Cris.
Beelzebub. He did not wish to see his friend just now. “Tell him I am indisposed.”
The door flew open, and the duke strode past the hulking, hideous butler. “He will tell me no such thing, you bounder. Christ, you look terrible, Duncan.” He paused, raking Duncan with a gaze that saw far too much, he was sure. “Pretty, fetch your master some hot chocolate and a tray of food.”
“Er, yes sir.” Pretty executed a half bow. “Your Grace, sir.”
Having been born in the stews, he had cut his teeth on the life of a pickpocket. One of many Duncan had plucked from a life of misery, Pretty was loyal, diligent, and somewhat uncertain of proper expectations for his position.
Duncan didn’t give a goddamn. He had hired a butler not because he required one but because he had wanted to give Pretty a position at which he excelled. A chance to raise himself above the poverty and misery to which he had been born. The chance Duncan had never been given.
Cris waited for Pretty to retreat, closing the door behind him, before crossing the chamber to Duncan’s desk. He made a clucking sound with his tongue, one more suited to a governess than a duke. “Such a cruel stroke of fate that a man as bracket-faced as he ought to bear a surname of Pretty.”
Duncan took another swig from the bottle, eyeing his friend. The liquor he had consumed made his tongue loose. “Pretty is not his true name.”
Cris lowered himself with negligent grace into the chair opposite Duncan’s desk. “Knowing you as I do, I ought not to be surprised. But somehow, I am. Tell me, how it is that your butler bears a sobriquet rather than his surname?”
“He hasn’t a surname.” Duncan raised his bottle toward his friend in a mock toast before dousing himself with another healthy swallow toward oblivion. He swallowed, smacked his lips. “He was born in the rookeries. Never even knew his mother. He has always answered to ‘Pretty,’ and so Pretty he shall forever be.”
“You are the best man I know, my friend.”
Duncan shuddered as he swallowed too much whisky at once. His stomach balked, but he forced it into submission. “Then perhaps you should consider extending your acquaintances, Whitley.”
Cris smiled with the confidence only a duke could possess. “I have no wish to extend them, having already discovered all I require in one ill-tempered club owner. Perhaps you know him? Tall fellow, dark-haired, with a sudden penchant for hiding inside his home and drowning himself in drink?”
Fuck.
He lifted the bottle to his lips, tilted it, swallowed. Savored the burn down his gullet. Met his friend’s gaze, unwavering. “I know him well.”
“I am worried about you, my friend,” Cris said then, his tone low, his face devoid of expression.
“Worried? About me? Why?” Duncan attempted to keep his expression blank. A hiccup rose in his throat, and he swallowed it down. Damn, this was growing old. Or he was growing old. Too old for this, surely.
Cris raised both brows, raking him with a telling glance. “Need I answer that question, Duncan? According to Hazlitt, you have not been to your club for a month. Pretty tells me you have hidden yourself away here, refusing most sustenance.”
“Hazlitt and Pretty can both go straight to hell,” he growled, knowing his two most trusted men were attempting to help him but irritated by their interference nevertheless.
“What the devil is going on, Duncan?” his friend asked. “You gained Amberley’s vowels, and from what I understand, you have yet to collect. I expected to return from my honeymoon to find him selling off everything he could in an effort to repay you.”
He did not want to talk about it, to relive what he had done. The whisky was just beginning to numb him sufficiently, and discussing the reasons for his self-imposed isolation would only tear open the wounds. “How was your honeymoon, Cris?”
While Duncan was wallowing in his sorrows, Whitley had married the governess who stole his heart. The pair of them were nauseatingly in love. Duncan was happy for his friend, who deserved happiness more than anyone he knew, but he could not stay the stab of envy charging through him whenever he saw the besotted expression on Cris’s face at the mentioning of his new wife.
Precisely how he looked just now, grinning in that lovesick fashion so at odds with the hardened rake Duncan had once known him to be.
“I am the most fortunate fellow in the world, Duncan. The duchess is an angel.” Cris gazed off into the distance, still smiling like a fool.
