Beauty and the Duke

by Melody Thomas

“Bloody hell, coz,” Gordy said, “how could you possibly agree to marry the man knowing what you do about him?”

  “They are right, Chrissie,” Joseph said.

  “Yet, you did not seem to care about his reputation, or ours, when you brought him to the museum gala and introduced him to Amelia and me. What does that make you but a hypocrite? Or worse. Tell me you were not going to ask him for his patronage?”

  Joseph raked his fingers through his blond hair. “What would you have had me do, when he approached me about attending?”

  He spoke with such fierceness that for a moment, Christine could say nothing.

  “He and your father had been in contact for some time before your father died,” Joseph said. “Sedgwick has made substantial donations to the university in Edinburgh. Yes, I had talked to him about the possibility of his sponsorship.”

  “Even thinking him a wife murderer? Please spare me the sanctimonious drivel. All of you. You’ve lost your right to pass judgment on me. You more than anyone, Joseph.”

  “My right? We’ve known each other years. I don’t have to be an expert to know the difference between seeking someone’s patronage and marrying him. I care about what happens to you. I care about you. You cannot possibly think you would be happy with the man.”

  “And if you truly cared an iota about me, you would not have wed Amelia.”

  The words were out before she could stop them, and she would have given anything to take them back. Her gaze flew to her friend. “Oh, Lord.” Shaking her head, she pressed the heel of her hand to her temple. “I…I’m sorry. I should not have said that. I did not mean it that—”

  “Are you with him because of some latent, unresolved anger you have toward me?” Joseph asked as he came to stand in front of her. “Good God. Is that why you are marrying him?”

  She stared up into his handsome face, his hair sweeping his brow like a troubadour of old, and saw the man with whom she’d thought to spend her life. Until he’d met Amelia and married her instead.

  Until Erik had come back into her life and changed everything. Until she had put on the ring.

  “Christine…” His voice lowered. “What would you have any of us say to you?” He swept his arm across the room. “Tell us.”

  “I would…” Tears burned in the back of her eyes. The fight suddenly went out of her. “You and Amelia will soon be on your way to Perth. I wanted that position. You know I did. But I am happy that you will be making a showing for the museum. You have all made decisions about our futures. I’m only asking that you let me now make mine.”

  She waited for someone to say something. Even Aunt Sophie remained silent, sitting on the settee beneath the window. Christine was suddenly exhausted and feeling entirely too isolated, unsure of herself and worried about the meaning of Aunt Sophie’s silence. Of everyone in the entire world, Sophie’s approval meant everything.

  Her uncle rose and, with an oath, stomped from the room.

  Joseph paused before her before he walked out of the room. “I wish you well, Chrissie. I really do.”

  The words hurt her more than anything else he could have said. Because they felt empty. Like a great tomb that should have been filled with gold only to be discovered empty upon excavation. She wondered how she could have ever thought she might have been in love with him. He lacked fortitude, the kind needed to claw one’s way up a cliff. Joseph would let go and fall. Amelia rose and hesitated in front of Christine, tears in her eyes.

  “Joseph’s Perth expedition has been postponed indefinitely,” she said. “He would have told you himself this afternoon.”

  Christine’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t understand.”

  “We went by Lord Bingham’s home this morning. Joseph wanted to let him know he was ready to assemble his team as soon as such a meeting could be arranged. The expedition lost another one of its lead archeologists, this time to some French team in Greece. All hush-hush. Supposedly a big find is about to be announced. Everyone wants to be part of the group that unearths the next discovery. Perth is no longer of interest to the museum.”

  Christine felt her chest grow heavy. He had wanted Perth so badly and she hurt for him. “I’m sorry, Amelia.”

  But Amelia was already walking past Christine and out of the room.

  Gordy chuckled. “You do realize, no one in this family will ever speak to you again. No more invitations to Christmas reunions. Your name will be stricken from the Sommerses’ family bible.” He chuckled as he lumbered past her to the door. “You’ve even rendered Aunt Sophie speechless.” He lowered his voice. “I thought only a bottle of bourbon did us that service.”

