Beauty and the Duke

by Melody Thomas

  Darlington and Amelia had arrived two days ago. For two days, his entire staff had been buzzing about in a state of eagerness. Sedgwick Castle finally had guests! At Christine’s direction, the coverings had been whisked off much of the furnishings and rooms no one ever went into had been prepared as if the queen herself were visiting. Christine had spent all hours of the day and night with Joseph and Amelia in her laboratory in the tower. She had tried to include Erik. But his knowledge about paleontology could fit into a thimble.

  She and Darlington had paused in the entryway and were talking to Hampton, asking about the quality of the rope stored in one of the outbuildings behind the stables. She stood in a wedge of sunlight, the only warmth to be found in the stable, as if a pair of hands had reached into the doorway behind her and parted the murky air like a curtain.

  She walked to Miss Pippen’s stall and pampered the nag with a handful of cubed sugar, while at the same time Erik was absurdly jealous that she had not paid that manner of attention to the mare he had given her. Erik watched as Darlington made a remark about the horse and her defense of the old mare.

  A natural energy added to Christine’s beauty and, more than once these last few days, Erik had caught Darlington’s eyes on her face, and an odd look in his gaze as if he were seeing someone he’d never seen before.

  Finally, brushing off her hands, Christine turned and saw him. Her hand went to her chest. “Erik,” she gasped.

  The chill had brought the apples to her cheeks along with a blush. Leaning against the warm girth of the mare, he could not help it as his gaze went over her, before shifting to Darlington.

  As cynical as Erik was about Darlington, he was also equally primal, male, and possessive. Darlington must have recognized the look in Erik’s eyes. “Amelia and I are elated about the opportunity you have given us here,” he said after an awkward pause. “I have seen your sister’s fossils. Chrissie and I agree that nothing like this has ever been unearthed. This is an enormous find.”

  “Thank my wife for your invitation,” Erik said. “I had nothing to do with it.”

  Christine hesitated, clearly sensing the discordant undercurrent running between them, and not quite knowing why. Her eyes went over the horse. “I didn’t know you were out here grooming the mare. Has the doctor given you permission to be up and about?”

  “Since I pay his salary, the doctor allows me certain freedoms.”

  Christine’s eyes narrowed. Darlington shifted in the silence. Then peering from Christine to Erik, he politely bowed his head and told them he needed to find Amelia. “The trip here exhausted her,” Darlington said. “Mrs. Samuels assured me that she herself is still recovering and that I should not worry.”

  “I will be back to the tower shortly,” Christine said. “We’ll talk about our climb for tomorrow.”

  After Darlington departed, Christine took up a second currycomb and began grooming the mare beside Erik. She brushed and stroked the mare. He watched her hands as she spoke about her plans on the cliffs as if to reassure him—of what, he wondered, did he need reassurance?

  “You may not know this about me, but horses have always intimidated me.” Her voice was quiet as she spoke.

  They faced each other across the back of the mare. “When I was fourteen, I was quite captured by my own brilliance and self-confidence. There was nothing I could not do. Until one night, I rode Aunt Sophie’s prized stallion. She loved that horse. I killed it when it stepped into a hole and broke its leg. It would be the first of many lessons in the ensuing years that would teach me the peril of my own arrogance. And my own lack of significance.”

  She met his gaze. “You should not be jealous of Joseph.”

  “Jealous?”

  Christine did not know him if she thought jealousy defined the depth of his feelings.

  Jealousy meant one coveted something someone else had. He’d never coveted anything. He’d either purchased or owned a controlling interest in anything that was of any value in his life.

  Indeed, he did not understand the concept of jealousy.

  “Is that what you believe I am?” he asked. “Jealous?”

  She stroked the mare. “No.” Her voice remained quiet. “It is not jealousy that has made you churlish but your uncertainty in the face of, well…doubt.”

  “I knew from the beginning what you wanted from me, Christine.”

  He watched her hands pause. “I think what you have done for your mother is wonderful,” she said after a moment.

