The Duke I Once Knew
Page 29
To distract herself from melancholy, she considered the scathing letter she meant to write to the duke. With Lady Gwen in the capable hands of Miss Thackery, now was the perfect opportunity. There would be paper and pen in the desk in the library.
She tried out different phrases in her mind. Your unscrupulous associations … escorting that venomous vixen … a disgrace to the nobility …
By the time she entered the library, Abby had worked herself into a fine fettle. There could be no more wicked lord in all of England than the Duke of Rothwell, who had brushed off a cruel act committed by his latest chère amie as if it were nothing worse than a child’s prank, and then he had continued to keep that perfidious peahen close at his side—
She halted in her tracks. The force of her fury had conjured Max from thin air. Yet when she attempted to blink away his image, he remained very much a solid, flesh-and-blood man.
He stood a short distance away with his hands braced on a library table. He was frowning down at some papers on the mahogany surface as if they contained the secrets of the universe. A pulse of errant desire began to beat in her depths. How elegant he appeared in a charcoal-gray coat with a white cravat that set off the handsomeness of his features. He might have looked utterly haughty and unapproachable if not for the fact that his hair was delightfully mussed as if he’d combed it with his fingers.
He seemed unaware of her presence. She could quietly retrace her steps, retreat from the manor, and flee through the woods to Linton House.
But she wasn’t a coward, not anymore. She had quite the withering speech prepared for him—if only her wayward heart would cease pestering her with the urge to fling herself into his arms.
Abby glided purposefully forward. “Good afternoon, Your Grace. How fortunate is your return! You are precisely the person I wished to see.”
Chapter 27
He straightened up at once, his gaze locking with hers. All trace of his blackened eye had vanished, she noted. A strange sort of caution seemed to edge his expression, along with a lack of his usual assurance.
It was then that she realized this was no chance encounter. He had been waiting here for her. And he had recruited his sister as his accomplice.
“Abby,” he said, a charming smile forming on his lips. “It’s good to see you looking so well. How are you feeling?”
“I’m perfectly fine, as you already know. Lady Gwen will have kept you apprised of the state of my health.” Gripping her gloves, she took a step closer. “Your being here isn’t happenstance, either. You instructed your sister to invent an excuse to lure me to the library.”
“I wasn’t certain if you would receive me.”
On that cryptic statement, Max approached, and Abby thought for a moment that he meant to sweep her into his arms and kiss her senseless. She must repulse him, of course—even if her breathing was erratic and her heart was beating so fast that a swoon seemed imminent.
She caught an alluring whiff of his masculine cologne as he walked past her and closed the door. When he turned back, he wore a grave expression. Did he appear paler? If so, it was not out of pining for her, but merely an effect of his libertine ways.
Realizing he awaited her reply, she said, “I’m quite happy to receive you, my lord duke, for you’ve saved me the trouble of putting pen to paper. I was just now intending to compose a letter to you.”
“A letter. For what reason?”
That arrogant cocking of his eyebrow was a small thing, but it set her over the edge. She flung her gloves onto the nearest chair. The carefully constructed phrases deserted her as anger poured out in a torrent. “To rake you over the coals, that’s why. You knew Lady Desmond deliberately pushed me into the ring, yet you drove off to London with her as if nothing whatsoever had happened!”
“No, I most certainly did not.”
“Don’t deny it, sir! I myself saw you with that venomous vixen. You were climbing into your coach with her!”
“A wretched spy you would make! If you’d kept watching—from your window, I presume—you’d have seen me mount Brimstone as soon as I’d handed her inside. That was the last time I saw her.”
Torn between elation and disbelief, she stuttered, “But—but she’s so beautiful. I knew you hadn’t made her your mistress here, but I was sure you must have been consorting with her in London this past fortnight.”
“Do you truly believe that I could make love to a woman—a venomous vixen—who had done such a vile deed to you, Abby? What sort of monster do you take me for?”
Abby saw the whiteness of anger around his firmed mouth. In that moment, she realized how terribly mistaken she had been, how she had once again leaped to the wrong conclusion about him. It was like a veil being lifted so that she could see him clearly again.
Hardly daring to hope, she started toward him, then stopped, unsure of herself. “Oh, Max, forgive me. I—I don’t really think that. It’s just that I was—well—envious that she had gone away with you. Especially since you were so—so cold and aloof toward me when last we met.”
