by Brenda Joyce
The coachman opened the door to the shiny black lacquer coach. Nicole was about to step in when the Duke grabbed her arm, restraining her. She had been careful not to look at him, but now her gaze flew to his. As their glances locked, an unnamed emotion, intimate and powerful, flared up between them both.
“Nicole,” the Duke said huskily, “we must talk.”
“Is there really anything to discuss?” she asked sadly.
His jaw clenched. Many seconds passed and he did not answer, apparently doing battle with himself. Then his grip tightened. “We will talk. My coach has not returned. You may give me a ride back to Clayborough.”
“I will not do any such thing!”
But the Duke had made up his mind, and he was propelling her up the steps and into the coach. Nicole landed ungracefully on the back leather seat. Her eyes widened as his body appeared in the doorway. He sat down beside her, pulling the door closed behind him. “Clayborough,” he told the coachman. “And then you may take Lady Shelton home.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” The coachman disappeared and the carriage rolled forward.
“Why are you doing this?” Nicole cried.
He turned to face her. His eyes were blazing and Nicole responded immediately—her own turbulent desire had been roiling inside her since he had first approached her with her picnic box.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
Had he sensed her intentions? Or was she so obvious—and he too astute? She managed a smile, but it was forlorn. “I am going to leave. I am returning to Dragmore on Monday!”
He stared at her. Nicole could hear her own racing heartbeat. The way he was looking at her and his proximity was making it nearly impossible to think, but she was almost hoping that he would protest her plans. He did not.
He turned his head away from her, revealing the hard taut line of his jaw, and he stared out of the coach’s window. Disappointment claimed Nicole. She wanted to weep, and she wanted to lift her hand and reach out and touch the sleeve of his hacking coat at the same time.
She did not.
He faced her again. “Then this is goodbye,” he said tightly.
“Yes.”
Another pregnant moment filled the void between them.
“Nicole…”
She waited, waited for him to protest—or declare himself.
“You are unique,” he said. “You are not like the others.”
It was the greatest compliment he could have given her, she realized, and tears began to spill gently down her cheeks.
“Don’t cry,” he commanded, his fingers settling on her face. “Why are you crying?”
She shook her head wordlessly, her eyes locked with his. He leaned forward. She didn’t move, even knowing as she did what was about to come, even knowing that she should resist. But this would be the very last kiss, and she wanted to remember it forever.
Cupping her face, he placed his mouth over hers.
It was a tender kiss, as if there were real affection between them. Then his hand slid down to her neck and tightened; his mouth moved more insistently, with sudden urgency. Nicole’s tears had stopped.
She cried out in encouragement, gripping the lapels of his coat. Without hesitation she slid forward beneath his body; he came down on top of her. His arms were around her; her arms were around him. Their tongues mated in a fever of need, and she felt him settle the thick hard heat of his manhood in the cleft between her legs. He began moving against her with growing abandon, with insistence.
She did not want it to end like this. She did not want to let him go. She did not want to lose him to another woman, no matter whom she might be; she wanted him to belong to her.
He surged up against her body. Nicole clung to him, letting him do as he willed. The knot of tension within her was growing. At any moment it would explode, eclipsing her.
He stopped moving. He lay atop her heavily, panting. Nicole was also panting. She realized that her legs were wrapped around his hips. She wanted to die, but not of shame. At that moment, shame was the last thing on her mind.
“The carriage has stopped,” he finally said, his words clipped. “It stopped some time ago.”
Nicole closed her eyes.
“If I were a scoundrel, we would finish this here and now.” The Duke moved off of her.
It was a good long moment before she could force herself to sit up. He sat rigidly beside her, watching her. “This is not why I took a ride home with you.”
“I know.”
“This is not what I intended.”
“I’m not sorry.”
He stared. The urge to succumb to the sadness came again with renewed intensity. And again she waited for him to tell her not to leave London.
