His Duchess for a Day

by Christi Caldwell

  And so it was, not even thirty minutes later, Crispin found himself striding through the crowded floors of Forbidden Pleasures. Raucous laughter rolled around the floors of the gaming hell, punctuated by the intermittent squeal of a whore and the clinks of coins hitting coins.

  Doing a sweep of the room, Crispin settled his gaze on the gentleman seated at the center back table. Occupied as he was with a cheroot in one hand and a tumbler of whiskey in the other, Hugh Madsen, the Earl of Fielding, still managed to perfectly balance two blonde whores on his lap.

  As Crispin wound his way through the crowd, greetings went up, but no one gave more than a passing look at his presence here. A crimson-haired beauty stepped into his path, halting his determined march. “Are you looking for company this evening, Your Grace?” she purred. Her husky greeting carried over the din.

  “Not at this time.” And certainly not with this woman or any other present. Crispin tossed several coins to the young woman to soften the blow and then continued on. The only one whose presence he craved in every way was now tucked away in his London townhouse. It is where I should be… with her…

  And yet, his mind and emotions were all jumbled, and he could not be under the same roof with her. Not until there was some clarity.

  He reached Fielding’s table.

  His friend glanced up lazily, and then the other man’s patent boredom was transposed into wide-eyed shock as he took in Crispin’s garments.

  The earl dismissed the pair. “I’m afraid we’ll have to continue our discussion later, loves.”

  They pouted. “We can entertain you and your friend,” one of the pixielike beauties invited. She drew the scandalously plunging bodice of her gown lower, putting her enormous breasts on full display.

  It was an all-too-familiar carnal offering found in this den of sin, more common than a bow or curtsy among Polite Society. Forbidden Pleasures was a place where honor was left at the door and sin triumphed over all.

  “I’m afraid business calls.” The earl lifted his knees up and down, dislodging the two women from their perches.

  The pair hadn’t even completely sashayed off before Crispin was reaching for a seat. “I need help,” he said without preamble.

  The other man saluted him with a nearly empty whiskey. “You need a bath, and if one wishes to be truly precise…” He flicked the diamond stickpin at the center of his immaculately tied snow-white cravat. “A new valet.”

  With a sound of impatience, Crispin tugged out the chair and waved off the servant who rushed over with a glass. “It is—”

  “Never tell me.” Fielding waggled his brown eyebrows. “Your wife?” he ventured with a cynical drollness that contradicted the earlier brevity. “You did not find her?”

  “On the contrary,” Crispin said under his breath.

  Other than his parents, the only one who knew of Crispin’s hasty elopement and the bride who’d taken flight was the man before him. It was a secret he’d kept, but through the years, he’d made no effort to hide his disdain of Elizabeth.

  “Ah, you found her, and that is the problem.” Fielding tossed back the remainder of his drink. “That makes far more sense.”

  No. Nothing made sense anymore. Crispin dragged a hand through his hair.

  “Oh, this is bad indeed,” his friend muttered. “You, smelling like horseflesh, in dusty garments better fit for kindling, and now messing your hair?” His mouth hardened, and he set his empty glass down. “Let me assure you,” he said, dropping his elbows atop the rose-inlaid mahogany tabletop, “whatever she’s done to have you so tangled up, she is not worth it. Never was.” Grabbing the half-empty bottle, he splashed several fingerfuls into his glass. “Never will be.” He paused with the glass at his mouth. From over the top of it, Fielding grinned. “Though, in fairness, none of them are.”

  “She is,” Crispin said quietly. “I want you to help me win her.”

  His friend choked on his swallow, drawing in great, gasping breaths.

  Crispin leaned across the table to slap him between the shoulder blades, but the other man waved him off.

  “M-mad.”

  Yes. He’d always been more than a little mad for Elizabeth Brightly. She was one who could speak circles around any scholar and was passionate in every pursuit she took on.

  After his paroxysm faded to a lingering cough, Fielding dragged his chair closer. “You want to win her. The woman who left you, without so much as a note.”

