The Last Duchess (The Lennox Series)

by Stephanie Feagan

  He stared down at her, knew she was dead on the money, but he would poke out his eye before he’d admit it. “Did you just call me a coward, ma’am?”

  “I believe I did.”

  “If you were a man, I’d call you out.”

  Her eyes fairly glittered. She was incredibly beautiful. Her bosom moved enticingly with her increased breathing, a direct result of her anger. “If you did, you’d be grievously injured. I’m a crack shot. My mannish tendencies, you know.”

  “Dammit, Jane! I told you to forget I said that. You don’t fight fair.”

  She stepped closer still and glared up at him. “I don’t forget wounds which caused me great pain, and I assure you, I won’t forget this morning. You’ve as much as said you hate me.” Her eyes welled with furious tears. “Unlike you, I’m unable even to think of something to say that might hurt you, and if I did, I could not, would not say it. I beg you to call me out. Give me an excuse to shoot you, for physical pain appears to be all that I’m able to inflict.”

  His peripheral vision caught the sight of the blood on her gown –her blood. Only minutes ago, he’d thought she might be dead, and he’d wanted to die too. Why, and how, could he be cruel to her? Now she was crying, wounded and asking for some way to defend herself. He was truly a despicable man.

  What he did next took every ounce of courage he had, but he knew if he didn’t, they would be set upon a road that afforded no return.

  He snatched her to him and nearly smothered her in his embrace. “I don’t hate you at all, Jane, and you’re correct, as usual. I admire and desire you. I enjoy your company, your body, your intelligence. I hold you in great affection, surely you know this.” He stroked her hair with one hand and clasped her close with the other. “I told you once, I don’t want to tender any affection for my wife. I thought you’d gone from me only a while ago and I went a little mad. It’s what I fear above all things, and it’s best you understand it.”

  He felt her arms as they went round him and he sighed. She would forgive him, thank God. “After my mother’s death in childbed, my father did go mad. He imagined she was still there, would sit at table and speak to her, pause on the stairs and crook his arm, as though she placed her hand there. He even imagined the babe was alive and well, would go into the nursery and rock an empty cradle. Sometimes he was lucid, and knew he was gone quite mad. It was during one of those times that he realized he might pose a danger to me and Lucy, and he summarily packed us off to live with his sister. I never saw him again. He died alone some ten years later, while I was at Cambridge. They told me his hair was down to his hips, his fingernails were grotesquely long, and he wandered the halls of Eastchase in his nightshirt, talking to his duchess.”

  She didn’t speak, but rubbed her nose against his throat and made a soft sound of pain, as if what he said was terribly hurtful. He had no choice but to continue.

  “He’d allowed the estates to fall into disrepair and was perilously close to completely destitute. I inherited a pile in Devonshire, another in Yorkshire, one in Cornwall, and Beckinsale House. He’d long since sold the London townhouse and gave the money to a man who came to the kitchen door at Eastchase, offering to repair Cook’s pots. He sold everything that wasn’t entailed, including all of the family jewelry, some pieces hundreds of years old, and gave that money away as well. I had Lucy to think of, and my first order of business was to get her away from our aunt as quickly as possible. She’s four years my junior, was only fourteen at the time, but already worn down by the hateful, cold woman it pains me to call kin. We moved back to Eastchase Hall and were close to penniless when I began to rebuild what my father had lost, amongst the evidence of his madness. He’d broken all the mirrors in the house and destroyed the ancestral portraits. He removed the carved balustrade from the grand staircase and burned it, piece by piece. He died when he tripped on the stairs and tumbled from the edge to the hall below.”

  Her voice was a whisper against his neck. “Why did someone not take him to an asylum, where he could be watched and unable to harm himself?”