Duncan lifted the bottle back to his lips, misery unfurling along with the envy and self-loathing already poisoning him. “You deserve nothing less, Cris. I am glad for you.”
“Thank you, my friend.” The duke’s smile turned rueful. “Before Jacinda, I thought love was a fiction invented by fools and poets. She has changed everything.”
Duncan had known such a woman, one who had left him altered. One he could not forget. One who made his heart seize in his chest whenever he thought of her. A miracle sprung from the dark. His for a fleeting moment and then gone.
He stilled, the bottle halfway to his lips, as a horrible realization settled over him.
He loved her.
He loved Lady Frederica Isling. Bloody fucking hell.
“Duncan?”
His friend’s voice jolted him. He set the bottle down on his desk with a thump. His was a condition that could not be cured. No amount of whisky would right this wrong, though it may dull the insufferable ache. “I have made a grievous mistake.”
“I agree.” Cris raised a brow. “You ought to have called in Amberley’s debts already, but doing so before the wedding will cause an even greater stir, so perhaps all is not lost.”
Duncan frowned. “The wedding?”
“Have you not heard? Your beloved half brother Willingham is set to marry the Isling chit.”
Four words, and four words alone from the handful Whitley had uttered, sank into Duncan’s mind.
Willingham.
Marry.
Isling chit.
“Who?” he breathed, fire in his soul. Rancor in his heart. He must have misheard. Not her. Not her. Please, God, do not let it be her. Not her.
“Lady Frederica, I believe her name is.” Cris paused. “Christ, Duncan. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
He absorbed his friend’s words as he would a blow to the face. Or the gut. An act of war. By God, this was not meant to be the way of things.
He shook his head, his fists clenching so tightly his knuckles stung. “Damn it, Cris. Are you certain?”
Westlake’s promise returned to him, echoing in his mind. Five thousand pounds, the notes, and my promise Frederica shan’t be forced into a marriage that is not of her choosing. Had the supercilious duke broken his word?
Then an uglier, even more insidious question rose. What if she was not being forced? What if she had chosen Willingham? Worse, what if she had done so to spite him?
“Perhaps the girl’s name is Lady Frances. Westlake has but one daughter. I cannot recall now her name for certain now, but it begins with an f,” Cris said, oblivious to the manner in which Duncan hung on his every word.
“It is Lady Frederica.” He shot to his feet, the chamber swirling about him and seeming to tilt. His gut lurched. Why in the hell had he consumed so much of the devil’s elixir? He planted his palms flat on the surface, attempting to regain his balance and keep the room from spinning. “I know her name with the same certainty I know my own.”
“Christ, Duncan. Shall I have Pretty fetch you a chamber pot in addition to the tray? You look fit to cast up your accounts.”
He closed his eyes, but that only made the dizziness worse, so he opened them again, taking a slow, deep breath. “I don’t need a chamber pot, Cris. But I do need your help. Badly.”
Cris nodded. “Of course, you shall have it, my friend. Anything you ask.”
Duncan dropped back into his chair and told his friend everything.
Chapter Sixteen
Because all L
ondon was abuzz with talk of the Duke of Whitley’s recent nuptials, the Whitley ball was quite a crush. Frederica sat with Leonora in their customary seats on the periphery of the festivities. She focused on the revelers, hands clasped tightly in her lap, and tried to ignore the ever-growing knot of dread inside her. The knot that said she was running out of time.
A fortnight was all that remained. A mere fourteen days, and then she would become the Countess of Willingham as her father had wanted all along. Whenever she thought of the earl, bile rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. Thankfully, he had not had the opportunity to further press his unwanted, amorous attentions upon her, but her freedom from his punishing, wet mouth and forceful grip was soon at an end.
“You have not heard a word I have said, have you, Freddy?” Leonora asked, her soft voice shaking Frederica from her despondent musings.
