A Most Unusual Duke

by Felicia Greene

  His eyes were the same. She remembered his pleading, horrified stare the night she had rejected him, the night she had laughed at the idea of them being man and wife. She had only laughed because she hadn’t known what else to do; the idea was so grand, so impossible, so… so wonderful…

  But it’s difficult to explain laughter in moments such as those. It was even more difficult to deny her own feelings, her own urges, and refuse him through pure fear. But compared to seeing him now, standing on the threshold of his own morning room while she stood within it like an interloper, those previous encounters seemed like the stuff of child’s play.

  Wesley bowed. Diana curtsied, low and elegant, not knowing where to look as she rose again. Not daring to look directly into his eyes, already sure of what she would find there, she went to the nearest armchair and sat as Wesley moved to a distant chaise-longue.

  He sank into the chair as if he had always owned it. He had that quality—the ability to make himself look at ease, look like the master of any space he inhabited. Diana tried to look as remote as he did, as emotionless, but his pale face and shadows under his eyes made her concerned despite herself.

  ‘You…’ She wondered what on earth she could say that could encompass the enormity of what they had both lived through, together and apart. ‘You don’t look well.’

  ‘I’m not well.’

  A jolt of panic ran through her. ‘Something serious?’

  ‘I would count an unexpected dukedom as serious. Not to mention…’ Wesley looked at her, then looked away. Diana had never felt so acutely observed and so utterly ignored, all at the same time. ‘Not to mention this.’

  She wasn’t ashamed of what she had done. She would never feel ashamed of it. Still, faced with the man who had made her feel so much when she was younger—so much it scared her, so much that she had pushed him away—she felt an unusual urge to explain herself.

  ‘You and he never spoke. Never wrote. I never thought that—that—’

  ‘That I would discover the woman who broke my heart had decided to marry my father?’

  ‘In truth, I assumed that you would find out. I never saw it as presenting a future problem.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Your hatred of your father is well-known. I assumed it would counteract any… any echo of what we once shared. I had thought you would simply never visit. You would stay away, as you always have.’

  ‘An astonishing assumption. You knew he would have to die at some point.’

  ‘Not… not so soon. And we had discussed my living in a different property. Even on the Continent. He was—he was determined to protect me, to give me the power of his name, and do absolutely nothing else.’

  ‘Speaking like this sickens me.’

  ‘And the idea of you believing I would—that I would…’ Diana trailed away, unable to put the grim thought into words. ‘Your father never had such ideas, and neither did I.’

  Wesley snorted. ‘How little you knew my father.’

  ‘I can only tell you what we discussed. It was… it wasn’t a transaction. If anything it was an act of charity.’

  ‘Please stop talking.’

  ‘I shall not. I won’t have you thinking these things of me.’ Diana paused, looking down at her skirts as she struggled to maintain her composure. ‘This conversation wasn’t meant to happen here, or now. I didn’t think we would meet like this.’

  ‘All the fortune-tellers in all the world, using every sort of divination method known to man, would have never been able to conjure up the idea of us meeting like this in a thousand years.’

  ‘There’s no need to exaggerate.’

  ‘Believe me, I’m not exaggerating. This is the calmest and most reasonable I can possibly be under these circumstances.’ Wesley’s face was as white as bone, his tone clipped and urgent. ‘I doubt very much that you wish to see me exaggerate.’

  ‘Was that a threat?’ Diana rose to her feet, flushed with anger. ‘How dare you threaten me?’

  ‘How dare you presume to think that I would threaten you? What on earth would I ever do to you?’

  ‘In this moment you have more power over me than anyone has ever had.’

  Wesley rose to his feet. ‘Then you finally know how I felt when I asked you to marry me, begged you, and you refused me with laughter.’

  ‘I was young! I was foolish!’ Diana moved closer; he was taller than she remembered, his shoulders broader. His scent washed over her, the smell of rain and grass. ‘I didn’t—I couldn’t—’

  ‘You couldn’t imagine ever being here, with everything in ruins.’ Wesley’s eyes were dark, his voice full of pain. ‘I know. I couldn’t have imagined it either.’

