Darling Duke

by Scarlett Scott

  The next course arrived, salmon this time. Bo didn’t even bother pretending to put her fork in the sauce-smothered filet on her plate. Nothing could induce her to raise a bite of the stuff to her lips. Not even her growling stomach. She pressed a hand to her bodice discreetly as her stomach made its hunger known yet again. The dowager had made certain that no tray was sent to her this morning as she prepared, and so Bo had been existing on tea and wine and nerves and irritation ever since.

  “You have not eaten a bite,” her husband observed at her side, his voice low and meant for her ears alone yet ringing with an air of ducal authority.

  She pinned a false smile to her lips, for she would not engage in this dialogue now, before their wedding guests. Even the least well-behaved lady in all England knew not to criticize her mother-in-law before guests on the day of her wedding.

  “Of course I have,” she lied. “Each course has been more delicious than the last.”

  “Go on, then.” He quirked an imperious brow, waiting.

  “I am parched.” She found the wine goblet, drank some more, reasoning it could not possibly hurt.

  “Eat the salmon, Your Grace,” he ordered calmly, his eyes daring. Taunting.

  He knew, the blighter. He had been watching her, and the realization filled her with unwanted warmth. If she must be his burden and part of his ocean of regrets, she hoped that a small part of him at least longed for her in the same way she did for him: inexplicable, undeniable, all-consuming hunger. For as she looked at him now, taking in his handsome face, strong jaw, the long nose that was almost too sharp, that beautiful mouth, those vibrant green eyes, and his head of dark, lustrous hair, his broad shoulders, strong chest, she could not deny just how much she desired him.

  Good God, why should her rotten mind choose that moment to recall his head between her thighs, the divine pleasure of his tongue teasing her flesh, his cock hard and large and demanding, how perfect he had felt inside her? How much she wanted all that again? How she wished a mere snap of her fingers would take them back to where they had been a month ago, ready to consume each other?

  But, no. She could not. They could not. Pretense always needed to be upheld, that vain little twit.

  “I do not like fish,” she hissed back at her husband, rather than place even the tiniest morsel of disgusting, scaled river creature in her mouth.

  Bainbridge’s expression changed then, understanding dawning, his gaze unerringly seeking out his mother. “Ah.”

  Before she could attempt to distract him, he hailed a servant. “Ask Chef Langtois if he might prepare a chicken or veal dish for Her Grace,” he ordered quietly, though the entire table of guests seemed to be straining for their every word.

  “That is not necessary,” she protested, aware that their seating at the head of the large banquet style table made them the center of attention.

  She did not think anyone could overhear them, but she did not wish to be watched with the dowager’s undisguised censure or her mother’s thinly veiled concern. Her parents had been absent for most of her life, forever caught up in their own whims, and now was not the time for that to change.

  “It is necessary,” he countered, his lips firm. “You cannot subsist on wine and air, princess.”

  Bo couldn’t be certain if he was being his arrogant self or if she detected a note of concern in his deep voice. Perhaps he was concerned she would shame him before the assemblage if she continued to enjoy her magically reappearing wine. She stared at him for longer than necessary, partly because he was so dratted beautiful she couldn’t look away and partly because the wine was rendering focusing on anything other than Bainbridge quite difficult.

  “I dare not eat the food lest your mother attempts to poison me,” she said at last, louder than she had intended, for Cleo sent her a warning look with raised brows, diverting her attention.

  Beneath the table, her husband’s hand wandered to her skirt, falling in heavy warning upon her thigh. She resisted the urge to scoot nearer to him so that his hand would hover between her legs instead. Bo had attended a premier finishing school, after all. She knew how to act with comportment and decorandum—decorative—oh, fiddle. What was the word she sought?

  Decorum! She smiled brightly, her hand returning to the stem of her glass, bringing another gulp of wine down her gullet. That was the one.

  Decorum.

  “What of it?” Bainbridge muttered, his mouth so close to her ear that she could feel lips grazing her eager skin.

  Had she said that aloud? Devil take it all, she had not meant to. “Your hand,” she murmured instead of explaining.

