The Duke

by Katharine Ashe

  “Is that legal?” Amarantha said.

  “It could be contested. But my uncle required that I include it, and I had no qualms at the time. I might have with an older man, perhaps one who indulged heavily in drink. But the duke is young and healthy. And frankly I assumed he would strike that clause from the contract.” He swung back to the merchant. “You intend to swiftly sell the proceeds and invest the money in a higher stakes venture with a quick return, don’t you? My God, Uncle, you would cause an innocent man to be hanged so that you needn’t go to debtors’ prison?”

  “Debtors’ prison?” Amarantha exclaimed.

  Thomas’s shoulders heaved. “We are broke, Amarantha. Tate Mercantile hasn’t a shilling in the bank.”

  “No’ for long,” Mr. Tate said.

  “Loch Irvine will find Cynthia and—”

  “He’ll no’ find her,” Tate said with certainty. “An’ I’ve proof already to see him hanged.”

  “Mr. Tate, you must not do this,” Amarantha said.

  “Mustn’t I?” He seemed to study her for a lengthy moment. “What’s your interest in it, then, lass?”

  “Seeing that an innocent man is not condemned.”

  He lifted a single brow. “What solution do you suggest instead?”

  Her heartbeats were too quick. “How much money do you require to settle your debts?”

  His bushy brows rose. “’Tis a substantial sum.”

  “My father will pay it.”

  “Amarantha, no,” Thomas said. “Even if your father agrees to it, my uncle will never cease demanding payments. It is the damnable insurance of blackmailers.”

  “True enough, lad.” Mr. Tate stroked his whiskers. “Luckily a better solution has occurred to me. Mrs. Garland, I’d be pleased to call your family mine. What say you to this handsome young man as a husband?” He gestured to his nephew.

  “Uncle!” Thomas jerked forward. “What are you—I won’t! That is, Mrs. Garland is a fine person and any man would be fortunate to have her. But I will not marry simply in order to settle your debts.”

  “You’ll do as I wish, nephew, or I’ll crush you. You know I can.”

  “Uncle—”

  “What say you, Mrs. Garland? Take my nephew to wed an’ I’ll forget all about your duke’s sins, hm?” His smile widened. “Aye, there’s a wise lass,” he said, nodding. “Experienced enough to know a fine deal when you hear it, but young enough to bend to the will o’ true love. Ha ha!” He clapped his nephew on the shoulder. “Thomas, lad, your children’ll have noble blood.”

  “This is madness!” Thomas said.

  “No, lad. ’Tis good business. An’ this lass knows it.”

  “Amarantha, you mustn’t—”

  “I will do it. Thomas, are you amenable?”

  “O’ course he is.” Tate chuckled. “He has no other choice.”

  “Mr. Tate,” she said, “you must first give me a written statement attesting to the Duke of Loch Irvine’s innocence in the matter of your daughter’s disappearance and a promise that you will not publicly impugn his character or any person associated with him.”

  “That’s impossible, Amarantha,” Thomas said.

  “Not for such a clever man. As soon as you do, Mr. Tate, I will write to my father and—”

  “Ha ha, lass. Do you mistake me for a neophyte? You’ll no’ escape our deal so easily.”

  “I have no intention of escaping. But my father must see to publishing the banns before Thomas and I can wed.”

  “No’ in Scotland. You’ll be at the altar beside my nephew tomorrow morning or our bargain’s off.”

  “Furnish me with your assurance by the end of today, Mr. Tate, and I will see you in the morning at church.” She extended her hand. Mr. Tate shook it.

  Chapter 30

  Dissembling

  22 March 1823

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  Dear Emmie,

  How is it that I have done so much, seen so much, changed so much from the girl I once was, yet my entire worth again now resides in my value as a man’s possession? You will not like my new Plan. For I don’t even like it. But I can see no other way. And when you come here and I can tell you in person, in confidence, my reason for this program, you will agree that it is the only solution . . .

