Julie Anne Long

by The Runaway Duke

  “They are going to make me marry him, Connor! Apparently, I am ‘ruined.’ I am to consider myself fortunate to be accepted by Edelston, they say.”

  Connor’s hands stilled on the horse’s neck for the briefest of moments as he registered this stunning bit of information, then he resumed combing. Maharajah’s neck would soon be shining like a mirror.

  “Well, Becca, the lad did have his hands firmly planted on your bum, did he not? Many a lass would happily consider that a proposal of marriage.” He hid his grin behind the convenient arc of the Arabian’s neck.

  “Oh, please do not tease me! This is serious!”

  Connor of course knew the sordid details of her midnight jaunt. Tom Jenkins had shared it with all of the Tremaines’ servants, enjoying a brief celebrity. As a result, all the servants and gentry within five miles had more than likely heard the tale by now, which no doubt had evolved and acquired a few more juicy details in the retelling.

  “You believe me, don’t you, Connor? Because I cannot make anyone else believe me. I only meant to catch Lorelei with him. Truly. Edelston is so . . . oh, he is awful. Pompous, dull—”

  “I believe you, Becca, if only because I know your taste in adventure runs more toward target shooting than to grappling at midnight with randy young lords.”

  Rebecca frowned as though Connor’s assessment of her range of inclinations displeased her.

  “It wasn’t altogether unpleasant, you know,” she said crossly, in a lowered voice. “And what kind of word is ‘grappling’ for a groom, anyway?”

  It was a childish attempt to startle him, but Connor merely cocked an eyebrow and quirked one corner of his mouth, and Rebecca looked properly abashed.

  “Promise me you will no’ be sharin’ your impression of the event with anyone else but me, eh, wee Becca? You may cause your da to spit out his brandy, and with you for a daughter, he needs every drop.”

  Rebecca laughed. “Perhaps I should take to the big apple tree until everyone abandons this . . . preposterous idea of a wedding.”

  “The branch would likely crack under your weight now, great girl that you are. Why would you want to ruin a perfectly good tree as well as your reputation?”

  Rebecca laughed again. Connor loved to watch her face when she laughed. Her eyes went bright then nearly vanished with mirth, and she always tossed her head back, showing her smooth white throat and most of her teeth. There was nothing dainty at all about her laugh.

  In truth, Connor enjoyed watching Rebecca’s face in repose, too. It seemed a magical thing, the way the strong lines and soft curves and hollows of her face had evolved from the face of the child she had been just a few years before. Her hair had darkened, too, and the pale reds and golds of her baby curls were now entwined with deeper russets and coppers and chestnuts. Connor thought Rebecca’s hair was marvelous.

  “The puzzling thing, Connor, is why Edelston is so very willing to marry me.”

  Connor carefully considered his response. He knew, as did all the servants for miles and probably half the ton knew, why the handsome Anthony, Baron Edelston, was so willing to marry the daughter of a country squire.

  “Well, perhaps Lord Edelston has a sense of honor after all, and simply desires to do his duty by you since he was . . . overcome by your charms.”

  Rebecca snorted. But her face did brighten somewhat at the suggestion. “Perhaps then I can admire him just a little. Honor and duty are at least admirable traits, and he seems to have so few others to choose from.”

  “Do you consider honor and duty very important traits in a man, then?” For some reason, it suddenly seemed vital to know Rebecca’s thoughts on the matter.

  “But of course. Do you think otherwise?”

  Connor paused. “Duty is not my area of expertise, wee Becca.”

  Rebecca frowned. “But—”

  “There may be another reason Lord Edelston is happy to marry you.” Possibly it would be more cruel than helpful to further illuminate Edelston’s character for her, seeing as how she must wed the man regardless. But perhaps in the spirit of truth . . . surely he had no other motive than that for telling her . . . surely not a selfish one . . .

  “What would that be, Connor?”

  “’Tis expensive to be a baron.”

  “Ah.” She looked deflated. “He has need of the money I will bring to the marriage, you mean, to maintain his properties.”

  “And for seasons in London, and fine clothes, and horses and servants and carriages.” And gambling debts, Connor thought. And mistresses.

