Anything But a Duke

by Christy Carlyle

  Aidan had come to offer for her, and she could barely breathe through the pain of knowing that she would have to refuse him. What a change a couple of weeks had wrought. She’d bargained with her mother to prevent the very possibility that she would need to enter the marriage mart. Now she choked back tears at the prospect of turning away a proposal.

  “Diana?” Aidan called to her softly from the threshold of the conservatory.

  She stared ahead a moment, keeping her back to him, but unwanted relief washed over her at the sound of his voice. They’d been apart for only hours, but she’d missed him for every minute of those hours.

  When she finally turned, his face lit in a devastating smile.

  He strode forward and took her into his arms. She couldn’t resist placing her palms against his chest, letting him tug her close.

  His scent made her mouth water, and the heat in his gaze made her body respond as if they were bare and entwined and in his bed again.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said with an open smile. Not even a hint of anger that she had left him without a word the previous night. The guilt of it still gnawed at her.

  “I’m sorry I left without saying good-bye.” She needed him to know that much at least. “It wasn’t easy.”

  “Having you in my arms now is what matters.”

  She tried for a smile and felt her mouth trembling. Curling her hands around the lapels of his suit, she felt the outline of a box inside his upper suit pocket. He noticed her frown and reached a hand up to pull the box free.

  “You’re too clever for me to pretend this is anything other than what it is.”

  “Aidan—”

  “I know I’m expected to get down on one knee, but that would require me to let go of you and I haven’t even kissed you yet.” He lowered his head and brushed his mouth against hers.

  Diana had vowed to speak to him before the evening went this far, yet the moment he touched her, she forgot everything but the rightness of being in his arms. She opened to his kiss, slid a hand around his neck to pull him closer. She responded eagerly, letting him sense how much she wanted him and needed this moment.

  When they were both breathless, he pressed his forehead to hers.

  “This is what I hoped,” he whispered. “That you’d kiss me exactly that way. That you’d want this as much as I do. When we’re together like this, nothing else matters quite as much.”

  He kissed her forehead, then released her and took a step back.

  Diana wanted him to return to her arms the minute he retreated, but she wouldn’t be able to say the things she needed to say if he continued touching and kissing her.

  “I am determined to do this properly,” he said with a wink before lowering himself to one knee.

  “Wait.” Diana grabbed his arm to pull him back up. “Please don’t.”

  He stood, his muscles tensing underneath her fingers. “You don’t want me to propose.” There was no question in his tone, just a miserable declaration.

  “There’s a matter I must discuss with you before you consider proposing to anyone.”

  “I will never propose to anyone but you, Diana.” Uncertainty darkened his gaze.

  She held up her free hand, urging him to listen. A man didn’t rise to the level of wealth he had without his own brand of stubbornness and determination, but she knew he was a logical man too. A discerning investor, used to weighing various options and considering all the facts before making his decisions.

  “There are things you don’t yet know.”

  His bark of laughter shocked her. “I’m afraid that’s been a theme in my life.”

  The comment reminded her that she had something that belonged to him. She opened a drawer in her workbench and retrieved the envelope he’d offered her the evening of Bess’s séance.

  “I’d almost forgotten to return this to you and tell you what I found.”

  His expression turned hopeful, intrigued, both auburn brows winging high on his forehead. “What did you find?”

  “There’s a technique I used to bring out depressions in paper.” She pointed to the envelope. “I’m afraid it required me to discolor the envelope.”

  He stepped closer and reached for her arm. “I don’t care about that. Tell me if you discovered anything.”

  “Part of a name, possibly.” She turned the square of paper and shifted it in the light so he could see the ghost remnants of handwriting too. “J-O-S-E-P-H-I is what I can make out clearly. Perhaps a surname or a lady’s name. Does Josephine mean anything to you?”

  Aidan shook his head. “No, but it’s something. I can hand it over to my investigators. Perhaps someone in Wyndham’s household will know that name.”

  Diana offered him the envelope and he placed it inside the same coat pocket he’d retrieved the ring box from.

  “Thank you,” he said with genuine warmth. Then he squared his shoulders and released his hold on her. “Now what else did you wish to tell me?”

  The breath Diana drew in to try to steady her nerves only agitated the ache deep in the center of her chest. Her exhale turned ragged and she struggled to look into Aidan’s eyes.

  “Grace Grinstead,” she began.

  “No,” he said emphatically before casting her a bemused look. “I didn’t come here to discuss anyone else, Diana. Only you and me.”

  “Please listen to what I promised her I would say.”

  His eyes fluttered closed and he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. Turning, he paced the small path she’d created between her worktables covered with pneumatic cleaning devices.

  “Mr. Hambly withdrew his offer of marriage.”

  He glanced up at her and shrugged as he continued to pace. “Not unexpected. Presumably Viscount Holcomb objected to the match and the young man balked.”

  “Quite so.”

  “And?” he prompted her gently, but his every movement indicated that impatience was getting the better of him.

  “Grace thinks you would be a better prospect.”

  He stopped in his tracks. “You’re still trying to play matchmaker?”

  “I’m fulfilling a promise I made to her.”

