by Tessa Dare
Her body, however, had no discretion. Elizabeth’s belly fluttered. “A… a care?”
“With all this talk of kissing and the marital bed, I might begin to think you’re eager for me to, at long last, consummate our vows,” he whispered, his breath tickling the sensitive skin of her right lobe, knocking the air from her lungs.
Elizabeth knew with the same confidence she did every last lesson she’d delivered in this finishing school that a kiss from this man before her would bear no hint of the clumsy, wet joining of their youth. That Crispin, the Duke of Huntington, was a man who’d wield those lips with skill where seduction would ultimately prevail.
Another smile ghosted his lips, a knowing one that brought the world rushing back to clarity in a rush of noise and motion.
With a gasp, she abruptly backed away. “Of course I don’t want to f-fornicate with you.” She despised the slight tremble of that one word that made a liar of her. For she did, even all these years later, wonder what it would be like to know Crispin Ferguson’s embrace, not as an experiment, but as a like yearning shared between a woman and a man.
“Fornicate, Elizabeth?” he drawled, that damned dimple in his cheek indicating he was enjoying this entirely too much. “Never tell me your stuffy views on making love are a product of the illustrious Mrs. Belden.”
Making love…
Her mouth went dry, her tongue heavy.
She and Crispin had spoken on anything and everything, but never this, never words that conjured forbidden acts and passionate meetings. His rogue’s grin deepened.
Elizabeth tightened her jaw. He was very much the rake Society painted him in the gossip sheets. “Do not be silly. Mrs. Belden does not permit discourse on…” A twinkle glinted in his eyes. “You’re teasing me.”
“Indeed,” he replied, infuriatingly smug. His casual drawl doused whatever madness had momentarily gripped her.
“Say what it is that brought you here,” she demanded, tired of his games and the back-and-forth debate that was going nowhere. “I’ve students to instruct.” Angry, mocking, miserable students who despised her for what she was—a dragon come to crush their spirits. Unlike him, a former fellow and scholar instructing young boys at Oxford on scientific matters of import.
“I trust your distinguished headmistress will be quite forgiving of our stealing a handful of minutes,” he pointed out.
Yes, the ruthless proprietress of this place loved no one and nothing, except the approval of the peerage. She’d order the building turned upside down if it would ease a ducal frown into a smile.
“I don’t care whether she is or is not. I care about the young women who are missing their lessons.” Young girls were certainly better off doing… anything but what they’d previously been attending to in this room. Guilt needled her.
“Very well.” Crispin straightened, his bicep muscles rippling the fabric of his wool riding jacket. “I want you to return to London… as my wife.” He flashed a cool smile. “That is, after all, what you are.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth and closed it several times. This time, no words came spilling out. Annulment. Divorce. Outrage. All had been responses or words she’d expected from Crispin’s lips, but certainly not… return to London as my wife. It was impossible. Her heart did a funny leap, and she hated herself for that reaction. After all, the rule of reason said that if something didn’t make sense, there was a reason for it. He didn’t wish to be married to her. He’d never truly wished it. She eyed him suspiciously. “Why do you want me to return with you?”
“It is essential that Polite Society sees I am married, that you are real, and then?” He flicked a stare around the classroom. “You may go back to living your own life.”
How very perfunctory he was. A duke passing judgment on this place and the life she’d made for herself. In this instance, she couldn’t sort out which stung more. “I… see,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness from creeping in.
He’d never wished to marry her.
Not truly.
He was your friend, Elizabeth, and you betrayed him. You put your own needs and desires above his…
Yes, their marriage had been based only on charity and friendship.
“May we speak?” Crispin motioned to the settee, as comfortable as one who owned that ivory seating. “Please?”
Please.
That was why, as a girl and then a young woman, he’d forever been her friend. He’d not been one of those nasty boys to revel in the power bestowed upon him as a ducal heir. He had not been one who’d commanded or accepted the world as his due. And now, all these years later, as a duke who could order all but the sun for his pleasures, he’d not changed. And how much easier it would have been had that not been the case. Clenching her fists, Elizabeth slid onto the edge of the seat.
Crispin took the aged King Louis chair opposite her, his powerful frame making the seat small. Grabbing the sides of it, he positioned himself so they faced each other. “As I was previously saying, since my father’s passing, I’ve found myself…” He grimaced.
“Sought after by ladies everywhere?” she drolly supplied. As a young man, he’d earned the sighs of every girl in the village. Yet, he’d preferred her company above all others’. Even now it filled her heart with a silly giddiness. The Oxfordshire Oddity the village folk had called her. Until her relationship with Crispin had silenced them.
Crispin tugged at an immaculate, crisp, white cravat. “Hardly everywhere,” he mumbled, just as modest now. “And not for any reasons that matter.” Were he the smug, self-important lord just a step below royalty, it would be so very easy to resent him. What must it be like for him now, a specimen of masculine perfection to rival a Da Vinci statue and in possession of one of the most venerable titles?
You’re the only one, Elizabeth, who doesn’t see a future duke. You are the only one who sees me.
