A Duke is Never Enough

by Darcy Burke

  Jane tipped her head back as white lights speckled the inky sky. “I did. Did you win the bet?”

  Phoebe nodded, her eyes on the stunning show above them.

  “Did you win anything else?” Jane teased with glee.

  “No.” Except she had. Phoebe didn’t know what she’d won, only that she felt victorious. Like a conqueror. Perhaps because she’d overcome her fear. She looked over at Jane. “Maybe.”

  Jane grinned, then looped her arm through Phoebe’s. “Good. I won’t ask for the details, because I suspect you won’t give them to me. But when you change your mind, I can’t wait to hear them. I’m glad you took my advice.”

  To do what she wanted.

  Phoebe had done exactly that, and she wanted to do it again. She wanted more of tonight. More kissing. More Marcus.

  Smiling to herself as the fireworks concluded, she let her joy fly free. She’d never felt more alive.

  Chapter 8

  Phoebe took a deep breath as she followed her coachman and footman into her parents’ house. Foster held the door and gave Phoebe a quizzical look.

  “We’re taking this to the sitting room for now,” she said to him. “Will you let Papa know I’m here?”

  “Right away.” Foster closed the door after her and took himself off toward her father’s study.

  Phoebe motioned for her retainers to follow her to the sitting room. “Lean it against that chair.” She pointed at a sturdy piece of furniture in the corner.

  They did so and straightened, the coachman asking if she required anything further.

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I won’t be long.”

  They inclined their heads and departed to await her in the coach.

  Phoebe went to the package and removed the paper. As she stood back, her father entered.

  “Foster said you’d come for a visit.” He turned toward her, and his jaw nearly hit the floor. “What the hell is that?”

  She thought it was rather obvious. “It’s your very own Gainsborough.”

  “Mine?” He looked from the painting to her.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not my birthday,” he said, returning his gaze to the landscape and then frowning. Deeply.

  Phoebe tensed. Was there no pleasing the man? He’d seemed so agitated at her having bought one, she thought he might like to have one for himself. “You don’t like it?”

  “I don’t understand why you’re giving it to me.”

  “Because I wanted to.” She wondered if she’d made a mistake.

  The frown remained. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Nevertheless, I did.” She noticed he didn’t answer whether he liked it. “If you don’t want it, you can sell it.”

  He turned on her, his eyes sparking with anger. “I don’t need your charity.”

  She suspected he did. “It’s not charity. I bought you a painting.” And yes, she did so knowing he could sell it and use the funds if that was what he really needed. She didn’t think he would have reacted well to an explicit offer to give—or loan—him money. “It’s a gift, Papa.”

  “It’s charity, and I don’t want it.”

  She’d had enough of his obstinance when it came to her. “But do you need it? I have the impression you are in financial trouble, and I can help.”

  He opened his mouth, but the next words were from Mama, who’d come into the sitting room. “Don’t lie to her, Stewart. She’s not stupid.” She gave Phoebe an apologetic stare. “Yes, we are in financial trouble, which is why we let those retainers go. We can pay Lettie less than we paid Harkin.”

  Phoebe had guessed as much. “What happened?”

  “Your father made a bad investment.”

  Papa glared at her. “Augusta, don’t.”

  Phoebe’s insides roiled. She hated her father’s shame as much as she hated the anger he directed at her mother. “How much did you lose?”

  His face turning red, Papa blew out a breath and quit the room. Phoebe watched him leave, her heart twisting.

  Mama walked toward the painting. “What’s this?”

  “A Gainsborough. I bought it for Papa.”

  “I heard him say something about charity.” Mama pivoted toward her. “Is that what this is?”

  “Not specifically. But yes, I thought that if you were in need of funds, he could sell it. It was the only way I could think to offer him money without hurting his pride.”

  “I think it’s far too late for that,” Mama said softly. She went to the settee and sat down, then patted the cushion beside her.