“Forgive me.” She attempted a smile, but she had such little cause for levity in her life that even the act of turning the corners of her mouth up seemed too great a burden to bear. “I have much on my mind.”
“I am so sorry your father has forced your hand,” her friend said. “After all the efforts you went to…”
She had confessed everything to Leonora in the devastated aftermath of what had occurred. No one else knew the truth, save her family. No one else ever would.
Frederica winced. “Yes, after all the efforts.”
She did not like to speak of Duncan Kirkwood. Six weeks had passed since he had turned his back on her, and yet not a day passed when she did not think of him. When she did not wonder where he was, what he was doing. Who he was kissing. The notion of him with another woman was akin to a knife in her heart, a blade she could only hope would dull with time.
“You could go to those same efforts again.” Leonora snapped her fan idly. “Did you ever consider it?”
“I have not seen him in a month and a half.” She exhaled slowly, willing away the mountain of hurt lodged inside her. “More importantly, I do not think he truly cared for me at all. I was a means to an end for him. He got what he wanted.”
She, on the other hand, had not. Instead, she had lost her heart.
“I did not mean him,” Leonora murmured quietly. “You could choose another.”
Frederica’s cheeks went hot. Of course he had been her first thought. Her only thought. Duncan was at the edge of every thought, hovering in each moment, like a splinter lodged deep inside her heart. One she could not remove no matter how she tried.
She fanned herself with one of Mother’s castoffs—a bone handle, silk affair embellished with rose embroidery and sequins. “No, I cannot do it, Leonora. Once was enough.”
The notion of kissing any other man—of allowing him to touch her and take liberties—made her ill. She knew if she did not take action soon, she could not be able to avoid such a thing. She would become the Countess of Willingham, the earl’s chattel to do with as he wished.
“What shall you do, Freddy?” Leonora’s tone was mournful. “You are running out of time.”
“I do not know.” She attempted to keep the misery from her voice and failed. “I truly thought my father would send me away. I was hoping for my freedom though not depending upon it. I never imagined, however, that he would force me to endure the union regardless of my actions.”
These last few sennights had been intolerable. The only slight comfort she found was in the foolscap, ink, and quill she had smuggled into her chamber. She kept all carefully hidden beneath her bed, writing into the early hours of the morning each night. It was what sustained her, and she nearly had a completed manuscript for her efforts, though she bore purple smudges beneath her eyes as well.
“I wish there was something I could do to assist you.” Leonora sighed.
“Thank you for fretting over me, my dear,” Frederica said, a rush of affection making her throat go thick. If she had not had her friend during the last month and a half, she did not know what she would have done. “I shall find a way just as I have always done.”
Leonora frowned. “I do hope you are right, Freddy.”
Before she could respond, the Duchess of Whitley approached, ethereal in a yellow gown with silver net and embroidery. Her flaming hair was artfully styled, and she was undeniably lovely. It was said she and Whitley had a great love match, and watching the duke and duchess earlier, Frederica had been stabbed by a pang of envy.
To love so openly and to be loved in return.
“Lady Frederica, Lady Leonora,” the duchess greeted warmly. “I hope you do not mind if I seat myself here with you both for a moment? My feet are positively aching, and everywhere I turn, someone else is asking me to dance or holding me captive for dialogues and diatribes. Wellington’s latest victory is grand to be sure, but I would prefer to discuss it when my heels are not numb.”
“Of course not, Your Grace,” Frederica said. “You have found just the place to hide. Leonora and I have perfected the art of being wallflowers.”
The duchess seated herself with a sigh of contentment, but with rather a lack of grace. The punch she had been holding splashed from her cup and all over Frederica’s ivory skirts. “Oh, how dreadful of me! Lady Frederica, I fear I have ruined your dress, and the ball is only just underway. Pray forgive me, my lady.”
Frederica looked down at the growing stain, dark and red and ruinous. Rather a metaphor for her life at the moment, she decided. “Do not worry on my account, Your Grace. I shall use this as an excuse to avoid dances.” With my betrothed, she added silently, for it would not do to air her grievances before a woman she had only just met, regardless of how lovely and modest Her Grace seemed to be.