  “Mmm, yes, it is where it belongs.” His tone was easy, low, meant for her ears only. Intimate. He paused before leaning even nearer, his moist breath making her shiver. “Almost.”

  The breath fled her lungs. A fresh, familiar ache pulsed at the juncture of her thighs. She wanted his bare touch on her. In her. His fingers, his cock, his mouth, his tongue. Her cheeks burned at the wanton thought, the triggered memory of how he had pleasured her. Of how his tongue had worked over her, how it had felt. How he had felt.

  Was it his voice or his wicked words or his nonchalant claiming of her that made her pulse with want and greedy desire? Naturally, he did not remove his hand, and she felt the weight of it, the heat of it, of him, through her elaborate tiers of skirts and petticoats. Felt it to the heart of her. She wanted more than ever to leave the interminable wedding breakfast they were being subjected to, to lead him away so that she could have him all to herself with no audience to interfere.

  Chatter surrounded her, her siblings and their spouses making polite conversation. Her parents exchanging pleasantries with Lord Harry, the dowager, and the Duke and Duchess of Cartwright. Servants appeared with a new course, and a steaming dish—les poulardes à la jardinière—was laid before her. Chicken. Heavenly.

  She tucked in, the world around her becoming less misty about the edges with each bite she consumed. Her ravenous stomach thanked her new husband for his perspicacity. And there—her ability to choose the correct, multi-syllabic word was surely an indication that she was venturing down the right path. And furthermore that Bainbridge—though she must begin thinking of him always as Spencer now—had been correct in his assessment. She had needed sustenance.

  He had been observing, watching her, seeing what she required before she knew it herself. Casting a furtive glance about to be sure no one noticed, she reached beneath the table and closed her hand over his. He turned his palm up, lacing their fingers together, squeezing gently. Up until that moment, he had been cool, detached, aloof and reserved. Even their chaste kiss upon exchanging vows had left her chilled, despite the sparks that tingled through her whenever his mouth met hers.

  Here, at last, in their silent bonding over his mother’s despicable behavior, she felt as though they had made progress. She had hope that their marriage could be more than a forced, awkward joining that neither of them had wanted. For if Spencer did not care, he would never have noticed the plates she had left untouched or requested a substitute dish. Nor would he be holding her hand beneath the table as though that raw connection between them was as imperative as a lone rope suspending him over a cliff. But then, she had to admit, she held his hand in the same manner.

  The remainders of the courses passed with ease, and at long last the breakfast was at an end. Bo, still somewhat giddy from her overconsumption of wine, hugged her sisters with a most unladylike show of enthusiasm.

  She embraced Tia first. “My darling sister, I love you so.”

  “As I love you,” Tia murmured into her ear, returning her hug wholeheartedly. “Dearest, that man is halfway in love with you, as he should be. Use it to your advantage. Make him beg. And above all, never forget how beautiful and wonderful you are. Oh yes, and if he dares to so much as make you cry, I will bludgeon him to death with the nearest blunt objet d’art.”

  Bo chuckled, knowing her sister and understanding that it was no idle
threat she issued, respectable duchess or no. As for the other portion of her soliloquy—that she could not believe. The Duke of Bainbridge was many things, but halfway in love with Boadicea Harrington was not one of them.

  She was grim. “Thank you, Tia. I fervently hope I shall never require your sisterly services.”

  Tia raised a brow. “As do I. But never forget the offer. Devonshire would beat him to a pulp without hesitation, you know.”

  Spencer was tall and strong and well-muscled—Bo knew this from experience—so she doubted that Tia’s husband could beat him to a pulp, but she appreciated the sentiment. Odd though it was. Bo’s family was nothing if not unconventional. “Thank you, sister.”

  Cleo was next, sniffling into Bo’s elaborate updo of braids, coils, and orange blossoms. “You deserve every happiness, Bo. Are you happy?”

  She didn’t know the answer to that question, not yet. “I love you,” she said instead, embracing her eldest sister with a heartfelt squeeze. “Thank you for managing my nonsense with grace.”

