The Wild Duchess/The Willful Duchess (The Duchess Club Book 1)

by Renee Bernard

  “There’s an idea I had not had!”

  Scarlett smiled. “I have a wicked imagination.”

  Talon’s fingertips found her chin and tilted her face up for a kiss. Whatever arguments she has composed and all of Uncle Rowan’s warnings evaporated. He kissed her as he had before but in the dark, it was a new experience. She had an awareness of him, of the heat of his body as she was pressed against him, of how she fit into his arms and how electric each caress of his mouth against hers became. Every part of her felt alive and open to him, as if she had been crafted to accept his touch, to kiss him, to cling to him.

  It took every ounce of her will power to push him away. “I promised I wouldn’t kiss you in any more gardens but this seems…I am definitely disobeying the spirit of my vow if not the letter of it, Your Grace.”

  He stopped kissing her but continued to hold her close in his arms. “I see your point.”

  “I am a terrible friend to Chesterton, aren’t I?”

  “God, you cut a man to the quick! If anyone is a wretched friend, it is me.”

  “We must stop this. I wish to behave. You are not the only one who was once proud of their self-control.”

  “I agree. It is tawdry to take advantage of you like this. I’m sorry for it.”

  “This is not—acceptable.”

  “I don’t want to agree but I probably should. Even so, you are not engaged, Miss Blackwell. Or is it that the effect of my kisses make you question your attachment to Elgin? Are you—do you have affections for Chesterton?”

  “Don’t do that. The honorable thing to do is to speak to the Duke of Chesterton. I will do so at the first opportunity but until then I must ask you to please refrain from…touching me and from making any more public appearances on Chesterton’s behalf. I have never denied my humanity. You are probably too used to playing games with women of experience and guile. I am loathe to disappoint you but I have neither of these things, Your Grace.”

  “I would not change a single hair on your head.”

  “Do not say such things. It is too...perfect and I am doing my best to be unaffected.”

  “Scarlett, it was never my intention to—God, I’m getting tired of apologizing!”

  She smiled in the darkness, pressed her splayed hand against his beating heart. “No doubt, but you are getting so good at it with practice.”

  His hand covered hers and she sighed at how marvelous it felt. “A new talent I never knew I possessed, Miss Blackwell. Your influence is growing exponentially. I want to vow to behave, Miss Blackwell, but I have the feeling that when it comes to you, I have no power. The power is all yours.”

  “The power is all mine,” she whispered. The words were so potent and so sweet in her mouth that Scarlett could feel herself pushing off the cliff to the fall. This time it was her move, she was the one who reached up to pull his face to hers, to kiss him, to compel him to kiss her back and more deeply than before. It was magic and a mysterious hunger soared through her body at the change between them. Tenderness began to fall away and her mouth opened to his, the shock of his tongue against hers instructing her in ways she could not describe.

  This. He is… More. I can only… oh, God, let there be more!

  It was Talon who ended it, far more abruptly than before but Scarlett instinctively knew that she had inadvertently increased the stakes. They were both in self-preservation mode and the time for polite apologies was gone.

  “I am a wanton thing, Your Grace.”

  “You are perfection.”

  He released her completely, stepped back and then simply left through the door, latching it behind him to leave her alone in the dark to recover her sanity.

  Scarlett waited. She waited for her heart to slow, for her breath to calm and for all her senses to become reined in until she finally began to feel the texture of the wallpaper, the pinch of her slippers and the muffled sound of an actor’s oratory through the distance of the auditorium.

  After several long minutes, the curtains parted and Starr peered in anxiously into the dim space to find her there.

  “Are you all right? Where did you go?”

  “I…haven’t the heart for a tragedy tonight,” she confessed. “I was hiding like a toddler from a punishment.”

  “Oh, Lettie! Why didn’t you say something? We’ll go home at the intermission.”

