Her eyes pinned his, holding him captive without a touch. “Her Grace?”
“The Duchess of Leeds,” he offered smoothly. “A treasured friend of mine.”
“I do not care how many treasured friends you possess, Mr. Ludlow. What I do care about is how my son came to be within your apartments.” Her expression could not convey her disgust for him any more than if she had announced it, baldly. Which she may as well have done. “Furthermore, I require him to be removed at once.”
He stared at her, old furies clashing with the new. And for the first time in years, he overstepped his bounds. “If you require his removal, perhaps you can attend to it yourself, Your Grace. I am not your servant but your guard.”
Her chin tipped upward in defiance, her eyes flashing. “A guard who lost my son.”
“You lost your son, madam,” he corrected, even as everything within him longed to rail. To touch her again. To—God forbid—kiss her. “I found him for you. You are most welcome for my unnecessary service.”
Those blue-violet orbs darkened. “How did he come to be here? I still do not understand.”
“I would venture to guess you do not understand a great deal where your son is concerned. I suspect, however, he came to see my cat.” He took pity on her then, softening in spite of himself and his decree she would have to move the boy herself. She had always been a small woman, but she seemed even frailer now, and he had no doubt she could not haul her lanky lad from here to his chamber on her own. “Would you have me carry him to the nursery, Your Grace?”
But the furrow between her brows only deepened. “How did he know you have a cat in your chambers?”
“I volunteered the information when the lad asked.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits of ice. “He adores animals. You must have known as much when you volunteered the information.”
His patience withered. His presence in Burghly House had been forced by duty. He was not, however, duty-bound to allow her to insult him. “Precisely what are you implying, Your Grace?”
“I am not implying anything,” she snapped. “I am asking you. Why, of all the many chambers in this home, would he choose to hide himself in yours?”
Her icy question was not without merit. He had wondered as much himself. But he did not like the accusation in her tone. “Perhaps you would be better served to wake your son and put the question to him directly, Duchess.”
The mouth he had once claimed with his own thinned into a harsh, unforgiving line. “I am asking you, however. What occasion did you have to speak to my son, Mr. Ludlow?”
He clenched his jaw, taking her in, wishing he did not still find her so bloody alluring. That after all these years—after the scar on his cheek, after her betrayal, after the way she had savaged his heart—he would no longer be susceptible to her. “You certainly seem to have a habit of misplacing the young duke, Your Grace. He had also gone missing from the nursery when last I saw him yesterday. Mayhap you ought to ask yourself why.”
She paled. “He has been distraught. His father was murdered.”
“Does that make you any less his mother?” he returned.
“You are overstepping your bounds, Mr. Ludlow.”
He did not give a damn. Her frigid bearing skirted the walls of imperturbability he had long ago erected around himself. He hated that she could be so cold when everything inside him was a raging inferno whenever he was in her presence. “I have no bounds here, madam.”
“You have those which I set for you, sir.” She raked him with a dismissive stare. “You are an unwanted presence within my home, and while I may not have a choice of who the Home Office has decided to install here, I will not allow you to ride over me roughshod.”
He closed the distance between them, partially because he could not resist and partially because he wanted to discomfit her. To prove she was not as unassailable as she pretended. That he was not alone in the old attraction that would not leave him, painful as a splinter.
His gaze attempted to bore straight through hers. “There is only one manner in which I would like to ride you, madam, and I assure you it does not involve trading barbs with you over the whereabouts of your son.”
Her mouth opened, those pretty pink lips forming an o of surprise before she gathered her wits. Her nostrils flared. “How dare you?”
Because he was a fool, he did not look away. Nor did he relent. Perhaps it was pride that spurred him on. Perhaps the awful, throbbing need for her that had never faded. “Have you forgotten, Your Grace?”
Red tinged her high cheekbones. He wanted to touch her. His hands ached with the restraint he exercised, fists curled tight. He would not touch her. Would not lay one finger upon her creamy throat, or the delicious hollow at its base where he fancied he could see her pulse thrum.
“Why would I wish to remember my greatest regret?” she asked, her tone carrying the lash of a whip.
Her greatest regret? Lord God, woman, you have no idea what a regret is.
Her words should not hurt. Should not cause a great river of agony to unleash inside him. But they did. What the bloody hell had he been thinking? That she would throw her arms about him and beg his forgiveness for the sins she had committed against him? That she would have changed?
He stepped back, keeping his countenance devoid of expression. “He was in the gardens.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The lad,” he elaborated, using a tone as cool as hers. “He was in the gardens when I first came upon him yesterday. The child’s governess had been wholly unaware of his absence, from what I gather. When I came upon him, he held my cat in his arms. I can only surmise a maid unwittingly allowed Sherman to escape. Either way, the young duke found him. I told him I have a friend who rescues stray creatures, and she gifted me with a cat who has become my companion.”
Her jaw tightened as her gaze flicked over his face. “It is hardly appropriate for you to bring a feline into Burghly House that was given to you by a paramour.”
“Her Grace, the Duchess of Leeds, is not my paramour,” he corrected, for nothing could be further from the truth. “She is my friend.”
Ara’s expression remained sour. “As you were once my friend?”