  “His sister was the only one who could do it, his only relative of age, and she never acknowledged his madness, wouldn’t see it because she did not wish to. Even after his death, while I worked to rebuild all he’d lost, she insisted my father merely had a run of bad luck. She demanded to have a hand in my business and it was difficult to dissuade her. She insisted upon sponsoring Lucy when she came out, but I wouldn’t allow it. I asked Twykham’s previous wife, and she was kind enough to lend her assistance. Once Lucy married Bonderant, I felt a great weight lifted, except that I still had the duty of providing an heir to the title and holdings. I felt I owed it to my ancestors to retain all of it, especially the title, as some measure of recompense for the tarnish it was given by my father.”

  His arms tightened round her and he sighed into her hair. “There are times I wonder if I’m cursed, Jane. I’m responsible for the deaths of three women, all of them very young, completely innocent. I purposefully didn’t marry for love, or even affection, though I did grow to be fond of Annabel. Surely you can understand why I’ll never be able to truly love you as you deserve? I like you, want to be with you, desire you, but to love you, knowing the risk of losing you, I cannot do. I can’t go mad, Jane. Too many depend upon me, and I’ll not abandon them as my father did.”

  “I don’t ask for or expect you to love me, Michael. I only ask for your respect, and that you not lash out and be cruel when you perceive I’m too close.”

  “You have my respect and I’ll do my best not to be cruel, even unintentionally.” Looking over the top of her head, with her soft, lovely body melded against his own, he spied the bloody sheets, remembered the horror of thinking she was dying, and felt a pain in his chest. He was, indeed, doomed. “As for you being too close, I believe it’s far too late for me to keep you at arm’s length. I’ve grown quite attached to you, and even if you do conceive, I daresay my intention to leave you alone, to avoid you, is completely ludicrous. Near, or far, you’ll always be in my thoughts, and I’d worry more about you at a distance. There’s also the issue of sleeping. I’ve not slept so well my entire life as I do with you beside me. I won’t give that up.”

  She was quiet a moment, then asked, “If your goal has been to keep me at arm’s length, if you wanted not to be attached, why, then, did you arrange for us to share this chamber? Why have you taken me about the estate, even when you did not have to, and I did not expect it? Today, you will take me with you to Dover, on a matter of business, even though I wouldn’t consider it odd to be left behind. We’ve been together, in every possible way, awake and asleep, since we arrived at Beckinsale House.”

  He tangled his fingers in her hair and inhaled the faint scent of lemons while he considered her question, and his answer. “Will you think me ridiculous if I say I haven’t any idea? I sent instructions to Hester and I thought I told her to place you in a different chamber, but perhaps I did not. Once we arrived, I thought to have you moved, but every day, I forgot, and after a while, I abandoned the notion. There are no connecting rooms in this house, so maybe I unconsciously didn’t like the idea of traipsing down the hall each night in my dressing robe.” He smiled, in spite of the seriousness of her question. “I won’t be coy and say I didn’t intend to make love to you and enjoy it thoroughly, so perhaps I was being hopeful we would not be limited to once of an evening. I don’t know about you, but I think some of our very best times have been just at dawn, with the birds chirping and the sun peeking over the horizon and you with your sleepy eyes.”

  Her arms tightened about him. “It is wonderful to wake up to you, Michael. You are somehow . . . different in the mornings.”

  His smile faded. “I’ve liked you from the start, Jane, and knew this would not be anything like my previous marriages, that we would be friends, as well as lovers. I suppose most would say I am a lonely person, usually going about life in a solitary fashion. That you’re familiar with the working
s of an estate, that I can speak with you about these things and you understand completely, even take an avid interest, is really kind of marvelous. But again, there was no forethought to any of it. I asked you to accompany me, you did, we enjoyed it, and beyond that, I don’t suppose I thought about it.” He leaned back a bit to look into her face. “It would appear I’ve been at cross purposes to my intent of keeping a distance.”

  Her blue-eyed gaze was filled with that look she had, as though he were the only man in the world. “I’m glad, Blix, and love, or no love, it’s been a glorious honeymoon. I’d not change a thing.”

