Time to resort to more desperate measures. Prevarication was in order.
“You could be with child,” he lied.
Her pretty lips compressed. “That is impossible.”
The good Lord’s chemise. Her knowledge clearly surpassed that of virginal miss. He ought to have suspected as much. This was Hattie, after all.
Still, he was not pleased about the notion she understood something more would have been required in order for her to grow his child in her womb. Strangely, the thought of Hattie bearing his child filled his chest with something…an unfamiliar sensation. It did nothing to dampen his ardor.
He forced himself to breathe. To stop touching her mouth.
He seated himself on the bed at her side, switching positions. “And how would you know whether or not it is impossible after what just passed between us?”
Her cheeks went rosy. “More would have to have happened. You did not…enter me.”
Two words, and she almost ended him.
Enter me.
Beelzebub’s earbobs. How was he to concentrate?
He inhaled slowly. She was still holding his wrist, as if she were reluctant to sever the contact. With his other hand, he covered hers. “How do you know this, Hattie?”
She bit her lip, as if considering her response. Just when he thought she would not speak, she rocked him with another two words, but in a different way entirely. “Your sister.”
His gut clenched. It was true that he had arranged for Catriona to marry the Earl of Rayne. It was also true the two had found happiness together. But the notion of his sister’s marital bed made him want to retch.
He shuddered. “You have said enough. I suppose I should not be surprised my minx of a sister was the source of your knowledge.”
“The fault is mine,” she said, surprising him. “When she told me she was enceinte—nay, I suppose, it was actually Olivia who told me. Never mind who did the telling, however. I asked her…I was curious about the marriage bed, knowing I would never enjoy it myself.”
He did not know which fact she had just imparted he ought to dwell upon first, that he was going to be an uncle, that she had been curious about lovemaking, or that she had supposed she would never marry.
In the end, his love for his sister won out over his rampaging lust. “Cat is having a bairn?”
“Yes.” Her frown deepened. “Did you not know?”
This evening was going from bad to worse. All his carefully laid plans had been blasted to hell. He was not currently deep inside Hattie’s welcoming cunny. Nor was he any closer to convincing her to marry him. And now, he was learning his sister was with child.
“Of course, I did not know,” he said, shock still roiling through him, warring with the desire for her. “When the devil was she going to tell me?”
“She wanted to tell you when she was here in London, but then Rayne came for her, and they ran away to the country together once more. She was so desperately happy with her husband that it never occurred to her until it was too late. She said she had sent you a letter later. Several, in fact, but that you had not answered them.”
God’s fichu. He thought of the stack of unopened letters strewn haphazardly over his study desk. He did have a great deal of neglected correspondence.
Hattie guessed the truth before he could craft a clever excuse.
“You have not been reading her letters, have you?”
He did not particularly care for the judgmental tone in her voice. “I have not been reading anyone’s letters.”
“Montrose.”
“I have been ill.” He rubbed the top of her hand idly. Even her skin was luxurious. Intoxicating. He could not wait to strip her bare and explore her everywhere.
“You do not seem ill now.” She was watching him, that green gaze seeing too much.
“I have an injured ankle.” He flashed her his rake’s grin, the one that never failed to make the ladies melt.
Hattie did not melt. She yanked her hand away from him. “You just climbed a tree, Montrose.”
Yes, so he had.
“A grand gesture to win you.” He pressed his hand over his heart. “I will happily suffer for my lady.”
“I am not yours.”
Salt in the wound. If he could not have her tonight, he was going to go home and drown himself in gin.
He gritted his teeth. “You will be.”
“I will not be.” She cocked her head, considering him. “You do not even have your walking stick.”
Laudanum had a way of making a man feel invincible. Capable of anything. Including climbing two stories high in a tree. In the midst of the night. He did not say any of that, however.
“I do not always require it,” he hedged. “Only when my ankle is particularly paining me.”
She was the Hattie he knew once more, her armor firmly in place. Looking distinctly unimpressed with him. He missed the flushed, acquiescence of his passionate lover. He would have kissed her again, but he did not trust himself.
“You should read your letters, Montrose,” she said pointedly.
Yes, he should. Procrastination was as excellent a vice as any, however. If he did not read of trouble, how could it exist and shatter his illusion of opium-laced tranquility?
“My correspondence is none of your concern.”
Her expression shifted. Closed. He regretted his stiff response, the coolness in his tone. She was drifting away from him. It was as if all the distance he had erased between them with their earlier kisses had returned.
She was still caressing the cat, cuddling the misbegotten little creature to her side as if to offer him protection. For its part, the damned feline looked remarkably pleased.
She may have won this battle, he told the cat silently, but I shall win the war.
“Go now, Montrose. Before you are seen and I am ruined in truth.”
Her voice had softened, imploring, almost.
“I will go, but do not think this is over between us.” He rose from the bed and offered her a mocking bow.
“Just as I told you earlier, there is no us,” she denied. “There is only Miss Lethbridge and the Duke of Montrose. We do not belong together.”
Stubborn Hattie.