  He came forward and didn’t stop until they were toe to toe. “What of what we said to each other last night?”

  “What of the reasons you agreed to a deal with me in the first place?”

  He flinched but said nothing, though she could see the pain in his expression. His eyes shuttered as they had before when he sought to hide his past from her. She hated the distance she felt opening up between them.

  Diana bit her lip, afraid she’d angered him or pushed him too far. Then his hand came up and he cupped her cheek in his palm.

  “Much has changed since we made our deal.” His gaze turned open and tender again. “I have changed. You have that effect on me.”

  Diana nuzzled her cheek against his skin and told herself not to look into his eyes. “Grace asked me to arrange another meeting.”

  “So we can tell her about our engagement?” he teased. “I’d love to.”

  Diana stepped away from him and approached her worktable, gripping the edge between her fingers. She needed to ground herself, remind herself how this had all begun. He wanted a noble bride. She wanted his investment.

  “She possesses everything you want in a wife.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  He approached and stood behind her. She prayed he wouldn’t touch her. If he reached for her, she didn’t know if she could cling to her resolve.

  “She knows Lord Lockwood, or her father does. If Grace could help you find favor with him—”

  “Diana, listen to me.”

  Turning around to face him was a mistake. He was so close, she could taste his scent on the air, and his gaze was so hungry that her body began to pulse with need.

  “I don’t want what we agreed to a fortnight ago in this room.”

  “But—”

  He bent and kissed her before she cou
ld get a word out. One quick claiming and then he straightened. “I’m going to kiss you every time you interrupt. Let me say the rest.”

  Diana offered him the slightest of nods.

  “I love you, Diana Ashby. The only part of our agreement I ever truly wanted was you. I should have never let you offer yourself as guarantee. I don’t want you to accept my proposal because we made a deal. I want you to accept because you know, as I do, that nothing feels as right as when we’re together.”

  Diana wanted desperately to believe him, to simply let herself feel and give in to the temptation to say yes. But thoughts rushed in, as they always did. Not only doubts and fears, but memories.

  She knew what it was to yearn for belonging and acceptance. She understood the desperation, the willingness to do anything, promise anything, for the chance to succeed in a world where many would say she didn’t belong.

  If they married, he would gain none of what he’d wished to achieve. What if she agreed to be his bride and he came to resent her for what their marriage cost him?

  “What about the exhibition?” she asked him weakly, desperate for him to think as she was struggling to do, not only with his heart but with his head.

  “Diana.” He took her hand in his and swept his thumb along the backs of her fingers. “I feared you’d resist this, but I hope you’d at least hear me. I have changed. The exhibition doesn’t matter to me as much as you do.”

  “Because you’re infatuated.” It was a fear she’d wrestled with all day. She remembered their conversation at the Zoological Society. Infatuation, he’d said, was something one couldn’t prepare for. Perhaps that was what he felt for her.

  “This is more than infatuation. How shall I convince you?” He slid a hand around her neck and tipped her head toward his. “Will this convince you?”

  Diana lifted onto her toes for the kiss. She wanted it as much as he did. He plundered, stroking his tongue into her mouth again and again until her knees began to quiver. She lifted a hand to steady herself, and he smiled against her lips. The rogue knew the effect he had on her, and he loved it.

  “Convinced?” he asked on a breathy whisper.

  “Aidan.”

  He wrapped an arm around her back and lifted her off her toes, settling her bottom onto the worktable at her back. As he kissed her again, he reached down and dragged his fingers along her stockinged legs, rucking her skirt up so he could press in between her spread thighs.

  “I want you like this,” he said against her lips. “Shall I take you right here in your workshop, Diana?”

  “Yes,” she hissed between kisses.

  He raised his head and looked down at her, eyes blazing with need. “Then would you believe me?” He kissed her cheek, her nose, nipped at her lower lip. “Then would you marry me?”

  “Aidan, I can’t.”

  The three words froze him in place. Even as his body tensed and he seemed to hold his breath, his expression crumbled. All the joy, all the desire of a moment before, were swept away by disappointment.

  Stepping back, he reached out and settled her skirts around her legs, then lowered her onto her feet.

  “I’m sorry.” Diana’s whispered words brought no relief. Not to her and, from the devastation in Aidan’s gaze, not to him either.

  He stunned her by stepping forward and pressing one quick kiss to her forehead.

  “I’ll meet with Grace Grinstead,” he told her in an emotionless tone. “I’ll let you keep your promise to your friend. Send me the details once the arrangement has been made.”

  Without another word, he started out of the conservatory. Diana pressed her lips together and willed herself not to cry out and call him back. But then his footsteps slowed. She turned to find him watching from the threshold.

  “I’m not giving up, Diana. You may be stubborn, but I’m as tenacious as hell.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  If anyone had observed Aidan for the next several days, they would have assumed he was simply a hardworking London man of business who rose early to go to the office and didn’t leave until the wee hours at night.

  Closer inspection would have revealed hours of pacing, an excessive consumption of whiskey, and rants shouted at the walls of his office that none heard but his trustworthy secretary.