  Phoebe perched next to her, still taut with agitation after clashing with her father. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Marry a wealthy duke?” Mama smiled, but it was brief, and the light in her eyes dimmed. “Give your father some time. He feels very foolish about the investment, and he thinks he’s failed as a parent.”

  Phoebe’s insides coiled. “Because I refused to marry Sainsbury and bought my own house.”

  “Yes. And because of your brother. Your father misses him every day.”

  “I know,” Phoebe said softly. She missed him too, but it was different. She’d been young when he’d gone off to school and then purchased a commission. “I can’t do anything about Benedict, and I can’t change who I am.”

  “I know, dear, and your reputation may be permanently tarnished, so there really is no going back.” Mama’s tone was matter-of-fact but ragged at the edges with sadness.

  Permanently tarnished.

  “Do you believe that?” Phoebe asked quietly, almost afraid of the answer.

  “Probably. Invitations for your father and I have trickled to a small number. I know that weighs on him too.”

  Papa didn’t give a fig about attending Society events. So long as he was welcome at his club and within his group of friends, he was content. Mama, however, didn’t like being excluded. While it pained Phoebe to be the cause of that, she wouldn’t regret her choices. She couldn’t—to do so would be to ignore her own pain and to make herself feel less. Insignificant. As if she only existed to provide a desired outcome for others.

  “Mama, do you believe that I’m tarnished? If I weren’t your daughter, would you give me the cut direct?”

  Mama stared at her, her lips parting. She glanced away, and Phoebe’s chest squeezed. Then she reached over and patted Phoebe’s hand. “No, I wouldn’t. Of course not.”

  “I think you would. Because in your opinion, I humiliated Sainsbury for no reason. Furthermore, you believe I should have married him regardless of his behavior.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “You do,” Phoebe said firmly. “Perhaps if you knew exactly what he did to me, you would understand.”

  Mama stiffened and looked away. “That isn’t necessary. What’s done is done, and discussing it further won’t change anything.”

  “Yet you and Papa can’t keep from bringing it up.” Phoebe realized they were a large part of why she’d felt trapped, why she hadn’t felt truly free since striking out on her own. And why she’d felt…less. She needed to move on.

  Phoebe reached over and took her mother’s hand, then gave her a reassuring smile. “I need to tell you what happened, and I need for you to listen. It’s going to be all right, Mama.” And she realized it was. She’d been too afraid to share the truth, too full of shame, as if what Sainsbury had done had been her fault. She didn’t want to feel that shame anymore.

  As she rode home in the coach a while later, Phoebe felt lighter than she had in some time. Mama had sat stoically as she’d listened to Phoebe’s story. Then she’d bade her never to repeat it, for if her father ever learned the truth, he might inflict bodily harm on Sainsbury.

  Then Mama had cried.

  Phoebe hadn’t expected her to demonstrate such emotion. Because of her surprise and the sheer relief of unburdening herself, Phoebe had cried too. Then Phoebe had reiterated her commitment to never being a man’s pawn or property. Mama, to her credit, ha
dn’t debated her.

  The buoyancy lifting Phoebe reminded her of how she’d felt at the masquerade with Marcus. She’d been busy the past few days with purchasing the painting for her father, but she’d thought of Marcus endlessly. The thrill of surprising him when he hadn’t known who she was. The anticipation of going into the maze and knowing he was behind her. The rush of excitement when they’d moved into the dark nook. And the kiss…

  She shivered as the coach stopped in front of her house. Yes, she was ready to move on. And she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

  The scent of spring blossoms filled the air as Marcus made his way along Cavendish Square toward Phoebe’s house. Her invitation yesterday had come as a bit of a shock, albeit a wholly welcome one. He’d responded immediately and without begging to move the appointment up. He’d wanted to drive to her house at once and show her how much he’d missed her since the masquerade.

  Indeed, the past several days had been torture.

  He’d considered writing her a letter. Or paying a call. Or sending flowers. Instead, he’d done nothing. Thankfully, she was smarter than him and had taken the initiative.