“Goodbye,” the Duke said softly. Abruptly he swung open the door and stepped out of the carriage, away from her.
Nicole had one last look at his face as he slammed the door shut. It was stern and impassive. Unforgettable. He was unforgettable. She hugged herself, trying to find comfort in the gesture, the space around her now empty and cold. Alone and cocooned by the dim light, she felt her eyes fill with tears.
The carriage began to move away; she thought that she could feel him watching her. And then, she thought she heard him.
“Nicole.” Whisper-soft, urgent.
She did not dare look out the window, she did not dare. Instead, bravely, resolutely, she wiped her eyes and turned to face the darkness.
Martha followed Nicole upstairs and into her bedroom. She had not been at the picnic, having had other obligations, but of course, she had heard in precise detail what had happened. “Are you going to tell me,” she began, then stopped, staring at Annie, the young maid, who was folding up garments from a huge pile upon Nicole’s bed and packing them into her luggage. “Where are you going?”
Nicole told Annie that she could finish later, if she would, and turned to her best friend. “Where do you think? I am returning to Dragmore.”
“But you can’t leave London now!”
“Why ever not?”
“Because the Duke has accepted you, and soon others will extend themselves to you as well. Your life is about to turn itself around—you cannot leave!”
Nicole bit her lip, looking away. She had to leave, she knew that. Yesterday had been goodbye. It had been final. There was no other choice.
Yet Dragmore no longer seemed a sanctuary. Dragmore no longer lured her as it had; suddenly her home seemed terribly isolated. The temptation to stay was real and strong, and only slight encouragement would be needed to change her current resolve. Yet she must leave. They had said goodbye. To remain in London where the Duke of Clayborough was—with his fiancée—would be nothing short of self-inflicted abuse. “It nearly breaks my heart every time I am with him,” she said softly.
“Oh, Nicole,” Martha murmured, gripping her hand. “If you must know, I think he is taken with you, I do, and I am certain that is why he bought your lunch. But he is a man of honor and he will never leave Elizabeth. Everyone knows she is struggling with some kind of mysterious fatigue, and that she left the charity picnic because she had overexerted herself in its preparations. He took her to the theatre last night, although they did not stay long.”
Nicole paced across the room, her back to her friend. “I know, Martha, and that is why I cannot stay. I must confess the truth to you, as well. I—I am afraid of what I might feel for him. I—I covet him, improperly, when he belongs to another. It is shameful.” Nicole glanced at Martha, wondering if her friend could possibly understand exactly what she meant.
And if Martha guessed at the meaning behind her words, she did not let on, the subject being too intimate even for the best of friends. “In a way you are right, you should return to Dragmore, until you can get over him, but now the timing is ripe for your re-entry into society, and you will forget him sooner or later anyway. If you stay, you can find someone else. I am sure of it.”
“I don’t want someone else.”
“Why should she find someone else?” Regina asked, standing in the doorway. “And where is Nicole going?”
“You should knock,” Martha chastised.
Regina smiled sweetly. “Why? Does my sister have something to hide?” She closed the door and turned excitedly, “What happened yesterday? Nicole—you should have seen how the Duke of Clayborough was looking at you!”
Her sister’s words tore at her, making her quiver hopefully when she knew it was hopeless. “How was he looking at me?” She hadn’t wanted to ask the question, but she could no more hold it in than bite off her own tongue.
“As if you were the only woman in the world.”
“Please, Regina,” Nicole sat down abruptly. “You are mistaken.”
Regina came to sit beside her, pulling up an ottoman. “And you fancy him as well, I could tell, it was so very obvious.”
“It was obvious?” Nicole cried, turning crimson, utterly aghast.
“Obvious to me,” Regina assured her. “Is it true that you took him home in your coach?”
“Yes, it’s true.” Nicole did not blush. And she remembered every single detail of what would be their last and final encounter, and she always would.
“Elizabeth is nice enough,” Regina was saying, “but nothing compared to you. I am praying that the Duke will throw her over for you.”