  Christine strode past him to the front door and opened it for him. “Good-bye, Gordy. And do watch your step. The stairs are wet. I should hate for you to fall and break your neck.”

  He swept her a bow. “May you rest in peace, too, coz.”

  After slamming the door behind her cousin, Christine returned to the dining room to find Aunt Sophie had not moved. “I do not know if I should rejoice or weep at the turn of events this day,” she said.

  Christine could not bear her aunt’s disapproval. At the very least, she hoped for neutrality. “Lord Sedgwick is not as people paint him,” Christine said.

  “Ten years is a long time to be away from a man and still think you know him. He may be more like the portrait that has been painted of him than you know. What did he offer you, dear?”

  Christine shook her head, but no longer able to stand, she dropped into the seat beside her aunt. Aunt Sophie withdrew the cloth in which Christine had wrapped Becca’s fossil. “This perhaps?”

  Her heart gave a start. The amber light in the room seemed to embalm the tooth with sinister life. Erik had left the fossils in her lab. Christine did not bother to deny the truth as she took the fossil from Aunt Sophie. “He has found a beast on Sedgwick land.”

  “That explains why he contacted your father last year. Does Sedgwick know that you are C. A. Sommers?”

  Christine wiped the corners of her eyes. “C. A. Sommers?” she said facetiously, “the infamous dragon hunter?” The malicious term the elite academia had labeled her father. “No, he does not. It wouldn’t matter if he did learn I am C. A. Sommers. Though he might begin to care if people started laughing at him because they believed his wife was a loon.”

  “Your papa believed in you, Christine. Don’t disgrace his sacrifice for you by mocking yourself. He would not have wanted that from you. ”

  “Papa died a laughingstock because of me, Aunt Sophie.”

  That beast-bird theory had never been her father’s, but hers. After her discovery of similar skeletal remains off the Isle of Wight, it had been her initial hypothesis that the ancient creature held similar skeletal makeup to modern-day feathered creatures. Dinosaurs could be the ancestors of birds, a theory that Papa took to the Royal Society scholars, only to be scorned.

  He’d believed in her enough to go out on the proverbial limb for Christine. And paid for it with his professional reputation. Even though the book won an award, he still died the butt of all the jokes among his true peers.

  “Lord Sedgwick is not just any man, Christine.”

  “I want this discovery, Aunt Sophie.” I need this.

  “Nothing like sticking it in the eye of authority,” Aunt Sophie said with gusto. “And what does Sedgwick want from you?” At Christine’s embarrassed flush, Aunt Sophie nodded sagely. “I see. The proverbial heir,” she said consideringly. “Then love has nothing to do with your decision or his.”

  “We will be business partners, Aunt Sophie. Nothing more.” She scrubbed the heel of her hand against her cheek. “My decision is made. I hope I can count on your support.”

  Christine finally rose and left the room. Once in her room, she slammed shut the door. She washed and dressed for bed early. For some reason, having been walking an emotional tightrope all day, she just let herself fall off. Face-first.

  But strangely, it was not her argumen
t with her wretched uncle or cousin or with Joseph, or Amelia’s parting words, or even Aunt Sophie’s lack of approval, that found her still awake at midnight when Beast deigned to leave his place on the windowsill and join her in bed.

  Erik kept her awake. Erik, who made her heart race. Erik, who remained in her thoughts long after the time she should be sleeping peacefully—as he had from the moment she had first seen him climb down from the carriage at the museum gala. Erik, who promised her more than she dared dream possible.

  Her hand pausing in the act of petting Beast, she splayed her fingers in the cat’s fur where moonlight warmed the silver wishing band on her finger. With a groan, she turned onto her back and placed her forearm across her brow, aware that her own foolishness was driving her thoughts, reassuring herself that there were no such things as magical unseen forces that held the power to control a person’s destiny. There were no such things as real dragons either, even though she was about to embark on a hunt to find one. No fairy tales either, even though she was about to go to Scotland and live in a castle.