  “I feel the same, even if I fear I’ve become too attached.” He thought of their return to London, and eventually, Eastchase Hall. He pictured the large suite of rooms they would occupy in each house, one chamber and dressing room for him, another of like size for her. The rooms were connected, but he would still detest it. “When we go to London, and later to Eastchase, will you stay with me, Jane? Would you grievously mind sharing my bed, not having your own bedchamber?”

  “No, Blix, I wouldn’t mind at all. On the contrary, in my own bed, I believe I’d miss you awfully. As we go forward, we’ll be friends and lovers, and hold one another in affection, because we do all of these things already. I’m content to go on as we are, and if I conceive and die, you’ll bury me and keep living and remember me fondly. You won’t go mad, I assure you.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  She was solemn in her gaze. “You’re not only your father’s child. You’re also your mother’s, as Lucy is. I happen to know she loved her husband much, and when he died, she didn’t go mad. She seems relatively happy and content. I’m also unaware of any history of madness in your family, so I don’t believe it’s hereditary.” She cupped his cheek within her palm. “You have to allow me to love you, if it comes to that. Promise me that much, at least. I believe I’m halfway there already. You are such a re—”

  “—markable man,” he finished for her, crushing her to him, yet again. “Ah, Jane, what a devil of a time I have given you, and you so deserving of a whole, capable husband who would love you without hesitation. You’ll forgive me this morning’s cruelty, surely, because I can’t bear the thought of hurting you.”

  “Yes, I forgive you, and I’ll never again mention that you called me mannish.” She paused. “To be fair, there is a little truth to it, which is undoubtedly the only reason it was so dreadful of you to say it. I even sound like a man at times. I despise it, but one must deal with what one is given.”

  He kissed her then, and murmured against her lips, “I love your voice, Jane. On several occasions, you’ve said something without intention of sounding seductive and I have grown hard, simply because your voice is so appealing.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yes, truly.” He kissed her again and willed his cock to not respond, but of course, as always with Jane in his arms, with the scent of lemons in his nose, his body was powerless to resist. “Ignore it,” he whispered. “I wish to kiss you, and it’s an unfortunate result I can’t control.”

  “I’ve yet to rinse my mouth.”

  “I’ve yet to care.” He covered her mouth with his, plunged deep within and kissed her with great passion and tenderness and the closest he would ever come to love.

  Chapter 12

  The rest of the day and all of the following passed much as the previous days, with one notable exception. Although he kissed her often, frequently embraced her, seemed always to have a hand upon her in some fashion, whether holding hers, or riding his large palm against the curve of her spine, or gently stroking her hair, they didn’t couple. His nearness, despite knowing he couldn’t take her, was terribly endearing, and his sad, horrible tale of his father’s madness had catapulted her the final distance. Jane was deeply in love with her husband.

  She chose not to say so, certain he would feel bad for his inability to return her love. Instead, she was content to know he held her in his affections. Most of her anxiety fell away and she became ever more comfortable with him. She noted he laughed more, that he hid a wicked sense of humor, and at his core, he was truly a gentle, kind soul. He took great pains to mask it, to present a hard, cold, aristocratic face to the world, but she wasn’t fooled one iota.

  Remembering Julian’s tale of the suspicion that swirled around Blixford’s mother’s death, and that of the neighbor, the old Viscount Radcliffe, she wondered how it fit with what Blixford told her. Were the rumors only cruel lies, or was there some element of truth to them? If the old duke killed his wife because he believed she betrayed him, and yet he loved her, would his crime not drive him mad? It certainly seemed so, but Jane couldn’t believe it. The duchess had been friendly with Radcliffe, who was shot by a highwayman just after she died in childbed. It was a tragic coincidence, surely.

  Two days after she’d begun her courses and they’d had their heart to heart, they were having breakfast when Clive brought a silver salver into the dining room and presented it to her. “You’ve a letter from town, Your Grace. Appears to be from your father. I hope he’s well.”

