The Straight-Laced Duke Selbourne

by Kasey Michaels

  Desiree squeezed her hands. “And why, chérie? Why did you run away?”

  Sophie looked down at her hands, seeing that her knuckles were white as they held tight to Desiree’s fingers. “I don’t know,” she said quietly, honestly. “I didn’t want to, not really. I—I suppose I was frightened? Yes, I was frightened. Frightened that I wanted so much for him to kiss me again. So I threw the teapot at him.” She shook her head. “Perhaps a few other things as well? I can’t remember. And—and I kicked him.”

  She peered up at Desiree. “I was horrid, Desiree, as horrid as I’ve ever been in my entire life. And he said he liked me that way. That he might even love me that way. It was all so confusing, but wonderful in some crazy, inexplicable way.”

  “Oh, this is a smooth one, my love,” Desiree told her, gathering her close. “And yet, not without possibilities, if you were your maman, willing to risk her heart again and again. But you are not, chérie. Remember that. You are not your maman. I raised you for more than diamonds, and trinkets, and fleeting moments of happiness bound to be crushed under the weight of tears. I pray, yes, that there is such a thing as true, lasting love, even though I have never myself seen such a thing. I pray that you will be one of the lucky ones who finds it. You deserve a real, lasting love. But I raised you to use your head, chérie. Losing your heart to a man betrothed to another is not using your head. It is entirely another part of your anatomy that comes into play at such times. And the timing, it must be impeccable, oui?”

  “The timing?” Sophie didn’t understand, and said as much.

  Desiree kissed her on both cheeks. “I’ve said too much for so late in the evening. Leave that to me, chérie. Have I ever turned your steps in the wrong direction? Just leave everything to Desiree, and keep smiling, keep dazzling, continue to be your most lovable self. Pretend, when you see His Grace, that this evening never happened, oui? I want, just this once, to be proven wrong, chérie. Just this one time before I die. Nothing is impossible, oui?”

  “Desiree? Are you saying that it might be possible? That there is such a thing as true love outside of poetry? Are you saying that what I’m feeling for Bramwell could be love—and that he could be falling in love with me?”

  “I’m saying, ma petite, that, for now, you should keep your eyes open and your legs closed. I cannot be any more plain than that, can I?”

  Sophie blushed as she hid her face against Desiree’s ample bosom. She’d read her mother’s very frank, descriptive journals without really understanding much of them, but while still learning much more than an innocent young girl probably should know. She’d listened to Desiree’s explanations of lust, of desire, of this mysterious attraction between men and women that had caused endless trouble and heartache since the beginnings of time.

  Empires had toppled, armies had been launched, murder had been done, good names ruined, lives destroyed—all for this thing women called love and men knew as desire. Lust. But, whatever its name, this most basic of communication between the sexes was dangerous. History had proven it. Her maman had suffered its consequences. And Sophie had grown up wanting no part of it.

  And yet? And yet?

  She heard Desiree telling her to climb down from the bed before her gown was ruined, and she complied. She allowed herself to be stripped of her garments, her hose, her evening slippers. She lifted her arms and let the nightrail fall over her curiously aware body. She dutifully splashed water on her face and watched herself in the small mirror above the washstand as she scrubbed at her teeth, spat into the basin. She ascended the small steps to her bed once more and accepted Desiree’s kisses on her cheeks as the woman tucked the covers around her, clucking like a hen over her one chick.

  And then, at last, she was alone. Alone with her thoughts, her memories, her questions.

  With only her bedside candle and the soft glow from a small, banked fire to light the room, she lay with her eyes open, staring up at the canopy above her head. She relived those strange, enlightening, frighteningly wonderful moments in the drawing room, recalled the moment curiosity had turned into something else. Desire?

  Why did she ask herself such a foolish question, when she already knew the answer? Yes, this was desire. And the longings, Sophie knew now, were far more powerful than the years of warnings.

  This was what had toppled all those governments, taken the heads from so many queens, led to all those intrigues, been the downfall of so many, including her own maman.

  It was powerful stuff.

