My Last Duchess

by James, Eloisa

  “Naturally,” Philippa confirmed.

  “Near impossible,” Wick said. “Scoop a girl”—he pulled back and gave her a quick inspection from head to toe—“who’s no lightweight onto a horse while wearing armor?”

  “My prince,” she said loftily, “would have had no problem with the feat. He considered me as light as a feather.” She gave him a look akin to the one he had given her. “That was thanks to his physique, you understand.”

  Wick burst out laughing and then stopped suddenly when Jonas fluttered his eyelashes.

  “You have no romance in your soul,” Philippa said. She leaned back against the sofa and sighed. “It was only very recently that I realized the fairy story had more to do with escaping Rodney than being carried off by an acrobatic prince.”

  Wick leaned over and peered at Jonas. “Fast asleep.”

  “I should bring him back to the nursery. I think he sleeps better in his cradle.”

  “No, he sleeps better in your lap.” There was a note in his voice that transformed a simple comment into something altogether different.

  She could feel her cheeks turning pink. Maybe he would lean over . . . maybe he would kiss her. She could almost feel his lips on hers.

  But not quite.

  So she stood up, and together, in the darkness, they made their way back to the nursery. Wick stood next to her, watching silently, as she gently tucked Jonas back into his cradle.

  When she straightened and turned around, he was there, just before her. His head bent, slowly, and his lips slipped along her cheek. She stayed still, her heart beating in her throat, willing his lips to touch hers.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, low and sweet.

  He was looking down at her with velvet dark eyes. He was too beautiful for her, too sophisticated, too princely . . .

  “Yes, you should,” she said.

  Chapter Six

  From her first night spent in Pomeroy Castle, Philippa had lain awake in bed and imagined Wick’s kisses. They wouldn’t be like Rodney’s slavering invasions, she had decided. And yet—she couldn’t imagine what they would be like. What if he thrust his tongue into her mouth, the way Rodney had? Any tongue in her mouth, other than her own, would be disgusting. She knew it.

  But now Wick kissed her lightly, just a brush of his lips. A jerk of fire went straight down her body, through her middle. She raised her arms and wound them around his neck. His lips were firm and not at all wet—so how on earth could such a simple motion make her feel so hot and needy?

  For a few moments, she couldn’t help wondering when he was going to push his tongue between her lips, and what she would feel if he did. But instead, he simply stood there in the dark nursery, his head bent to hers, his mouth brushing hers, over and over. Gradually she forgot her worries; besides, her attention was caught by his hands, roaming over her back, sliding lower, shaping her. Soon enough she could think of nothing but the mesmerizing sensation of his touch; it made her feel quite odd. She shivered and tried to move closer to his warmth.

  His lips slipped from hers and dusted along the line of her jaw, down the curve of her neck, leaving a little trail of fire everywhere they touched.

  He smelled so good, Philippa thought in a daze. What must he taste like? Impulsively, she opened her mouth and tasted him, her tongue sneaking out to touch the hard line of his jaw.

  A rough sound came from Wick’s lips, and he turned his face to hers. “Darling,” he said, his voice a husky thread in the silence.

  Philippa pressed even closer, molding her body to his muscles. She was dimly aware that his hair had fallen from its ribbon, and she reached up, running her fingers through the loose strands. The touch felt almost as intimate as kissing.

  His tongue ran along her lips, and then he breathed, “Kiss me back, Philippa. Please.” She opened her mouth. It was as natural as breathing, as turning one’s face up to the sunshine. Wick’s kiss wasn’t about invasion. It was about the taste of him, and the taste of her, and the way their bodies were trembling against each other.

  A groan tore from his throat, then he was kissing her harder than Rodney ever had done, so ruthlessly that she could only hold on, helpless in the firestorm that shot down her legs.