Delicious, beautiful, passionate, stubborn Hattie. Bedding her would be exquisite. He now had to climb down a tree in the dark of the night with a raging erection.
Without falling to his imminent doom.
He gave her a smile. “How wrong you are, darling. In time, you shall see.”
Chapter Five
“There is another arrival for Miss Lethbridge.”
Their stony-faced butler made the announcement whilst Hattie was having tea with her mother. Just as well, for the tea was tasteless. The distractions not nearly distracting enough.
“Another arrival,” cooed Mama, giving Hattie a pointed look. “What can it be now, Oswald?”
The Torrington House butler had a look of perpetual long-suffering. Hattie had no doubt the antics of Torrie and Montrose over the years had helped to facilitate his pinched expression.
“A crate of books, I believe,” Oswald declared, stoic as ever. “Where will you have me put them, Lady Torrington?”
Montrose had already sent flowers, and in true Montrose fashion, he had seen to it that not one bouquet had arrived, but a dozen. That had been the day after his unexpected and thoroughly improper appearance in her bedchamber.
She had supposed he was offering penance.
Now books? How did Montrose even know what she preferred to read?
“Is there a note?” Mama asked.
“No, my lady,” the butler said.
Of course there was no note. The first bouquet of flowers had contained one. The subsequent eleven had not born a single letter. Sending such a tremendous waterfall of gifts to an unattached lady was scandalous, even by Montrose’s standards. He knew the rules of society. He simply eschewed them. All whilst laughing and drinking himself to oblivion.
&nb
sp; Except, his laughter never reached his eyes. Strange how she had failed to note that before. There were ghosts in his gaze. And those ghosts haunted him.
“See them brought here, if you please, Oswald,” Mama directed.
“Of course, my lady.” Oswald bowed, then took his leave of the room.
Hattie was alone with her mother once more. And her mother’s assessing gaze saw far too much. “These books, too, are from the Duke of Montrose.”
“I do not know,” Hattie prevaricated, lowering her gaze to the tea swimming in her delicate china cup. A safer place to direct her attention, it was certain. For if she met her mother’s gaze, she had no doubt Mama would see through her.
“Nonsense.” Her mother’s voice possessed an unusually sharp edge. “The books, like the dozen bouquets you have already received, are from the duke. He has paid a marked amount of attention to you.”
Yes, he had.
And he had also sneaked into her chamber and kissed her to oblivion. He had asked her to marry him repeatedly, though she dared not tell her mother.
He had made her weak.
And foolish.
And weak.
Her weakness for him was not to be borne.
“There is no note, Mama,” she argued. “The flowers and books could be from anyone.”
“Yes,” said Mama drily. “Your suitors are legion.”
Her words were most unwelcome reminders. She was a failure as far as her mother was concerned. A wallflower. A spinster. Nearly too old to be unwed. Only a handful of suitors she was not keen on pursued her, and in time, they, too, would fall away like leaves from an autumn tree. None of them made her feel even the slightest hint of what she felt for Montrose.
She compressed her lips, inhaling slowly, counting to ten inwardly before responding. “What are you suggesting, Mama?”
“I am suggesting that the Duke of Montrose has decided to marry you, and though he is a despicable scoundrel and tawdry rakehell, you must accept him,” her mother snapped. “You will be a duchess in your own right, Hattie. Only think of it.”
Her mother’s icy blonde beauty had not been passed on to Hattie. Nor had her fine-boned, elegant figure. Hattie was tall. Well-curved. Her hair was dark. Whilst her mother had been the toast of London in her season before Father had married her, Hattie had never been considered a diamond of the first water. She was a perennial disappointment to her mother.
But as irritated as Hattie was with her mother’s perpetual judgment, she could not like the manner in which she had described Montrose. Despicable scoundrel. Tawdry rakehell.
She took a calming sip of her tea before proceeding. “Mama, I must not accept anyone. And Montrose is neither despicable nor tawdry.”
Her mother emitted an inelegant sound of disapproval deep in her throat. “Of course you must accept a husband. At your age, you must accept any husband who will have you. What else is there for you, Hattie, hmm? Perhaps you would like to become a companion or a governess?”
Hattie flinched. This was an old argument between them. Though she possessed a small annual income in her own right, it would not be enough to sustain her. The Torrington line was simply not that flush with cash. She had no wish to take on either of those roles, as her mother well knew. Nor was she convinced, however, that she wanted to become a wife.
And most assuredly not the next Duchess of Montrose.
No matter how delicious the duke’s kisses were. And no matter how much her heart and her body ached for him, in ridiculous, unwise, reckless, altogether wrong tandem.
He would break her heart. Disappoint her. Hurt her. He was as glorious to behold as an angel and as tempting as the devil.
“Surely I have several seasons remaining before I must become either companion or governess,” she argued primly.
“You must decide.”
A footman appeared then, bearing a crate of books.
Hattie’s heart leapt at the sight of so many leather-bound volumes. All for her. She adored reading. But how had Montrose known? She was sure she had never shared her love of the written word with him.
The footman deposited the crate at Hattie’s feet. With a bow, he was gone again. Hattie abandoned her tea in favor of the new arrival. It was better than flowers. Better than flattery.