“Regina!” Martha rebuked sharply. “Do not give your sister foolish, impossible dreams. He will do no such thing.”
“You have become an old fuddy duddy,” Regina flung. “With love, anything is possible!”
Nicole got up and left the two girls to argue among themselves. She knew that Martha was right and Regina was wrong, yet the romantic in her secretly wished it were not so. She could not shake his golden image from her thoughts, nor their parting yesterday. She was certain, now, that he had indeed called her name, and that it had not been a figment of her imagination. Why had he called out to her? Had he really looked at her as if she were the only woman in the world? Nicole rubbed her throbbing temples. She must not listen to Regina who knew nothing of men and their ways!
Martha gained her attention. “You must not leave London, Nicole, I am begging you. The Duke never stays in town long, and he does not venture out very often among the set. Of course your paths will cross a few times, but no more, I am sure of it. If you leave now, you are resigning yourself forever to a life of spinsterhood in the country. Do not do it.”
Nicole looked at Martha steadily, thinking about how the Duke had turned her entire life upside down. Before she had met him at the Adderlys’, she had been content. There had been no foolish, painful yearning in her heart for what she could not have. She had loved her life just as it was.
No longer. Having met him just once would have been enough to never forget him. But it had been more than once and more than just an introduction. Like the sun, his aura was golden, powerful, blazing. Like the sun, it was an inescapable life-force. He had disturbed the pattern and harmony of her life irrevocably. For even when he was not present, like the sun, he was still there, he would always be there.
She could not imagine herself at Dragmore anymore, her life at the estate suddenly seemed unbearably lonely. She had never been lonely before, not ever. But now the feeling consumed her and she hated it.
“I don’t know. I must think.”
Regina also encouraged her to stay, but Nicole tried not to listen to her younger sister, who kept hinting at the possibility of love blossoming between her and the Duke. How naive and young her sister suddenly seemed, to believe in such adolescent dreams. Besides, Nicole had to face something else, something she could no longer deny. She could not dislike Elizabeth, no matter how hard she tried. She did not know her well, but she did not have to. She was one of the kindest people Nicole had ever met. Even if Regina were right, even if the Duke would leave Elizabeth and choose her, Nicole could never live with herself for inflicting such injury upon the other young woman. There was no possible happy outcome to this miserable situation, except, of course, to forget the Duke of Clayborough.
As if one could escape the sun.
The Duke entered the foyer of his London home, his hair tousled, his face ruddy from the brisk bite of the wind. He was returning from a long morning ride through the park and then along the Thames. He had ridden as if pursued by demons, hard and fast and reckless, in an attempt to escape his thoughts. He had been successful, for it had taken all of his attention to control the mount he had chosen, a particularly mean and dangerous brute of a stallion.
He had not eaten breakfast and a brunch of smoked salmon and whitefish was awaiting him when he entered the dining room. He was not surprised to see the Dowager Duchess there, for he had seen her carriage outside. Normally his mother’s presence would be welcome, but not today, for he had not a doubt as to why she had come. His unshakeable ill humor increased.
“Good morning, Mother,” he said, kissing her cheek and taking his seat.
Isobel returned his greeting, pouring him tea, which he drank black. “We raised one thousand five hundred and twenty-eight pounds yesterday,” she said, her tone conversational. But her look was not.
Hadrian leaned back in his chair. “Does that include the five hundred pounds I contributed?”
Isobel’s eyes settled upon him sharply. “Yes, it does.”
“Please, I know you are dying to tear into me. Feel free.”
“I do not know if I wish to tear into you or not,” Isobel said, staring at her only child. “I was horrified to see her so embarrassed, and your rescue thrilled me. On the other hand…”
He raised a brow.
“Hadrian, please tell me there is nothing going on between the two of you!”
“Do you not think,” he said firmly, “that this topic of discussion is most inappropriate between mother and son?”
“As your father is dead, I have little choice.”