  Yet she remained aware enough to know that she wasn’t alone in that storm; Wick’s large hands were trembling as they slid down her back, rounded onto her bottom, and pulled her up and against his body. Which wasn’t a bit like Rodney’s doughy anatomy. In fact, he didn’t feel in the least like Rodney . . .

  It was Wick who pulled back, Wick who stepped away, leaving Philippa trying to catch her breath. His chest was heaving too, and she could see the wildness in his eyes. She had never felt more feminine, more desired, and more powerful, in her life.

  “I can’t marry you,” he said, low and fierce. “You’re a lady. I cannot marry you.”

  “I haven’t asked you to,” she rejoined, her voice catching.

  She had to stop him before he said anything, before he said he regretted kissing her. “Good night,” she whispered, pushing her hair back from her face.

  Wick stepped forward, his hands reaching toward her as if he couldn’t stop himself. She turned quickly and walked to her bedchamber door, pausing to glance over her shoulder.

  He was gazing after her, just as she’d thought—and hoped—he would be.

  “I just want to point out,” she said, “that not only am I in the service of your brother, but I gave away my most prized possession, my chastity. As anyone in polite society would confirm, a woman in my situation could never marry a gentleman.”

  Then, before he could respond, she whisked herself through the door. Because . . . Because she had, for all intents and purposes, just asked him to marry her.

  And if that wasn’t enough to disqualify her as a lady, she didn’t know what would.

  Chapter Seven

  When Wick appeared in the portrait gallery the following night, he didn’t say a word about her implicit proposal. Instead he inquired about Jonas’s belly troubles, and then told her a story about his Great Aunt Sophonisba. Philippa nodded and smiled, but inside, she was wild with frustration.

  Was he never going to mention what happened between them? She had lain awake half the night searching for magic words that would overcome his comment about her birth, and he wanted to talk of trivialities? Then, quite suddenly, Jonas stopped fussing, gave a little snort, and fell asleep.

  And just as quickly, Wick snatched the baby from her shoulder and carried him back to the nursery.

  Philippa trotted along behind, her heart pounding. She was having trouble remembering her lines, just like an actress about to enter the stage. What should she say? What should she—should she . . .

  In the end, she said nothing, because—the baby having been tucked in his bed—Wick pinned her against the wall and kissed her until she was melting against him, and instead of carefully crafted questions designed to make him realize that he should marry her . . . well, he seemed to like those soft sounds she made when he kissed her, which was good because the way he kissed her, put together with the way he touched her, made her intoxicated. Even more intoxicated than old Fettle, when he was lying in the road singing.

  The next night was the same, and the night after that. All during the daylight hours, she mulled over ways to make Wick marry her. Somehow. Because if he didn’t ask her soon—well, she really did have to write her father. She had begun to feel horribly guilty, certain that he was worried to death about what had become of her.

  But when the nighttimes came, and Wick found her in the portrait gallery, their eyes would meet, and all those anxieties would fly from her mind. The world would shrink to fit that room. She would shiver if his arm touched hers, bite her lip at the look in his eyes.

  And then, when Jonas was in his cradle, she would slip into Wick’s arms as naturally as the baby had settled down to sleep. Once she was there, the world disappeared entirely, and the only thought in her mind w
as a dazed wish to know more of him. Wick was like the best present she’d ever received, a gift wrapped in hundreds of different layers. Every night she learned something new, something that the rest of the world didn’t know.

  He kept vital parts of himself secret, even from his own brother. Yet she’d found the magic key that shook him free of that enormous reserve: she kissed him and kissed him. Slowly, his face would change, move from its implacable cheer into something wilder and fiercer. A look that was for her alone. A look that came close—very close—to revealing a Wick who was no longer in control.

  But every time she tried to coax him over that final barrier, allowing her hand (scandalously) to brush his thighs, or even, one night, arching against him like the worst kind of Jezebel . . .

  He never broke. She could feel him tremble, hear the groan in his voice, but his self-control held.

