“It is yours, my love.” He reached across the table, capturing her hand with his and lifting it to his lips to deliver a reverent kiss to her fingers. “It is yours always and forever.”
“I love you,” she whispered, not caring about their audience. Contentment blanketed her like a luxurious cocoon.
They finished their dinner—apart from the infamous lobster salad, of course—and when at last the time for them to withdraw from the table, Pittston instead appeared, unflappable and irreproachable and in every way the opposite of Ludlow, with an announcement.
“Your Grace, the carriage has been readied, as you requested.”
Kit nodded. “Good man, Pittston. What of Lady?”
“The feline is ensconced in Her Grace’s special cat portmanteau and awaiting your departure.” Pittston executed a perfect bow and disappeared.
Georgiana turned to her husband. “Where in heaven’s name can we be going with Lady?”
Kit’s eyes twinkled. “You shall see, Georgie mine.”
“I should have known you could not leave the thing in her cage where she belongs.” Kit grinned at Georgie as their carriage rumbled through the side streets of London to the destination of his final surprise for the evening.
His wife gave him a look he recognized well. She appeared more regal than a queen, dressed in her evening finery—Jesus, he loved the way her hips looked in those lady’s trousers she wore—one fluffy, purring white cat in her lap. His heart squeezed just to look at her, and he could not fathom how in the bloody hell a miserable sot like him was fortunate enough to call her his own.
“First, you know as well as I that the name of the thing in question is Lady.” She pursed her lips in that way she had that never failed to make him want to kiss her. “And second, I will thank you to refer to her conveyance as a portmanteau rather than a cage. There is nothing at all cage-like about this.”
In addition to her lavender flea soap, his duchess had also invented an ingenious, modified portmanteau that featured a sturdy bottom and a framed, open top so that the cats residing within it could take plenty of fresh air. She never ceased to amaze him, though he did enjoy teasing her for the inevitable reaction it always garnered. Georgie in high dudgeon made his cock twitch every damn time.
“It is a marvelous invention,” he praised her gently, reaching out to squeeze her knee, easily found within the freeing silk of her trousers. “You inspire me, Georgie Leeds.”
A soft smile curved her generous lips. “Thank you, my love. You inspire me as well. I cannot help but think that working with the Home Office to train new agents will be an ideal fit for you.”
In the aftermath of what had happened in New York City, he had decided to resign his commission in the League. Georgie—and the children they would have together—were his future now. The Duke of Carlisle, in a rare show of heart, had offered him the post of training new agents in the physical arts, and he had gratefully accepted. It was a way for him to bridge the gap between his old life and the new, without placing Georgie and their future family at risk.
“I hope I will be well-suited to the task,” he said simply.
“Of that I have no doubt.” Georgiana stroked Lady’s fur. “Do you think Ludlow will be happy in his new post? Pittston is lovely, but sometimes I miss Ludlow’s brusqueness. And Pittston refuses to tend to the Lilliputians. He says they are dirty.”
Ah, Georgie and her bloody mice. Kit had long since given up attempting to convince her to send them elsewhere. And even he had to admit that the little beggars were cute. But the not-butler was an altogether different matter.
With the danger and threats against Georgie vanquished and Kit retired from the League, Ludlow had no longer been needed at his post. And in truth, he was not suited to serve as butler. Kit wasn’t sorry to see the man go, but he did harbor a reluctant respect for him. And he would forever be in his debt for the many times he had saved Georgie.
For her part, Georgie had sent the mountain on his way with her favorite kitten as a parting gift, the white and black-striped kitten Sherman. Though Kit had objected to her parting with her beloved kitten, he had not denied her the opportunity to give the not-butler this one, final gift.
As long as it was the last bloody gift she ever gave him.
“He will be as happy as he is anywhere, I expect,” Kit answered truthfully, for the man had darkness in him. But the not-butler was no longer his problem, and he was glad for it.
“I wish I knew where he was going,” his wife murmured. “He seemed so very grim the day he left.”
A sound of irritation left him. “Georgie, I do not give a damn where the man went, so long as he is no longer hanging about mooning over you.”
“He is like a brother to me, Kit,” she protested. “You know you are the only man I love, the only one I want.”
He did know that, but it still made him feel like the luckiest bastard in England to hear her confirm it. As the carriage came to a stop, he grinned at her. “I never grow tired of hearing you say so, darling. Now do put Lady back in her portmanteau so that we can disembark without fear of losing her.”
She smiled back at him, securing Lady in the contraption with ease. “Will you not tell me where you’ve brought me and why it was necessary for Lady to come as well?”
“You shall see, love.” Something buoyant skittered through his chest as he alighted and turned back to take the portmanteau from her before offering her a hand down. Excitement, he realized. God, he hoped she would not be disappointed.
She stepped down, her curious gaze slipping past him to land on the towering brick building at his back. A puzzled frown pulled her brows together before she glanced back at him. “What is this place, Kit?”
He knew what stood at his back. It was a towering edifice in a genteel neighborhood. Though in need of some repair, it was the ideal location and building structure for what he had in mind. “Come inside and I will show you.”