  ‘You will never make me apologise for doing the only thing that would save me. Survival trumps shame.’

  ‘I know I can’t make you apologise. I know I shouldn’t want to.’ Wesley’s voice trembled. ‘But damn it all, I do.’

  They stood opposite one another, the space between them wider than any sea. Diana bit her lip, holding herself back. How she longed to breach the gap between them—but she didn’t know how. She couldn’t.

  She had known, long ago. She had known exactly how to bring him closer; she had relished his attention. Now, with every particle of his focus trained on her, she realised that she had been playing with fire.

  ‘Please don’t have me thrown into the street.’ She spoke quietly, no pretensions left. ‘Please. My family have no money left, and I have no skills that would make me an honest living.’

  ‘Do you honestly believe I would ever have you thrown into the street?’

  ‘I broke your heart.’

  ‘And so I am a monster?’

  ‘You believe that I’m a monster, no matter how many times that I try to tell you that your father and I—’

  ‘Do not speak of it. I beg you.’

  The silence between them felt wrong. It should feel cold, dark—but it was alive, hot and sparking, the beginnings of a dangerous fire. Passion flickered behind the angry words, behind Wesley’s potent gaze, connecting the two of them with vivid fire no matter how frozen their conversation had become. Diana felt it deep within her, making her tremble as she spoke again.

  ‘What will you do with me?’

  The slight, brief quiver of Wesley’s hands let her know that he felt the same fire she did. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If I am not to be thrown into the street and left to starve, what will happen to me? I… I am in your hands.’

  ‘Yes.’ Wesley’s tone had darkened, his stare more powerful than ever. ‘You are in my hands.’

  ‘I am.’ Diana nodded. The years were fading away as they spoke; her spirit was rising in her again, the ghost of the gay, thoughtless girl she had been. The girl who had found it so thoroughly diverting to be under the hands of Wesley Harrow, with no thought for the difficulties the future would bring. ‘Completely.’

  Let him touch her. Let him run his gloved hand along her cheek, the smell of the leather exciting her in a deep, uncomfortable way she couldn’t quite specify. Let him grip her waist, let him push her against the wall, let him—let him punish her for her transgressions, for they had been enormous. Let him detail her sins.

  He stepped away. Diana forced herself to stay where she was, instead of leaning closer.

  ‘You wished to be the duchess of Witford.’ His voice was cold again, almost businesslike. ‘You wished to have the lifestyle that a marriage to the dukedom would afford you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Diana paused. ‘Said with a distinct lack of charity, but yes. Rather a marriage in name only than poverty and dissolution.’

  ‘Quite.’ Wesley’s expression made it abundantly clear that he still didn’t believe her. Diana bit her lip, knowing that pleading her case would fall upon deaf ears at this particular juncture. ‘Then… then I see no reason to deny you that.’

  For a moment, Diana didn’t understand. She blinked, wondering what he could possibly mean, before the
full import of Wesley’s words filled her lungs like water. ‘I… did you just…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well.’ Diana held a hand to her chest, willing herself to remember how to breathe. ‘I… I believe you just asked me to marry you.’

  ‘No. I am allowing you to become the duchess of Witford, as you originally planned to be. With my father, if not with me.’ Wesley paused. ‘I hope the disappointment isn’t crushing.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘I assume you and he made arrangements for a wedding. I have no desire to make new ones with you. It would be a waste of—of so many things. The current arrangement can continue as planned.’

  ‘So… so we would be husband and wife.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But we would be married!’

  ‘In name, yes. Your signature would be next to mine in the register. Apart from that small token, we would not be husband and wife in any other significant way. Not intellectually, not spiritually, not—not carnally.’ Wesley looked away; Diana saw the faintest blush in his cheeks, and a part of her softened into deep, painful tenderness. ‘You would be the duchess of Witford. I would be the duke of Witford. But in the ways that matter, I would be Wesley Harrow—and you would be Diana Montcrieff.’