  Erik returned the currycomb to the shelf outside the stall, then worked the leather gloves from his hands. “If you are about to ask me to extend the same courtesy to Erin’s other grandparent, don’t.”

  Christine latched the stall gate behind her and laid the currycomb next to his on the shelf. “Would it be too difficult to try? Though I would not expect you to go alone.”

  He met the concern in her eyes. “Would you rescue me, my love?”

  “That isn’t what I meant.” She brushed the hair from his brow and touched her fingertips to the silver at his temple. He gently wrapped his fingers around her wrist, arresting her movement. She wrapped both hands around his and pulled them to her cheek, where she held them pressed to the warmth of her flesh. “It is only that I want you to know you are not alone in this fight, Erik.”

  Not for the first time was he conscious that she stirred something deep inside him. He would not—could not—explain something he did not understand himself, and yet he found himself speaking the words anyway. “I need you, Christine.” His voice was quiet, intense and, as he slid his hand around her cheek to cup her nape, the passion that he failed to hold back when he held her, made love to her, pummeled to the surface. “And I have never needed anyone. I am at a loss. Simple as that. My whole life has changed since you have entered it.”

  She pressed her forehead to his chest and, wrapping her arms around his waist became almost immovable. “Oh, Erik,” she whispered.

  He suddenly realized the front of his shirt was wet. He reached between them and tilted her chin. Tears swam in her blue eyes and spiked her lashes. Knowing her penchant for a lack of handy handkerchiefs, he could see he needed to find one, at least to help her clean her spectacles. “I hope those are tears of joy, love.”

  Her hands tightened in the loose fabric of his shirt. She shook her head. “They are tears of horrible guilt. I have something I must confess. Something I should have told you from the beginning.”

  A skein of alarm sliced through him. “What is it, Christine?”

  “I fear I may have put a spell on you.”

  He didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or weep in relief. “Aye.” He pressed his mouth to her hair. “I am thoroughly charmed.”

  “No.” The words brought a fresh rush of tears. She lifted her face. “You are under a spell. I don’t know how, but you have been under one the moment I opened the door in the classroom and saw you standing in the hallway at Summershorn Abbey.”

  “Christine—”

  “Look!” She held up her hand. “This is a magic wishing ring. It’s an Arthurian antiquity. It belonged to my great-great-grandmother. The wearer gets what she or he wants most in the world.”

  He’d noted that ring months ago. More than that, he took notice of her words, and it was as if sunlight spilled into the crevices that had opened up in his life these past few days. “You wished me to your door that afternoon at Summershorn Abbey?”

  “No.” She scrubbed the heel of her hand at her cheeks. “You were the last person I wanted to see that day.”

  “You did not wish me to the door. And I was the last person you wanted to see. Yet somehow this ring did…what exactly?”

  “Truly?” She straightened her shoulders. “I am not sure. But the fact that I am here and I am in love with you and you quite possibly feel the same must be the first clue that we have been charmed.”

  This time, he could not contain himself. He laughed. No simple laugh either. He felt a jolly deep
release all the way to his sternum. “I do love you.”

  “Oh!” She pushed him. Stumbling backward, he caught his hand on the ledge of the stall before dragging her into his lap as he came to sit on a bale of hay. She pushed her palms against his chest. “I am confessing my heart and soul to you and you laugh.”

  “I am sorry, my love. I just told you the most profound sentiment I have ever told another human being, and I am then informed that the woman I love above all else is non compos mentis.”

  “I am not a raving lunatic.” She again offered up her hand with the silver engraved ring as evidence. “Just try to get it off my finger. Try.”

  Erik attempted a sober expression as he examined the magic ring in question. He wanted to kiss her senseless. “Your finger is swollen.”

  She snatched away her hand. “My finger is not fat. The ring slid on my finger and tightened.” She babbled on about someone named Babs and Sal, students of hers, he surmised. He heard Amelia and Joseph’s name. Her father’s. Clearly, countless believers had worn the ring. “This ring won’t come off until my greatest desire is finally granted.”

