Desired by the Duke: An Age Play Romance

by Lucy Wild

  Caroline could not resist. “I have disposed of the ugliest vase in the house.”

  Lady Brentwood turned almost purple in her rage. “This is not a laughing matter. You have lied to us both and not for the first time.”

  “Oh, mother, do not exaggerate. What other lies have I told?”

  “Just this week you promised me you would groom your own pony.”

  “He was sick and the stable boy would not let me near him.”

  “You told me you did not know where that pound note had gone from my purse.”

  “I paid it back.”

  “You promised your father a birthday present, told him it was a most valuable gift.”

  “I gave him a gift.”

  “One of his own roses does not count,” Lady Brentwood shouted at the top of her voice. She paused, taking a deep breath before continuing. “I have had enough of this.”

  “Enough of what?” Caroline asked, feeling increasingly nervous. Her mother had never yelled at her like this before.

  “Enough of you. You lie about everything. You take responsibility for nothing. I have had enough.”

  She sank back into her chair and pulled an envelope from her pocket, sliding it across the table.

  “What is that, mother?” Caroline asked, looking at the crest topping the envelope. “Tell me that is not what I think it is.”

  Lady Brentwood smiled a smile colder than the iciest of winter winds. “So, that’s what you look like when you’re scared.”

  “This is not funny mother. Put that away.”

  “I will do no such thing. I intend to reply to this letter tonight. What say you to that?”

  “You are bluffing,” Caroline said, her appetite gone. “You would not do it to me.” But the look on her mother’s face left her unsure.

  Chapter 2

  George Hudson had not intended to take on a passenger that night. But he could no more ignore a woman on the roadside than he could enter a brothel without emptying his wallet.

  Even if he had wanted to ignore this particular woman, his horse was spooked by the sight of her in the middle on the road, lifting its forelegs high in the air and nearly throwing him into the thick mud that lined the country lane. He cursed loudly, gripping the reins tightly and fighting to bring the beast back under his control. As he did so a rumble of thunder echoed above his head. The rain that had threatened all afternoon began to fall a moment later, soaking him and his horse as the figure before him turned slowly to look at him and the steed that had nearly crushed her.

  “Ahoy there,” he shouted down to her. “You were almost run down, you blasted fool. Who walks in the middle of the road in the dark?”

  “Who rides a horse at such speed in the dark?” the figure called back.

  George frowned. It was a woman’s voice. “What member of the weaker sex travels alone in the dark?” he called down.

  “What fool cannot recognise the woman he attempted to seduce in the dark?”

  George squinted, leaning down to examine the figure closer. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “A woman in want of a roof over her head,” she replied, pulling her hood further over her eyes.

  “There is an inn two miles hence,” he said. “Perhaps you might let me buy you a drink?”

  “You are incorrigible, Lord Hudson,” she snapped. “Do you think you have a better chance with me second time round?”

  George again attempted to see her face under her hood. “How do you know who I am?”

  The woman pulled back her hood briefly to reveal her face, barely visible in the gloom, the rain beginning to fall in earnest at the same moment. She hid her face a second later. “You seduce so many women, you cannot remember each one? What about my locket, do you remember that?”

  George blinked as she tossed something up to him. His arms flailed but he just caught hold of the chain. Looking down at the heart shaped locket, he noted the engraving on the back, illuminated by a flash of lightning over to his right. “Lady Caroline Brentwood?” he said in disbelief. “Is that you down there in the mud?”

  “May I have my locket back?”

  He passed it down to her as she blinked up at him in the rain. “Listen,” he said, seeing the pain in her eyes. What had happened to make her look like that? “Allow me to give you a lift to the inn, at least get you out of this awful weather.”

  He thought about the last time he had seen her. She had been the first woman he had ever known who had rebuffed his advances. That look on her face back then. It had driven him mad. No wonder he had not recognised her, she looked like a different woman tonight, a woman who had known much agony in a worryingly short space of time.

  “Do not expect anything from me in return,” she said, accepting his hand and climbing up behind him on the saddle.

  “I would not dream of it,” he said over the rising wind. A minute later he was riding forth with Lady Caroline’s arms around his waist. As the inn drew near, he called back over his shoulder, “A month ago, I asked if you would like to be this close to me. Do you recall your response?”

  “I do not,” she shouted back.

  “I do,” he smiled, turning his horse towards a flickering light off to the left. “You told me you would rather be seen dead than with your arms around a wicked scoundrel such as me.”

  She did not answer.

  “How times change,” he added, bringing Winifred to a stop. “Now let us get inside out of this rain. Boy! Tie up my horse.”

  Within minutes George was contented. He was drying slowly by the fireside, a woman on one side of him, a pint of ale on the other. He looked at Caroline who was staring into the flickering fire.

  “You may wonder what a Lord such as myself might be doing in a low establishment like The Knotted Yew.”

  A loud belch echoed across the inn. “Is it for the ambience?” Caroline asked, stretching her hands towards the flames.

  “I am here to meet women,” George said, watching her response closely. “Jealous?”

