Nobody's Duke (League of Dukes Book 1)

by Scarlett Scott

  “This is wonderful news indeed,” Clay’s mother said. “I could not be more pleased. I only wish your father could be here now. How proud he would be of his two sons. How happy he would be to welcome Ara and Edward into our family.”

  “My Mama says that everyone in heaven is still with you in your heart,” Edward offered solemnly. “They will always be there, and no one can remove them or their love.”

  “How right your mama is,” Clay told his son, giving Ara’s hand another surreptitious squeeze. “No matter how great the distance or how long the time apart, the ones you love will always be there in your heart.”

  “I love you so,” Ara whispered to him.

  “That is certainly true,” added the Duchess of Leeds, offering her husband a look that shone with unabashed adoration “Would you not say so, my husband?”

  The look Leeds gave her in return was every bit as lovesick. “I would most certainly concur.”

  Clay found himself grinning, well pleased that the two who had begun their marriage as one of convenience had found happiness in each other after all. Once, he had disliked and distrusted Leeds, but Leeds had proven himself to be a trustworthy and devoted friend, and Clay was happy to count him one. The duchess with her heart of gold had won him over from the start of their unlikely friendship.

  “Forgive me,” drawled Leo then with the full icy hauteur only he could affect. “Excessive sentiment makes me bilious. Let us carry on with the breakfast before I lose my appetite, shall we?”

  “You do not appear to have lost your appetite, Your Grace,” Edward observed out of turn, and it was quite true for despite the maudlin vein of their conversation, Leo had cleared his plate of this course.

  “You may call me Uncle Leo, scamp,” Leo admonished Edward without a trace of heat, his ordinarily hard exterior softening ever so slightly. “And I will thank you kindly to mind your own plate. I do not suppose you can finish yours and watch mine at the same time, can you?”

  Edward smiled, undeterred. “No, Uncle Leo.”

  “Just so.” Leo’s attention returned to Miss Palliser, and Clay did not think he was mistaken this time about the flare of interest he saw in his brother’s expression. “Perhaps your governess ought to teach you about manners if she has not yet done so.”

  That was unexpectedly churlish of Leo, even by Leo’s standards. Clay frowned at his brother.

  “Miss Palliser has only just joined us recently,” Ara spoke up before he could, flashing the quiet governess a reassuring smile.

  “Plenty of time then,” Leo said mildly, his stare lingering on the governess, who flushed beneath his scrutiny. “Plenty of time.”

  Clay motioned discreetly for the next course to be served. “If you were hungry, brother, you would have only had to speak for yourself. No one knows better than I what a bear you become when deprived of nourishment, and we cannot have that on a day of such unmitigated celebration.”

  Leo turned his attention back to Clay, grinning. “Today is not about me, brother dear. It is about you and your lovely bride. I wish you happy, today and every day that follows.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” Ara said.

  Their fingers laced even more tightly together.

  “Yes,” Clay agreed. “Thank you, brother.” For he wished the very same.

  Eight years ago, she had written it in her journal with a flourish and a foolish heart brimming with yearning and hope.

  Today, it had become a reality.

  Today, she had become Mrs. Clayton Ludlow. Soon to be the Viscountess of Stanwyck, though the title mattered not to her. She was not the name she wore. She never had been. She was Ara. Ara who loved Clay with all her heart. And though everything else around her had seemingly changed, that fact had not. She was still his, now just as much as she had ever been.

  She had learned a new truth in the weeks since Clay had returned to her life, and it was that though years may pass and two hearts in love may be torn apart, nothing could vanquish the fire of a love that was meant to be. Not time. Not distance. Not misunderstandings. Not lies or betrayals.

  Not anything.

  “Ara.”

  She spun, hand on her heart, to find him there, his presence larger than his size. Dear God, how she loved him. She wanted to say something meaningful, something appropriate to the occasion. Something he would remember years later, when they were silver-haired and coddling their grandchildren. But he took her breath. He robbed her of speech. There he stood, hers at last.