“I must make amends,” the duchess continued, her beautiful countenance pinched with concern. “Come with me, if you please, and I shall fetch my lady’s maid. She is a dab hand at removing all manner of stains, and I do believe she will have this problem solved in a trice.”
Frederica began to demur, but the duchess was insistent. “I must. I shall feel guilty all evening if you do not grant me this favor, my lady.”
She looked to Leonora, who was her usual, amiable self. “Do not worry over me, my dear Freddy. You know how I love to observe. I shall be most entertained.”
“Very well,” Frederica agreed.
“Splendid.” Her Grace rose to her feet. “Follow me. We shall find a discreet exit, and I will have you back in no time at all.”
Here, too, was another means of escaping Willingham, at least for the time it took for her stain to be removed. The allure was too tempting to resist. Frederica followed the Duchess of Whitley into the crush.
*
Duncan waited in the hall outside the chamber where the Duchess of Whitley had led Frederica. For the last fortnight, waiting was all he had damn well been doing. Plotting, waiting, biding his time. He was not a patient man, and everything in him now screamed with anticipation.
His body.
His soul.
His heart.
Seeing her tonight—her midnight hair in such stark contrast to her porcelain skin, her lush lips, the elegance of her throat, those curves generously accentuated by her prim gown—had robbed him of breath. She was more beautiful than he remembered. But it wasn’t just her fairness of face and form that called to him. It was her. As he watched her slip into the chamber behind the duchess, his heart and his cock had sprung to life in unison.
She was his. And he would be damned before he allowed her to become shackled to the Earl of Willingham, a sadistic bastard he shared half his blood with and none of his proclivities. The earl did not like pleasurable pain. He liked to inflict violence. Duncan had heard the rumors, had spoken with women who had suffered his intolerable cruelty. The notion that Frederica would be subjected to the same as his wife—hell, the notion of her as anyone’s wife but his—filled him with a mad frenzy. A need to spill blood.
At last, the door opened, and the duchess emerged alone. She hastened to him, frowning. “Duncan, I will have
your promise you will not upset, harm, or ruin her.”
He grinned at his friend’s wife. She was precisely the woman he would have picked for Cris, had he chosen, the perfect foil for him. “I cannot promise the first, though I most assuredly can the second, and the last has already occurred.”
“You understand what I am saying, you vexing man,” she warned. “I have done as you asked, playing my part in bringing her here so you may speak with her. But I expect you to behave with honor.”
His heart felt lighter than it had since the moment he had whispered his apology to Frederica before opening the door to her brother. “Always, Your Grace.”
At least as much honor as he possessed, but he wisely kept that afterthought to himself.
The duchess fixed him with a pointed glare. “Promise, Duncan.”
Cris approached them then, his arm sweeping about his wife’s waist as he drew her to his side. “He promises, my love. Now allow them their privacy. We have a ball to attend.”
Duncan met his friend’s gaze, and an understanding passed between them. “Thank you, Cris, Your Grace.”
“Jacinda,” the duchess corrected softly. “We wish you happy, Duncan. Your lady awaits you.”
Yes. She did. But there was one small flaw in the otherwise immaculate fabric of his plans; she was not yet his lady. A flaw which would be repaired soon, he hoped.
He bowed to them both and strode to the chamber, opening the latch and letting himself in quietly. Frederica stood by the hearth where a fire had been lit, holding up her skirts to inspect the damage.
“I think perhaps some boiled milk or a slice of lemon would do,” she said, spinning about to face him. Shock froze her for a beat as she took him in, her green eyes blazing into his with the heat of a thousand suns. “You.”
Not the welcome he would have hoped for, it was true.
Her beautiful voice fairly vibrated with emotion, anger, outrage, loathing.
He could not blame her. Duncan flicked the lock into place, ensuring there would be no interruptions, and moved toward her, helplessly drawn. “My lady.”
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