  “I know what she did.” Now, however, and more important, he knew why she’d done what she had.

  His friend carried on in a furious whisper. “The same woman who made you a subject of the ton’s scrutiny.” When the last thing any gent, particularly an unfortunate one saddled with a ducal title, needed was more attention.

  “She left to save me.” And ultimately, in her absence, he’d been broken.

  That effectively silenced Fielding.

  Crispin explained his parents’ roles in manipulating both him and Elizabeth, including everything from the threat of his lost fellowship at Oxford to the miserable place she’d been forced to call home the past nearly ten years.

  When he’d finished, the earl was quiet.

  Grabbing the decanter, he topped off his glass and pushed it across the table.

  Crispin shook his head.

  “It’s one damned whiskey, and if this doesn’t merit a drink, then nothing else will. Drink.” His friend clipped out the order.

  Crispin took the glass and downed the whiskey in a long, slow swallow. The liquid burned a scorching trail down his throat. He grimaced and set the empty tumbler down.

  “I said to take a drink, not finish the contents in a single gulp,” Fielding drawled. Reclaiming the glass, he poured another and pushed it across the table once more.

  “I’m not looking to get soused,” Crispin muttered, but nonetheless, he accepted the offering and took a sip.

  “Some moments call for a good sousing.”

  Despite the reputation he’d earned these past years, Crispin had never been one of the carousing sorts. But yes, in this, Fielding proved correct. If there had ever been time for a gent to drink, this was it.

  They sat in a companionable silence that was eventually broken by the other man.

  “Now”—the earl leaned back in his seat—“as you are the more logical in our pair, let us speak this through rationally. A fellow does not simply abandon ten years of resentment.” He shot a hand up, and a servant came forward with a glass.

  “He does if he finds out he’s been the bloody arse, guilty for crimes he accused another of.” Crispin directed that utterance into the amber contents of his glass.

  “Ah, but you’ve managed an arrangement any gent would envy you for.” As he enumerated a list of points, he lifted a finger. “You’re leg-shackled.” Fielding shuddered. “But to a woman who is… invisible. You’re free to carry out your own pleasures without a nagging wife underfoot. And then when the time for an heir comes?” He poured himself a drink. “Then you don’t have to bother with a simpering virgin.”

  A simpering virgin? There’d never been anything simpering about Elizabeth, and there never would be.

  “Fielding,” he warned.

  His friend sighed. “Very well. But I would not be a friend if I did not point out that your union is perfect as it is.”

  For most lords, yes. They were self-absorbed gents who preferred bedding their mistresses and wagering away their fortunes at the club he and Fielding even now frequented. “Help me,” he repeated in grave tones. Crispin curled his fingers around the cold glass. It was not every day a man humbled himself, but pride had cost him Elizabeth once before. He’d be damned if he let her go this time without attempting to woo and win her.

  “You don’t need my help, Huntington.” Fielding shoved his chair back onto its hind legs and balanced the mahogany seat at a precarious angle. “You’ve managed to charm every last dowager and eager widow in London.”

  Crispin’
s ears went hot.

  “Ahh, I take it Her Grace has heard tales of your… exploits,” the earl surmised.

  “They weren’t…” Crispin scrubbed a hand over his face. “Fielding,” he warned. It was late. He had, at most, twenty-six hours before the terms of his latest agreement with Elizabeth were satisfied, and then she’d be free to go on her way. Panic sent his heart into a triple beat. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Fine. Fine. You want to know what to do?” He brought the chair back into a steady, fully upright position. “Go home. Because arriving in Town with your wife in tow, and then abandoning her that same night while you dally with a whore at your club, is hardly going to endear the lady to you,” Fielding said dryly.

  “I’m not dallying with whores.”

  “I know that. And you know that.” The earl flicked a hand out toward a nearby hazard table. The two dandies observing them immediately averted their stares, training them on the velvet table. “But the stories, as they invariably are, in London will be spun with only the most scandalous thread. And after you return home?” Fielding grinned. “Make love to your wife.”