  Marcus had wanted her to. No, he’d needed her to. It was one thing to kiss him amidst the excitement of a game of hide-and-seek in a darkened maze, and another to want to see him in the light of day.

  He dared to hope…for what, he wasn’t sure. But he was about to find out.

  Taking the steps two at a time, he was on her doorstep before her butler had the door open.

  “Good afternoon, my lord,” the butler said, welcoming him inside. “May I take your hat and gloves?”

  “Thank you.” Marcus handed him the items and then followed the man to the garden room. The moment he caught sight of Phoebe standing near the windows, his breath left him in a whoosh.

  Her hair was dark once more—good, he preferred it that way—and swept atop her head, save for a pair of curls that grazed her temples. He could see every detail of her face, especially the hint of her dimples, which had been impossible to detect in the dark of the maze.

  “Where is the peacock?” he teased.

  “It was a good costume, wasn’t it?”

  “Very.” He perused her from head to toe, appreciating the curve of her neck as it transitioned to her shoulder and the swell of her breasts beneath the dark yellow bodice of her gown. “Though I prefer you like this.”

  He hadn’t heard the butler leave, but assumed he had. Turning his head, he saw that the door was closed. They were quite alone. His blood heated. He cautioned himself—he would assume and expect nothing.

  “Thank you for coming today. May we sit?” She indicated the wide settee on the opposite side of the room from the windows, where he’d sat on his last visit.

  “Certainly.” He pivoted and waited for her to walk past. Following her, he sat down, angling himself toward her as she did to him.

  She sounded—and looked—rather serious. The hope he’d arrived with withered and died. This was not the behavior of a woman who wished to discuss the joys of shared kisses or the potential for more.

  “How is Lord Colton?” she asked.

  Marcus blinked as his brain worked to change direction. He hadn’t expected that question. “He’s fine. I think.” Marcus had taken him upstairs to one of the rooms at Brixton Park, where Anthony had slept late into the next day. He didn’t recall the fight at all. Despite that, he’d written a note of apology to the other gentleman at Marcus’s behest.

  “Oh, good. He’s lucky to have a friend like you.” She clasped her hands in her lap.

  Anthony might not agree. Marcus had tried to talk to him about curbing his alcohol consumption the other night, but Anthony hadn’t wanted to hear it. They hadn’t spoken since.

  He noted that her hands looked tense, as if she were squeezing them together. Was she nervous? Afraid? Damn, he’d hoped she wouldn’t be anymore. Not after the masquerade.

  After a pause, she continued. “I wanted to thank you again for kissing me at the masquerade. It wasn’t at all what I expected, and I’m glad you persuaded me to try. Again.”

  Marcus tried to relax and reminded himself not to assume. “Did you enjoy it?” She’d said so at the masquerade, but the light of day and the absence of masks and urgent desire and fireworks could have a sobering effect.

  “I did. More than I could ever have imagined.” She unclasped her hands and flattened them against her lap. “I wanted to talk to you about that—about why I didn’t expect to enjoy it.”

  Now he was curious as hell. He turned more fully toward her and rested his arm against the back of the settee. “About Sainsbury?” Just saying the man’s name made him angry.

  She nodded.

  “You don’t have to,” he said softly.

  “I think I do. While I’ve decided I like kissing—you, to be specific—I’m not sure about the rest. And I would like to be. But I think I need to understand what that entails. When you explained kissing to me, it changed my perspective entirely. I don’t know if what I’ve done, what he made me do, will ruin things.” She blushed, dark pink flooding her neck and face.

  Marcus wanted to kill Sainsbury for causing her this pain. He closed the distance between them so that his arm was behind her head. “Tell me as much, or as little, as you want.”

  “I told my mother the other day. That was difficult.” She let out a short, nervous laugh. “I thought today would be easier.”

  He put his free hand on one of hers. “What can I do?”

  “Just listen.” She took a deep breath. “We were betrothed. Sainsbury asked if he could kiss me. He said we were as good as wed, which I supposed we were. Breaking an engagement is ruinous.” She added sardonically, “Which I later learned.