  “Ara.”

  He opened his arms, and she raced to him as if she were a young girl of one-and-twenty all over again. As if they had never lost each other. As if this was all they had ever known. She was in the air, launching herself at him, and he caught her with ease, holding her in his arms.

  Her love for him was uncontrollable. It was like a small stream that became a rushing river after a deluge of rain, transforming everything in its path. Just as he had described to her once.

  It was a force all its own.

  Their mouths met in a kiss of tongues and teeth and lips. Of hunger and savoring and desperation and frantic need. It was a culmination of every second they had been apart. She could not kiss him long enough or hard enough. Her hands sank into his hair. His hands clamped on her waist, holding her in place. Her legs wrapped around him.

  She felt so small in his arms, and yet so fierce, so revered. So loved, so needed, so wanted. Every part of her cried out for more. She took her mouth from his to rain kisses on his face—his eyebrow, his cheek, his rigid jaw, down his chin. She found his throat and his racing pulse and licked, then gently bit.

  He rewarded her with a groan. “I wish we were off on our honeymoon now. I wish we were not bound to remain here by our circumstances.”

  “Mmm.” She licked a path down his neck, finding his prominent Adam’s apple. “I do not need to be anywhere other than here. Now. With you.”

  And it was true. She had no desire to travel to the Continent. Having him as her husband at last was gift enough.

  “Ah, Ara.” His hands slid from her waist to her bottom, cupping and squeezing and settling off a delicious waterfall of sensation skittering through her.

  Want.

  Need.

  Desire.

  All she wanted was this man: his taste, his touch, the scent of him, his broad chest, his muscular arms, his long legs, powerful thighs, his lean waist and barely suppressed strength. All she wanted was him. Now. Forever.

  “You are mine,” she told him, reveling in the words. In the truth of them. “Mine, Clayton Ludlow.”

  “I have always been yours, my darling,” he said, walking with her in his arms to the bed. “Always.”

  He laid her down as gently as if she were made of the finest Sèvres porcelain. She wasted no time in opening the knot on her dressing gown and spreading it wide. He shucked his and she had a moment to admire the beauty of his body before he joined her on the bed.

  His mouth was everywhere, delivering heated kisses to the bare skin of her legs, belly, breasts, and throat before settling upon her lips at last. She sighed into his mouth. He tasted sweet, like the wine he had consumed at their wedding breakfast. Their tongues tangled.

  His hands took up where his mouth had left off, stroking and caressing. He found her nipples and rolled them between his thumb and forefinger. His heated touch skimmed over her belly, and knowing fingers parted her folds.

  “You are so wet for me, Ara,” he whispered against her mouth. “So perfect.”

  She was desperate for him, her hips seeking more. Ara kissed him everywhere she could reach—his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, his lips—and still it was not enough. Restlessness built within her. She was starving for his touch, for the fulfillment only he could bring her.

  “I need you so much, Clay.” She reached between them, taking his thick, hot length in her hand.

  “Put me inside you,” he ordered lowly.

  His directive made the slick flesh betwee
n her thighs throb. She didn’t hesitate, guiding his cock to her entrance. He thrusted as she arched, and he was seated deep inside her. So deep. So good. She was full, stretched.

  His mouth slammed back down on hers as a growl tore from him. He moved, slowly at first, but as the pleasure built, he increased his pace. They made love frantically. Mouths, tongues, hands everywhere. She reached her pinnacle, her inner muscles contracting on him as pure ecstasy shot through her. In the next breath, he was coming undone too, and with a low moan he spent inside her.

  He collapsed atop her, his breathing heavy, their skins slicked with sweat. They kissed again, slowly, languorously. His heart beat against her chest. She held him to her, and there was no need for words.

  She was home.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Clay woke happy and sated as he had not been for as long as he could remember. He woke to soft red curls tickling his chest. To a warm, feminine body draped over his. He woke to Ara, naked. To Ara, his wife.