Unbidden, her gaze fixed on the sapphire signet ring upon his left littlest finger. The coat of arms marked his influence and lineage that went back to William the Conqueror.
Despite his noble roots, he’d craved her friendship as much as she’d yearned for his. When no one had wanted a thing to do with the unusual, bespectacled girl whose casual village-side discourse consisted of talk about a mare’s estrous cycle, he’d delivered an equally eccentric bit of knowledge.
It’s why they’d been a perfect match—as friends.
Until they’d not been. They’d gone and ruined something that had been too good, too precious to alter.
“I know it was a mistake, but it is done… and it cannot be undone.”
Her throat worked painfully.
“Elizabeth?” he asked quietly, interrupting her miserable musings.
She cleared her throat. “Forgive me. Continue.”
“I’ve recently come forward with the truth about my marital state.”
The direct, logical person he’d once been would have done so in the bluntest way possible. “Never tell me you took out a page in the London Times?” she asked, finding her footing once more.
His rugged cheeks went red.
Despite the shock of seeing him and the madness of this moment, she couldn’t stop the snorting laugh that burst from her lips. She made a futile attempt to bury it behind her hand. “You did.”
“I didn’t issue a public notice,” he groused, his color rising. “Rather, I carefully dropped the information to Lady Jersey.”
One of the leading ladies of the ton, the older matron would have sung such a juicy morsel to anyone and everyone with ears that functioned.
His calling forth that revered hostess also served as a reminder of the great divide between them. “Even a mother desiring a duke for her daughter would balk at bigamy,” she drawled. “Therefore, I trust my assistance is not truly required.” Elizabeth made to rise.
“Elizabeth…” Crispin rested a hand on her knee, and her breath lodged in her lungs. “It is not that…” His words trailed off. Together, their gazes went to his hand upon h
er. The shock of his fingertips burned through the scratchy wool fabric of her dragon’s skirts, his hand heavy and hot in a way that her body had never felt, his touch having the intended consequence of staying her movements—but not for the reasons he thought.
Some wave of dark, indiscernible emotion glinted in his dark blue eyes. His fingers tightened reflexively upon her knee, a clenching and unclenching of those long digits that crunched the fabric of her dress, searing her through her skirts.
Elizabeth swallowed hard.
Don’t be a ninny. This is Crispin. Formerly a friend. Briefly a husband.
Except, the human body cared not for logic. They were all primitive beings. It was an understanding recorded since the beginning of time. That evidential understanding did nothing to dull the heat settling low in her belly. “It is not?” she prodded, her voice throaty to her own ears, sultry in ways she’d believed a bookish bluestocking such as her incapable.
As if burned, Crispin jerked his hand back, the imprint of that accidental caress lingering still. “Simple,” he croaked. “It is not that simple.”
Elizabeth fought through the daze he’d cast. “And why not?”
Crispin unfurled to his full height and began to prowl at a steady pace on the ancient floral Aubusson carpet. She narrowed her eyes. Pacing had forever been the telltale gesture of his unease.
“I might have earned something of a reputation,” he muttered, avoiding her eyes when his forward pace brought him back to where he could make direct contact with her stare.
“Indeed?” She well knew what was written about Crispin. Even though she’d left him, she’d picked through those scandal sheets, aged by the time they reached Mrs. Belden’s, about tales of Crispin’s exploits. And each blasted piece had struck like an arrow to the chest, because he’d taken a vow to her, and their friendship had been one where pledges had meant something.
She feigned wide-eyed innocence. “Tell me, Your Grace, what manner of reputation is that?”
Chapter 4
Elizabeth Terry-Brightly, or whatever surname she now went by, was nothing like the girl he remembered… and yet, at the same time, she was everything like her.
One thing, however, was very clear—the minx was having a deuced good time at his expense.
She may have become a master of dissembling in the time that had passed, but the glee she found in his discomfort was there in each well-placed barb she cleverly masked as a question.
He forced himself to stop, facing her once more.
More than a foot shorter than his own six feet, four inches and seated as she was, she still managed to stare down the length of her slightly too-long nose. Challenging him. Daring him. And somehow, also, teasing him. Such had always been her way.
“I’ve earned the reputation of a rogue,” he confessed bluntly. Another gentleman would likely feel a modicum of remorse or regret at making that admission to his wife. For all the gossip, however, Crispin had not a jot to feel guilty over.
Elizabeth gave no outward reaction to his admission. “Have you?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why do I think, Elizabeth, that you already knew that detail about me?”
A pretty blush stained her cheeks. “How would I know anything of the sort?” She countered with a question of her own, her pitched voice marking her a liar.
Why… it was true. The longtime friend and brief bride who’d left in the dead of night had followed mention of his name.
Elizabeth watched him with suspicion-laden eyes. “What?”
With a slow smile, Crispin resettled himself onto the seat opposite her. Her betrayal had ripped him up. But knowing she’d followed his goings-on meant he’d mattered to her, too. “Why, you’ve followed me in the papers, haven’t you, love?”
She shifted in her chair. “Merely to determine that you were nowhere near Mrs. Belden’s.”
