.” Mr. Hambly spoke for the first time and sounded far more dubious than his fiancée.

  “And if you don’t receive it?” Miss Ashby, Aidan was learning, always considered the worst possible outcome first.

  “Then we shall consider other means,” Miss Grinstead said with conviction.

  She and Hambly stared at each other with an intensity that indicated, at least for now, the viscount’s daughter was prepared to face whatever consequences might come.

  “We’ll find a way,” he said reassuringly.

  “Love should prevail no matter what. Don’t you think?” Miss Grinstead asked the question of all of them.

  Mr. Hambly nodded solemnly. Miss Ashby said nothing, but Aidan sensed her gaze on him, as if she was waiting for him to offer an answer.

  “Yes.” He couldn’t look at two smitten fools and not feel some niggle of sentimentality.

  When he turned, he found Miss Ashby staring at him, her lips slightly parted, her blue eyes lit with a tantalizing gleam.

  “Love should prevail,” he heard himself say, almost as if he was listening to another man speak.

  He expected the sentiment to shock Diana. Would she ever believe he wasn’t heartless when he’d claimed marriage should be as simple as any other business transaction?

  It was only her response he wanted. He didn’t care if anyone else heard his answer. His gaze lingered on her while he waited for her to reply.

  She started to speak and then fell silent, and he cursed the fact that they weren’t alone and he couldn’t press for those words she held back.

  Finally, she sucked in a breath and turned to her friend. “Grace, we should return to Grosvenor Square.”

  Miss Grinstead made no argument and parted from Mr. Hambly with a few whispered words. The two ladies began striding off toward Regent’s Park. Diana had offered him no formal leave taking, and the omission left him feeling irrationally bereft.

  “We have an appointment tomorrow, Miss Ashby,” he called to her. “Don’t forget.”

  He wondered if she heard him and considered calling out again, more loudly. Hambly watched him quizzically out of the corner of his eye.

  His heart skipped a beat when she turned back. Across the short distance, he could see that a bit of the warm gleam had gone out of her eyes. “Of course, Mr. Iverson. Our business arrangement is what matters most. I won’t forget.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  When Diana knocked on Mr. Iverson’s Mayfair town house door the next morning, the maid who greeted her seemed completely unprepared for what met her on the other side.

  The girl tittered and gasped as Diana maneuvered the case containing a perfect working model of her device through the front door, but made no move to assist her. Diana focused mainly on trying not to scratch the door’s pristine sapphire paint.

  “You needn’t do that alone.” Iverson emerged from a room midway down the hall and joined them in three long strides.

  Her instinct was to demur. Being rescued wasn’t her way, but doing everything on her own was exhausting too. On the verge of accepting his help, Diana turned to glance at him and was struck speechless.

  He looked . . . different.

  Every moment she’d spent with the man, he’d been immaculately dressed. Even that night in the rain.

  Today he was garbed in tall boots, worn trousers, a simple black waistcoat, and a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looked like a country gentleman who’d just come in from taking a gallop across the heath. His hair was disheveled too, sun-kissed auburn waves hanging looser near his brow.

  “Thank you,” she said, and made no move to stop him when he gracefully hefted the oblong wooden case onto his shoulder. His waistcoat hugged the muscled contours of his chest and pulled snug at his waist. When he turned to head down the hall, she couldn’t help but let her gaze dip lower to where his trousers shaped themselves across his taut backside.

  “How in God’s name did you transport this on your own?” He looked back, but she couldn’t tell if he’d caught her staring.

  “I didn’t,” she said a bit too huskily. “Dominick helped me.”

  He peered at the empty space behind her. “Where did you lose him?”

  “At a coffeehouse in Piccadilly.”

  “He often leaves you unchaperoned, Miss Ashby.”

  The words sounded like a chastisement, yet there was a glint of mischief in his eyes.

  “I’m quite safe here, am I not?” As soon as the question was out, an odd energy charged the air between them.

  He didn’t give her the reassurance she expected. Instead, he hefted the rectangular box higher onto his shoulder.

  “You should have asked the maid to let me know you’d arrived. I would have helped
you get the machine out of the carriage.”

  “I managed on my own.”