  It was true. She had rather placed a great strain upon Cleo and Thornton with her carelessness, and she knew it. They had borne it all, and here they were. She knew Cleo felt responsible for her having to marry Bainbridge, but she was also more than aware of the role she’d played herself. If she had not wound up in his private library, if she had not been reading a naughty book, if she had never kissed him, she would not be standing here now, dressed in ivory satin trimmed with silk roses and a train as long as the hall, the new Duchess of Bainbridge.

  “I will poison his tea if he so much as makes a tear fall from your eye,” Cleo whispered.

  “Thank you, but I do not think resorting to murder will be necessary,” she reassured her sister, wondering when her siblings had become so bloodthirsty.

  Next, she exchanged stilted embraces with her parents. “I am relieved to see you wed, and a duchess no less,” was all her mother said with a semi-affectionate pat to her back. Bo gratefully accepted genuine embraces from her brothers-in-law, whom she adored for their unparalleled devotion to her sisters. And then, Lord Harry stood before her.

  She swallowed, the smile on her lips fading as she took in his grim countenance. “Lord Harry,” she greeted in the same manner she had her other family. “I am honored to consider you another brother.” Particularly since her wayward male siblings had elected not to attend.

  It was not what he wanted to hear, and she knew it before his mouth twisted into a self-deprecating half smile. “Indeed. I am honored as well, sister.”

  Bo stared at him, stricken. She had suspected he harbored tender feelings for her, but she had not comprehended. He stood before her now with the expression of a man who had been sent to the gallows: accepting of his fate, utterly grim. Indeed, in the intervening time since she had last seen him, he seemed to have aged. He was no longer the man she had initially met, so free to trust and listen, eager to hear her voice. It hurt her heart to think that she was the cause of his pain.

  “I am sorry,” she managed.

  “No more so than I.” Lord Harry gazed at her, his scrutiny intense. “If he hurts you, he will answer to me. I cannot bear to see history repeat itself.”

  Bo’s frown deepened at the statement, as much for the mentioning of her predecessor as for the alarming trend she was beginning to notice. Everyone who cared for her believed that Bainbridge would hurt her. They all supposed she needed their defense, their stalwart protection, and that she ought to heed their dire words of warning. But she was more than capable of looking after herself, just as she had always done. Just as she always would. Becoming the Duchess of Bainbridge did not render her any less capable of being her indefatigable self.

  “He will not hurt me,” she assured Lord Harry, careful to keep her voice as quiet as possible.

  “Your concern for my wife is most appreciated, brother,” Spencer said then, appearing from behind her to slide a possessive arm about her waist and haul her into his side. His tone suggested that Lord Harry’s words were the antitheses of being appreciated. Indeed, his hard, cold voice suggested that he was furious once more.

  His lean warmth melted into her, along with his scent, and as much as she hated the confrontation between the two brothers, she could not deny that she relished her husband’s possessiveness toward her. At least it meant that he felt something for her beyond mere lust.

  She did not wish to consider why she found such vindication in the notion. Why it mattered to her that Bainbridge should feel anything for her at all, even. Theirs was not, nor would it ever be, a love match. A frozen heaviness settled within her with the weight of a boulder, and she could not shake it.

  “I care about her a great deal,” Lord Harry said then, his gaze and his tone unyielding as he pinned Bainbridge with an intense glare. “You would do best to remember that, Duke.”

  “And she is my wife.” Spencer’s fingers tightened on her waist. “You would do best to remember that, brother.”

  “Be good to her,” Lord Harry clipped, his jaw hardening. “We would not want her to end up like the last duchess, now would we?”

  The air rushed from Bo’s lungs at the vicious verbal blow Lord Harry had just dealt. Spencer went utterly still and stiff, and it was as if she absorbed his fury. She sensed that the brothers were near to coming to blows. Indeed, it seemed as if Lord Harry’s mission was to incite Bainbridge to the first swing.

  “Lord Harry,” she rebuked, pressing what she hoped was a calming palm to her husband’s lower back. He was all sinew and muscle and strength, hard as marble.

  But her brother-in-law had not finished. He continued to lock Bainbridge in a stare. “Did you tell her what happened the last time you had a wife, brother? Your history is not promising, I am afraid.”