He led her up the walk and into the front foyer of the building, lighting the gas lamps to illuminate the room. It was empty, and this, along with all the rooms in the building, were in a state of construction.
Kit placed the portmanteau on the floor and unleashed Lady, who tentatively began inspecting her new surroundings. “This building is yours, Georgie. I realize it is not much at the moment, but my workers are busy reconfiguring the rooms so that we can properly house as many dogs and cats in comfort as possible.”
She was silent, staring all around her, and he could not tell if she was pleased or horrified by what he had done.
“Georgie, love?” He stalked to her, taking her in his arms. “Talk to me. What do you think? You can arrange the chambers to your liking, and the entire building and its management is solely yours. Name it whatever you wish. Do with it what you wish.”
Finally, she met his gaze, tears glistening in her emerald eyes. She pressed a small, soft hand to his cheek. “Oh, Kit. You did all this for me and our animals?”
Our animals.
Yes, he bloody well liked the sound of that. Of finally being a team with his wife. Together, they were one.
“I did it for us,” he said softly. “And also because I want my morning room and bedchamber back. Not to mention the library, which is once again housing an inordinate number of felines.”
She laughed, and it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. “Thank you, my love. This is perfect! Perfectly wonderful, just as you are.”
He could not resist crushing her mouth beneath his then, kissing her full and deep. And she kissed him back, making a sweet sigh of feminine contentment that he felt all the way in his ballocks.
This woman.
She undid him.
She made him whole.
But there was one more surprise for this evening, and it was hers. He could not wait a moment longer to hear it. Breaking the kiss, he held her to him, pressing his forehead to hers. His hand slid to the gentle swell of her stomach beneath her corset, scarcely
noticeable yet with its change.
“When were you planning on telling me the good news, Georgie mine?” he asked tenderly.
She stilled, looking up at him to find herself trapped in that haunting blue gaze. “How did you know?”
“You haven’t left my bed for two months straight,” he said with a wicked grin.
She flushed prettily, her cheeks staining soft pink. “We are going to have a babe, Kit. Are you happy?”
With a whoop, he lifted her and spun her in a full circle. When at last he placed her gently back on her feet, he kissed her thoroughly, and then he looked down at the woman he loved, the mother of his child. “I am happier than I deserve to be, happier than I ever imagined possible. I love you so much, Georgie. So fucking much.”
She kissed him again before breaking away to give him a look of stern admonishment. “Your Grace, you really will have to learn to temper your shocking tongue. Else our child’s first world shall be an epithet.”
“Hmm.” He kissed her again. “You do have a point, love. I suppose we will have to busy ourselves finding other, more improving uses for my tongue. Can you think of any?”
Georgie laughed. “I am sure I can think of a few…”
When the duke and duchess—with Lady accompanying them, of course—finally left the future sight of the Leeds Sanctuary for Animals, they were holding hands like young lovers, their hair and clothes shockingly disheveled, wearing matching, sated smiles.
Thank you for reading Her Deceptive Duke! I hope you enjoyed this fourth installment in the Wicked Husbands series and that you love Georgie and Kit—not to mention the assorted cast of Georgie’s beloved creatures—every bit as much as I do. As always, please consider leaving an honest review of Her Deceptive Duke. Reviews are greatly appreciated!
It’s been a long time in the making, but League of Dukes, the spin-off series of Wicked Husbands, featuring the League and its miscellany of characters, is finally coming in 2019! If you’d like to keep up to date with my latest releases and series news, sign up for my newsletter here or follow me on Amazon or BookBub.
If you’d like a preview of my upcoming standalone Nobody’s Duke, an enemies-to-lovers tale and Book One in the League of Dukes series featuring the sexy, roguish Ludlow and the lady he believes betrayed him, do read on.
Until next time,
League of Dukes Book 1
By
Scarlett Scott
A widow with secrets...
When the dangerous men who killed her husband in a political assassination threaten Ara, Duchess of Burghly, the Crown assigns her a bodyguard. But the man charged with protecting her is no stranger.
He’s Clayton Ludlow, the bastard son of a duke and the first man she ever loved. Eight years after he took her innocence and ruthlessly abandoned her, he’s back in her drawing room and her life.
This time, she’s older, wiser, and stronger. She will resist him at any cost and make him pay for the past.
A spy with a broken heart...
She’s the only woman Clay ever loved and the one he hates above all others. When Ara brutally betrayed and deceived him, leaving him with a scarred face and a bitter heart, he devoted himself to earning his reputation as one of the Crown’s most feared agents.
He wants nothing more than to finish his assignment so that he can remove all traces of her from his life forever. But walking away from her for good won’t be as easy as he thinks.
As secrets are revealed and danger threatens Ara, Clay discovers that the truth is far more complicated than deceit. Once she’s back in his arms where she belongs, he’ll wage the biggest fight of all to keep her there.
London, 1882
o society, she was the Duchess of Burghly. To her husband, murdered by a Fenian’s blade, she had been Araminta, formal and proper and beloved by him in his way. She had loved him equally in her way. Sweet Freddie, with the heart of an angel and the desire to change a world that would never understand or accept him.