  Yet, the only thing she feared more than waking up tomorrow and discovering today had been one huge cosmic joke was that Erik would be the one to awaken first. Or worse.

  The ring really was magic.

  Chapter 7

  The steamer packet carrying Christine and her small entourage approached Kirkcaldy, where she would meet the Scottish laird who was now her husband. He had gone on ahead of her while she’d remained in London these past weeks to finish her affairs.

  A sudden gust of wind swept the deck and struck her full in the face. A storm off Holly Island had sent most of the passengers on the Excalibur to their cabins before dinner, but not her. With gloved fingers, she clasped her cloak as she huddled within its folds. As a blast from the stack bellowed their approach, she peered from beneath her hood across the dreary landscape, her eyes straining to see the Leith & Hamburg dock.

  Several conveyances lined the wharf, apparently awaiting the packet’s arrival. Her gaze landed on a dark carriage parked a short distance from the dock. A pair of figures stood beside it. She straightened as she recognized Erik’s solicitor, Mr. Attenborough, and her husband. Erik wore a greatcoat and hat that cast a shadow over much of his upper face. He stood unmoving, like some medieval laird, much in accord with the storm clouds churning behind him.

  She had not seen him since his departure from London. He had not written except to say he had arrived at Sedgwick. The note had been brief, formal in tone, utterly aristocratic, as if his arriving in Scotland had somehow transformed him back to the way he had been before coming to London.

  Christine’s mind spun backward and her memory filled with the recent events that had changed her life. A month ago, almost to the day, just after nine o’clock in the morning, beneath a trellis of lilacs outside St. Jude’s Cathedral, Reverend Simms had joined Christine Alana Sommers forever to Erik James Edward Boughton, the twelfth duke of Sedgwick. Erik’s sister served as maid of honor. He had worn an elegantly cut gray morning jacket, silk waistcoat and trousers, a stark contrast to her bright blue satin gown. She had entwined tiny white rosebuds into her hair, which seemed fitting for her wedding day.

  With the breeze stirring the leaves of the large oak tree branches above where they stood, their hands clasped between them, they faced each other and spoke their vows. She promised to love and to honor him through sickness and in health until death they did part. His eyes dark and unreadable upon hers, he repeated the same vows and slid a gold band on her left index finger.

  After Reverend Simms pronounced them man and wife, Erik bent and brushed his mouth across hers. “You owe me for this, leannanan.” His velvet whisper mingled with her breath as his hand curved around her nape. “I must be the only groom in the history of Christendom to be wed in a cemetery.”

  She elected not to point out that they weren’t exactly in the cemetery. Or that this close to the cemetery was an apt place for a marriage bought with gold.

  Or that the cemetery was the only place she could think to be closest to her father.

  Let her new husband be irked, she’d thought at the time. After what his solicitors had put her through for a week, for once, something would be on her terms. She realized her temperament deflected her own culpability. “The lilacs are in bloom,” she told him.

  “Lilacs hold nothing to you as a bride, Christine.” His voice gently warmed as if he understood a part of her heart. “If your father were alive he would agree.”

  Whether it was his words, the smell of lilac lingering in the air, or the break in the clouds that suddenly filled her with warmth, she didn’t know, but the knot around her stomach loosened.

  Then just that quickly, with the slant of his lips across hers, the world vanished.

  ‘Twas no chaste kiss he gave her, befitting a proper English gentleman, but an impassioned one, exactly what she expected from a Scotsman. The sheer primitiveness in that assault warned her to retreat and take stock of his actions. But she did neither. Instead, she rose on her toes, deepening the kiss. She kissed him just as she had that first night in the carriage, hot and urgent.

  He slowly lifted his head. Their eyes met, searched.

  Reason had told her to pull away on that fateful morning, but she could not disregard the underlying tension between them, nor ignore its source.