  “Then theoretically, if it won’t come off, maybe I am not what you want most in the world.”

  “But you are. I choose you.”

  “Christine.” He slowly turned her in his lap. “I am honored by your confession. More than you can possibly know.”

  “But you are what I want most in the world. I don’t understand. Perhaps in the beginning it wasn’t or I did not think it was, because that tooth was very tempting, or maybe it was and I just did not understand the clues—”

  “But then I won you over.”

  She lifted her eyes as if to say, “yes.”

  “Christine”—he wrapped her against him—“I do not need magic to tell you I love you or know that you feel the same. The magic we share is what we ourselves make between us. Let that be enough.”

  He spoke to her as if he were talking to his daughter who had lost her pet rather than a grown woman who had danced like a houri nymph for him last night, then pleasured him twice this morning.

  “But what if it isn’t enough?” she said, almost as if speaking to herself.

  He finally found his handkerchief. “Then consider this, my love. In the eyes of the law, we are no longer wed.”

  A shadow passed across the light as someone entered the stable. Erik looked toward the doorway as Hampton entered. “Lord Sedgwick?”

  Hampton spied Erik as he rose and set Christine on her feet. “What is it?” Erik asked.

  “Boris sent a message from the main house,” he said. “Mr. Attenborough arrived and requests an audience with you.”

  Erik’s solicitor should have been in Dunfermline seeking an audience before the ruling magistrate in the Commissionary Court. His return was unexpected. Christine wrapped her fingers around his forearm. “Isn’t it too soon to hear back from him?”

  Once outside, Erik could see up the hill toward Sedgwick Castle. From where he stood, he glimpsed part of the inner courtyard. More than one carriage sat on the cobbles. “Did Boris say who else was with Attenborough?”

  “No, your grace. He only said you needed to come at once.”

  Erik looked down at Christine. “Do a favor for me,” he said with quiet intensity. “Find Erin and keep her with you.”

  “They have arrested his grace for the murder of Lady Elizabeth,” Mrs. Brown said as she entered Aunt Sophie’s chambers twenty minutes later.

  Christine came to her feet. She had done as Erik asked and found Erin. Amelia held a finger to her lips as she shut the door to Aunt Sophie’s bedroom where she had laid the child down for a nap. Mrs. Whitman remained in the room with Erin. “He is a peer. No one can just come to Sedgwick Castle and arrest him. On what evidence?”

  Mrs. Brown lowered her voice. “Word is his sister be the one what condemned him for Lady Elizabeth’s murder,” the housekeeper said. “The constable has men downstairs and will take him to Dunfermline today.”

  “Lock the door behind me,” Christine told everyone. “Do not allow anyone into this room.”

  Joseph stepped forward. His hand stayed hers on the door as if he would prevent her from leaving. “Chrissie, he must have known this was coming. Why would he have sent you upstairs? Maybe he knew something like this was coming.”

  “Let go of me. I won’t let them do this. If you try to stop me…”

  “Why after seven years?” Joseph asked. “Why now?”

  “Because Lord Eyre hates him and would attempt to take Erin. I don’t know, Joseph. But if you don’t let me out…”

  He looked over her shoulder at Aunt Sophie. “Go with her, Joseph.”

  Reluctantly, he opened the door. Christine grabbed her skirts and ran out of the room. She descended into the main corridor a few moments later. All she had to do was follow the line of frightened servants gathered in the hallway. Boris and another two dozen servants were milling just off the gallery.

  Becca sat on a bench against the wall, her mother next to her attempting to soothe the distraught girl. The moment Becca saw Christine, she rose. “I am so sorry,” she sobbed in Christine’s arms. “This is my fault. All my fault.”

  Christine tightened her palms on Becca’s shoulders and looked into the girl’s tear-stricken face. “What have you done, Becca?”

