by Sophia James
The music of the orchestra was beautiful and the smell of the gardenia wafted up from her gown. She had to learn to live again, to laugh and to dance and to touch a man without pulling back. The wine was beginning to weave its magic and at the side of the room she could see Asher and Emerald watching her without worry marking their eyes.
Two years of dislocation. The silk of her chemise felt cool against her skin and Edmund Coleridge’s fingers curled with an increasing pressure around her own.
Claimed. Quietly. She did not look up at his face. Too soon. Too quick. She wished the fingers that held her own were covered in golden rings, an old scar visible just beneath the crisp white cuff of shirt.
Taylen.
Sometimes she could smell him, at night when everything was still and when she reached into the deepest place of memory. Lemon, woodsmoke and desire. She bit at her bottom lip and sent the thought scattering, leaf-green laughing eyes and short dark hair dissolving into nothingness.
‘Will you come back to London soon?’
Another voice. Higher.
Edmund.
‘I am not entirely certain. My brothers think that I should, but …’
‘Come with me, then. Let me take you to the Simpson Ball.’
Now his interest was stated and affirmed, the perhaps that Lucinda had been enjoying transformed into certainty. The game of courtship had begun, all chase and hunt, and her heart sank.
‘I am a married woman, my lord.’
‘A married woman without a husband.’ The dimples in his cheek made him look younger than he was, an amiable and gracious man who had taken the time and effort to try to humour a woman of little joy. Cristo’s friend, and a man that her other brothers approved of, all the parts of him adding up to a decent and honest whole.
She allowed him the small favour of bringing her closer into the dance so that now his breath touched her face.
‘I should like to see you laugh, Lucinda.’ When his thighs pushed against her own, the pulse in his throat quickened. Coleridge was so much easier to read than Alderworth had ever been, his secrets hidden in an ever-present hardened core of distrust.
Breaking off the dance when the music finished, Edmund led her into the conservatory at the head of the room. Stars twinkled through the glass overhead and myriad leafy plants stood around them in the half-light.
She knew he would kiss her even before he leaned down, she could see it in his eyes and on his face, that desire that marks even the most timid of men. She did not push him away, either, but waited, as his lips touched her own, seeking what it was all lovers sought, the magic and the fantasy.
A light pressure and then a deeper one, his tongue in her mouth, finding and hoping. She felt his need and tried not to stiffen, understanding his prowess, but having no desire for a mutual understanding. Just flesh against flesh, the scrape of his teeth upon her lip, his wetness and the warmth. Ten seconds she counted and then twenty until he broke away, a flush in his cheeks and a hoarseness of breath.
Sadness swamped her as he brought her in against him. Nothing. An empty nothingness. Wiping away the taste of him when he was not looking, the weft of cotton felt hard against her mouth.
‘Thank you.’ His words. Honourable and kind.
Even as she tried to smile an aching loss formed, the mirthless harbinger of all that she had wasted. Alderworth had ruined her in more ways than he knew. Edmund Coleridge was exactly the sort of beau she should wish to attract and yet …
‘Perhaps we should go inside. It is chilly out here.’ The shaking she had suddenly been consumed by was timely.
‘Of course, my dear. A dress of silk is no match even for a summer evening. I should have realised.’
Manners and courtesy. The smile on her face made the muscles in her cheek ache as she accompanied him into supper.
‘Edmund seems more than taken with you, Lucy.’ Cristo approached her as she returned from having a word with Beatrice. ‘He is a good man who has long wished to know you better.’
‘Well, I am sure he is besieged by all the lovely young women in society. His manners are faultless and he is such congenial and unaffected company.’
Cristo frowned. ‘Such vacuous praise is usually an ominous sign …’ His dark eyes watched her, the gold in them easily seen in the light from the chandeliers above.
Lucinda rapped him with her fan. ‘I am not in the market for a … dalliance.’
He laughed at that, tipping his head up with mirth, the sound booming around them.