  “This is the worst plan I have ever heard,” Constance said across the parlor from where Amarantha sat at a little writing desk. “And I have been involved in some very poorly conceived plans.”

  “That is true,” her husband murmured. Saint Sterling reclined in a plain wooden chair as comfortably as though it were a satin bench. Lean and muscular and sharply attractive, he had an air of sublime sangfroid so utterly unlike Gabriel’s aura of virile power that Amarantha could not fathom how Constance had welcomed the courtship of two such different men.

  “It must be done.” Scratching her name at the bottom of her letter to Emily, she took up the sealing wax.

  “Won’t you allow us to do something?” Constance said. “Immediately, that is?”

  “I cannot. Not yet. And I could never put you in danger at this crucial time—any of the three of you.” She gestured to Constance’s belly. “Anyway, if you became involved now Mr. Tate would realize that you also know information about the duke that must be concealed, and he would blackmail you too.”

  “But we don’t know any information.” Constance slid Saint a glance that suggested there was more to her words. But Amarantha hadn’t time for their secrets. She had enough of her own to conceal.

  “That is for the best,” she said.

  “Tate could not blackmail anybody if Saint were to stick him through with a sword,” Constance said. “Miserable little mushroom of a merchant.”

  “There now,” the master swordsman said. “My brother was a merchant, albeit a scurrilous one. So in that, I suppose, Torquil was quite like Tate.”

  The knots in Amarantha’s stomach tightened.

  So many secrets to conceal.

  Thomas had begged her to tell him the truth about the duke. She had said that if he did not believe they would suit, she would withdraw. He had insisted that he would do anything to protect others from his uncle’s villainy in which he had played a part, but that he could not wed a woman obviously in love with another man. He begged her to wait until she had spoken with the duke before they bowed to his uncle’s wishes.

  But Mr. Tate could at any moment publicly reveal the community at Kallin. And, frankly, she feared her resolve would dissolve if she saw Gabriel before the deed was done.

  “With your clever mind wrapped around this too,” she said to Constance, “and with Emily’s and our fathers’ help when they arrive, we will devise a long-term solution to silencing Mr. Tate. For now, this short-term plan must suit.”

  “Amarantha, you simply must not go through with this false marriage.”

  “Temporary marriage.”

  “To petition for annulment, Mr. Bellarmine will be obliged to accuse you of adultery. Does he know that?”

  “He has agreed to it.”

  “Your reputation will be destroyed.”

  “It hardly matters. I have no intention of marrying again.”

  “Then here is a thought: what if once Tate is bested, Mr. Bellarmine decides that he is happy with you as his wife and will not grant you an annulment after all? What if Parliament will not grant it?”

  “Then I will be married.” She stood up. “Now, I must—”

  “This is no minor subterfuge you intend to engage in.”

  “You should know,” Saint said with a lifted brow.

  “I do!” Constance agreed. “And I know your family will be horrified, Amarantha. Emily would—”

  “Stop, I beg of you, Constance. I am grateful for your help. Indeed, I depend on it to ruin Mr. Tate’s plans. But this—in fact this is tearing me apart and I cannot—You do not understand all that is at stake. Believe that I am doing what I must to ensure the safety of many more people than he alone.” />
  The azure eyes popped wide. “More people than the duke?”

  “Please.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Constance nodded.

  Amarantha took up the letters to her sister and father. “I must go to post these.”

  “It will be dark within the hour. I will send a footman—”

  “I would rather go myself.” If she had to sit any longer enduring her friends’ compassionate disapproval while she waited for the morrow she would go mad.

  “I will call a carriage for you.” Constance moved toward the bell.

  “I will walk.” She had walked across this city before, anonymous—she understood now—so that she could find him without again letting him into her world—without again losing her heart to him.

  That, obviously, had not gone according to plan.

  The afternoon was cool, clouds of mingled white and gray clustering about the blue and casting the cobbled streets, austere façades, and bare tree branches into dappled brilliance.