She was all too familiar with the way the world treated hopeful, unsullied hearts.
“Ara.”
She had been hopeful and unsullied once.
When she had known the man standing before her in the drawing room of Burghly House. When she had loved him. When she had been…
“Ara.”
There it was again, spoken with such dark vehemence that it almost vibrated in the air, sending unwanted tendrils of heat licking through her even after all the years that had passed. That name, that bitter reminder of who she had been, spoken in the voice that had once sent a thrill straight to her heart…it was her undoing.
Ara had not realized she had clambered to her feet until her body swayed like a tree caught in a vicious wind. Faintness overcame her. Her vision darkened. The palms clenching her silken skirts were damp, hands trembling.
He was taller than she remembered. Broader and stronger. He had always been a mountain of a man, but he had grown into his bones and skin, and the result took her breath despite her fierce need to remain as unaffected by him as possible. His eyes, cold and flat, burned into her. His jaw was rigid, his expression blank. A vicious-looking scar cut down his cheek.
She wondered for a moment how he could have received such a mark.
And then she reminded herself that she did not care. That he had ceased to be someone she worried after some eight years ago, on the day she had waited for him in the woods with nothing more than a hastily packed valise and her foolish heart. He had never come.
The agony of that day returned to her a hundredfold as she stood in the gilt splendor of her drawing room, stabbing at her with the precision of a blade. Hours had passed, day bleeding into darkness, and she had waited and waited. The only carriage to arrive had been her father’s, and it had taken her, broken and dejected, back to the place from which she had fled.
“Your Grace, are you well?”
The voice of the Duke of Carlisle, edged with concern, pierced her consciousness, reminding her she had an audience, lest she allow her dignity to so diminish that she allowed him to see the visceral effect he had upon her.
She swallowed, tamped down the bile threatening to curdle her throat, and turned her attention to Carlisle. “I am as well as can be expected, given the events of the last three months, Duke. I thank you for your concern.”
He inclined his head. “I am deeply sorry for the loss of your husband, madam. He was a bright star in the Liberal party.”
“Yes,” she agreed, a tremor in her voice that she could not suppress. Speaking of Freddie inevitably festered a resurgence of horror and sadness. He had been a good man, an estimable husband to her and father to Edward, and he had not deserved to die choking on his own blood in a Dublin park. “He was.”
Carlisle’s lips compressed into a pained frown. “I cannot begin to fathom your grief, and I apologize for our unwanted presence here today. If there were any way to keep you free of this burden, I wholeheartedly would.”
“The grief is immense,” she whispered, all she could manage past the knot in her throat.
How she hated that it wasn’t just her sorrow for Freddie that paralyzed her now and stole her voice. She felt his stare upon her like a brand. He had not moved. Had not spoken another word save her name, and yet he seemed to have stolen all the air from the room.
“As I was saying prior to Mr. Ludlow’s arrival,” Carlisle continued with a formal tone, “it is with great regret that I find myself tasked with informing you that there has been a threat made against you by the same faction of Fenians that murdered your husband. To that end, the Home Office has assigned an agent to ensure your protection.”
Carlisle’s words sank into her mind as though spoken from a great distance.
…a threat made against you…
…same Fenians that murdered…
…an agent to ensure your protection.
Her breathing was shallow. Her fingers fisted in her skirts with so much force that her knuckles ached. Still, th
e weight of his burning gaze upon her would not lift. Her entire body felt achy and hot and itchy and chaotic all at once.
“Would you care to elaborate on the nature of the threat?” She kept her eyes carefully trained upon the Duke of Carlisle, but it was impossible to keep him from her peripheral vision. He filled the chamber as much with his presence as with his massive size.
The Duke of Carlisle, despite his reputation as a depraved reprobate, was the unexpected liaison between herself and the department of the government responsible for informing her about Freddie’s murder and the legal proceedings against his jailed assassin. Their previous meetings had been equally stilted, revolving around his sympathy for her loss and any new information regarding the Fenians who had plotted Freddie’s death.
In the murky days following her husband’s murder, she and Edward had been removed from Dublin with an armed escort, but she had imagined that they had left all danger behind them in Ireland.
“Assassination, Your Grace.” Carlisle’s tone was quiet but deadly serious.
Those three words, so succinct and so cold, struck her heart.
Edward could not lose both his parents in the span of three months. Her heart squeezed at the thought of her son alone in the world. Her beautiful, kindhearted boy. She would do anything to protect him.
Her mouth went dry. “I see.” She paused, attempted to collect herself, an odd mixture of discomfit at his continued presence and fear swirling through her. “My son, Your Grace? Has he been included in the threats as well, or do they only pertain to myself?”
“Your son was not referenced in the threats, Your Grace,” Carlisle said.
“You have a son?”
She flinched, the angry lash of his voice striking her. Still, she would not look at him. “I do not understand the reason for your…associate’s presence, Your Grace. Indeed, I would far prefer to conduct this dialogue with you in private, as befitting the sensitive nature of the circumstances.”
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