‘I hope not. It was something more permanent Edmund was angling for, I would imagine.’
Taking one of her hands, he chanced offering advice. ‘If you do not choose to move on with your life soon, Lucy, the opportunities may not keep coming.’
‘You speak of suitors as if I were a widow, Cris.’ Anger tinged her words and she was surprised as he shepherded her from the salon and down the corridor to his library. Once there he poured himself a generous brandy, restoppering the decanter when she turned down the chance of the same.
‘Another letter has come.’
The words shocked her. She felt the blood drain from her cheeks and her heartbeat race.
‘From Alderworth? When?’
‘Last week. The mark on it is from Georgia.’
‘Yet you did not think to give it to me sooner?’
‘I knew Edmund would come tonight and he had asked me for the chance to court you. I had hoped …’
‘Hoped for what? Hoped that the law might have dissolved all that was between me and Alderworth? Hoped that I might finally find a man that you all approved of? Hoped that the scandal of my disgrace may have been watered down by the pure goodness of your friend? That sort of hope?’ Her voice had risen as she shook away his excuse. ‘Where is it?’
Digging into a drawer at the back of his desk, Cristo laid an envelope down on the table. The writing was large and bold and not that of her husband, for the hand was completely different from the one correspondence she had received. Her excitement faded.
Lady Lucinda Ellesmere.
Graveson.
Essex.
Lucinda held her fingers laced together so they would not snatch at the paper. Was Taylen dead? Was this a missive to tell her of an accident or an illness or of the wearying of soul and a final resting place?
Had he married again, had children to a new lover, found gold, lost a hand, suffered a horrible and gruelling death in the throes of dysentery or smallpox or the influenza?
Finally she moved forwards and picked it up. ‘Have you told Ashe of this?’
He shook his head.
‘Then please do not.’
‘You need to be careful, Lucy. Alderworth is a reprobate and a liar. He uses women for his own means and does not look back over his shoulder at whom he has hurt. Coleridge, on the other hand, is trustworthy.’
The sound of the orchestra winding up an air and the deep voice of Asher took them from the moment.
‘The speeches.’ Lucinda was glad for the interruption.
‘We need to return to the ballroom.’
Folding the note, she stuffed it into a small compartment on one side of her reticule. Cristo made no comment as he gestured her to go before him and doused the lamp on his desk.
As soon as she was able to escape the party without raising any eyebrows Lucinda did so, climbing the steps to the room she had been allotted at Graveson with a mixture of hope and trepidation.
She could feel the presence of the envelope in her bag almost as a physical thing, prickling inwards.
Gaining her bedroom, she asked her maid to unhook the buttons at the back of her gown and, feigning tiredness, dismissed her. Locking the door behind the departing woman, Lucinda sighed with relief as she leaned back against heavy oak, free at last to see just what the letter from Georgia contained.
With agitation she slit open the top of the paper, carefully and precisely so as to do no damage to anything within.
A ne
wspaper clipping confronted her, the folds of print displayed in such a way as to show a headline.
‘Ellesmere strikes gold in fine style’.
The hazy distorted ink spoke of Tay Ellesmere celebrating with a great number of women in some sleazy saloon, the text citing details of a raucous party lasting well into the early hours of the morning, the guests invited unsuitable and rowdy.
As infamous as his soirées at Alderworth? Unchanged. Unabashed. She was in England pining for something that he had not spared a thought for, while he partied with women who were probably inclined to give away any and every favour he would want.
Swallowing, Lucinda let herself slide down the door frame where she sat pooled in red silk, her first finger tracing the exploits of a husband who on each turn of events seemed destined to disappoint her.
Another smaller piece of paper suddenly caught her eye and she lifted it up.
Lucinda
I presume that this is your runaway husband. Perhaps, given the goodly amount of his newly found claim, you should be seeking him out again.
