The Black Duke's Prize

by Suzanne Enoch

  "Cheat―" He abruptly shut his mouth and stared hard at her, then began to swear softly. "Crestley Hall. I should have realized. Damn Neville."

  "No. Damn you, sir," she retorted, fighting to hold the shaking gun steady. "I won't let you steal my home away from me."

  He took a step closer, and she leveled the pistol at his chest. "Katherine, you don't know the whole story. Believe me, I would not do this to you. Call Neville. He can explain."

  "No."

  He paused again, a cynical expression coming into his eyes as he looked down at the pistol. "What are you going to tell them, that I was trying to ravish you?"

  She nodded, taking another step away from him as a grim smile came onto his face. "Don't smile," she hissed angrily. "I mean to do this."

  "I have never doubted your resolve," he replied. "I only find it ironic that after everything I have done I am about to be sent to Jericho for something of which I am innocent."

  "You are not innocent. And I am not one of those simpering chits who sighs at your absurd compliments and your roses and thinks you mean them. You didn't fool me for a moment."

  This time his smile was genuinely amused. "But I did mean them," he said softly, eyeing the pistol as it wavered in her hand.

  "You never did," she replied, steadying the heavy weapon with effort.

  ''Then what do you want of me? I am clearly at your mercy," he noted, far too calmly for her liking.

  This was becoming somewhat confusing. "I want you to stop your purchase of Crestley Hall," she ordered.

  "If I do, someone else will get it," he answered promptly.

  "No, they won't," she retorted, tossing her head defiantly. "Crestley is mine."

  "Excuse me, but have you considered that if I were wooing you for the sole purpose of stealing Crestley, all I would have to do is to convince you to marry me? As your husband it would come to me anyway, and at a considerably cheaper price."

  She hadn't considered that. "It is because you mean never to marry," she declared. "Lord Neville told me so."

  ''That's two l owe him," Nicholas murmured.

  "And because you don't care for me. It was only a ruse."

  "Even if I gave my word to you, how do you know you can trust me?" he asked. "You have said I'm a liar and a coward."

  "I suppose I shall have to trust you on that count," Katherine responded hesitantly, wondering when he had taken control of the proceedings.

  "No," he said, shaking his head, his lips pursed thoughtfully. "If you refuse to believe that I can prove my innocence, I think you shall have to kill me."

  "You are a villain!" she protested, wanting with all her heart to believe him and knowing that she couldn't. "I shall do it, you know."

  "Do you really want to kill me?" he asked, his voice softer.

  "No," she answered truthfully, knowing that she had never had any intention of doing so. She had never expected him to call her bluff. "I mean, yes," she corrected herself, frowning.

  He raised his hands away from his body. "Then kill me. I have no other defense."

  Doubt began to pull at her. She wanted him to be telling the truth. When she had been angry the thought of revenging herself on him had filled her with a grim satisfaction, but now everything had changed again. If only her heart would stop aching so, and leave her be. She started to lower the weapon, then jumped as she heard her godfather in the hall, no doubt wondering where Sommesby had got to. Abruptly Nicholas launched himself at her over the back of the couch. She shrieked and jerked the pistol away, and it went off.

  Nicholas lurched sideways as the front window shattered and the sharp report echoed out into the street. With a surprised look on his face he collapsed onto the floor.

  Katherine dropped the smoking pistol as the drawing room door burst open. She had done it, when she hadn't meant to.

  "Kate? What's going on?" Lord Neville asked, striding into the room.

  Katherine pointed shakily at the far side of the couch.

  "I've killed him," she stammered, swaying dizzily.

  "Killed whom?" he snapped, stepping around the end table.

  "Nicholas," she whispered. "I've killed Nicholas." Her knees buckled, and she would have fallen if Rawlins hadn't come up behind her and braced her under the arms.

  Lord Neville knelt down on the floor and touched his fingers to the duke's neck, then sat back with a sigh of relief. "You haven't killed him," he said. "Just put a hole in his shoulder. What in God's name happened?"