  Shaking her head, she murmured unintelligible words about having witnessed a scene long ago between her brother and Elizabeth. She wiped her nose and babbled into the handkerchief. “He told me to tell them, Christine. He told me. When the constable asked me what I saw that night, Erik told me to tell the truth. Afterward, Erik said I did nothing wrong. I condemned him and he said it was not my fault. Why would he say that?”

  “Because he loves you, Becca. Because you have been holding a deep burden inside you. But whatever it was you saw that night, it was not your brother.”

  She wiped her nose and babbled into the handkerchief. “But it was, Christine. It was Erik. I saw them together. I saw them…!”

  “What did you see?”

  “It was near dark. I was sitting in the gazebo overlooking the lake. I heard Lady Elizabeth shouting at someone—a man. And so I followed the voices. The man wore a dark cloak with a hood on his head. Lady Elizabeth was upset about her sister. She struck the man. The hood came off.

  “When it did…I saw his profile. It was Erik.” Becca sobbed against Christine. “After that, I was too frightened and ran away. Erik didn’t return for months. I never saw Lady Elizabeth again.”

  “Did the man you saw strike Lady Elizabeth?”

  Becca shook her head. “No.”

  Christine looked at the countess. “Why would this condemn him in anyone’s eyes?”

  “Because my son told everyone he had not spoken to his wife after he’d left Sedgwick. He lied.”

  Christine’s hands tightened on Becca’s shoulders. “It must have been difficult for you all these years. You thought you were protecting your brother?”

  Becca nodded. “I didn’t want the rumors about him to be true. I could not have borne it. I told myself, I dreamed it.”

  “And yet you must have told someone about that night, else the constable would not have asked you these questions. Whom did you tell?”

  She shook her head vigorously. Standing behind her daughter, the countess met Christine’s gaze. “She told me.”

  “You?” Christine rasped, taking a step away.

  “I told only my son what Becca told me.” The countess’s hand tightened on Christine’s arm. “He is ready to have done with this, Christine. You must understand…”

  Boris suddenly stood in front of her. “Mum,” he said. “The countess is right. It has to be this way. Do not let him see you like this.”

  They are all mad!

  The door in front of her opened. The noise in the corridor abruptly halted as Erik appeared, flanked by two burly men. He stopped when he saw her.

  Behind her, the corridor grew quiet
as the servants fell away and opened a path for their master. Boris, too, stepped to the side in deference. Erik said something in a flat, emotionless voice to the two men beside him, and they stepped away to give him room.

  With a sob, Becca flew into his arms and clung to him. He pressed his cheek against her hair and said all would be well in time. His eyes on his mother told her to take his sister. The countess led Becca away. He spoke to Boris and then Hampton. Suddenly, Christine was the only one left standing in front of him. She was stepping into his arms. Tension gripped the corded muscles of his arms.

  “I have failed you,” she said. “I never found the answers for which you were searching.” The words sounded faint. “Tell them you have done nothing. Tell them your sister was wrong. That it was not you she saw.”

  The palms of his hands were warm against her back. “Shh.” He pressed his cheeks against her hair. “I will be traveling in my coach with my own outriders.” He placed a finger against her lips as she started to protest. “Look at the brighter side. No one can claim Elizabeth is responsible for sending any of those letters and then accuse me of killing her seven years ago. You have not failed me, Christine.”

  He scraped the hair from her face and held his palms to her cheeks. “I will welcome the truth that comes out in the next few days,” he said softly. “But right now Erin and my sister need you.” Gently, he caught her chin. “And understand this,” his voice was as intent as his gaze, “I will be back.”

  “I just came from the library. These are old topographical survey maps.” Joseph dropped three parchment rolls on the table behind where Christine stood in front of the tower windows overlooking the moonlit lake.

  With her arms folded, she shifted her gaze from the lake to the hills, where a single star glittered like a drop of amber above the crag-lined horizon. Erik had been gone a few hours. He would reach Dunfermline tomorrow afternoon. Shortly after he’d left, the countess had also departed. Good riddance, Christine thought, swiping at the tears on her face. Mothers are supposed to love their children. All of them. “He wouldn’t let me go with him.”