  She posted the letters and turned away from Constance and Saint’s house. Exhausting herself seemed the only solution to the anxious misery wound so tightly in her chest, as it had once been the solution to her restless discontent in her parents’ home—her antidote to uselessness. She had run and run and run across fields and over hills simply to find a purpose that had some meaning to it. She understood this now, finally.

  When the sun fell and she passed a lamplighter going about his task, she turned back.

  Dinner.

  Tea.

  Sleep if possible.

  She was always best when she had a plan.

  As she neared Constance and Saint’s residence, she entered an arched alleyway and checked her stride when a mounted rider passed into the shadows at its opposite end. With a muted clicking of hooves, the horse halted and the rider dismounted.

  His wide shoulders silhouetted by the lamplight beyond the mouth of the alley, even the manner in which he set his hat atop the saddle, filled her at once with peaceful pleasure and the most horrid agitation.

  “I will make it clear,” he said, walking in purposeful strides toward her. “I’ll no’ allow this happenstance meeting in the dark to have the same ultimate outcome it did five an’ a half years ago.”

  “What? What are you—”

  Then he was upon her.

  “I’ve no intention o’ sailing away on a ship tomorrow, an’ I’ll no’ be convinced o’ anything by you, especially if it has to do with another man or letters or propriety or reputations or—”

  “You are insane.”

  “Always when you are involved. Why did you leave Kallin?”

  “You must have found Cynthia Tate and brought her here, or you would not have come.”

  “No.”

  “Oh. No. But perhaps they are already settled somewhere safe. But you must go and find them.”

  “Why did you leave Kallin?”

  “Didn’t Cassandra give you my note? I wrote to you that I—”

  “That you’d pressing matters to attend to elsewhere. Aye. I read the note. All thirty-six words o’ brevity. Meriwether wrote longer prescriptions for the chemist.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Amarantha.” He bent his head and scraped his hand over his jaw. When he raised his eyes to hers again his features looked harder. “Tell me what is amiss. Just tell me. I’ve no’ the heart for foolish misunderstandings this time.”

  Hot emotion was flooding her chest.

  “I do have matters—a matter—to attend to here. Gabriel—”

  “Gabriel?” He frowned. “’Tis about to be serious.”

  “Yes. It is.” She stepped back from the lure of his body. “But now it is late, I am tired, and I would like to return to Constance and Saint’s house. Perhaps, if you wish, you might call tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I dinna wish it. I’ve just been there searching for you, woman. An’ we’ll speak here. Now.”

  “Here? In this alley? In the dark?”

  “With no more delay. Now say what you’ve to say an’ then I’ll tell you why you are wrong.”

  “I am sorry that I misled you.”

  He tilted his head. “Misled?”

  “I fear that I led you to—that is, I know that with my actions the last few days at Kallin I led you to believe that I . . . that I—”

  “That you want me. You didna lead me to believe that. ’Tis simply the truth.”

  “Of course there is quite a lot more to being with a man than wanting him.” She forced out her confession. “I am marrying Thomas.”

  His features transformed. “Marrying? Bellarmine?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Tomorrow, in fact.”

  “No.” He came toward her. “Never.”

  “Don’t. Please, don’t.” Throwing up her palm, she backed away and let the prepared words fall out. “He is a good man. Intelligent. Kind. Decent. Hardworking. Not at all indolent like the men my mother has suggested I wed. And he is charming and mild tempered. I have grown ever so fond of him over the last few months, you see. Before I went to Haiknayes—” Her throat caught. If she spoke only truths perhaps she would come through this. “That very night in the Assembly Rooms, before I saw you, he spoke to me of his feelings. Seeing you again, that is, remembering the past so vividly confused me a bit, and I admit that I got somewhat carried away—”

  “Carried away? Is that what you call it?”

  A shiver of perfect cold slid up through her. She pulled her hood tighter around her face.