  “Yes, thank you, Clive,” she murmured, stifling a grin. He and Hester were very dear, not like servants at all, always conspiring to provide opportunities for romantic interludes for her and Blix. They evidently found their marriage enormously entertaining, frequently making comments that were not too forward to be impertinent, but not exactly respectful either. They’d been at Beckinsale House since they were very young, had in fact married while in the old duke’s employ, and clearly considered themselves something beyond mere servants.

  Jane agreed, and found it charming in her husband that he held them in high regard. She’d noticed he was especially kind and thoughtful to all the servants, had taken an interest in young Harry’s ability at carpentry and suggested he would support his tutelage in the craft, if he had a mind to pursue it. Harry was still mulling over the prospect, and obviously had a good amount of hero worship for Blixford. They all did, in truth. He couldn’t retain his aristocratic hauteur, no matter how hard he tried.

  She broke the letter’s seal and began to read, becoming a bit breathless as she did so. “Blix, are you aware that Lucy remained in London after we left?”

  He was concentrating on slathering his toast with marmalade. “Yes, she mentioned it in her letter of a few days ago. Did I not tell you?”

  “If you did, I don’t recall. Sherbourne says he’s squiring her about, determined to find her a suitable match, and wonders if I think Blaisdale too dull, or March too wild, or Dowling too self-important. Good heavens, Blix. My father, a matchmaker? This is absurd!”

  Shocking her completely, Blix shrugged and continued munching his toast, a drop of marmalade clinging to his lips. “I daresay your papa knows what’s what and who’s who and can see the make of a man with far greater ability than most. It would please me much to see Lucy wed again, and if she’s willing to allow your father to find a suitable husband, I say he’s a good man and a brave soul, and where’s the harm?”

  Jane read the letter again, intuition allowing her to read between the lines. Her papa was not, in fact, looking for a husband for Lucy. He might say he was, give all appearances of doing so, but he was not. He spoke of her fine character, her excellent qualities, her devotion to her child, her rather unexpected sense of humor. He mentioned that he was having the devil of a time finding a man worthy of her, that he’d not realized until now how very slim the choices of decent men in polite society, that they were all a rather depraved lot, and he was becoming disgusted. Lady Bonderant deserved and needed a man of high character and strong affections, one who would hold her in great regard and honor her as the high born, lovely lady she was.

  Jane sipped her coffee and wondered what Blix would say if he realized her father, the Earl of Sherbourne, was deeply in love with his sister? Would he be so understanding?

  She didn’t think so. Blix was terribly protective of Lucy, and he would surely not look favorably
upon her marriage to a man of fifty.

  Leaning back in her chair, she watched him eat his eggs and pondered her own feelings on the subject. On the one hand, it would please her very much if her father was happy, and she did like Lucy, would wish for her happiness as well. But the notion of the two of them, together . . . it was a trifle uncomfortable to consider. She had only to think of what transpired between herself and Blixford, and imagine the same between her father and Lucy, and it gave her a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  It appeared she was again mannish in her demeanor. Hadn’t he said men shy away from thoughts of their female relatives in a man’s passionate embrace? She could no more think of her father in that way than she might sprout wings and fly about the dining room.

  Of course, if she were fair, she had to see that he was a man before he was her father. With seven children and a few bastards to his credit, he was clearly very much a man, with all the incumbent characteristics of such.

  But, Lucy? She pictured her quiet, dignified beauty, then considered her father’s hearty laugh, his love of the outdoors, his enjoyment of ribald jokes and elaborate pranks, and it didn’t add up.

  She read the letter a third time, and concluded she was correct. Her papa was head over heels in love with a woman half his age, his own daughter’s sister-in-law.

  Blixford would not like it, she was certain.

  Oh, dear. Returning to London was going to be even more trying than she’d imagined.