  He wasn't dead. Katherine closed her eyes, hearing nothing else. She hadn't killed him. "He's trying to steal Crestley from me," she managed to say after a moment, forgetting that she had made up another story in case of an emergency.

  "Trying to . . . Oh, no, Kate. No. He's been trying to save it for you."

  "What?" she exclaimed, incredulous. Nicholas had been telling her the truth. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Because I am a great fool," her godfather replied.

  "Rawlins, help me get him upstairs." He glanced toward the doorway, where Lady Alison stood in front of the servants craning their necks to see into the room. "Alice, send for a doctor."

  The two men were able to carry Nicholas upstairs into one of the guest bedchambers. Though she tried to follow, Kate was banned from the room. A very pale Lady Alison led her to the library, where she poured them each a brandy.

  "I think we need this," her godmother said, taking a swallow and choking a little. "Now, please, Kate, tell me what in the world possessed you to shoot Nick." she asked as she took a seat opposite Katherine.

  "I never meant to shoot him," Kate protested. "Mr. Hodges gave me―" She paused at the confused look on her godmother's face. "I hired Mr. Hodges to look into Crestley Hall. He came by this morning to tell me that Nicholas was purchasing the deed. I thought . . . I thought that he had been so pleasant because he didn't want me to suspect that he was stealing it away from me."

  Lady Alison groaned and sat back. "Oh, dear. We knew you had a stubborn streak:, but my goodness, Kate, shooting the Duke of Sommesby?"

  "I told you, it was an accident."

  "I said from the beginning that we should have let you know what was going on," Lady Alison said, disgust in her voice.

  "What is going on, then?"

  "Neville had a suspicion that your uncle would try to sell Crestley, very quietly. He knew that he couldn't become involved because Simon would have recognized the Hampton name and suspected a trap, so he asked Nick to purchase it for him, no questions asked."

  "And the duke agreed to that?" Katherine asked somewhat skeptically.

  "Yes." Her godmother looked at her again for a long moment. "Until he realized that Crestley was yours and that you had no idea what we were planning. He made Neville promise to tell you, which he did try to do, unsuccessfully, yesterday morning."

  Nicholas had been telling the truth. He hadn't played her along, at least not for the purpose of stealing Crestley. "Why didn't you tell me?" she wailed.

  "Oh, my dear, we knew you were determined to handle this on your own. We were concerned that if you knew Crestley was being put up for sale, you might do something rash."

  "Such as shoot someone?" she asked with a shudder. The library door opened, and Lord Neville entered; Katherine found herself on her feet, facing him. "Is he all right?" she asked, her voice breaking.

  Her godfather crossed the room to pour himself a stiff drink. "The ball went clean through. He's lost some blood, but the doctor says he'll live." He knocked back the brandy, then looked over at Kate, who was twisting her hands in front of her green muslin skirt. "He's asked to see you."

  Before he could say anything further Katherine was out the door and running up the stairs. Outside the room she paused, abruptly nervous. Then she took a deep breath and knocked. The doctor, a short, portly man with red cheeks, opened the door.

  "I've given him laudanum," he informed her. "Don't tax him overly much."

  "Too late for that," an irritated voice
said from the bed.

  12

  "You may go, Doctor," Nicholas said as Katherine hesitantly entered. "And thank you."

  The doctor nodded. "I'll come by this afternoon to change your bandages, Your Grace," he responded, exiting the bedchamber with a bow.

  Katherine stared at Nicholas from across the room, her blue eyes wide and her face white. He knew he must look about the same, for even with the laudanum his shoulder and arm throbbed. "Come over here," he finally commanded when she made no move to approach.

  It was a measure of how upset she was that she did as he said. "How do you feel?" she asked in a small voice.

  "How am I supposed to feel?" he retorted. "You shot me."

  Color appeared in her cheeks again. "It was your fault," she returned. "I wasn't going to shoot you at all, and then you attacked me."

  "My fault?" he retorted. "You summon me to meet with you, lie to me, threaten my life, and shoot me, and it's my fault?"

  She began crying. "I thought you were trying to steal Crestley from me," she said, sobbing, and wringing her slim hands in the folds of her skirt. "I feel so awful. I might have killed you."