  The ceremony, for all its significance to her future, had lasted a mere ten minutes. In truth, the words had been nothing more than a formality, a public declaration of their union. In fact, she’d belonged to Erik Boughton since the moment she signed and blotted her signature on the last of the thick sheaf of papers and official documents his many solicitors brought out to her in the days before their wedding, thus assuring him that she would be standing before him when the day of their joining arrived.

  Among the heretofores and moreovers, the documents proclaimed that she would receive five thousand a year for the rest of her life and Sommershorn Abbey would remain hers. Her future husband had made her wealthy beyond her wildest dreams, giving her enough to keep the school open for her lifetime. In return, while Christine worked diligently to find the source of the bones he’d brought to her, she was to remain at Sedgwick Castle until she produced an heir. The devil had bought her soul, and she had willingly sold it to him like so much real estate in his portfolio.

  She would have found it all more appalling than it was if she had not been a willing party to it.

  He’d had to return to his estate. They had both agreed beforehand that while they spoke the vows at St. Jude, their marriage would begin in Scotland. They planned for her to remain a few weeks to finish her affairs at Sommershorn Abbey and then join him. Christine knew he was allowing her time to adjust, and she’d been glad for the reprieve.

  As the ship nudged closer to the quay, Christine became aware of the rumble of the engines vibrating the deck beneath her feet. Over the sound of the wooden paddle-wheel churning through the white-capped water, she could hear the captain shouting orders to his crew.

  Christine had already shipped most of her belongings on the 450-mile journey north two weeks ago, along with poor Beast, who had protested loudly at being stuffed into a wicker cage to suffer the indignity of traveling like luggage, even if he did have his own staff to care for him. Christine had filled her other trunks with her father’s journals and her manuscripts. Crates of important petrified bones had also gone to Scotland. Everything else in her laboratory at Sommershorn Abbey she had donated to the British museum. She had only a single trunk in her cabin.

  No one had come to the docks to see her off. Amelia still had not forgiven Christine for what she had blurted that night at the dining table. As for Joseph, Christine was sorry he lost his bid to go to Perth, but she could not let herself worry about his plight, any more than she should worry that Lord Bingham would never find anyone to replace her at the museum in time for his next grand opening. Or that her family had warned her that if she committed this folly, th
ey would never speak to her again. Only Aunt Sophie had stood beside her this past month.

  For the entire journey, Aunt Sophie and Mrs. Samuels had been hibernating beneath blankets with seven other trunks in the chamber that adjoined Christine’s.

  Christine turned to look around the deck to see if her aunt had come out yet, only to find her sitting on the wooden bench in front of the pilothouse watching her intently.

  Christine joined her and took her hands into her own. “How long have you been out here in the cold?”

  “Long enough to wonder how I ever allowed you to talk me into coming with you.” Aunt Sophie sobered and looked toward the dock, where Erik stood next to the carriage. “And I say the time for second thoughts is past. It is about time you finally took it upon yourself to seize the moment. Though bugger me, I still don’t understand how it all came about.”

  “Aunt Sophie!”

  She patted Christine’s hands and looked Christine in the eyes. “No grandniece of mine who marries a cursed Scotsman had better go to the marriage bed with doubts in her mind, dear.”

  Christine caught herself before she lowered her gaze. Aunt Sophie was right, of course, and an unaccountable fierce sense of determination settled within her, lifting her precipitously sliding resolve. “Thank you. What would I do without your staid counsel?”

  She sniffed. “You’ve been disowned by the family, dear. Who else do you have to counsel you on these things?”

  Christine peered into her aunt’s warm eyes. Surely, who needed a mam when she’d had Aunt Sophie’s love her whole life? “I love you, Aunt Sophie.”

  “I know you do, dear. I have practically raised you as my own, after all. Now help me stand so I can fetch Mrs. Samuels out from beneath the blankets. I cannot feel my toes and I am looking forward to riding in your husband’s warm coach.”

  Erik’s solicitor, a short, stout fellow with white mutton-chop whiskers and wearing a woolen suit, met Christine first, on the dock as passengers from the steamer crowded past them. Mr. Attenborough had been the one to arrange all of her travel accommodations from London and she took a moment to thank him.