  But it wasn’t love. Not according to Desiree.

  It wasn’t forever. Not according to the uncles.

  And it didn’t come without its costs. Lust, desire, love—no matter what name it was given, it was never given freely. There was always a price to pay. Always the fear of an ending.

  Sophie knew she had to remember that. She had to remember that Bramwell was betrothed, no matter what he hinted to the contrary, no matter that he had kissed her, held her, said that he might love her. Desire her or not, the Bramwell Seaton she believed she knew would never willingly open himself up to the gossip, the ridicule that would most certainly come if he were to actually marry the Widow Winstead’s daughter, the daughter of the woman his father had set up as his mistress.

  If he were to marry her? Was she mad? Did it take no more than a few fleeting moments of passion to stand all of her common sense on its head?

  Oh, and how her head did ache. How her heart ached as well.

  It had all seemed so simple at the beginning. She would come to London. She would have a most delightful Season. She would meet interesting people and make friends with the world. She would marry for convenience, as most everyone did, have the children she longed for, and begin a life of laughter, of gaiety, of enjoyment. There would be a lovely house in the country, a mansion in London. Parties. The theater. Dancing. If she felt desire, which she doubted she ever would, she would indulge that feeling, keeping her heart safe as she did so. Never to be hurt. Never to cry.

  And there was nothing wrong with any of that. Men did it. They did it all the time, probably since the very beginning of time. But, then, men didn’t love, did they? They didn’t gaze into a woman’s eyes, pledge undying love and devotion, and really mean it. Not according to history, or the uncles, or her maman’s journals or, most especially, Desiree.

  Tonight Bramwell had contradicted everything Sophie believed, everything she’d been taught. Why? Because he loved her? Or because he needed her to believe in love so that he could take what he wanted? Could she believe what he said, after so many years of believing the opposite? Could she trust him? Could she trust herself?

  She had to keep remembering, keep reminding herself. Only fools believed in love. Fools, and poets, and young, silly, romantic females.

  And yet, and yet... even Desiree, that most practical of women, had just tonight hinted that she still longed to believe in the promise, the miracle, of real love.

  And so do I, Sophie thought sadly, turning her head into the pillow and willing herself to sleep as the bedside candle sputtered and died. Oh, so do I.

  Bobbit, lightly stroking his new watch fob, entered the study and announced that Baron Lorimar had come to call.

  “Tell him I’ve died,” Bramwell said without raising his eyes from the empty glass he was studying. “It was a putrid fever. Terrible, but mercifully swift. Tell him the services were extremely moving, but that he missed the funeral.”

  “Pity. I would have enjoyed speaking the eulogy,” Baron Lorimar drawled, sliding his long frame into the leather chair across from the desk. “Odd. I just passed Wally in the foyer, and he was sober as I’ve ever seen him, while you look to be doing your best to drown yourself in wine before noon. He seemed happy; you look sadder than your cousin Samuel. Wally’s going off for an afternoon with the most delicious morsel in all of London; you’re sitting here, alone. I don’t suppose you’d care to explain any of that?”

  “I had a single glass of wine, Lorrie. One. On
ly an idiot bent on self-destruction would drink water in this city.”

  “Don’t interrupt, please,” Lorimar said, smiling. “I think I’m unraveling a conundrum. And the answer to this puzzle is—Miss Sophie Winstead. Am I correct?”

  Bramwell glared at his friend, briefly considering the pleasure he might take in leaping across the desk and hitting him. Hitting someone. Hitting something. “I may have made an idiot out of myself with her last night,” he said, deciding hitting someone wouldn’t do him much good. Unless he could kick himself.

  “You did? Well, good for you,” Lorimar shot back, crossing his legs at the ankle as he slouched, in the chair. “About time you figured you weren’t cut out for a life of starched collars and full conformity. Was this a private or a public idiocy? You score two more points if you made an idiot of yourself in public, you know.”