  Scarlett smiled and stepped back into the box to take her seat. “No, we cannot cheat Mrs. Martin out of the experience and cut short her lovely evening.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” She gave Starr’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ll be fine!”

  She settled in at last and accepted that “to be or not to be” was not the only question.

  If falling in love is a decision, I wonder if I’ll know when I’ve come to it…or if I only think I’m teetering but truly, I’ve already jumped…

  Later that night, the twins ended up sitting together in the midst of Scarlett’s great four-poster bed. It was a habit from their childhood that had never faded, to curl up on the bed to whisper and share the events of the day, to review triumphs and misadventures with equal relish.

  “I think I am in terrible trouble, Tara.”

  “Everyone thinks you are so saucy and brave with all your mischief. But it’s bravado and a show. You may fool all the world but you can’t fool me. Lettie, you’re the softest soul on this earth. So terrified to love or to—”

  “Tara! You are my other half. Please.” Her eyes filled with tears but she smiled, a defiant gesture that gave total credence to her sister’s words. “Don’t say it. I should never have—spoken as I did. My head is cool with the wiser choice, the safer path but my heart…My heart isn’t interested in wisdom.”

  “I want you to be happy.”

  “I will be. But I will arrive at my contentment on my own course and under my own power, dearest, of that I am certain.” Scarlett shivered. “Love isn’t…what I expected it to be.”

  “I do not know what to expect.” Starr’s voice caught and Scarlett’s attention shifted instantly.

  “Are you unhappy, Starr?”

  “How could I be unhappy?”

  “Don’t say that. I feel as if I’ve left you out lately. I admit there is a thrill to stepping out on my own. To being…myself and not one of two but I worry that I’ve hurt you in all of it.”

  “It is tiresome to be either salt or pepper, isn’t it?” Starr sighed. “We’ve always talked about it. The dream of independence. I’m happy for you, Scarlett. I am not envious of your success. Instead, I’m inspired. After all, my ambitions are my own and if you can push out on your own feet, then I have confidence enough to do the same.”

  “You should have nothing but confidence. You have Mother’s support, Starr. She knows you want to teach at Bellewood and has never spoken against it. She just…”

  “I know. They want me to have a Season or two to experience all that life has to offer before I retreat to the spinsterly calling of a teacher. The way Father looks at me when I speak of it, you’d think I truly was vowing to enter a convent.”

  Scarlett laughed. “There! You have your strategy now. Simply tell Father you’re either to teach or you’ll lock yourself away in sackcloth and ashes and he’ll see the university for the happier choice.”

  “I do admire the way you think.”

  “And I you.”

  Scarlett sobered a little. “I wish I had a better idea of where my toes should be pointed…”

  “You’ll be lucky in love, Scarlett. I can feel it. If anyone deserves that kind of happiness, it’s you.”

  “Do I?”

  “I know I fussed about a bit about the young handsome Stafford trailing after your skirts but I am the last person to hold you back from the race. You cannot let fear keep you from your chance.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “You aren’t, are you?” Her voice held an element of wonder and surprise. “Well, I am. I am terrified. To love
completely is to risk everything and even if you win, that kind of joy comes at a terrible price. Trust me, every time I look at you, I know it’s true. I cannot imagine life without you, Scarlett, but it doesn’t stop me from loving you as I do.”

  “You’re right. I feel the same. Nothing is promised, is it?”

  “No, nothing. I will cheer you on, dearest, and live vicariously as I can.”

  “What are my girls up to so late?” Caroline addressed them from the doorway. “May I join in?”

  “Oh, yes, please!” They shifted to make room for her and she informally climbed up to sit at the bottom of the bed. In her silk robe and her nightgown, with her hair trailing down her back, she could have been a contemporary or even another member of the Duchess Club, but the twins treasured their mother’s friendship even more than any peer’s.

  Starr quickly wiped her cheeks to hide her distress. “I was…lamenting that men are so difficult and then when they are being charming, it is almost worse, isn’t it?”