I have sent this letter to Graveson in the hope that your brother might pass it on as I have no notion of your new address.
Yours
Anthony Browne
Screwing up the paper, Lucinda crossed the room to the fire, hurling the letter into the flames. The paper caught at one edge and blackened, embers glowing red before turning to a dull and dusty ash.
Anthony Browne, the brother of a school friend. She had always detested him.
Her glance returned to the newspaper cutting. If she had any sense she would consign this to the fire, too. But she didn’t. She hated the tears that fell down her cheeks and the gulps of grief that she tried to quieten.
He would never stop hurting her, Taylen Ellesmere with his wild and ill-considered chaos. Another episode in a far-off land, his name slandered and his intentions dubious.
This was the man she had married, unstable, volatile and lawless.
Wiping the moisture away as a tear slid unbidden down the newsprint, she cradled the missive in her palm before bringing it to her heart.
‘Where are you?’ she whispered into the night.
Chapter Seven
London—1834
The gold coins were heavy in Tay’s hand as he hoisted them up on to the desk. They clinked against the dark mahogany, solid and weighty, the letters of the Federal Mint at Atlanta imbued in red ink on the fabric of the bag.
‘Here’s the return of your bribe, Carisbrook, with more than interest in full. Now I want my wife back.’
Asher Wellingham stood as the words echoed around his library. ‘You accepted our sum to disappear for ever.’
‘Your expectation, Carisbrook, not mine. My Duchess and I shall leave for my country estate first thing in the morning and you can do nothing to stop us.’
‘Over my dead body, you bastard.’ Without warning the Duke was at Tay’s throat before he had time to react, the chair beside the desk overturned and the strength of his fingers cutting off breath.
But Taylen was a good ten years younger than Lucinda’s oldest brother and had more in muscle. His time in Georgia had also given him plenty of battle practice. With a quick twist he rolled away, fists up and waiting as the other angled in.
‘I don’t want to hurt you, Carisbrook. All I want is what is mine.’
‘My sister isn’t yours.’
‘In God’s eyes and anyone else that counts, Lucinda is my wife.’ He had not meant to get into an argument, but the history between them was murky and here, in this same room he had been pummelled over once before, he found it difficult to temper back wrath.
‘We should have killed you when we had the chance.’
Tay laughed and then moved quickly as a punch almost connected. He couldn’t afford for his dinner dress to be bloodied as his next pressing destination was a ball. Waiting for his chance, he moved in, fingers reaching for the arteries of his adversary’s throat.
It was over in two minutes, the point of pressure allowing an easy end. The fights in Dahlonega in Lumpkin County had been rough and a lucrative stake in gold at Ward’s Creek in the North Georgia mountains always had to be defended. He almost felt sorry for the Duke of Carisbrook laid out on the floor but, when he checked, his breathing was deep and regular and tomorrow he’d barely feel any effects. Save embarrassment, probably, but he’d given Tay a good measure of the same treatment almost three years ago so Tay could not be remorseful.
Straightening his jacket, he caught sight of the clock at the end of the room. Ten-thirty. His wife was spending the evening at the Croxleys’ ball in Culross Street and it wasn’t far. He smiled. Almost too easy.
Letting himself out of the library, he closed the door behind him. Then he took his hat and cloak from the waiting servant and thanked him with a coin before walking into the night.
He was back.
She knew he was from the frantic whispers swirling around the ballroom, his name on the edge of every one of them.
‘The Duke of Alderworth is here, returned from the Americas and twenty times richer than his father ever was.’
Lucinda felt all the eyes upon her as she stood near a pillar in the Croxleys’ ballroom, Posy Tompkins to one side gripping her hand. Three years of dreading this very moment and it had finally arrived. The breath congealed in her throat and her heart beat so fast she was certain she would keel over.
No. She would not faint or fall or run. None of this was her fault, after all, and she would not allow Taylen Ellesmere to make her feel that it was.