  “Certainly not. As I told you last time, I have no interest in you, Lord Hudson. What you get up to with whichever slut you find is no concern of mine.”

  “Are you sure you are not jealous?”

  “I repeat myself as you seem a trifle deaf. I have no interest in you.”

  “Yet you are here by my side with no chaperone to watch over you. If your parents were to hear of it, there would be quite the scandal.”

  “A scandal such as you sleeping with all and sundry in a country tavern?”

  “Ah, that is different. I am a man. We are designed for it.”

  Lady Caroline groaned. “You are disgusting.”

  “If my company offends you so much, I could always return you to the roadside from whence you came.”

  “No,” she said, her eyes suddenly flashing panic.

  George looked at her closely. It was as if the walls of indifference had come down for a few brief seconds, revealing a terror in her breast that she was doing her best to conceal. It was gone a moment later and she looked for all the world as if it had not happened.

  “What is the matter, Lady Caroline?” George asked. “There is a whirlwind of mystery surrounding you. I must know what is going on.”

  “I have no interest in sharing my affairs with you.”

  “Yet you have no qualms about sharing my food and drink with me footing the bill.”

  “That is different.”

  “Is it now? I tell you what, I will fund your evening repast gladly if you would only tell me what on earth caused you to be out there on your own on the foulest of nights.”

  Lady Caroline sighed. “It is because my parents are the most wicked villains in the country.”

  “Come, come. Have you not met the Prime Minister?”

  “That, right there. That is why I refused your advances.”

  “What? What on earth are you talking about?”

  Caroline looked across at him and again that fear was there. This time,
it was visible for longer and it was some minutes before she regained mastery of herself. “Everything is a joke to you,” she said as if there had been no pause at all. “You take nothing in life seriously. If I had accepted your advances, I would have been nothing but another conquest for you to boast of at your club.”

  George did his best to look hurt but it was not easy as she was right. He had only asked her for a kiss because she was the least likely to say yes. All the other girls at the ball had spent the evening fawning all over him. Any one of them would have been delighted to feel his strong arms wrapping around them. A few of them might even have willingly gone to that spot under the old oak tree, the place where the real action took place.

  “You looked beautiful,” he said with a shrug. “I wished you might grant me a kiss. Is that such a crime?”

  Caroline turned away from him and faced the fire. “I never wish to kiss anyone ever again after tonight.”

  “What? Why? What on earth happened out there?”

  Caroline glanced across at him. “You would only mock me if I told you.”

  “I give you my word of honour I will do nothing of the sort.”

  “You have honour?”

  “Now who is mocking whom?”

  “Stop it,” Lady Caroline snapped. “I have no intention of speaking of the events of this evening ever again so I will thank you to stop asking.”

  Lady Caroline folded her arms as two plates of food were dumped unceremoniously on the table before them. “Very well,” George said, picking up his knife and beginning to saw at the hunk of beef that filled his plate. “Keep your secrets and leave me tortured with the pain of not knowing forevermore.”

  He glanced at her and she looked back at him as if she was about to speak. Then her eyes seemed to glaze over and for all the emotion she displayed for the rest of the meal, she may as well have been made of stone.

  Chapter 3

  Caroline wanted to share what had happened. She wanted to share it more than anything. Such dark torment churned within her, she felt it might burst out at any moment in a single ear piercing scream. But of all the people she might have told, Lord George Hudson was the very last. The man was a scoundrel. He cared only for the frivolous parts of life, what could he possibly know about the evil things that lurked in the world at night?

  Caroline knew all about those things. Her knowledge was greater than she would ever have desired, a knowledge of the darkness that lurks within men, knowledge she could well have done without. She had learned more than she had ever wanted to know in the few short hours since she had run away from home.

  She had pleaded with her mother not to sign the letter, she had begged her for another chance. She had actually got down on her hands and knees like a slave before a Pharaoh, tears rolling down her cheeks as she implored Lady Brentwood to throw the letter into the fire.

  It had done no good. The letter was signed, the courier sent away with it neatly folded in his pocket, told to make all haste to Sir Leonard Kensington and off he went. With that gesture, Caroline was certain her life was ruined. To think they would willingly send their daughter to Kensington Academy for Recalcitrant Young Ladies. She knew all about the place, everyone did. Their crest was a knotted whip for goodness’ sake. Several of her erstwhile friends had been sent there. None of them had been seen since.

  It was said to be the strictest school in the country, if not the whole of Europe. The few stories that were whispered about the place spoke of regular beatings. “I heard one girl froze to death there,” Sarah had whispered at the last ball as Caroline gathered her friends around her in a quiet corner. “There’s no fires no matter how cold it gets.”

  “He spanks you like an infant if you refuse to eat the gruel,” Josephine said. It was true, according to her, because she had heard it from the friend of a cousin of hers who had actually been there in person.

  “I heard he makes you walk around naked if you damage your uniform.”

  There was one story after another, each more scandalous than the last. When she had seen her mother sign the letter which confirmed her enrolment, all the stories came back in a great flood, filling her mind with terror.