  Ara, his naked wife. It was a blissful combination. He would never grow weary of Ara and her capable mind, her sizzling wit, her loving heart, or her delectable body, it was certain. They had spent the entire day following the wedding breakfast inside her chamber and his, alternating between making love and holding each other and talking. They had not even left for dinner, taking trays in their apartment instead.

  But as he lay there in the early morning light, reliving the heaven of the day before, a troubling sense of disquiet entered his mind. He thought of the governess. Of her spilled wine. Of how odd the timing of it had been, just after Leo’s revelation regarding the Fenians who had murdered Burghly. Of the pallor she had displayed.

  He could not sleep, thinking of it. Could not rest. Could not allow himself to give in to the desires burning in his blood for his wife. He would love nothing better than to wake her with kisses, tease her until she quivered with need, sink home inside her.

  But questions and misgivings churned in his mind, unrelenting. His ardor was eclipsed by his concern, that niggling voice inside him telling him something was wrong. Something about the governess was somehow off, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that his instincts were not failing him.

  Dropping a kiss on his sweetly sleeping wife’s lips, he extricated himself from her embrace and left the bed, tucking the bedclothes over her before he hastily dressed himself. The misgiving built as he left his chamber and headed for the nursery, all the while praying he was wrong.

  Taking care to be quiet lest he wake Edward, he opened the door. And was met by a loudly meowing Sherman. The feline raced out the door and into the hall, as if spooked. Inside Edward’s chamber, his fears were realized when he discovered the lad’s empty bed.

  “Edward,” he called, his fears mounting.

  Panicked, he rushed to the governess’s chamber, knocking loudly at the door. “Miss Palliser?”

  Sherman followed, brushing against his ankles, meowing again. There was no answer from within. He rapped once more. When he was met with silence, he entered. Though it was the height of impropriety, the swiftly rising tide of fear within him would not allow the time to locate a female domestic to perform the task.

  His intrusion would not have mattered anyway, for Miss Palliser was nowhere to be found. Indeed, the chamber looked as if she had never even inhabited it. With a vicious curse, he left and jogged down the hall, telling himself to be calm all the while.

  That his fears were likely groundless. That Miss Palliser and Edward were probably breaking their fast at that very moment, and he would race into the breakfast room to find the lad flashing him a grin. The Fenians who had murdered Burghly had been arrested. Surely the end had come to this madness. Surely, he was overreacting.

  But the breakfast room was empty. Keynes appeared, the ever-efficient butler sporting an air of perplexed concern. “May I be of assistance, sir?”

  “The young duke,” he bit out. “Have you seen him this morning?”

  Keynes’s eyebrows snapped together. “I cannot say that I have, sir.”

  The misgiving in his gut deepened into fear.

  “Damn it.” He raked his fingers through his hair. He was going to have to wake the household. Where in the hell could Miss Palliser and the lad be?

  Leo entered the breakfast room just then. “Clay, I need to speak with you. Would you excuse us, Keynes?”

  Clay had never been more relieved to see his brother. The butler bowed and disappeared.

  “I’m glad you are here,” he said hoarsely, about to enlist his brother in helping him to find Edward and the wayward governess. Or to assure him that he was mad and the lad was safe and sound.

  “Not the usual reception I receive, but I will take it,” Leo said drily before Clay could continue. “I’m afraid the news I have is not good, brother. I’ve just had word from Leprechaun.”

  The news made Clay’s skin go cold.

  Leo referred to their mutual friend Padraig McGuire by the name the League had assigned him. McGuire had successfully infiltrated the most militant faction of Fenians in New York City, his work so sensitive and dangerous that he had nearly been killed on more than one occasion. The information he fed to the League was invaluable.

  Dread made Clay’s mouth dry. An invisible fist clenched on his heart. Information from Padraig could only mean one thing. The Fenians were plotting again. And if the Fenians were plotting again, Ara and Edward could be in grave danger.