During her speech, his expression had eased, and he came to put his hands on her shoulders. “Abby, if I was cold, it was from the guilt that was lashing at me. I was the one who’d put you in danger by allowing that woman under my roof. I should have realized her malice and sent her away.” One corner of his mouth twisted. “Then later, when I told you about my mother, I feared you had taken a disgust of me. All you could speak about was your eagerness to leave my house and return to your brother’s.”
She cupped his jaw in her palms. “Oh, no! I was glad you’d finally told me the truth. I could never think badly of you for the actions of your parents. If that’s why you’ve stayed away this past fortnight…”
“Actually, I was on a mission. Come.”
She let him take her hand. His imperious manner was back, but Abby no longer minded. She was too gratified to know that he seemed to have returned to Rothwell Court specifically to see her.
And pleased to learn he had not been with that woman, after all.
He took her over to the table where he’d been standing when she’d walked into the library. There, he drew back a chair and invited her to sit while he himself settled onto the edge of the table.
“Let me say that I’ve spent very little of the past two weeks in London. Mostly, I’ve been chasing all over England trying to locate my father’s former secretary. Bucklesby retired to a village in Staffordshire, but when I rode there, he’d gone to Tunbridge Wells to take the waters. The man was devilish hard to find, he wasn’t registered at any of the inns, but I finally tracked him down to a private house where he was staying with a relative.”
Abby had been staring at Max, wondering at his purpose in telling her all this, when it struck her. “The missing letters!”
His mouth curved. “Indeed. I thought if anyone would know what had happened to them, it would be Bucklesby. He’s a magpie who dreads nothing more than to toss the least scrap of paper. As it turns out, my hunch was correct. It was Bucklesby whom my father had instructed to dispose of the letters, and Bucklesby who had not been able to bring himself to do so. He’d even smuggled the letters out of the house on the chance that I might someday ask for them.”
On that astounding statement, Max turned to pick up the papers that he’d been staring at upon her entry. It was a stack of slender letters.
Abby reverently took the little pile from him. The topmost missive bore her own neat penmanship with his Grosvenor Square address, and when she turned it over, a small wafer of wax still sealed the tightly folded paper.
Clutching the packet to her bosom, she lifted her gaze to him. “You haven’t read them?”
“No. I deemed it something we ought to do together.”
Anxiety dampened her rising spirits. Was that why he’d come back, then? Just to show her these letters? Was this to be only a moment of nostalgia among old friends?
He surprised her out of those morbid reflections by sinking
to one knee beside her chair and taking her hand. “Abby, I must explain how this came about. After my mother’s death, my father was a broken man. He spent the last few years of his life in a haze of drink, morose and weeping for her. And he warned me time and again never to commit the folly of falling in love.”
What awful advice to give to his son! Especially when Max had been wounded himself. Her little flare of indignation melted into understanding. “I expect that’s why he took the letters, then. He wanted to protect you from being hurt, from suffering the pain that he was suffering.”
“You’re kinder to him than I can ever be,” Max said, his voice vibrating with anger. “My father caused the rift between us, and you must allow me to apologize for that.”
“Apology refused. No one can take the blame for someone else’s deed, Max. It wasn’t your fault that neither of us received the other’s letters.”
“Nevertheless, I ought to have honored my promise to court you when I came of age. But by that time, I was convinced that love makes a man miserable and wretched.” He paused before adding huskily, “As indeed it can do.”
He was gazing at her in a tender way that set her heart to soaring. Was he saying that he loved her? Was it even possible? Oh, she prayed so!
She went willingly when he rose to his feet and pulled her up into his arms. He attempted to lay a string of kisses over her face, only to be foiled by the brim of her bonnet. “Blast this dratted thing,” he said with flattering impatience, untying the ribbons and hurling the offending hat to the floor.
“That’s my best bonnet, I’ll have you know!”
“I’ll buy you a dozen finer ones, then.”
On that, his lips came down over hers with enough warmth and devotion to kindle a fire in her. Abby wrapped her arms around his neck and returned the kiss with all the love in her heart. She wanted so badly to believe that he could love her, and only her. But did she dare hope that he had changed his wicked ways?
Keeping a little of herself reserved, she drew back to regard him. “You seem to have an affinity for seducing ladies in the library, my lord duke.”
“Oh, sometimes I prefer the lakeside.”
Ah, he did know how to conjure up delicious memories! And he was taking full advantage, nuzzling her throat and nipping at her ear, reminding her of his expertise in the art of pleasure.