  And every time she tried to bring up the subject of their relationship, he withdrew. In a second his face would change to that of a calm and unmoved butler. He would bid her a polite good-bye and leave, closing the door politely, and quietly, behind him. Still . . . he came back the next night, as if he couldn’t stay away.

  It drove her mad. The only way Philippa could imagine changing Wick’s mind was to seduce him. True, she didn’t know much about seduction. Rodney had thrown himself in the straw at her feet, after all, and even the memory of him scrabbling at her ankles made her shudder.

  One day when Kate took the baby off to nurse, Philippa drifted around the castle until she found Wick inspecting the work of three footmen as they polished some silver. Gathering her resolve, she poked her head in, and said as calmly as she could, “Mr. Berwick, Her Highness would like to speak to you in the nursery.”

  But when he emerged from the door, she pulled him into the small sitting room next door. They didn’t say a word, just came together with a giddiness that made them both shake with silent laughter until the glitter in Wick’s eyes became something else, something hotter and more private than mirth.

  She kissed him until they were both shaking, until her blood raced, until she could feel him, hard and rigid against her.

  And yet, after a few minutes he put her away, looking down into her face with that impenetrable expression that she was growing to hate. There was a frown in his eyes.

  “You mustn’t do this,” he whispered, rubbing his thumb over her lip.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not worth it. I’m not worth you. This cannot—we cannot—be together.”

  “We are together,” she said. “I lo—”

  His hand slipped over her mouth. “Don’t say it. You must not. I am not a gentleman.”

  “I love you,” she said, pulling her head sharply from his hand. “I will tell my father that; I will tell anyone: your brother, Kate, the footmen, the cook.”

  She could see him swallow. “I could not bear it if you did that.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “I would not wish that on my worst enemy.”

  “What wouldn’t you wish?” she asked, genuinely bewildered.

  “To ruin the woman he loves,” he said.

  “I’m already ruined.”

  He ran one finger down her cheek, and then let his hand drop. “You were not ruined by the loutish Rodney, no matter what you think. There’s many a lady who anticipated the marriage bed. But make no mistake, you would be ruined by marrying a servant.” He turned and withdrew, leaving her there.

  Wick walked straight out of the castle, down the great marble stairs, and to the lake. He moved blindly, seeing nothing but the disappointment in Philippa’s eyes. He felt a queer ache in his heart at the thought of it.

  Yet what could he do? He loved her—God, he loved her the way he never imagined was possible. He would step before a raging bull, he would throw himself in—

  But he couldn’t do what she wanted. Marry her? Make her into the wife of a butler? Never. Never.

  He was staring at the still surface of the lake, agonized by the turn of events that had brought Philippa to him, and the social conventions that would likely keep them apart, when he felt a touch on his shoulder, turned his head, and found his brother at his side. As brothers do, they understood each other without a word; Gabriel was squinting at him in a way that conveyed to Wick that his private kisses were no longer private.

  “Damnation,” he said flatly.

  “Hmm,” Gabriel said, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Philippa is a lovely girl. Kate adores her.”

  “I can’t marry her.”

  “Why not?”

  It took a moment before Wick could compose himself and look over at his oblivious brother without rage in his eyes. He prided himself on never showing emotion of that sort. “I’m in your service,” he said, finally. “As a butler.”

  “Only because you chose to be so,” Gabriel responded.

  “Once that choice was made, the decision was irrevocable.”

  “Rubbish. I can hire another majordomo in London. You only took over because we had no money, don’t you remember? Well, now we have Kate’s unexpectedly lavish inheritance, not to mention the payment I received for my book on Greek archaeology. In fact, I just bought Kate’s father’s estate from her stepmother. We could—”

  “You could what? Make me legitimate? Make me the proper spouse for Philippa?” Wick couldn’t help it. The calm front he was so proud of maintaining cracked along with his heart, and bitterness poured like acid into his voice. “You can’t give me what I most need: a father who didn’t bed a dairymaid and impregnate her. You can’t give my mother her marriage lines, nor myself the pedigree that Philippa deserves.”