  “Bainbridge,” she tried next. The situation had taken on the horror of a runaway carriage about to overturn. She felt like a bystander watching, helpless to stop it. Helpless to save those who would be wounded by the inevitable upending. “Lord Harry, cease this nonsense at once.”

  “Is the truth nonsense?” Lord Harry raised a brow, turning the full force of his gaze upon her once more. It was luminous, burning, sparking with anger. “Some would say he killed her, you know. Millicent. That was her name.”

  Spencer jerked forward, stepping into his brother’s chest, nostrils flaring. “You. Go. Too. Far.”

  Bo’s mind spun. Panic gripped her chest like a fist, squeezing. She did not want the brothers to come to blows, especially not over her. And she did not want to know the name of her husband’s dead wife, for somehow it made her less a murky figure of the past and more real. The day had been a whirlwind—first her wedding, then the dowager’s meddling followed by Bo’s injudicious consumption of wine, and now an irate brother who would not stop until he made Bainbridge bleed. It was too much, more than she could bear.

  “Stop,” she whispered to them both, begging. “For my sake.”

  For the first time, she saw Harry as a man living in his brother’s ducal shadows. A man still trying to find his way in the world, by being an MP, by making his voice heard. While none of that made his behavior acceptable, it at least rendered it understandable.

  But Spencer’s brother cocked his head, looking unapologetic. “That is why I have spoken up at last. For your sake, Bo.”

  “Enough,” Spencer bit out. “Do not dare to ever again be so familiar with my wife. I alone am responsible for her. Not you.”

  He turned on his heel, giving his brother his back, and hauling Bo along with him all the way to the waiting carriage. As beginnings went, it was rather ignominious, and she could only hope as she settled on the squab alongside her husband that she could melt his ice forever. That she might have a chance at happiness with him, or at the least, contentedness. That marrying him had not been the biggest mistake of her life.

  pencer had made many mistakes in his life.

  Marrying Millicent.

  Failing to save her from herself.
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  Failing to save himself in the wake of her death.

  Compromising the lady his brother loved.

  Nearly coming to blows with his brother on his own bloody wedding day over that same lady.

  Choosing a quiet honeymoon at one of his northern estates rather than the long, indulgent trip abroad Boadicea undoubtedly deserved.

  Being too icy and arrogant, too stubborn, too prickly, too temperamental. Christ, he was an endless list of wrongheadedness, lapses of judgment, and grievous errors.

  Yes, any number of sins could be laid upon his shoulders, and he would accept the mantle. Wedding Lady Boadicea Harrington? That had been but one more of his mistakes. For he was not whole, nor would he ever be. And he would not jeopardize the precious sense of peace he had achieved before her—without her—not for any reason and not for anyone.

  He couldn’t forget the words of Dr. Clyde from the asylum where Millicent had spent much of her last year. I have seen such puerperal mania cases before. Giving birth to a child can affect a woman’s mind. And he had vowed on that day that he would never again run the risk of casting himself headlong into the fires of hell by fathering another child.

  He stopped in the act of pacing his chamber, an occupation that had riveted him for the last half hour at least as he allowed his wife time to get settled for the evening. The altercation with Harry had left him at sixes and sevens, rattling him down to his core, and he had been distant and quiet to Boadicea for the entirety of their journey from Boswell Manor.

  He had performed a perfunctory introduction to the domestics, and when they had reconvened for dinner, it had been a formal, staid affair presided over by the butler and two footmen. Boadicea had been uncharacteristically reserved. The ghosts of his past, unearthed by Harry’s vicious words, had returned to haunt him in full force, and he had not been able to shake them.

  Spencer stared at the door separating his chamber from hers. Ensconced at Ridgely Castle, they were far enough removed from Boswell Manor and the heaviness they left there. Built in the fifteenth century and rebuilt by his father some twenty years ago, it was not as palatial as Boswell Manor, but that meant that it also was not as cavernous. They shared a dressing and bathing area, and their chambers, while still elegantly appointed and generous in size, were far smaller when compared to Boswell Manor’s ostentation. But the park, settled in the woods and almost enchanted in its backdrop, had always been one of his favorites. He had never brought Millicent here during their marriage, and it seemed somehow fitting to begin his marriage with Boadicea within walls that were untainted by the past.