Resisting his provocative lips, she murmured, “It’s enjoyable to have a fling in the arms of a practiced rogue. But life isn’t all hot kisses and dizzying embraces, at least not for us ordinary mortals.”
“You’re a nymph, not a mortal, and I love you most desperately. I was hoping—praying—you might put me out of my wretched misery.” He looked at her with a dazed sort of intensity. “What say you?”
She melted against him. “That I love you, Max, with all my heart. I would never have made love without being in love.” Despite that impassioned declaration, a remnant of prudence prodded her to add, “I’m not like you.”
He touched his forehead to hers in a penitent way. “Abby, I swear to you by all that’s holy, I will never look at another woman so long as I live.”
“That may prove difficult. There’s Lady Gwen and Mrs. Jeffries and Beechy and all the other female servants. Not to mention my sisters and my nieces and—”
“Bramble!” he said, chuckling. “You know what I mean! I intend to take my wedding vows very seriously.”
Though her heart rejoiced, she gave him a stern look. “If that was a marriage proposal, it was shoddily done.”
His mouth twisted in chagrin. “Ah, my darling! I did flub it again, didn’t I? I had it all planned out … we would read the letters together. Or rather, you’d read mine…” He crouched down to collect the billets where they had fluttered to the floor. Looking up, he added rather plaintively, “Then, when you came to the part where I’d reiterated my wish to marry you, I would have … Oh, devil take it!”
The last of her fears vanished as she saw her silver-tongued duke flounder for words. The knowledge that his flirtatious charm had deserted him at such a time could only mean that his feelings for her ran deep and true.
Still kneeling, he tightly grasped her hand. “Abigail Linton, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
For one golden moment, her heart felt too full for words. She marveled that the infamous Duke of Rothwell could give up his freedom for a thirty-year-old spinster who had never traveled farther than twenty miles from home. And she could see in him both the polished man he was now and the gawky youth she’d once known. They were one and same.
“Yes, Max. Oh, yes, I’ll marry you.”
The letters went flying again as he sprang up for another kiss, this one rich with promise and rife with love. When they were both giddy with happiness, she murmured against his lips, “Now, what would you have done if I’d said no?”
Holding her close, he cocked an eyebrow in that insufferable manner. “I’d have taken you to the stables and showed you the fine cream mare that I purchased at Tattersall’s yesterday. And I’d have said there could be no bride gift without a bride.”
“Max! Truly?” She hid her sparkling interest in the mare behind a chiding look. “Ah, I see. You’re not only arrogant, but unscrupulous. You think I can be bribed.”
He lifted her hand to his lips, kissing it with fervent tenderness. “What I think, nymph, is that if falling in love is folly, I’ll gladly be the most foolish man in England.”
Coming soon …
Look for the next novel in Olivia Drake’s Unlikely Duchesses series
FOREVER AND A DUKE
Available in January 2020 from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
ALSO BY OLIVIA DRAKE
THE CINDERELLA SISTERHOOD
The Scandalous Flirt
His Wicked Wish
Bella and the Beast
Abducted by a Prince
Stroke of Midnight
If the Slipper Fits
HEIRESS IN LONDON SERIES
Scandal of the Year
Never Trust a Rogue
Seducing the Heiress
Praise for Olivia Drake’s Cinderella Sisterhood series
“Drake proves the right pair of shoes can change your life—especially if they’re red and belong to the Cinderella Sisterhood.”
—RT Book Reviews on Bella and the Beast
“Lush historical romance, complete with all the sprinklings of a fairy tale. Olivia Drake is an excellent writer, and this story knows how to submerge readers completely.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Breathtaking.”
—Night Owl Reviews on Abducted by a Prince
“A compelling romance filled with intrigue.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Stroke of Midnight
“Cinderella knew it was all about the shoes, and so does master storyteller Drake as she kicks off the Cinderella Sisterhood with a tale filled with gothic overtones, sensuality, sprightly dialogue, emotion, an engaging cast, and a beautiful pair of perfectly fitting slippers.”
—RT Book Reviews (4 stars) on If the Slipper Fits
About the Author
OLIVIA DRAKE is a New York Times bestselling author who lives in Texas. Her novels have won critical acclaim and numerous industry awards, including the prestigious RITA. She invites you to visit www.oliviadrake.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
&
nbsp; Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Also by Olivia Drake
Praise for Olivia Drake’s Cinderella Sisterhood series
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE DUKE I ONCE KNEW
Copyright © 2019 by Barbara Dawson Smith
All rights reserved.
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St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / January 2019
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.