Not better than kisses, whispered a voice inside her.
She promptly stifled the voice and wished it to Hades. She plucked the first book from the top of the opened crate and found it to be a book written by Mrs. Radcliffe. Beneath it was a volume of poetry by William Wordsworth.
She adored poetry. She flipped open the volume, unable to keep from perusing the pages, eager to begin reading.
“Have you listened to a word I have spoken, Hattie?” Her mother’s voice interrupted her pleased examination.
She snapped the book closed and reluctantly returned her attention to Mama, who wore an expression of intense displeasure, her lips pursed, jaw clenched.
“Forgive me. I was distracted by the books.”
And by the thoughtfulness of just such a gesture. Sneaking into windows, stealing kisses, arrogantly proclaiming his suit as if she would have no choice but to accept his offer of marriage—these were all actions she expected of him.
Sending her one dozen bouquets?
Choosing a crate laden with books, and not just any books but books she would enjoy reading? She was almost dizzied.
He was doing it again, the devilish man. Just as surely as he had scaled that tree and made his way into her chamber, he was skirting all her defenses. Marching straight to her heart the same way an invading army would storm a castle in days gone by.
Just when she thought nothing the Duke of Montrose would do could possibly surprise her, he did. The realization was troubling. Worrisome. He was becoming increasingly impossible to resist.
“You and your books,” Mama said with a dismissive sniff. “I never could understand your penchant for burying yourself in pages and pages of words.”
“I love them,” she said, holding the Wordsworth book of poems to her heart as if she expected her mother to wrest it from her grasp. “I never understood your dislike of words.”
“Words are silly,” her mother snapped. “You ought not to waste your time with fictions. If you had been more interested in conversing, Hattie, in attending balls and routs and musicales, instead of forever feigning a headache so you could stay at home…”
“I do not care for society in the way you do,” she defended herself, stroking the cover of the book. “And I have not always feigned the headaches. Some of them were real.”
Most of them, however, had been ruses so she could stay home with Sir Toby and cuddle up beneath her counterpane with a good book. As far as Hattie was concerned, reality often paled in comparison to the vibrant intensity of the imagination.
Unless the Duke of Montrose is involved.
Drat it all, she thought she had banished that voice.
She would simply have to try harder.
Her mother sighed. “I was far too lenient with you, it is clear. I have failed as a mother. All these Seasons, and you have not managed to find a husband. Now a duke wishes to marry you, and you still do not show interest. What is the matter with you, girl?”
She may not show interest, but that was because within, she hid a great, burning interest. And that was what was wrong with her, far more than anything else.
“You would have me marry a tawdry scoundrel?” she asked weakly.
The book seemed to burn her fingers.
For all his badness, there was some good in the Duke of Montrose. It was that which frightened her most. Because the goodness was what could make her love him even more.
“A duke, Hattie,” Mama said, frowning mightily. “You could ignore his wild ways. Forgive him his foibles. In return, you would be a duchess. You could command society. Do not forget that you cannot forever cast yourself upon the mercy of your brother. Already, your relationship with Torrington is strained.�
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“Of course, it is strained.” Reminded of why, Hattie returned the book of poems to the crate at last. “Have you forgotten the reason for his loss of memory? We are fortunate he is even alive after the phaeton crash. Who was there at his side, racing him?”
“The Duke of Montrose is not alone responsible for what occurred that awful night,” her mother told her. “Torrington chose to race. Torrington chose to drown himself in drink that night, just like so many others. He is in his father’s mold, much to my shame. Have you wondered what would happen to us if Torrington had died that night?”
Hattie’s blood went cold. She loved her brother. The thought of a life without him…it was unthinkable. She could not forget the fear when she had discovered he was lying insensate after nearly perishing.
“Of course I have not thought of it,” she said. “Why would I entertain such a horrid thought?”
“Because it is the way of our world.” Mama’s countenance was even grimmer than it had been before. “Your brother has no heirs. If one of your father’s country cousins would inherit the viscountcy, our circumstances would be significantly reduced. Is that what you wish? Are you truly that selfish?”
Hattie stared at her mother in consternated silence.
She had never thought marrying the Duke of Montrose could secure her future.
All she had ever thought was how marrying him could ruin it.
And her.
She did not like this reminder of the fragility of life or the precariousness of their places within it. Nor did she like the growing realization that Montrose may have been right after all.
*
After two days of waiting, Monty had Hattie alone again.
Unfortunately for him, they were in his curricle, which meant they were parading before half the fashionable world. Which also meant he could not kiss her senseless. Or unbutton her bodice. Or suck her nipples until she begged for more. Or even hold her damned hand.
No, he was courting her. In proper fashion. At the fashionable hour. Like a true swain. A lovesick suitor. A milksop who cared about rules and getting out of bed before noon.
He almost shuddered at what he had been reduced to, all in the name of winning this woman’s hand. At some point, his attempted conquest had become a great deal less about the amelioration of his guilt over Torrie and a great deal more about his desire to get Hattie Lethbridge into his bed.
Duke of Debauchery Page 5