Perhaps she was not as unaffected as she would have him believe.
He stifled the surge of triumph that wanted to rise within him, for he dared not hope she was as haunted by their past as he. Even if she were, it would still mean nothing. The water had passed beneath that particular, ugly bridge long ago. “I thought you did not wish to remember your greatest regret, Ara.”
Her eyes flashed. “I have not given you leave to use my name.”
“I am not a man who asks permission.” He gave her a feral smile. And she would be wise to remember that. He was not the youth who had been easily swayed by her beauty and charm, mad for the twitch of her hips and the curve of her breasts. He was a man now, with a man’s desires. A man’s body.
And he could have any woman he wanted.
Why, then, do I still want her?
Damn it, but as he stood near enough to touch her, his entire being caught up in her—her scent, the gleaming copper of her hair, the silken rustle of her skirts, how smooth and soft her skin looked—he recognized the heaviness in his loins. The familiar tug in his belly. He remembered how she tasted. How she had felt, warm and wet and so tight he had lost himself inside her far too quickly.
His cock rose against the placket of his trousers once more.
Of all the inconvenient times.
They stared, locked in a battle of wills.
“You will ask permission here, Mr. Ludlow,” she said suddenly, her eyes deepening to a stormy blue as she took him to task as if he were a recalcitrant youth. “Burghly House is my domain.”
“I will never humble myself before you,” he gritted, for if she expected him to bow and scrape to her, she would have an eternity to wait.
He was not her servant. Nor was she his better, though she may thin
k it. He had spent the eight years since he had last seen her building himself into the man he was. She had not robbed him of his dignity or his desire to become something more than the bastard son of a duke, though she had tried.
“Then your time here shall be fraught with difficulty, I am afraid.” The curt edge to her voice could have sliced open the flesh of a weaker man, making him bleed.
She did not know who he was, what he had become. To her, he was still the young man she had known, the hopeful dreamer who had been about to have his naïveté so ruthlessly crushed. He would tell her now, because he wanted her to fear him. He wanted her to maintain her distance so he would not be forced to look upon her or speak to her. So he would not be reminded of how much he had loved her and how perfectly her body had fitted to his.
He laughed, allowing the blackest part of himself to bubble forth. “Do you imagine, my dear Duchess, that I have been charged with your protection from Fenian cutthroats because I am the sort of man who would be cowed by a tiny, harmless female such as yourself? I could break you in half with my bare hands without exerting an effort. You are like a butterfly flitting about the head of a lion, madam. Spare yourself the embarrassment of attempting to best me, for it will only end in your obliteration beneath my paw.”
“It is true then, what Carlisle said.” Her expression lost its frosty lines of disapproval, softening with shock. “You are a hired killer for the Crown.”
He did not deny her statement, for it was futile. He was not what she accused him of being. Not precisely. The truth was far murkier. He was sometimes spy, sometimes assassin, other times guard. “I am not a man with whom you should tangle.” And he had tarried far too long, speaking to her, clashing verbal swords, lingering in her charmed presence, breathing in her rarified air. “Now, shall I carry His Grace to the nursery?”
Ara stared at him without responding. Perhaps it was the newness of hearing her son referred to by his title. Perhaps she was repulsed by the notion of the acts Clay had committed. By what he had become.
The thought should not rankle, but it did.
He frowned, needing to be free of her troublesome presence as expeditiously as possible. “Madam?” he prodded. “What shall I do with the lad?”
She blinked. “I shall carry him to the nursery myself if you will remove him from your…from within.”
She could not even bring herself to speak the word chamber aloud before him. Did he disgust her that much? Was it the memory of the acts of passion they had committed together that so repelled her?
Or was it that she did not trust herself in the same way he did not? Did she feel the old hunger that had ruled them both so long ago? If he touched her cheek, would the memories haunting him claim her as well?
He would never know.
He did not need to know.
For he had a task at Burghly House, and rekindling the madness he had once shared with the now-widowed duchess was not it.
He offered her a mocking bow and then returned to his apartments, finding the lad still sleeping soundly. For a moment, he stood, taking in the boy’s innocent face, relaxed in slumber. The poor lad had been through a great deal of trauma, not only losing his father, but the grisly manner in which it had occurred. The hard angles inside Clay rounded and softened in a way he did not want and could not like as he looked upon the boy.
Shaking himself free of maudlin sentiment, he gently lifted Ara’s son into his arms, ignoring the disturbed mewl Sherman gave him at having his slumber interrupted. The lad did not wake, instead curling his warm little body against Clay in blind trust. What would it be like, he wondered, to hold a child in his arms that was his own? To be the protector and defender of his own flesh and blood?
He had not thought about having a child of his own for years now—not since Ara—and perhaps her return to his life was responsible for the odd sense of loss infecting his chest just now. The tightness in his throat. The strange prickling on the back of his neck. This boy, sleepy and warm, his body too long for his years, was Ara’s son. A part of her.
And as much as he told himself he hated her for what had happened between them, he somehow still felt a connection to this child. A surge of protectiveness broke free inside him, and his palm flattened over the lad’s back, gently patting as if to offer comfort.