  “So I said yes, and he took me for a promenade—we were at a ball. We stole into an empty chamber. It was rather dark, with only a few candles burning. As soon as we arrived, he put his arms around me.” She looked away from Marcus, directing her attention toward the garden. “Then he kissed me, but after kissing you, I’m not sure I would call it that.” She tossed him an uneasy smile before looking back at the windows.

  “I remember wetness, and his tongue shoving so far down my throat that I wanted to gag. He was rather inebriated. I pulled away and said I didn’t like it. He laughed and said I was too inexperienced to know, that I would get used to it.” She turned her head back to Marcus, her eyes wide and without guile. “I believed him.”

  “Of course you did.” Why wouldn’t she? Fury built in Marcus’s muscles, turning him into an animal ready to spring. “You did nothing wrong.”

  “So I let him kiss me again. And again. He was wrong. I didn’t get used to it. But he was to be my husband, so I let him continue and prayed it would improve. That’s when he pushed me onto the chaise.”

  Marcus wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what happened next. But he would because she’d asked him to. “What happened?” He barely recognized the husky rasp of his voice.

  She took a breath and blew it out, then clasped his hand between hers. Her warmth and softness soothed him, which was ridiculous and wrong. He should be the one comforting her.

  “He laid me back and asked if we could do just a bit more—to prepare for the wedding night. That way, I wouldn’t be so afraid. That made sense to me, so I said yes.”

  He’d said all the right things to her to force her acquiescence. “The man’s a scourge.”

  “He said he wanted to look at my breasts, that if I showed them to him, I wouldn’t feel embarrassed on our wedding night. I opened my gown for him. He—he thanked me. Then he said that he should show me part of himself too.” The color reentered her cheeks, and her grip tightened around his hand. “So he unbuttoned his fall and pulled out his—”

  “Phoebe, you don’t have to go on.” Marcus cursed himself. This wasn’t about his discomfort. If she wanted to tell him this, he owed it to her to listen. “I shouldn’t have interrupted. Continue. Please.”

&nb
sp; “Do you think less of me?”

  Marcus’s insides twisted. He wanted to flay himself for his insensitivity. “Never.” He took his hand from hers and cupped her cheek. “I think so highly of you, more right now than ever before. What you’re doing—what you did—takes courage.”

  “Most people would think less of me. They do since I threw Sainsbury over.”

  “I’d like to throw him over a damn cliff.” And he might yet.

  She smiled softly, briefly. “Can I help?”

  “Of course. I’ll drag him there, and you can push him.” He clung to the humor and gratitude in her gaze. “Continue. If you want to.”

  She nodded once, and he put his hand in hers once more. “He showed me his penis. It was long, hard, and…pasty.”

  Marcus stifled a snort.

  “He said we should touch each other. I told him I didn’t know how, so he showed me how to stroke him. When he was satisfied that I was doing it correctly, he touched my breasts. He…hurt me. I asked him to stop, and he said he would soon. Then he told me to move my hand faster, that if I did that, he would stop.”

  Marcus really was going to kill him. “So you did.”

  “Yes, and he stopped touching me. But then…he said he wanted to put himself inside me, that it was fine since we were shortly to be wed.” She paused to take a breath. “I didn’t want to. Not then, not ever. I started to panic. I tried to move away, but he grabbed me. He…threatened me. He said if I didn’t let him do what he wanted that he would call off the wedding and I’d be ruined. I realized right then that I would prefer that.”

  Marcus’s chest squeezed beneath the combined pressure of pride and fury. “You were very brave.”

  “I wasn’t. I wanted to be. A footman came in then, interrupting us. Sainsbury went…soft. I scrambled away from him and called for the footman to hold the door open for me. If he hadn’t come in…”

  Sainsbury would have raped her. Goddamn, Marcus could scarcely believe she’d allowed him to flirt with her, let alone kiss her. He felt like such a beast knowing what he now knew.