  Which meant it was entirely possible the disappearance of his son and the new bloody governess was not innocent as he had so desperately hoped.

  “They have sent a female,” Leo continued, oblivious to the fear paralyzing Clay. “She was working with the man you killed at Burghly House. She’s the last of the ring of plotters, and she has infiltrated your household already. We need to interview the entire staff. Each domestic will be subject to scrutiny. We need to find out who she bloody is before she can do any irreparable harm. I would like to begin with them, interviewing each servant. Females only, starting with the new governess, and…bloody hell, Clay, why are you so pale?”

  Because his brother had just confirmed his greatest fear.

  Miss Palliser, or whatever the bloody hell her true name was, was not a governess at all. There was no innocent explanation for her disappearing with Edward. She was the female. The female who had infiltrated his household without a moment of resistance from him. Jesus, had he been so relieved to replace the incompetent Miss Argent with her love of getting soused nightly that he had failed to notice he had allowed a fox into the henhouse?

  “She is…damn it.” He closed his eyes for a moment, sucked in a frantic breath. Fear and terror and panic and worry and every bad emotion he had ever experienced hit him full force, straight in the chest. For a beat, he could not find his voice. Could not even find his mind. He was adrift in a sea of blackness, helpless.

  “Clay.” Leo’s voice was stripped bare, rife with emotion.

  He had never seen or heard his brother so affected. “It is the governess, Leo. She has him. She has my son.”

  The color leached from Leo’s face. “Fuck.”

  “Yes.” Fuck and every other epithet that had ever been invented had never been more appropriate. “We have to find them, Leo. I have to…I cannot let anything happen to him. This is all my bloody fault, and I will not forgive myself if…if…”

  “Do not say it,” Leo interrupted, his countenance as grim as his tone. “Do not even think it. We will find him, Clay. We will find him and bring him home where he belongs.”

  Clay swallowed hard and could not keep himself from dragging his half brother into an embrace. They had never hugged before. Leo despised outward displays of affection. But Clay didn’t give a damn.

  To his surprise, Leo hugged him in return, clapping him on the back.

  “I swear to you, Clay. We will find your son. He needs to get more acquainted with his dastardly Uncle Leo, yes?”

  �
��Yes.” Clay closed his eyes. “Yes, he damn well does.”

  “Then there is no time to waste. Let’s gather the men.”

  “Ara.”

  She woke from deep, dreamless slumber to Clay’s voice. There was something wrong, she realized as her eyes flew open. He was fully dressed, standing over her bed with a grim expression.

  Fear gripped her. “What is it, Clay? What’s happened?”

  “The governess has taken Edward,” he said.

  Ara felt as if her stomach had been tossed from a cliff. She wanted to retch. She wanted to scream. Terror clawed at her throat, all the horror she had been holding at bay since the attempt on her life at Burghly House—nay, ever since Freddie’s vicious murder—returning to her a thousandfold.

  How could this be?

  “Why?” she managed past lips and a tongue that had gone dry with shock.

  Clay’s gaze met hers, and what she saw within those dark depths shook her to her soul. “Leo has received word from one of his sources that there is a female Fenian in our midst. I believe it is Miss Palliser.”

  Dear God. “She cannot be one of them,” she said, shaking her head in denial. “She is a woman. And she is polite. Beautiful, actually. Soft-spoken. She seems so kind…”

  Ara pressed a hand to her lips, stifling the flow of words. She was rambling. Making little sense. None of the things she had mentioned had any bearing on Miss Palliser’s true nature, and she knew it.

  What if the woman was a Fenian sympathizer who had taken Edward to do him harm? Evil could lurk behind a pleasant smile and a calm demeanor. It could hide behind false kindness and humility, behind compliments and good manners. Evil could be female as well as male, could it not? That was the thing about it—evil had no face, no indication, no warning or outward sign, until it was too late to stop it.

  Until it was a runaway locomotive barreling down tracks.

  Destroying everything in its path.