  “It can seem that way,” Caroline sighed. “Though in my experience, it means I was in the way of my own heart or at war with my own head. Your father’s charms were only a catalyst for me to figure out what I wanted and who I wished to be.” She looked over at Scarlett. “Why are you so quiet? Lately, I worry that I have missed something—some great injury or great change, dearest. Will you not tell me what has you so still and sad?”

  “I feel a bit…lost. All the women around me, all have such incredible aspirations and they have all done so much. You have founded a college for women! All those lives changed for the better! Aunt Grace is a published author. Aunt Gayle is a physician in practice if not in name and Aunt Eleanor is—”

  “Dearest!” Caroline gently cut her off. “Life is not a competition.”

  “Mother, even Tara aspires to be a teacher and a scholar. I am…”

  “Tell us.”

  “If there is a great movement of women’s progress, I fear I am not made to be a warrior on the front lines.”

  Starr and their mother smiled, but it was Caroline who answered. “Battles are waged on many fronts. Tell me, Lettie, tell me what kind of woman you wish to be.”

  “It feels petty and small to say I have only ever dreamt of being in love, of making a good wife and creating a loving and lively household of my own one day. I only ever wanted to be…to find a husband who would love me as much as Father loves you.”

  “That is not so small a dream, dearest.”

  “No? It is a miniscule crusade next to yours.”

  “I disagree. Each of us carves out the measure of our ambitions. For most of society, marriage and children are the only standards of success a woman can aspire toward.”

  “But you don’t believe that. Neither of you do!”

  Caroline sighed and covered her hands in a tender hold. “Scarlett, they are one standard. I don’t devalue those things. How could I? If I did—if I looked down on every woman who dedicates herself to her husband and to her family’s well-being and happiness—how could I ever hope that they would respect a woman’s choice to incorporate more into her life’s work?”

  “You don’t think less of me? After all, Starr is so like you, Mother and I’m…”

  “You are exactly as we would wish you to be! Isn’t she, Mother?” Starr asked quickly, anxious for her sister’s feelings.

  “Tara’s correct, Lettie. You are kind and courageous, you have a keen sense of what is fair and if you possess a weakness for bonnets and silk ribbons then I’m envious.” Caroline steadied herself amidst the bedding. “If your Father didn’t intervene, I would default to a wardrobe of comfortable grey cotton to avoid ever worrying about what matches what.”

  Scarlett and Starr shared a look of total understanding and didn’t offer a squeak in argument which only made their mother laugh.

  “You see? It is so true that neither of you will bother to deny it!” Then the laughter fell away and once again, the mood became quiet and sweet. “Scarlett, marriage is not necessarily an easy choice. The wrong man…” She shuddered at the notion. “Be sure of yourself, dearest, before you give your heart away. Both of you. You are your Father’s daughters, too.”

  “And Blackwells do not love in half measures,” the girls whispered together in chorus.

  “No. No, they do not.”

  Chapter 10

  “It’s preposterous!” his mother waved the letter about again as if daring the gods to rewrite what was written there and amend the situation. By now Ryder Maitland had memorized its contents. His Uncle Elgin, the Duke of Chesterton, had sent a letter so infused with the giddy glee of a man on the brink of a match that on first reading it his mother had forfeited the drama of sending for her smelling salts and simply fainted dead away.

  Ryder kept his hands tightly clasped behind his back and said nothing.

  For as long as he could remember, being heir to his uncle had been part of his understanding of his own identity—it had defined him to a great extent. Groomed for the title of duke since he was in short pants, any worry that Uncle Elgin, the confirmed bachelor, would alter the course of his life had long passed. When Ryder was twenty-one, his allowance had been increased to reflect his status and every credit line he had—every social invitation he received—every friendship he probably possessed—was linked to the promise of becoming the next Duke of Chesterton. It was no small thing to be a lord in his own right but it was hard to imagine the lesser status of being Lord Hayle of Cornwall against the greater prize he’d assumed was inevitably his to hold.