Swallowing, Clay tamped down the inexplicable surge of emotion and strode from the chamber, the lad still asleep by the time he reached his censorious mother waiting in the hall. Her mouth pinched into a line of deeper condemnation as she opened her arms and attempted to rescue her son from Clay.
“I will carry him, Your Grace,” he informed her, easily stalking past her.
The lad was lean and lanky, but he was heavier than he looked, and the chances of Ara managing to haul him to the nursery without collapsing en route were unlikely. He would not have her falling over or dropping the boy to spare her pride. The stubborn woman would simply have to accept his help.
“Mr. Ludlow, I demand you give me my son,” she called breathlessly, chasing after him like a hen pecking at his heels.
“Your demand is noted, madam,” he drawled softly, “and denied.”
“He is my son,” she charged, hurrying her pace so she walked alongside him. “You have no right to flout my authority.”
“Recall my earlier words to you Duchess,” he hissed. “Now do hush unless you wish to wake the boy.”
“You beast,” she charged.
He ignored her, walking on with a calm he did not feel. Did she suppose he was not good enough to carry her precious heir? That his bastard hands would somehow tarnish the lad? Or did she loathe him so much she would fight him at every turn regardless of the cause?
It little mattered, for she was not a conundrum upon which he should waste his focus or time. His presence at Burghly House had nothing to do with their painful past, nor anything to do with her current opinion of him. Indeed, if she despised him, all the better for his cause and peace of mind. He could not be distracted by her.
The Fenian menace was poised to once more strike. And Clay would be damned if he allowed anything to happen to the lad sleeping trustingly in his arms. That was where his thoughts needed to lie—with the protection of the duchess and the young duke. Nowhere—absolutely nowhere—else.
“I will be speaking to the Duke of Carlisle about this,” came her threat as he held the boy with one hand and opened the nursery door with the other before stepping inside.
“You do that, madam,” he said grimly, for he knew it would not do one whit of good.
His brother and the Home Office had decided he was to be the guard placed at Burghly house, and so he would be. Leo treated him as an equal. They had grown up in the same home, shared tutors, bonded as true brothers. But duty always took precedence for Leo.
The child’s hapless governess appeared then, wide-eyed, hands flurrying in agitation. “You have found His Grace! Oh, thank you, Mr. Ludlow. Where was the naughty boy hiding?”
He lowered the lad to his bed with care before straightening to his full height and pinning the domestic with a glare. “He was hiding in my chamber. This is not the first time His Grace has gone missing, Miss Argent. One has to wonder whether the lad has an affinity for disappearing or if you are deficient in your duties.”
Miss Argent gawped at him. Perhaps his plain speaking surprised her. He did not care. The woman had smelled of spirits on at least one occasion, and her propensity for losing her charge was hardly promising. If she were directly in his employ, he would have given her the sack well before now.
“Thank you, Mr. Ludlow,” Ara said pointedly. Coldly.
He turned from the sleeping lad back to her. Her fiery hair had never been more at odds with her icy demeanor. How pale she was. How small. How elegant. How regally beautiful. The Ara he had once known had always been beautifully imperfect, her hair cascading halfway down her back, her hem torn or muddied, a spot of mud on her cheek.
The duchess she had become was almo
st frightening in her effortless perfection. Her hair was ever elaborately coiffed, nary a lock out of place. Her silk gowns, though fashioned for mourning, were the first stare of fashion, never even a loose thread to be seen. Nor would she ever deign to allow herself to become dirty.
She was dismissing him, he realized.
“I will speak with you in the morning, Your Grace,” he returned. “Over breakfast, just as you suggested.”
She frowned. “I suggested nothing of the—”
“Until tomorrow, Your Grace,” he interrupted with a deep, mocking bow. “Miss Argent.”
Stifling the torrent of emotion unleashing itself inside him, he quit the chamber, leaving Ara to handle her ineffectual servant. On the morrow, he would address his concerns regarding the governess. Until then, he needed to find his bed and some sleep of his own, if it would claim him.
More often than not, it never did.
Chapter Eight
Ara had not been prepared for the sight of Clay holding her son—his son, their son—in his arms. The large, hulking figure carting about a smaller version of himself had taken her breath. For the first time since Edward’s birth, his father had held him. And he had not carried him with a stiffness of bearing as she had supposed he might, as though Edward was a weight he did not wish to bear.
Of course he had not.
Instead, Clay had carried Edward as if he was precious.
As she went about her morning toilette the next day, watching her lady’s maid brush her hair into a semblance of order in the looking glass, she could still recall the sight of his immense hand stroking Edward’s back.
Lovingly.
No.
Not lovingly, for Clay did not know. He could never, ever know.
You are like a butterfly flitting about the head of a lion, madam.
His vicious words returned to her. Yes, perhaps she was. Yesterday, she had realized once more just how truly dangerous it was to have Clayton Ludlow beneath the same roof as she and their son. He was an intelligent, perceptive man. How long would it be before he began to make connections between Edward’s age and his dark hair and tall, lanky body? How long would it be before he saw himself in the son he did not know he had?
Nobody's Duke (League of Dukes Book 1) Page 7