  This morning he was attempting to make sense of investment notes that he’d scribbled during a meeting the day before. Usually he took care with his handwriting, since it was a skill he’d struggled to learn at the workhouse. Yesterday, apparently, he hadn’t given a damn.

  Something else he didn’t give a damn about was the invitation perched on the edge of his desk. For days he’d been waiting for word from Diana. He’d expected an invitation to meet with Grace Grinstead. He’d hoped for a letter declaring her love. In the end, he’d received neither. Instead, a note had come from Lady Elizabeth Thorndyke inviting him to a ball that the Ashbys and Miss Grinstead would attend.

  Aidan couldn’t imagine anything worse than attending a ball with the woman he desperately wanted to wed and two of her friends to whom he’d been introduced for the purpose of matchmaking. No, actually, he could imagine something worse. Another sleepless night spent without Diana in bed beside him. Or under him. Or on top of him.

  Damn it all to hell.

  He stared around his office and loathed every inch. He stood and his chair groaned as loudly as his muscles. He’d almost become welded to the damned thing over the past handful of days. One night he’d slept in the chair, his head resting on his desk. For half a day, he’d considered installing a day bed in the corner and living in his office.

  What was the point of going back to an empty tomb of a town house with more rooms than he’d ever have use for? Work was what he understood. Work was the only thing he’d ever done well.

  But he’d spent so many hours in these four walls of his office that he was beginning to detest them too.

  Approaching his curio cabinet, he stared at the figurines he’d purchased, the books he’d chosen mostly because the cover and title intrigued him rather than any pursuit of scholarly knowledge. He was an amateur at collecting just as he was an amateur at being a true gentleman. He possessed only the polish that money could buy, but he’d always be a mudlark deep down.

  The fiddle reminded him of those days. He’d bought it from a street seller shortly after escaping the workhouse. Learning to play had occupied hours, and when he’d gotten good enough, he’d sometimes claimed a corner and earned a few bob for a ditty.

  Now he could only look at the violin and think of Diana and the song he’d played for her. God, he’d behaved like a smitten fool. He was, in fact, a smitten fool. And of course he’d chosen to fall in love with the one woman in London who was as stubborn as he was.

  Lord, he’d made a muck of it.

  “Mr. Iverson.” Coggins’s voice came before his usual three short raps. “Visitor to see you, sir.”

  “I have no appointments. Send them away.”

  Aidan opened the curio cabinet and retrieved the violin. The wood had taken on a dark patina over the years and he could almost feel its history when he held the instrument. Even when he’d been chased from a doss house for not paying or had to change lodgings sharpishly, he’d made sure to retrieve the instrument.

  In a sense, it represented a sentimentality he hated acknowledging in himself. Perhaps it was time to put such nonsense aside. As far as he could determine, the dividends of sentimentality were wild expectations, hellish disappointment, and misery.

  He let the violin fall through his fingers and drop to the carpet below. Then he lifted his foot and considered crushing the thing to pieces.

  “Mr. Iverson,” Coggins called. “May I enter, sir?”

  Aidan sighed wearily. The young man was as tenacious as cold in winter. “Come.”

  Coggins stuck his neatly greased head inside the room. “She says she insists on seeing you, sir. I’ve spent the last few moments trying to put her off, but she won’t be dissu
aded.”

  “She?” Aidan swallowed against the ridiculous surge of hope that welled up. “Who is it?”

  “She says her name is Brook, sir. Lady Josephine Brook.”

  “Josephine?” Aidan’s mouth went dry, and his heart crashed painfully against his ribs. He peered past Coggins at the woman in the outer office. Tall, darkly garbed, veiled. She fit Callihan’s description.

  He wanted to run out and confront her, but part of him was also terrified to hope.

  “Send her in,” he told Coggins.

  After the young man closed the door, Aidan swept a hand through his disheveled hair and worked to tighten the necktie he’d gradually loosened over the course of the morning.

  His sister. For so many years he’d believed he’d lost her. Failed her. But a tiny seed of hope had remained, and now it had bloomed into desperation to see her again, to know that she was well and safe.

  His hands shook as he retrieved his suit coat from the back of his chair, shrugged into it, and waited.

  “Lady Josephine Brook,” Coggins announced as he led her into the room.

  “Have a seat?” Aidan gestured toward the chairs at the front of his desk.

  “Thank you, Mr. Iverson.” She sat stiffly on the chair and anxiously clutched the reticule in her gloved hands. “I don’t wish to take up too much of your time.” Her voice was rich and her accent polished, just as Mr. Callihan had described. After a moment, she lifted her veil.

  Aidan’s heart stopped. He scanned her features, desperate to find something he recognized.

  Nothing. Her hair was brown, her eyes a pale blue. He had few memories of his sister, but he knew that her eyes were the same green as his and her hair had been a brighter red.

  “You’re not my sister.” The words came out flat, emotionless, as empty as he felt.

  The lady’s eyes widened in shock. “I beg your pardon?”

  Aidan had remained standing after she took a seat, but now he sank into his desk chair. The fatigue he felt went bone deep. Soul deep. The foolish hope he’d let blossom inside him withered. It felt like a weight now, as heavy as the guilt he’d carried for decades.