  Rebecca was quiet for a moment, pensive. “Still, in a way, marrying me will help him fulfill his duty to his title, is that not so?” she suggested weakly.

  Connor gazed at her wonderingly. In typical Rebecca fashion, she was trying to find the good in a situation that could at best be described as hellish.

  “Perhaps,” he said softly.

  Rebecca sighed.

  “May I help you brush Rajah?”

  “You’ll smell of horse, and lunch just an hour away.” Connor handed her a currycomb, knowing it wouldn’t matter.

  “Horse is the best smell in the world,” Rebecca said dreamily.

  She stepped to the other side of Maharajah’s neck and began combing him, her technique nearly as accomplished as Connor’s. They worked together in companionable silence for a moment, and then Connor paused to push a hand through his hair, which had fallen over one eye. Connor routinely grew his great mop of wavy dark hair to his collar before enlisting the help of Mrs. Hackette, the housekeeper, in shearing it away nearly to his scalp. Unvanquished, it always returned to full bloom rather quickly, and more often than not, a forelock of black hair curved jauntily down over one of his brows.

  Rebecca giggled.

  “And what amuses you, wee Becca?”

  “It’s just that . . . well, you’ve always rather reminded me of a horse, Connor. But not Rajah. Sultan.” She gestured to the big, black, silky-eyed Andalusian awaiting his turn under the brush two stalls down.

  “Aye? Would that be because of my enormous muscular haunches?”

  She giggled again. “You are as lean as a hound, Connor.”

  “A hound?”

  “With rather broader shoulders, perhaps.”

  “But I thought I resembled a horse. Am I a menagerie, then?”

  “No! But you do resemble Sultan. It’s your forelock.”

  Connor pushed his hand through his hair again, self-consciously this time, as though expecting to find pointed ears sprouting up through it.

  “Yes, your forelock, and your eyes, too, I think,” Rebecca continued. “Except you’ve gold specks in your eyes. Like . . . like coins at the bottom of a wishing well. You can see them when you turn into the light.”

  The matter-of-fact lyricism of her scrutiny was both flattering and utterly disconcerting. Odd to think that Rebecca was as familiar with the details of his face as he was with hers.

  “Coins, wee Becca?” Connor turned to look again at Sultan; the horse gazed back at him with eyes as dark and soft as turned earth. There was a resemblance—at least from the eyes up. Thankfully, the rest of Connor’s face—the lean, angular jaw, high-planed cheekbones, and firm full mouth—resembled no one except his brother, and his father, and his father’s father, and so on back to the year 1600 or so.

  “Yes. Gold coins. They make you look rather mysterious and wise.”

  Connor’s mouth quirked again as he moved his brush over Maharajah’s haunches. His face, absurdly, was growing warm. “What a shame it is, then, that I am neither. Now, who does Maharajah resemble? Your mama? Lorelei?”

  Rebecca giggled and stopped brushing to plant a kiss on Maharajah’s soft gray nose.

  “What now, are we throwing ourselves at man and beast both, these days, Miss Tremaine? Best be careful, or they’ll have you and Maharajah in front of the vicar before I can say Finn MacCool.”

  Rebecca laughed, delighted with the image. “I’d much rather be Mrs. M
aharajah than . . . than . . .”

  She stopped suddenly, as though she could not bear to finish the sentence, and the laughter left her voice.

  “Connor . . . do you think I should practice the pianoforte? Isn’t that what . . . well, wives . . . are supposed to do? I already know about the . . . the . . . well, you know. Other marriage things. From Papa’s book.”

  Connor went still. She had always been able to do this, had done this to him since she was twelve years old. She’d say something so utterly . . . Rebecca . . . something so simultaneously shocking, insightful, hilarious, and heartbreaking that he never quite knew how to react, and so, in defense, and to buy time for a response, he’d learned to be quiet for a moment and to school his face to stillness. A cocked eyebrow would do in a pinch, on occasion. Not now, though.

  Rebecca ceased combing, too, and they stood together in silence. Without banter to shield him, the chill, mundane horror of the fate that awaited the young woman in front of him seeped into his bones. Connor would not, could not, picture what marriage to a dissolute lordling would do to the remarkable Rebecca Tremaine. He felt the noose of the consequences as surely as if it were being tightened around his own throat.