“There is always a choice, Mother.”
“Hadrian?”
“I did seek to protect Nicole Shelton from further abuse. Let us leave it at that.”
Isobel worried her hands in her lap. “Elizabeth loves you, Hadrian.”
He winced. “And I am fond of her. I have always been fond of her. I was at her christening. I bounced her on my knee. As soon as she could walk she began following me everywhere. I am not going to renege on our engagement, Mother.”
Isobel knew that now she could believe him completely, that he meant what he said. His words could not ease her anxiety. For she knew only too well how matters of the heart tended to take their own course, with no consideration for the consequences. And she was so terribly afraid that she could see it happening between her son and Nicole Shelton.
She was not one to judge, God knew, having once succumbed to such illicit passion herself, but it had been different with her. Francis had been a cruel, unfaithful husband. Hadrian’s words jerked her from her thoughts. “I am worried about Elizabeth,” he was saying. “I am convinced that you are right and that she is ill. She is still losing weight, and she tires even more easily than she did when I first arrived in London. I have summoned a physician to attend her.”
“Oh, I am glad,” Isobel said. “Does she know?”
The Duke looked at her grimly. “Not only does she know, this time she does not protest.”
Mother and son stared at each other, absorbing the implication of this. Until this very day Elizabeth had kept insisting that she was fine, yet now, accepting a doctor was tantamount to admitting that something was, indeed, quite wrong.
Suddenly Isobel thought of Nicole Shelton, as different from Elizabeth as the night was from the day. Oh, she could understand Hadrian’s attraction to her, for she was strong and intelligent, vibrant and healthy, the kind of woman that would be a lifetime mate for someone as powerful and dynamic as her son. If it were not for Elizabeth, despite the scandal, she would have heartily approved of such a match. Suddenly, she prayed that she had not made a terrible m
istake, and she regretted the invitation she had sent that morning.
The Earl and Countess of Dragmore returned to London late the following day. Nicole had not left as yet, torn between returning to Dragmore, which she now dreaded, and staying in London, where she could hope for no more than a glimpse of the Duke from time to time. After supper, Jane invited Nicole into her rooms for a chat.
Nicole frequently spent time with her mother, but not at night, and not in her rooms. It was obvious that there was something her mother wished to discuss with her. She seated herself on a cherry red ottoman in front of the fire, regarding Jane expectantly.
Jane poured them both sherry and sat down near her on a small striped loveseat. “Darling, I’ve heard that you’ve been packing.”
Nicole accepted the drink. “I had decided to return to Dragmore, but now I am not certain.” She lifted her gaze to her mother’s, wanting to confide everything to her but knowing she could not.
“Because of the Duke of Clayborough?” Jane asked softly.
Nicole restrained a gasp, her startled gaze flying to her mother’s gentle expression.
“I also heard about the charity picnic,” Jane said, reaching out to squeeze her hand.
“Oh, Mother.” A lump had formed in Nicole’s throat. She quickly averted her glance, studying her clasped hands.
“You can confide in me, darling.”
“I can’t.”
“Nothing you will say can possibly shock me, and besides, I am certain I already know what you are feeling.”
Nicole dared to look up at her mother. Of course Jane would be shocked if she knew what had passed between her daughter and the Duke. Nicole had no intention of telling her, but the rest of her burden was just too great. “You probably felt this way about Father,” Nicole managed shakily. She was stunned when she had uttered the words, stunned with what they revealed, not to her mother, but to herself.
Jane was equally stricken, not having been certain until now just how strong her daughter’s emotions were for the Duke of Clayborough. “I ran away from your father,” she said, startling Nicole and causing her to spill some of her sherry. “He had agreed to marry me, but I was certain he had done it only because he had compromised me.” She would not tell her daughter the truth, that she had, in fact, seduced the Earl, climbing into his bed when he was quite drunk. “I loved him so much I could not bear to be his wife unless he loved me as well.”