His earlier and all-too-brief triumph faded. She’d left him. He’d given her his name and offered her security, and she’d simply abandoned him. As such, there could be no doubting her feelings for him. Or rather, lack thereof. “I see,” he said evenly. That understanding had dawned long ago, and yet, something in hearing her speak so casually about hiding from him stirred the turbulent emotions within his breast, a swirl of anger, hurt, and shock that he’d thought he’d mastered, but they remained deep within.
Elizabeth sat upright, her spine going erect, as though a metal rod had been inserted. The girl she’d been would have shot out question after question. This new, more controlled, somber version of her younger self remained stoically silent.
Crispin went on with his reasons for seeking her out. “The reputation I’ve… earned”—he stumbled over that word—“has cast doubt on the veracity of my claims of marriage.”
Elizabeth puzzled her brow. “They believe you’ve lied about being married?”
“Indeed.” Stretching his legs out, Crispin looped them at the ankles. “Young ladies determined to have the title of Duchess of Huntington suspect that I, in my desire to carry on my roguish existence, have fabricated a wife.”
She made a tsking sound. “If only you’d had such an idea ten years ago, you would have found yourself unburdened with a wife.”
He blinked slowly, and it took a moment for those words and the implied meaning to sink into his mind. Was that what she believed? That all this time, he’d spent regretting the arrangement they’d struck as friends? One that had not only been mutually beneficial, but had formed a bond far greater than any cold, empty union of the ton because of the friendship between them?
Anger rooted around his chest, severing the thin thread of his patience. “I’m not the one who ran,” he snapped. That leached the color from her cheeks. His chest rose and fell with the force of his fury, and he leaned forward in his chair, shrinking the distance between them. “You were. So do not play the wounded party, Your Grace,” he shot back, turning the title they shared on her. Mindful that any busybody could be about, he lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. “You left, Elizabeth. You did. Not me.” And in doing so, she’d turned her back on a bond that went back to the earliest days of their youth.
Crispin waited, braced for her response.
She clasped her hands primly on her lap. Her death grip drained the blood from her fingers and made a mockery of her calm. “So you need me to act as your wife,” she said quietly.
“Yes, for Polite Society.”
What did you expect? An apology? Any hint of regret or shame?
And would any of it have made a difference, either way?
“How long would you require I serve in that capacity?”
They might as well have spoken of a hired servant and not a woman who, with her veneered title, could command any ballroom or household throughout England.
He fisted his hands so tight, his signet ring bit into the bottom crease of his finger. “As my wife,” he repeated, needing her to hear it and acknowledge it, for she wasn’t a housekeeper or parlor maid. She was the woman whose name was eternally attached to his own. “I must introduce you to the world, as my wife.”
“For how long?” she repeated.
At what point had such a relationship with him become so anathema to her? And why should it bother him still, all these years later? Hadn’t he accepted her betrayal and built an existence without her in it? Except, her indifference made a mockery of that very thought.
To give himself something to do, Crispin pulled out his gloves and beat them together. “I’ll require your presence for a handful of days. We’ll host a formal ball for members of the ton. Nothing more.” There had never been anything more. But there could have been. There almost had been. And not for the first time since she’d left, he thought briefly about what these years would have been like had she stayed. Fighting back the useless, maudlin musings, he fixed on the task at hand.
Her frown deepened. “Planning a ball requires far greater circumspection.” She proceeded to tick off on her fingers. “There is the menu
to consider and musicians. And, of course, because of your station”—your, not our—“invitations must be handwritten and delivered.”
Ah, Elizabeth. She spit forth each detail the way she had her findings about a butterfly flitting through his mother’s prized gardens. As a girl, and then woman, who valued research, Elizabeth, however, didn’t have the logic required for the nonsense of societal functions. As she continued her accounting, he sat back and studied her. “Of course, you’ll no doubt already have candles, but you’ll require those that burn for eight hours.” She furrowed her brow. “I’d venture three hundred candles, and they’ll cost upwards of…” Her lips moved as she completed her silent tabulations. “Fifteen pounds.”
He opened his mouth to interject, but she continued. “And there are floral decorations—hothouse and those taken from your private gardens.”
Setting down his gloves, Crispin picked up the small leather volume that rested on the table between them. He briefly studied the gold lettering etched along the spine and then flipped through the tome. As he fanned the pages, section headings drifted past.
Deportment…
Propriety…
Conduct…
Butterflies are polymorphic, you know. A useful skill and all to evade their predators. You’d be wise to employ a bit of that strategy at your mother’s next picnic…
“How very different your reading and knowledge content is now,” he murmured.
She avoided his gaze, training it instead on the dull bit of literary nonsense best used for kindling in his fingers. “Given the reason for your sudden visit, it appears there is, and always was, more relevance to that information”—she motioned to that title he still held—“than any useless fact about butterflies.”
A pang struck in his chest. Is that what she truly believed? Or was that what the clever young woman who’d pored over scientific journals and periodicals told herself to ease the loss of those topics that had so fascinated her? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask as much, but something in the strain of her lips called back the questions.