  He exhaled his frustration. “It is not that… simple.” It never was. “I want to woo her.”

  Fielding widened his smile. “It is always that simple, Huntington. You want to woo her, then make love to her.”

  He remembered their kiss in the countryside. The taste of her. The heat of her. The feel of her so right in his arms. Like they’d been born for each other’s embrace.

  Crispin reluctantly shoved to his feet. “She wants more than seduction,” he said, his voice hoarse to his own ears.

  Fielding chuckled. “If you believe that, then you know your wife even less than you credit.”

  With the earl’s obnoxiously amused laughter trailing after him, Crispin quit his club and started home.

  One that was no longer empty, where Elizabeth even now slept.

  A lightness settled around his chest. How very right that felt. Sharing a household with her, one that would be a home if they were together. And how it would steal his happiness again if she left.

  No. The deal they’d made, of one night together, would never be enough. He wanted her in his life—forever.

  Chapter 13

  He’d gone out.

  The housekeeper had just taken her leave, and when Elizabeth had sought out the floor-to-ceiling double windows that overlooked the Mayfair streets, she’d spied him.

  He’d not bothered with so much as a change of garments or a bath, but instead, had climbed astride a different mount and ridden off.

  And he’d been gone for two hours since.

  It shouldn’t bother her.

  He’d expressed remorse for the great misunderstanding that had divided them, but he’d never indicated there was anything… more. Between them, that was.

  There had been the kiss.

  Elizabeth pressed a callused fingertip to her lips, and they tingled from the memory of his mouth on hers.

  Seated at the window seat in her temporary chambers, she dropped her head back against the wall and knocked it lightly. “You are a fool.” The old clippings scattered on her lap, their content committed to memory long ago, were proof enough of her foolishness.

  For there had been kisses between Crispin and… many women.

  And because she was a glutton for her own suffering, Elizabeth picked up one of the yellowing pages she’d torn out at Mrs. Belden’s nearly eight years ago.

  The recently widowed Baroness Norreys was discovered in a scandalous state of dishabille leaving the Pleasure Gardens of Vauxhall. The gentleman to follow shortly from that midnight rendezvous…

  “Was none other than the Marquess of W and future Duke of H,” Elizabeth whispered into the empty room.

  Jealousy lanced through her, suffocating in its intensity. Embers popped and hissed in the hearth in an echo of her own blasted misery.

  For surely the hundredth time since he’d gone off, Elizabeth stole another glance out at the empty streets below.

  She would sit here, while Crispin did… whatever it was that rogues did. For what purpose? With sleep eluding her, Elizabeth stuffed the neatly snipped articles back inside the valise at her feet and set out to explore Crispin’s residence.

  The heavily padded carpet, warm under her feet, muted her footfalls as she took leave of her rooms.

  Or rather, the duchess’ chambers, as the housekeeper had referred to them. For Elizabeth’s weren’t simply guest apartments for any mere stranger, but ones reserved for the lady of the household. Intimately aligned with Crispin’s, they remained separated by a wall and two walnut-veneer doors.

  Elizabeth wound her way through the halls.

  Every other Empire-style crystal and bronze swan sconce remained lit, with the candles’ glow illuminating the wide corridors and the wealth and grandeur of this place. The rosewood pedestal held a gold urn that gleamed from the efforts of the dutiful servants who looked over these treasures. An oil painting hung in a large oval frame, the lone piece of artwork in the length of the corridor.

  Elizabeth briefly considered the framed scene.

  According to the lessons she’d been forced to conduct on the proper décor for a nobleman’s residence—and Mrs. Belden and the books on the subject had all been abundantly clear—the artwork on display was to be of the distinguished ancestors and the family who dwelled at the property, as a reminder of their power and greatness. Elizabeth had always scoffed at the pomposity of that, but Crispin had none of those figures on display. Instead, the single work was of a bucolic country scene.

  Adjusting her spectacles, Elizabeth lined herself up before it and took in the small cottage, bent trees, and rolling hills that could have been any English countryside.