  “No. I do not think you should practice the pianoforte,” he said finally, inadequately. His voice had gone strangely husky.

  “I am so sorry, Becca, I am, truly. This folly is all my doing,” Lorelei said, wringing her hands. Her eyes, however, were glued to the mirror. Rebecca had become accustomed to speaking to her lovely sister in this fashion, perched on the bed behind her while Lorelei sat at her vanity, gazing with meditative fascination at her own reflection.

  “Bah, Lor, it is not your doing. We are both to blame. But whatever were you thinking? The garden? At midnight? With Edelston? Mama and Papa are saving you for a duke, at least.”

  “I was not thinking. And therein lies the problem. Edelston had quite fogged my brain. Let us blame Edelston, then. He is not a gentleman. He is loathsome.”

  “Loathsome,” Rebecca agreed vigorously.

  There was a silence.

  “But handsome,” Lorelei added, a trifle reluctantly.

  “Very handsome,” Rebecca confirmed, after a moment.

  “Becca?”

  “Hmmm . . . ?” Rebecca, freshly filled with lunch and feeling a little sleepy from it, was now sprawled on the bed.

  “Your shoes. You’ve just come from the stable.”

  Rebecca scooted forward obligingly so that her sullied feet could dangle off the edge of Lorelei’s counterpane.

  “What . . . what was it like?” Lorelei asked tentatively.

  Rebecca thought a moment. “It was very . . . interesting,” she said, finally, imbuing the last word with rich layers of nuance and innuendo that it mostly did not deserve. Lorelei gasped and covered her mouth with her hands, and they giggled together wickedly. It was fun to make Lorelei giggle, especially since she had so lately embraced what she considered ladylike reserve.

  “Everyone thinks you came out to the garden to rescue me,” Rebecca mused.

  “I know. I cannot disabuse them of that notion.”

  “Good heavens! Do not try! I am sorry I had to tell Mama and Papa the truth, as it is. I was in a panic, you see.”

  “Oh, but, Becca!” Lorelei moaned. “It is my fault! If only it were not my responsibility to marry a duke or an earl, I would offer myself up to Edelston in your place.” Lorelei eyed the glorious reflection that had made such a noble sacrifice impossible.

  “Oh, nonsense, Lorelei,” Rebecca sighed. “Mama was right. Something scandalous was bound to happen to me sooner or later, and we both know it. I enjoy so many things that Mama does not approve of that I cannot keep track anymore of what is considered right and what is considered not the ‘done thing.’ My reputation was bound to become hopelessly tarnished without my knowing it. I cannot help it, really.”

  There was a short silence while the two sisters contemplated the odd, inescapable truth of this statement.

  “Lorelei, do you agree that it is my duty to marry Edelston? Mama said it was a question of honor. My honor. And your honor. Our family’s honor.”

  “I cannot say, Rebecca.” She sounded as helpless as Rebecca felt. “I suppose it is. Mama and Papa seem to think so.”

  Rebecca nodded once, grimly, as though this was what she had expected to hear.

  “Mama has invited a modiste to visit this afternoon,” Lorelei ventured. “She wants your dress ready in less than a fortnight so we can have the wedding the day before we leave for my London season.”

  Rebecca shot straight up, all the color drained from her cheeks. “A fortnight?” she squeaked.

  “Only think, Becca!” Lorelei seemed to cheer a little. “I can be your attendant, and we can have the most marvelous enormous cake, and your dress will be of white satin all sewn with beads, although perhaps we don’t have time for beads, but maybe we could use silver tissue instead . . .” She trailed off, noticing the look of incredulous horror on Rebecca’s face.

  “Beads?” Rebecca squeaked. “Cake? A fortnight? Two weeks?”

  She threw herself off the bed and knelt near the startled Lorelei’s feet.

  “I do not want to marry him, Lorelei. I do not want to be a wife.”

  “Ever?” Lorelei asked, astonished.

  “I want to be a doctor,” Rebecca said miserably.

  The words had never sounded so pathetic and naive to her before. Rebecca was just beginning to realize that the longings of the daughters of English country squires were considered as consequential as a cloud of breath on a cold day. Vapor and condensation, indeed.