‘He is coming this way, Luce.’ Posy barely managed to get the words out. ‘And he is looking straight at us.’
‘Then we shall give him exactly what he does not expect,’ she replied, plastering a practised smile upon her face. Almost simple to do, she thought in surprise, the warmth of greeting a foil to the inquisitive faces turned her way.
‘Your Grace.’ Lucinda tried to make her tone convivial, a meeting of acquaintances, a trifling and inconsequential thing—a figure from the past to whom she had given no consideration since last seeing him.
‘Duchess.’ His voice had deepened in the years between their forced marriage and this unexpected return. ‘I did not think to find you here in town.’
He was still beautiful. His hair was much longer than when she had seen him last and it made him look even more menacing.
Intimidating.
It was the only word she could come up with to describe him as he stood before her, dressed in black from head to foot, save for the white cravat at his neck fastened loosely in the style of a man without much care for fashion.
‘Do you still enjoy the art of untruthfulness?’
The effrontery of such a question almost undid her and she answered with one of her own. ‘Do you still enjoy despoiling innocents on a whim and all in the name of free will?’
A fiery glint in his eyes was seen fleetingly in a face hewn from cold stone.
Urbane and distant. Anger made her fists ball at her side, though she unclenched her fingers as soon as she realised what she was doing. She was pleased Posy had had the sense to retreat so that their conversation remained private.
‘I had heard that you were back in England, your Grace.’
‘Your brothers gave you the news, no doubt,’ he returned, taking her hand in his own and pulling her towards the dance floor. ‘But come, let’s confuse the wagging tongues and stand up together. It will give us some space to talk.’
Short of creating a scene, Lucinda allowed herself to be led into a waltz, his arm encircling her back and drawing her towards him.
‘The gossips have placed you on the Eastern seaboard coast of the Americas for many years, your Grace, taking part in all the temptations the cities there have to offer, no doubt.’
He laughed, a deep rumble of amusement; a man embedded in scandal and savouring it. Her ire rose unbidden. She had seen the evidence of his immorality, after all, in the head
lined cutting Anthony Browne had sent her.
‘Your brother Asher said much the same to me when I saw him this evening.’
‘You have been to the Wellingham town house already? Why?’
‘Paying my dues,’ he replied obliquely, ‘and stating my intentions.’ He stopped for a moment as though gathering the gist of what he might next tell her. ‘Not every one of them, though. I saved the best proposal of all for your ears only.’
A streak of cold dread snaked downwards. ‘You want a divorce, no doubt?’
At that he laughed, the sound engulfing her.
‘Not a divorce, my lady wife, but an heir, and as you are the only woman who can legitimately give me one the duty is all yours.’
She almost tripped at his words and he held her closer, waiting until balance was regained. Their eyes locked together, no humour at all in the green depths of Taylen Ellesmere, the sixth Duke of Alderworth.
He was deadly serious.
Shock gave her the courage of reply. ‘Then you have a problem indeed, your Grace, because I am the last woman in the world who would ever willingly grace your bed again. Surely you understand why.’ Disappointment and anger vibrated in her retort as strains of Strauss soared around them, the chandeliers throwing a soft pallor across colourful dresses resplendent in the room. The privilege of the ton so easily on show. Scandal had its own face, too!
It came in the way his fingers held her to the dance even as she tried to pull away, and in the quiet caress of his skin over hers.
Memory shattered sense and the salon dimmed into nothingness; the feel of his hands upon her nakedness, the smell of brandy and deceit and a wedding quick and harrowing in that small chapel.
Even the minister had not met her eye as he said the words, ‘To have and to hold from this day forward …’
Taylen Ellesmere had stayed less than a few hours.
Her husband. A different and harder man from the one who had left her and now back for a legitimate heir. She wanted to slap him across his cheek in the middle of the ballroom and he knew it. It took all of her will not to.
‘If there wasn’t a male left in Christendom save for you, I still would not—’