  He closed his eyes as his mother’s endless rants continued.

  Not a leg to stand on. God help us, it’s his right to do as he wishes and all I can do is keep a tight hold of my hat and play the humble penitent awaiting sentence—or absolution. How much pleasure have I stolen to trade on a title that wasn’t yet mine?

  “Who is this girl? How dare she?” Maeve slammed the letter back down on the table with such force that the china rattled. “Your cousin’s last letter made it clear that there is nothing but danger and ruin to be had!”

  Ryder turned back from the windows to face his mother. It had been a long morning.

  “Elizabeth is prone to hysteria. I am not sure I trust her opinions nor should you be treating them as fact carved into sacred tablets, Mother.”

  “Do not patronize me!” She stood indignantly. “This girl’s family is not on the registries of the peerage and I cannot ever remember hearing the name. She is a pretender and an over-reaching lamprey!”

  “Mother, calm yourself.”

  “Did you see the Times? You think it’s all the overworkings of my mind? All some fantasy I’ve concocted from malicious gossip and thin air?”

  Ryder reluctantly picked the copy of the London Times back up and winced as the words leapt from the page. The Blackwell Beauties. “The eldest has a certain Duke of C___ in tow and many have said that an announcement of Great Import cannot be far off for the young debutante.” Well, that is a bit harder to deny…

  “You need to get to London.” His mother announced. “I’m ringing Polk to have your things packed and readied. You will leave today.” She was in motion before he had time to register what she intended.

  “Mother, I am not a child to be ordered off!”

  “You are my son and if you care one fig about your future you will race to London as if your coat is on fire.”

  Ryder dropped the Times on the sofa and walked to the fireplace to subtly block her from the bell-pull to summon Polk. “I care very much about my future and no one is more familiar with the stakes than I am but what exactly do you want me to do? Bolt into his home and start shouting about how this girl is—what? I know nothing of her.”

  “She is nineteen! He is past fifty! She is no one and a nobody who thinks to flirt and tease her way into becoming a duchess!” Maeve was screeching again, finally collapsing back into her chair from the effort, her chest heaving as she fought for air. “What else do
you need to know?”

  He retrieved Cousin Elizabeth’s letter from her overwrought hands with an even deeper sigh. Her handwriting was as flowery and overdone as usual but the paragraph about the Blackwell girl was uncharacteristically splotched with ink and far less dainty as his cousin’s emotions had gotten the better of her.

  * * *

  Things have taken an unexpected turn in London and your uncle, the duke, has parted ways with his senses! You should see him mooning after this heartless creature! She is an infamous blond beauty and impossibly gauche at nineteen. One can only guess that he has mistaken her awkward manners for innocence. I have heard that her father is in trade and her mother an American—some poor school-teacher who is so unpresentable that no one worth knowing has actually seen her in good society for nearly two years! I write you naturally not out of malicious intent or with any eye to your financial future—though I would wonder if she has not already managed to assess the tapestries and test the furniture! No, I write out of my Christian care for him as true family and a concerned relation only. People are laughing at the dear old soul and it breaks my heart to see him brought so low and so unaware of what is said behind his back.

  * * *

  There was more but he couldn’t stomach it—something about how appropriate that she’d been named after the color that whores preferred. It was all so petty and sordid but even so, a thorn in his side.

  Damn it!

  He turned and pulled the embroidered cloth himself to summon the butler and give him the news.

  “Thank God! Thank God you’ve seen reason at last!”

  “I have seen that I will go to London to see what there is to be done but let me make myself clear. It is not my wish to deny my uncle a legitimate move toward happiness. He has every right to marry. Every right, Mother. He need not live his life at the convenience or at the bidding of others. If I am going to lose my place in the line of succession, so be it.”

  “Ryder!” Her voice cracked in horror, the color draining from her face. “You cannot be so…unaffected!”