  “I am not that girl any longer. I tried to tell you that, but you have not listened to me.”

  “I have listened to every word. I have memorized every syllable. I know you now as I knew you then.”

  “A fortnight does not suffice to gain a thorough understanding of another person.”

  “You said that you dinna wish to marry. You said it. Three days ago.”

  “I don’t. I did not, that is. But my parents wish it. They have grown adamant, in fact, and I find that I can no longer deny them.”

  “Then marry me.”

  “I . . . I cannot.”

  “You love me.” His jaw was taut, his shoulders rigid, yet the heat in his eyes wrapped her in intimacy.

  “I cannot deny that there was once something between us.”

  “There will always be something between us, princess.”

  “You mustn’t speak like that. It only serves to remind me of the pain of the past.”

  “’Twasn’t all painful.”

  “Perhaps not for you, sailing about the world on heroic missions. But I have told you what my marriage was, how in the thrall of emotion I made a terrible mistake.”

  “I wasna your mistake, Amarantha.”

  “I don’t trust you!”

  He remained silent, a wall of man a mile away.

  “I wanted to,” she said, the false words tasting peculiarly honest. “I thought perhaps I could. But when Jane told me of the marriage contract, the signed contract, I—”

  “A fabrication, designed by Tate to force my hand.”

  “I believed it. Only for a moment. But a moment was sufficient to show me my mind.”

  “Your mind?”

  “I have poor judgment in men. I have proven it. So this time I am allowing my parents to make the decision for me.”

  “You are lying.”

  Desperation filled her. She could only shake her head.

  He came forward. “What are you doing, lass?” he said quietly.

  “Planning my future.”

  “With another man you dinna love.”

  “Thomas is a very different sort of man than Paul was.”

  “Neither o’ them are me. An’ you want me. You have always wanted me.”

  She moved away from him. “I must go.”

  “You’ve learned o’ Tate’s villainy,” he said. “How?”

  She pivoted to him. “How, exa
ctly. For you did not see fit to tell me. You wonder that I do not trust you? There is your answer.”

  “Is Bellarmine”—his voice was gravel—“forcing you somehow?”

  “No. Thomas is above reproach.”

  “I willna pretend to understand how you believe this will hinder Tate. But you are doing it for me. For Kallin. You must be.”

  “I am doing it for me. This is what I want.”

  He seized her waist in his hands, pulled her against him, and covered her mouth with his.

  He did not allow her to resist and she did not wish to. Sliding her hands over his shoulders and to his neck, she tasted him a final time and touched him. She could kiss him forever, allow him full ownership of her mouth and body and heart, and never have her fill of the glorious strength and tenderness of him. Then he was wrapping her in his arms and she was clinging to him, her fingertips burrowing beneath his coat, impressing the sensation of him upon her skin and senses.

  “Marry him,” he said harshly, his hands holding her tightly to him. “Marry anyone you like. But then allow me to be the man your fears fashioned, no’ a maiden’s chivalrous fantasy, but a man who takes what he desires when an’ where he likes, who cares only for pleasure. I’ll have no trouble being that man, Amarantha Vale. Before I met you, I had plenty o’ practice at it.”

  Lit with black anger, his eyes raked her face and to where her breasts pressed against his chest. Dragging her hood down with one hand he lifted her face, his gaze hungry on her lips. Then, ducking his head, he brought his mouth against her throat.

  His kiss was hot, urgent, a thorough, consuming possession and swiftly descending, his hands pulling her body up to him, making her back arch. Bending, he opened his mouth over her breast. Her gown was no protection: it gave way to his fingers, then his lips. Banding her arms about his neck, she let him have her, groaning when his tongue took her nipple, then his teeth. She felt it like a shock between her legs. Her cry echoed along the archway.

  Lifting her, he set her back against the stone and his command came against her neck: “Your skirts.”

  “My—?”

  “I burn for you, woman. I have always burned for you. Now lift your skirts.”