  He looked so impressed at her feat, she was tempted to tell him of all the other times she’d transported strange pieces of equipment or raw parts from one end of London to the other.

  “Come this way,” he said, then called out to the skittish young maid. “Tea in my office and please direct our visitor there when he arrives.”

  Iverson’s study was almost as surprising as his clothing.

  Diana expected the space to be austere like his office, but this room—part study and part library—was one of the most appealing she’d ever seen in her life. Beautifully bound books lined the walls and vivid blue velvet drapery covered two floor-to-ceiling windows. They’d been pulled open, allowing morning light to flood the room and cast a glow on the wood-paneled walls.

  “I’ll change before Mr. Repton arrives.”

  “Why?”

  He tipped his head and narrowed his gaze, then swept a hand down to encompass his waistcoat. “I’ve been out riding this morning.”

  “In Hyde Park?”

  That drew a burst of laughter that caused an answering tickle in her stomach.

  “God, no. Hampstead. Plenty of open fields and no one to take much notice of a man on a horse.”

  “Were you raised in the countryside?” Despite his reputation as a man of commerce, she could easily imagine him in the country.

  She sensed immediately that she was treading where he did not wish to go.

  His expression shuttered, and he drew in a long breath before answering. “Not in the countryside, no. Here in London. South of the river.”

  Two steps and he’d strode past her. She expected him to leave her alone without another word. But on the threshold, he turned back.

  “I won’t be long. Help yourself to tea when it arrives.”

  Diana couldn’t resist exploring after he’d departed. She started with the bookshelves, running her gaze along titles as varied as Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations to a book about a traveler’s journey to Spain. A volume of Pope’s poetry sat next to a book with a beautifully ornate spine. When she pulled it out, she discovered it bore the intriguing title of Ghastly Tales.

  “Tea for you, miss.” The young maid entered the room, deposited a polished silver tea service on a table near the desk, and left Diana alone again.

  She ran her fingers over the embossed design on the book. For years, she’d had a rogue desire to read something fanciful, but she never allowed herself to take the time. Her own family library was full of books on mathematics, science, and engineering. Topics that pleased her father. She’d never found a book of poetry at home, and despite her education at Bexley, her mother insisted that ladies should not read novels.

  “You’ve found a book you like?” Iverson said from the doorway.

  She still held the ornately gilded book in her hands and quickly replaced it on the shelf.

  “The cover is beautiful. What are the stories like?”

  “Frightening.” He came into the room, wearing a perfectly tailored black suit. His hair had been wrangled back into neat waves and she imagined disheveling all of it again with her fingers. “Some might call them terrifying.”

  Diana’s brother had often regaled her as a child with his own made-up ghost stories, and they’d frightened the wits out of her. “Do you like being frightened?”

  “I prefer fictional frights to true terrors.”

  “Have you experienced many?” Somehow, she already knew the answer.

  There were only a handful of facts she knew for sure about Aidan Iverson, but much more that she sensed bubbling under the surface. She had only one truly agonizing memory that she found difficult to share with others—the death of her father. She suspected Aidan had many more.

  “The last time I experienced any sort of violence, a very helpful Samaritan appeared. I’m grateful to her.”

  Diana drew in a sharp breath and clenched her jaw. He knew exactly the memories his words would evoke. After months of wondering, she couldn’t hold the question back any longer.

  “Why were you in a Belgravia mews the night we met? Did you know the men who attacked you?”

  Instead of answering, he picked up one of the upholstered straight-back chairs in the corner of the room and placed it behind his desk, next to a much larger leather wingback.

  The question hung in the air like an echo, and the longer he failed to answer, the more she wished to repeat it. Over and over, if necessary, until she got an answer.

  “I thought we could both sit on this side. United in our efforts to woo Mr. Repton. Is there anything you’d like to know about him to better prepare you before he arrives?”

  “I memorized your notes.”

  “Then you know as much about him as I do.”

  “They were very thorough.” She studied him a moment. “You notice a lot about people. Little details that others might miss.”

  He shrugged as if to downplay her praise. “A gambler’s skill. You learn to look for details, tells that give away people’s intentions.” He gestured vaguely toward where he’d placed her case on a long table. “Do you need help assembling your machine?”