  He saw his arguments hit home. “I’m no husband for a lady, Gabe,” he said more quietly.

  “Philippa loves you,” Gabriel said rallying. “A blind man could see that. She doesn’t care about your pedigree.”

  Wick’s throat was too tight to answer. He knew that his brother could see raw despair in his eyes because he pulled him into a rough embrace. “She couldn’t do better than you,” Gabriel said a moment later, thumping him on the back.

  He just shook his head. “Bollocks.”

  “There’s just one way in which you fall short.”

  It didn’t seem like merely one way to Wick, but he waited for Gabriel to elaborate.

  “You’re a coward.”

  At this slur, a flush of hot rage, the kind that only his brother could inspire, surged up Wick’s chest. “You dare not say that to me,” he said between clenched teeth.

  “You’ve got the balls to love her, but not the balls to take her,” Gabriel said. “And do you want to know why I know that?”

  “No.” Wick’s hands were curling into fists.

  “Because I was the same with Kate. I was trapped, thinking that I had to be as rich as Croesus before I could marry. You’re not responsible for our father’s idiocy. You’re afraid to just reach out and take her, even though she wants you.”

  “I’m no coward,” Wick said between clenched teeth.

  Gabriel actually laughed. “Luckily for Philippa, she’s beautiful enough that another man will come along who has the balls to accept what she’s offering.”

  A muted roar erupted from Wick’s throat, and he threw himself at his brother. They fell to the ground with a thump, rolled over in a flurry of blows, rolled over again. Wick found himself on top. “She may want me now but—”

  His sentence was derailed by a deft move by Gabriel, who managed to flip him on the ground and knock the wind out of him. It wasn’t until they were both lying on their backs panting and gingerly feeling their knuckles, that Wick said it. He said it flatly, because he’d examined it, night after night turning the facts over and over in his mind, and he knew it was true. “Years from now, she will wish she had a man who could take his place next to her in society.”

  His brother pushed himself to his feet. “How do you know? Maybe she just wants a braver you, a man with the balls
to stand up and say he’s as good as any other man, regardless of birth.”

  Wick took the hand his brother held out to him. “I can’t be what she deserves,” he said, feeling his jaw.

  Gabriel looked at him with disgust and turned on his heel. “She does deserve better than you—and I’m not talking about your pedigree.”

  After Wick abandoned her in the sitting room, Philippa slipped back up to the nursery, fully conscious that she couldn’t continue to press him for what he told her—over and over—he could not give her. Moreover, Jonas was thriving: he no longer wailed after eating, and his little cheeks were filling out; just that day, he had smiled at Kate for the first time, and later, at his father, and then, at every one of the footmen.

  It was time for her to go home.

  She would miss the baby and Kate terribly, but it would be a simple matter to engage a new nursemaid. Her heart heavy, she sat down and wrote a letter to her father, sealed it, and gave it to a footman. Her father would have it by evening.

  Leaving the castle now, like this, would mean leaving her heart behind. It had been stolen: stolen by a man with immaculate comportment, a quiet and intelligent face, and passionate kisses. She, a daughter of the landed gentry, had fallen in love with a butler.

  She was in love with Wick.

  But Wick insisted he could not marry her. He respected her; if she loved him, she had to respect him. Even if it meant never seeing him again.

  Even then.

  But still . . . she had given everything to Rodney—to revolting, despised Rodney. If she could give everything to a lumpen dolt, why could she not give everything to Wick, whom she loved? Setting aside the fact that he kept refusing her, of course.

  It wasn’t in her to simply give up.

  At length, she decided to try once more, just one last time. That night.

  The idea grew until her heart was racing with conviction. She would do it. She would ask, beg, seduce Wick into making love to her, just once. So that she knew what it was like, with him. So that, during all those evenings playing chess with her father that lay ahead, she could think back on this one night. It wasn’t just chess that loomed in her mind.