  “It is miserable, isn’t it?”

  Elizabeth tried to reconcile that wistful regret with the same man written about in the papers, who’d dashed off the moment he returned, likely to visit one of the scandalous clubs he frequented.

  Oftentimes, it was as though Crispin were two very different people—the tempting scoundrel and the scholarly gentleman—and both held her enthralled.

  Drawing the belt of her wrapper tighter about her middle, Elizabeth resumed her exploration of his home.

  What might have been their home together had she stayed.

  “I want you gone. We will find a way to secure the annulment Crispin so greatly desires.”

  Elizabeth jutted her chin out. “And if I refuse to leave?”

  “Pfft. I always thought you were more clever than that.”

  Heat rushed to Elizabeth’s cheeks.

  “Why would you stay? You’ve heard yourself, Miss Brightly. My son regrets wedding you.” The duchess sent her a hate-filled stare. “And he’ll regret it even more when we cut him off without funds and sever his fellowship at Oxford.”

  The duchess’ long-ago threat squeezed at Elizabeth, filling her with the familiar hurt, but now there was something more—a biting, vitriolic fury for the one who’d manipulated both her and Crispin.

  Forcing the memory of that day and that woman into the furthest chambers of her mind, Elizabeth wandered in and out of parlors, located the Portrait Room where Crispin’s ancestors had been all neatly organized, until she reached the farthest recesses of the townhouse.

  A pair of painted, white lead-light doors stood as a vibrant contrast against the dark of the hall. The stained-glass perimeter of the frame had been adorned in…

  Her breath caught audibly as she was drawn on silent feet closer—

  “Butterflies,” she mouthed.

  She stretched a hand out and trailed her fingertips over the crimson wings of one of the glass renderings.

  It was a coincidence, and nothing more.

  Her throat worked. Only—

  “They live just a handful of weeks.” Sprawled on her stomach, the dewy grass dampening her dress, Elizabeth followed one monarch as he fluttered from flower to flower. “How very sad
their existence is.”

  “On the contrary,” Crispin murmured in soft tones, his gaze taking in the delicate creature’s every movement. “It isn’t how long one lives, but what one does with one’s time while they are here.”

  From that moment on, her love of the winged creatures had been forever linked to Crispin and that summer day in her family’s gardens. She’d studied the butterfly, learning every detail from every book Crispin had sneaked off from his tutors to feed her insatiable thirst for a greater knowledge of them.

  Elizabeth pressed the handle, and a warm heat filled the hallway, a soothing balm against the night’s chill.

  Hurrying inside, she closed the door behind her and leaned back against the glass panel. And promptly exhaled her whispery surprise.

  The expertly designed room trapped and retained all the earlier warmth of the previous day. Lit gilt brazier stands set around the conservatory added a layer of heat to the gardens.

  Elizabeth drifted deeper into the grounds, her tread silent upon the plush lawn. Holly and ivy climbed trellises artfully placed throughout, while Eucryphia and glossy dark evergreen created the illusion of an outdoor scape.

  A pale blue hanging snagged her notice from the corner of her eye.

  Wandering over to the neatly tended holly tree, Elizabeth contemplated the unusual piece that dangled from a thin branch. Nearly two feet long and several inches wide, it had the look of a house her papa had once constructed for the warblers that inhabited the poplar outside her chamber windows.

  Going up on tiptoe, Elizabeth peered inside each of the narrow slots, trying to make something out of the darkness.

  Above the tops of the tree, a holly blue flitted about, and Elizabeth went absolutely motionless as the butterfly drifted lower and then slid effortlessly into one of those side slats.

  “It is—”

  “A butterfly house,” Crispin called out from over her shoulder.

  Elizabeth gasped and spun about.

  Crispin stood at the front of the room, his arms folded across his chest. At some point, he’d discarded his jacket and cravat, but remained in the same wrinkled lawn shirt and mud-splattered boots he’d worn for his ride that morning.