  Bramwell felt a smile beginning to tickle at the corners of his mouth. He and Lorimar understood each other so well. There was no need for long explanations with Lorimar, for sordid confessions. The Baron knew he had kissed Sophie, or done something similarly reckless. And he knew that Bramwell was caught somewhere between hating himself for what he’d done and wanting to shout what he’d done from the highest rooftops in the city. “No, not in public, Lorrie. But I’m giving it some serious consideration. If she’ll have me.”

  “If she’ll have you? Well, good for you all over again, and doubled! I’d begun to wonder if blood still flowed through your veins, you’d resisted for so long. I doubt Bobbit has yet to make a single groat on you—although you probably owe him a king’s ransom this morning. But wait a moment. This would also mean you’d have two young ladies in your life, Bram. I don’t think that’s allowed. Unless,” he continued, his voice taking on a sharp edge, “you’re sitting here thinking of marrying the Waverley and keeping The Winstead on the side? I certainly hope not, my friend. Because I couldn’t allow that. I really couldn’t.”

  “And you think I could?” Bramwell felt his blood growing hot, fueling his temper once more. “My God, Lorrie, how far must I go to prove that I’m not my father?”

  “You never were, Bram,” the Baron said evenly. “In fact, you were very much your own man all of your life—up until the moment your father executed that none-too-graceful leap from Buxley’s balcony and straight into legend. It was only then that you lost your way, Bram, trying to be what you were not. Taking up the title with both hands and a heavy, sober heart, turning your back on any hint of nonsense, bracketing yourself to a woman you would never have taken a second look at before your father’s death and your humiliation? No, you would have done none of that if you’d come into the dukedom in the usual way. Is your family’s good name worth such sacrifice? The sacrifice of your own happiness? Of Miss Waverley’s chance for happiness?”

  He pushed himself to his feet. “I’d drink another glass of that wine if I were you, Bram, really I would. Maybe the whole bottle, and another one as well. Get yourself very, very drunk, then take a good look at yourself. Look at your life before the balcony scene, your life since that day—your life as it stretches in front of you now. Examine the choices that are yours and yours alone. You’ll end up with a bruiser of a headache, but I think you might also end up the wiser for the pain.”

  Bramwell ran a hand through his hair as he looked up at his friend. “How long were you going to let me continue to make a bloody fool of myself, Lorrie?” he asked. “If Sophie hadn’t unexpectedly come into my life—how long would it have been before you tapped me ungently on my brick-stupid head and awakened me to what I was doing?”

  “I had considered that, if my first idea didn’t begin to show promise.” Lorimar smiled, his usually unreadable gray eyes twinkling. “You know, Bram, for an intelligent man...” he said, his voice drifting off into suggestive nothingness before he ended, “well, let’s just say it might be time you had a long talk with Sophie’s maid, my friend, n’est-ce pas?”

  Man was born imperfect. He lived and he died, still flawed, still imperfect. But, by damn, he should bloody well learn something along the way!

  That was the conclusion a few hours of thought and a bottle of very good wine had brought to Bramwell Seaton, Ninth Duke of Selbourne.

  He had been born into one of England’s finest families, one of its premier titles, one of its largest fortunes. All of that hadn’t given him what he really wanted. He had never felt his mother’s love, known his father’s pride.

  But he’d grown up, grown into a man, begun to travel his own road. He’d found friends, his own life, his own happiness.

  Or so he’d thought.

  All it had taken to change that life had been his father’s disgrace. The ridicule his father had brought to the family name. If Bramwell hadn’t had loving parents, he’d at least always had his heritage to cling to, to make him feel, if not loved, at least respected. Cecil Seaton had destroyed all of that. His usually more discreet mother, the late duchess, very indiscreetly succumbing to a plateful of bad fish while in the company of her latest lover, had finished what his father had begun.

  And Bramwell, now cursing himself for being stupid, stupid, stupid, had let his life be changed.

  Why?

  Because he had been happy, if still relatively young and a bit of a rascal, had he suddenly believed himself cursed with what he began to see as a Seaton family failing? Was enjoying life a sin?

  Conversely, was striving these past three years to rebuild his family’s name a sin?