  "Not with your aim," he muttered, and held out his hand. He hadn't expected her to cry, and it curiously touched him. Women had attempted to use tears on him before, and, when he had refused to react, labeled him hardhearted or cruel. She came forward and took his hand in her own, and he squeezed her fingers. "Don't cry, Kate," he murmured.

  "I'm not crying," she answered, sniffling. "I'm only tired."

  "Yes, I would imagine you are," he answered dryly, the laudanum beginning to make him feel lethargic. "You've been quite busy this morning." He and Neville had spoken, rather harshly, a few moments earlier, and after what Katherine must have discovered, he was surprised she hadn't really tried to kill him. "Have you been told about my part in these dealings?"

  She nodded and wiped at her eyes. "I still want you to stop," she said, tightening her grip on his hand.

  "Why?"

  "Because I won't pay for my own property."

  "I'm paying for it, remember?" he reminded her, his words slurring a little.

  "I would be obligated to repay you," she responded. Nicholas found that his eyes were shut, and he forced them open again to look up into her deep-blue ones. "You don't have to repay me," he answered slowly. "It would be my gift."

  She shook her head. "I would be obligated to repay you," she repeated. "Are you truly that wealthy?" she asked curiously, cocking her head.

  He chuckled, wincing as that jarred his shoulder. "Even wealthier than that."

  "There must be another way to stop my uncle," she went on. "Please say you won't buy Crestley, and help me figure out something else," she said softly.

  His eyes shut again at the silky sound of her voice. "All right," he murmured, and then was asleep.

  When he awoke again the curtains had been pulled back, letting in the afternoon sun. Katherine stood by the bed arranging two roses, a white one with several petals missing and a very badly bent red one, in a small vase. "What happened to those poor things?" he asked sleepily.

  "They were the best ones left after I dumped the bouquet you sent me into the chamber pot," she explained, her eyes twinkling. "I'll find you some better ones out in the garden."

  "Into the chamber pot?" he echoed, trying to force the cobwebs out of his brain.

  "I was very angry this morning," she reminded him. She seated herself in the chair someone had placed by the bed.

  "You'd think I'd be used to having people angry at me by now," he muttered, mostly to himself. The anger of most people didn't concern him at all, but the hurt and fury in her eyes that morning had been alarming and disturbing.

  "Do that many people dislike you?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  ''Tally all of my personal, business, and political acquaintances, and yes, that many people dislike me." And she wasn't the first person to try to kill him, though he preferred not to go into that.

  "Do you like being disliked?" she asked after a moment.

  "Like it?" he repeated, not expecting the question. "I suppose I really hadn't thought that much about it."

  Katherine looked away toward the window. "I would find it very lonely, I think," she said quietly.

  He looked at her profile in the sunlight, barely resisting the urge to finger the dark curls of her hair that hung over one shoulder, then chuckled. "It's not as though everyone in England despises me, you know. I'm not all that terrible. Occasionally I even do something pleasant." It occurred to him that a few short weeks ago he never would have been able to confess that perhaps he did have a good side. Perhaps no one before Katherine had ever tried to find it.

  Her lips quirked as she looked back at him. "Occasionally. Maybe."

  "Nicky," His mother's voice came from the doorway. He turned his head. "It's all right, Mama, don't send for Cousin Julius in Paris yet. I believe I still have a few breaths left in my body."

  "I'm certain Julius will be disappointed to hear that," Julia Varon replied, the tense lines in her face easing. She sent a sharp glance at Katherine and him, and Nicholas wondered how much she knew, or had guessed. His mother missed very little.

  . Katherine stood. "I shall leave you to talk," she said, smiling at his mother. She slipped out of the room before he could protest.

  The Dowager Duchess took Katherine's vacated seat. "We have put out the story that you were here on business. As you rose to get a glass of brandy you were shot through the window."

  "The window? Inventing an assassin is a bit much; don't you think?" He shifted uncomfortably, already tired of lying flat on his back. "Kate's not the best shot, but she did hit me, after all."