  A marriage in name only. She had been so happy when Arthur had suggested it. Now, with Wesley standing in front of her, the whole idea seemed strange beyond belief.

  Survive. If she wanted to survive, she would have to accept. No matter how much the idea tugged at her sense of what was possible, what was right, what was preferable—no. None of it mattered. She would be protected, her elderly mother would be protected…

  … and she would be married to Wesley. As if the mistakes of the past had been undone with a snap of the fingers. But no, much worse than that—as if he were taking their original conflict, all youthful passion and foolish action, and setting it in stone.

  If Wesley were a cruel man, it would feel like punishment. As it was, it felt deeply, deeply confusing.

  ‘I’m not going to ask you.’

  Diana blinked. ‘Ask what?’

  ‘Ask to marry you again.’ Wesley’s face softened a little, showing a glimpse of the man he had been. The man she had lost. ‘I know I should, but—but I can’t. Those are the terms. You can refuse them, of course, or—’

  ‘I accept.’ Diana paused, knowing she had spoken too quickly. Wesley almost looked surprised. ‘I accept.’

  For a moment, there was a little light between them. A small spark of affinity—of understanding. Diana leaned forward; surely he knew that she wouldn’t have accepted so readily, without debate, if it were anyone else… but before she could say something to feed the spark, make it grow, Wesley’s face hardened.

  He had clearly misunderstood. To him she was nothing more than a greedy fortune-hunter, willing to change husbands as easily as changing a coat. Diana bowed her head, biting her lip as tears threatened to cloud her vision.

  ‘Well then.’ His voice was as hard as his face. ‘I suppose we shall see one another at the wedding.’

  ‘Do—do you not wish to stay?’ How ridiculous she was being, pleading for something that could only make the both of them even more uncomfortable. ‘Some tea? I could show you the changes your father made to the—’

  ‘No. The carriage is waiting. I will be in London until the wedding.’ Wesley began walking away from her; Diana closed her eyes, the memories briefly too strong to push away. She had been the one to walk away, on the evening of the proposal; she had left him standing just as he left her now. The sense of circles closing, of cycles coming to an end, was suffocating.

  ‘I…’ She had no words left apart from simple ones. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘If we are to marry, let’s make one thing extremely clear.’ Wesley half-turned, his eyes determinedly fixed on the floor rather than her face. ‘Never apologise. I’m not going to.’

  Diana held her breath, unable to reply. Only when his footsteps had died away, the house silent once more, did she sit down with a long, drained sigh of sadness.

  ‘Ma’am?’ Lavinia ran into the room, two bright pink spots on her cheeks as she moved to her mistress’s side. Diana didn’t resist when the maid took her hand; yes, she had to be a duchess, but even duchesses grew overwrought enough to need a comforting hand. ‘Oh, ma’am, what happened?’

  ‘Well, Lavinia, I—’

  ‘If he threw you out, it’s terribly cruel of him. Alice and I both agree—it would be monstrous.’ Lavinia nodded passionately. ‘We would go with you wherever he sent you. Even if you ended up on the street, ma’am, we would let you live with our families—Jem’s just gone to sea, so there’s a bed ready to be used—’

  ‘He told me I was to marry him.’

  ‘He—he asked you to marry him?’

  ‘No. He made it very clear that he wasn’t asking.’ Diana swallowed, a burst of hysterical laughter threatening to bubble up in her throat. ‘I have my orders. I am to be the duchess of Witford.’

  ‘But—but that’s wonderful, ma’am! That’s everything you could have hoped for—that we could have hoped for!’ Lavinia squeezed her hand rapturously, her tone more buoyant as she continued. ‘Nothing needs to be moved, nothing needs to be changed—oh, your gowns don’t even need packing! No servants need to be informed, new situations don’t need to be looked for, Alice and I don’t need to hunt down the new duke at his Club and lock him in a room until he agrees to give you an allowance—’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Lavinia looked very innocent. Suspiciously innocent, in fact. ‘Whatever you heard, it was a misunderstanding.’