  “Oh, Becca.” Lorelei turned away from her burdensome reflection to take her sister’s hands in her own. “It seems so terribly wrong, even if it is your duty. But what can we do?”

  “That’s just it. What can we do?” Rebecca tried to keep the words light for Lorelei’s sake, but her voice had gone thin with despair.

  And after a moment, because they both knew the answer to the question was absolutely nothing, Lorelei carefully knelt down, mindful of not crushing her dress, and pulled her sister into a hug.

  As threatened, the modiste arrived that afternoon and unfurled a length of pearly satin in the upstairs parlor, spreading it across a chair so Rebecca could see how it reflected the light from the window. Conscious of the sharp eyes of her mother, Rebecca obediently ran her fingers over it and tried not to flinch in revulsion.

  It looks like a shroud, she thought, and the now-familiar sensation of a giant hand closing around her throat returned. Rebecca imagined herself suffocating under the folds of that white satin, and her heart began to hammer. She swayed, and tiny black dots danced before her eyes. For the first time in her life, Rebecca nearly fainted, all thanks to a bloody bolt of satin.

  The modiste and Lady Tremaine misinterpreted her pale cheeks and the swaying and were utterly charmed.

  “It is fitting for a young bride to be excited, non?” said the modiste as the two women lowered Rebecca into the satin-draped chair with motherly clucks. “It will be all right, ma chérie. After the wedding night, you will see.” She gave Rebecca a particularly French wink.

  Lady Tremaine gave the modiste a brief reproving frown and waved a lavender pomander under Rebecca’s nose.

  But when her mother wasn’t looking, Rebecca returned the modiste’s wink. The modiste looked startled. Let her wonder, Rebecca thought.

  Stripped to her underclothes, Rebecca submitted to being draped and pinned for the rest of the afternoon. She felt strangely removed from the proceedings, as though she had vacated her body and was watching a group of strangers from a polite distance. This is not really happening, she told herself. It simply cannot be happening.

  But when she saw herself in the mirror swathed in creamy satin, her mother and the modiste standing behind her beaming in pride, Rebecca finally understood, without a doubt, that it was.

  Chapter Three

  Connor was rubb
ing away at the scuffs on Sir Henry’s favorite saddle when the tack room suddenly darkened.

  He glanced up from his work to find Rebecca hovering almost hesitantly in the doorway, blocking the sunlight. He was immediately suspicious; “hesitant” was not a word one typically associated with Rebecca Tremaine. She was wearing the pale pink riding habit he knew she despised—the color had been her mother’s choice. Secretly, however, it was one of his favorites; the pink seemed to collaborate with the multitude of reds in her hair to do wonderful rosy things to her complexion.

  And then he glanced down and saw that she had a very good reason to be hesitant.

  “Wee Becca, where on earth did ye get a musket?”

  “It’s Papa’s. From the war.”

  “And does he know ye’ve taken it out?” Silly question. It was hardly as though Sir Henry Tremaine would hand a musket to his youngest daughter with his blessings: Go shoot something, m’dear. Though Sir Henry had taught Rebecca to shoot with pistols, he had stopped short of bringing out the larger firearms, perhaps remembering just in time that she was in fact a girl.

  “Papa is away in St. Eccles today. And he didn’t lock it up or hide it.”

  “Well, he doesna lock ye into your room at night, either, does he, and just look at the trouble that wee bit of oversight has caused.” Connor shook his head ruefully. “Your poor, trusting da. Wee Becca, a man is entitled to believe his muskets are safe from his daughters.”

  “Connor, I’d like to shoot a musket at least once in my life before I am married and can no longer do anything at all.”

  To Rebecca, anything at all no doubt meant galloping a horse astride at breakneck speed or firing pistols at apples or laughing too loudly or reading and quoting from controversial books or . . .

  Or simply being Rebecca. He felt again that strange sense of strangulation on her behalf; his throat tightened. He massaged his neck absently, then swiveled to resume rubbing vigorously at the saddle, as though he could somehow erase the events of the past few days.

  He turned to her again after a moment. “Well, and I suppose ye’d like me to teach ye?”