  "Mon dieu, do not tease. You might have been killed," she reprimanded sternly. She leaned forward and tapped him on his good shoulder with one finger. "And you have someone else's reputation to consider this time."

  He nodded. "You're right."

  "Did she really shoot you, mon fils?" Julia asked, her gray eyes twinkling.

  "Yes, by God, though she didn't mean to. I was trying to disarm her, and she squeezed the trigger. I should have known better."

  Julia Varon sat back, looking at him for a long time. "You love her, yes?" she asked finally.

  Nicholas looked at the two pitiful roses dying in their vase and grinned. "Yes." He had realized it after his return from the picnic. He had sat in his study planning battle strategies for their next encounter, and abruptly realized that he had already lost the war. Or. perhaps he had won. Katherine had unsettled him so much at their first encounter that he had likely been trying to make her fall in love with him ever since, out of revenge. Instead, he had fallen for her.

  His mother returned his smile. "I am so happy for you, mon enfant," she responded. "I like her very much."

  "Don't be happy for me yet," he commented. "I still have a long way to go before I can convince Katherine that I'm not bamming her. I have enough pride left that I don't intend to declare myself to her and then have her laugh at me."

  "You do mean to offer for her, then?" Julia asked, clearly delighted.

  "When I can be certain she'll say yes. She's a bit . . . unpredictable. "

  "Nicholas," the duchess said unsympathetically, "sometimes you must take a chance. Love is never predictable. That is why it is so special."

  "End of lecture?" he said testily. He would handle Katherine-not that he yet had a clue how to manage it.

  "End of lecture," Julia agreed with a faint smile.

  Nicholas's valet finally arrived with appropriate wardrobe and necessities, and the next morning he dressed in a loose-fitting house jacket and sat up in the chair for a while. The wound wasn't that bad, and he likely could have made it back to Varon House, but he had little inclination to do so as long as he had an excuse to remain under the Hamptons' roof for another day or two.

  He and Neville had been discussing alternatives to his plan to purchase Crestley, with little success,
when Katherine's knock sounded at the door. "Come in," he called.

  She had donned a pale-yellow sprig muslin dress, and her black hair was swept back in a long tail. In her hands she carried a well-wrapped package and a vase of garden flowers, which she placed next to the window. She was the first female ever to bring him flowers, he realized with a grin.

  "Good morning." She smiled, leaning over to kiss Neville on the cheek. "Have you considered a solicitor?" she asked, straightening to look at the duke. "Mr. Hodges offered his services to me."

  Nicholas shook his head, for he and Neville had just been debating that. "I'm not convinced that would be a wise idea."

  "The property is hers, Nick."

  "Yes, but Simon Ralston is the younger sibling of the owner of the estate, and a male. If this goes to court he has a chance of wresting Crestley from Katherine legally, even if it isn't entailed." Nicholas leaned forward stiffly. "Besides, this could easily be tangled up in the courts for years, leaving Ralston on the property as the proprietor until settlement."

  "No," Kate said, "I won't have that."

  "An estate is a difficult thing to steal, or I would suggest we try that," he said dryly. "The easiest thing would be to do as we planned and let me simply buy it and give you the deed."

  "Nicholas, I already told you, I have n―"

  He waved his hand at her. "I know. You have no intention of paying for your own property. The problem, dear Kate, is that by the time you inherit it, there may be nothing left."

  ''There will be if he doesn't sell it to anyone," she retorted.

  Out of the comer of his eye Nicholas noted that. Clarey had risen and left the room. Apparently the baron still considered him too weak to be a threat to Kate's virtue. "If he doesn't sell to me, he'll sell to someone else. I've already had to outbid five other parties to get this far."

  "Other parties," she repeated slowly. "I'd forgotten about that."

  "Did you forget that one of them is Francis DuPres?" At her stricken look he abruptly wished that he had remained silent.

  "I didn't forget that. And I won't have him setting foot in Crestley Hall," she spat out, rising and striding about the room in a rather unladylike manner. "He will not buy his precious respectability with my home. I won't allow it."