  “Anything, if taken to excess, is a sin,” Bramwell said as he mounted the stairs to Sophie’s bedchamber. “At least I think that’s how it goes. But somewhere, by God, there has to be a happy medium.”

  He turned down the hallway, a fresh bottle and two glasses in his hands, following the sound of Desiree’s voice raised in song. The woman sounded carefree, without a worry in the world.

  Well, that wouldn’t last for long!

  He stopped just in the doorway of Sophie’s bedchamber and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, his hands crossed against his chest—the bottle dangling from one hand, the glasses from the other—his pose purposely relaxed. “Mademoiselle? A moment of your time, s’il vows plaît?” he drawled in imitation of the day the maid had cornered him in his own dressing room.

  Desiree seemed to freeze in the act of placing a tapestry pillow in the center of the freshly made-up bed and quickly dropped into a deferential curtsy. “Monseigneur?” she said, slowly rising to watch with gimlet eyes as Bramwell strolled fully into the large guest chamber, set down his burdens of bottle and glasses, and took up a seat on a pink-and-white striped chaise longue. “There is something wrong, oui? Or, perhaps, something to celebrate?”

  Bramwell knew his grin bordered on evil. “That would depend, Desiree,” he said, pulling a cheroot out of his pocket and sticking it, unlit, into the corner of his mouth. His smile widened as the maid raced to find a striking match before dumping hairpins from a small china plate, probably thinking to use it to hold the ashes. “It would depend, you see, on how truthful you are in the next, oh, five minutes?”

  “Truthful, monseigneur?” Desiree repeated, swallowing down hard as she pulled a small table close beside the chaise longue and placed the china dish on its surface. She leaned forward to light his cheroot. “In what way?”

  Bramwell puffed several times on the cheroot, drawing the smoke into his lungs. “In every way, mademoiselle,” he purred, exhaling a ribbon of fragrant blue smoke, “but I think we should perhaps begin with the Baron Marshall Lorimar’s visit to Wimbledon. That would have been some months ago, oui?”

  Desiree, a woman Bramwell already knew was not the sort to stand on ceremony in any case, immediately plopped her voluptuous frame down beside him on the chaise longue, staring at him goggle-eyed. “Mon Dieu! I am undone!”

  Bramwell couldn’t help himself. He deliberately smiled around the cheroot still clamped between his teeth, deliberately wrinkled up his nose as he did so. God, but he felt al
ive! More alive than he had in—when? Three years? He was Bram Seaton again. Naval officer, gentleman, and a man who knew pleasure and laughter and the occasional bout of ridiculousness—and damn well enjoyed them. “Yes, you could say that, couldn’t you?”

  Desiree quickly recovered her composure. “It was the baron, of course. He gave it away.” She shook her head. “I should have known better than to trust a man, oui? They are always the downfall of desperate, trusting women. What did he tell you?”

  In truth, Lorimar had told Bramwell next to nothing, but he wasn’t about to admit that to this clever woman. “He told me his side of the story, of course, men being endlessly perfidious. But I thought it only fair to allow you to tell me your side of things before I had you tossed out on your ambitious ear.”

  “And Sophie along with me? Oh, no, monseigneur, you wouldn’t do that,” Desiree said, visibly relaxing. “But,” she went on, gifting him with an eloquent Gallic shrug, “I suppose it is time for some small truths, oui?”

  “Small, middle-sized, large. Complete and total, as a matter of fact.” Bramwell pulled the cheroot from his mouth and rose to his feet, beginning to pace. “Did I mention that I’m not by nature a patient man?”

  “I could make you more impatient than you have ever known. Were I younger, not so devoted to pastries. Were your interests not already involved elsewhere,” Desiree said, shrugging once more. “Ah, well, that time is past for me, and unlamented. And, since I have gotten what I want—you would not have troubled to come to me if I hadn’t—I suppose the truth is owed, oui?” She looked at him intently. “You do love her, monseigneur. She would not have come back to this bed last night still pure, did you not love her.”

  Bramwell crushed out the cheroot in the china dish, leaning toward Desiree as he did so. “We’re here for your confession, mademoiselle, not mine,” he reminded her coldly.