  Diana nodded silently, too confused to rally any sort of defence. She let Lavinia prattle on, her muscles suddenly leaden as she considered her future.

  A uncertain future was one thing, with its own attendant problems. Now the future was very certain indeed—but remembering Wesley’s eyes, not to mention the thrill of desire that had moved through them both despite the anger in their words, she didn’t feel comforted at all.

  It was as if she had been thrown into a large body of water without knowing how to swim. Would she sink without a trace, lost to the darkness? Or would the current, the strange current of attraction twinned with destiny, manage to bring her to something approaching happiness?

  ‘Well, ma’am.’ Lavinia looked at her with no small amount of pride. ‘There’s much to prepare.’

  ‘Yes.’ Good Lord—she was going to be married. ‘I suppose there is.’

  The wedding was the same. It was a practical choice on Wesley’s part, but Diana still loathed it. Wearing the same gown, attending the same church and holding the same flowers as had been agreed with Arthur, only to find a different husband standing at the end of the aisle, felt ghoulish beyond measure.

  She hadn’t even chosen the fripperies of the day with a light heart in the first place. She had chosen what she thought would be correct—what was most fitting for the new duchess of Witford, her own tastes be damned. St. Bride’s church, a gown of ivory silk, a neat bundle of spring flowers as a bouquet… oh, she would have been happy with bare feet and a tangle of wildflowers in her hands, but it was not to be.

  Now, after all that had occurred, it felt even worse. Diana looked at the packed pew of the church, the silk cold against her wrists, the perfume of the flowers sickly in the incense-scented air.

  The groom hadn’t even arrived. For the first time, with a sick jolt of suspicion, she wondered if Wesley had decided to jilt her at the altar as the ultimate revenge. She gripped her flowers, smiling blankly as she attempted to consider the facts.

  No. He wouldn’t do that to her. For all his anger, his sadness at what had happened, Wesley Harrow had always been a good man. The same could not be said for many marriageable women of the ton—women that Diana had always considered her friends.

  As soon as the altered banns had been read, there was a quiet but definite uproar. Such arrangements
weren’t completely unknown, of course, but the allure of the Witford dukedom only made the whole business infinitely more interesting to enquiring minds. Wesley was viewed in a noble light, taking on the burden that his dissolute father had left him—and Diana, of course, was given the mantle of sinner.

  She would have been quite happy to be called a fortune-hunter, if it were still Arthur she were marrying. That would be more than acceptable, not least because Arthur had understood completely. Now that she was marrying Wesley—she still couldn’t quite believe it, even as she stood in the church—her own sentiments, the complex cloud of them, were so much more complicated.

  She turned as a woman moved herself out of a pew, her skirt almost getting trapped under the wood. Diana pretended not to watch, wondering if she had ever seen the woman before, but was forced to face her fully when the strange quietly approached.

  ‘I say. You do look lovely.’ The woman blinked; she was dressed with elegance, but clearly didn’t know how to wear her clothes to her best advantage. Either that, or she had a clumsy maid. ‘All white. Like one of the doves I saw in the dovecote outside.’

  An odd compliment, but one that Diana wished fervently to accept in the midst of such a difficult day. ‘I thank you.’

  ‘No need. Everyone must have told you that you look lovely already—I am the last of a long line, no doubt.’ The woman hurriedly curtsied, as if she had just remembered that such a gesture was expected. ‘Withersham. Susan Withersham.’

  ‘Good morning, Susan.’ Diana curtsied in return, wondering how to enquire just why this strange, slightly dishevelled-looking young woman was at her wedding. Well, not her wedding—Wesley’s wedding, if she were feeling bitter. ‘You look lovely as well.’

  ‘No I don’t.’ Susan smiled cheerfully. ‘I always look as if I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. Merry despairs of me.’

  Merry? Diana nodded gently, lost at sea. Only when Susan looked affectionately in the direction of Adam Merricott, the Earl of Merston, did she realise the connection with a relieved smile. ‘Ah. I see. But I have missed the happy announcement—you two are to be wed?’