  In her curiosity to inspect the room, she’d neglected to set up the pneumatic pump.

  “I need to prime this. It won’t take me long.” She approached the table and extracted all the pieces, taking care not to drop or bump anything. The metal tubes were sturdy and the pump was made to take exertion, but the memory of the disaster at the Duke’s Den would always stick in her head.

  “Let me help you.” The sincerity in his tone made her relent.

  “Take that lever and pump until you feel resistance.” Diana approached and reached for his hand, placing it just so on the metal bar and indicating where it hooked into the pneumatic device.

  His hands were warm, and the brief contact sent a shiver up her arm. She turned her attention back to assembling the rest of the device, if only to distract herself from her reaction to him.

  “I’m seeking to solve a mystery,” Iverson said quietly behind her.

  Diana spun to face him. He’d approached and stood not far behind, his gaze uncertain. Wary. She waited, sensing that if she could just hold back her tendency to demand answers, he might give them freely.

  “I didn’t know the men. They were thieves with a violent bent. I was in Belgravia that night to seek information.” He tilted his head to stare at the ceiling, flicked his coat back, and braced his hands on his narrow hips. “About my family.”

  “Why?” So many thoughts raced through her head that she couldn’t form a question other than the single word. “Are you estranged from them?”

  “More than estranged. I never knew my father, and I barely recall my mother. My sister and I were left at a workhouse when I was three. The place is gone now. Burned, along with all details about my mother and father or any other family I might have.”

  “And your sister?” Diana moved a few steps closer, aching to reach for him.

  They’d held on to each other once. Strangers on a rainy night whom fate had brought together. She had no regrets about the familiarities she’d allowed or the kiss she’d taken.

  Now she wanted to offer that comfort again. A touch. An embrace. Anything to ease a bit of the misery in his gaze.

  “Lost,” he said on a broken whisper.

  Diana closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her head fit just underneath his chin, and she pressed her cheek against his chest.

  Heat crept up her face as he tensed, and she considered retreating.

  But then his arms came around her, pulling her into his body. This close, she could feel the mad thrash of his heartbeat and the unsteady gust of his breath against her hair.

  “I want to help,” she whispered.

  “You are,” he finally said, his voice deep and husky and warm.

  “No, Mr. Iverson.” Diana tipped her head back to look at hi
m. The afternoon light brightened his eyes to a cooler green. “With solving your mystery, I mean.”

  “No.” He tensed again, but didn’t let her go.

  There was a finality in his tone, but Diana couldn’t stop herself from trying.

  “Taking matters apart, finding answers to questions that sometimes haven’t even been asked—those are the only things I’m truly good at.”

  He turned his head and loosened his hold. Being near him, touching him in such a familiar manner, was entirely inappropriate. She knew all the rules of etiquette by heart. They’d been drilled into her at Bexley and she’d excelled at learning them all. But they seemed far away, and he was here before her, tall and warm and holding her protectively close.

  The rightness of it wasn’t something she was prepared to examine, but she very much wanted to help solve his mystery.

  “There is something you can do for me.” He stroked a hand down her back, almost absently, as he spoke. “Will you call me Aidan? At least when we’re alone.”

  “I—”

  He lifted a finger and let it hover over the edge of her mouth.

  “You’ll say it’s inappropriate. But when have we ever bothered with that?”

  Then he touched her. One tender stroke along the edge of her cheek, a hairsbreadth from her lips.

  He’d touched her that way once before. She remembered every second. The rain, the warmth radiating off his body, the taste of his lips.

  His eyes traced the movement of his finger, his gaze focused and intense.

  Diana lifted onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his. Purposefully. Slowly. This wasn’t the impulsiveness of an unexpected encounter in the rain. She wanted this.

  Aidan couldn’t think. His brain refused to form a single rational thought. All of his strategies failed him.

  What was worse, he could feel the walls he’d constructed beginning to crumble.

  There was only what he wanted. What he needed. This moment. Diana, soft and warm and in his arms. She’d stepped there of her own will. In her fearsome determination, she’d chosen him, and he wanted to give her everything in return.