  She had run to her bedroom without looking back, throwing a few things into a valise whilst muttering to herself. “I would rather die than go there. I would rather do anything than go there. I will go anywhere but there. I will run away right now. That’ll teach them both. How dare they? How could they willingly send their daughter to a man they know will beat her.”

  Her muttering continued as she carried the valise downstairs. She paused at the foot of the stair case, listening for any sign of her parents. Only the sonorous ticking of the clock on the far wall broke the silence. Quickly, she darted across the hall to the front doors, pulling the left hand door open just enough to squeeze through.

  Once outside, she glanced left and right, checking that no servants were in attendance. Assured she was alone, she then rushed along the drive to the gates. The gatekeeper was asleep. On any other day, she might have thought of berating him for his lack of commitment to the job but she kept her mouth shut as she passed him. She held her breath as she yanked the gate open but he did not stir behind her. Another few seconds and she was out on the lane, walking swiftly without looking back.

  Her plan was to walk into the city, lose herself amongst the throng whilst deciding where to go, whether to impose on one of her friends and risk her parents finding out her location or go it alone in the world. The thought of being independent sent a thrill down her spine even as fear welled up in her at the thought. She had never once had to fend for herself, could she do it? How hard could it be?

  Lost in her thoughts, she missed the left turn which headed towards the city. She took instead the second left, the lane which weaved slowly upwards over the hilltop and then down into the thick forest beyond. She was more than a quarter of a mile inside the treeline before she realised her error, her mind lost in thoughts of the look on her mother’s face when she eventually returned.

  “We missed you so much,” father would say, mother in tears beside him. “We were worried sick.”

  “I am not the doting daughter I was,” she would announce. “I am an independent woman.”

  Mother would faint at the very idea, all thoughts of sending her to Kensington forgotten. It was a pleasant daydream but it burst like a soap bubble as she came to a halt at a crosswords that looked identical to one she had walked straight across ten minutes before. “I believe I am lost,” she said out loud, looking around her at the thick greenery. What little light there was had to force its way through the canopy of lush leaves above her head, dappling the mossy forest floor with specks of sun amongst the gloom. The words she spoke seemed to fade away suddenly, deadened by the hush amongst the trees. There was not even the slightest hint of birdsong to ease her growing nerves.

  In attempting to retrace her steps, she took a single wrong turn at a fork she had not noticed the first time, moving deeper into the forest. The track she followed was wide enough at first but within minutes it had shrunk to a rabbit trail, barely wide enough for her to walk along at all. She stopped again, twisting to turn back. It was then that she saw the shadow.

  She froze at the sight, squinting in the gloom. Someone had been there, on the track behind her. She was sure of it. As she had turned, they had darted into the trees to her left. She waited, unable to move, wanting to see who it was. Her heart began to beat faster as fear took over her body. There could be nothing good about a figure in the forest who did not want to be seen. To her right, a twig snapped, echoing loudly in the silence.

  She glanced that way and from the corner of her eye she saw another flickering shadow moving. “Who’s there?” she called out, cursing herself immediately. If she had remained silent, she might have been able to hide herself. There could be no chance of that now. Her parents had warned her not to explore the forest on her own. They had been vague about the reasons why, only referri
ng to “strangers who might cause trouble.”

  Without knowing why, she felt more scared than she ever had before. She had yet to see evidence of a single person out there but somehow she was certain they were there, at least two, maybe more, watching her from behind the trees, waiting for her to let her guard down.

  She took a deep breath, setting down the valise as if to rest a moment. Curling her toes for the briefest of moments, she glanced around her a last time before suddenly sprinting along the track, hoping she might be able to gain enough distance to lose whoever was out there watching her. She did not make it far.

  Darting between two enormous tree trunks, she failed to spot a creeping length of ivy that crossed the track at ankle height a few yards ahead of her. Spotting movement to her left she ran faster, her foot slipping under the tendril and bringing her up short. Her momentum kept her moving forwards as she stumbled to the ground, landing with a thud. In seconds they were on her.

  She spun round to free her foot as two pairs of hands descended on her from above. Looking up she caught sight of them looming over her. Two men, their faces a mixture of lust filled rage and surprise. It was as if they could not believe their luck that a young woman would walk into their midst combined with a desire to ensure they made the most of the opportunity provided to them.

  “Please,” she muttered as the taller of the two pushed her shoulders down to the floor. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  “We won’t ‘urt you,” the shorter one said, grinning and revealing several blackened teeth. “ ‘S’long as you do what you’re told.”

  Caroline looked from one to the other of them, her shoulders already beginning to hurt from being pushed downwards into the moss beneath her. “Please, let me go. I have money. My father can pay you, please.”

  “Aint money we’re after,” the first one said. “Is it Charlie?”

  “Nope,” the second replied with a leer. “We wants company. You see, Billy and me here gets lonely.”

  “ ‘S’right,” Charlie said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “We gets ever so lonely out ‘ere.”