Left alone in her husband’s study to refresh herself while the servants brought in her trunks, she examined his desk and shelves. They were immaculate and spare, not a paper out of order. So unlike the cheerful chaos in which she worked that she wondered if all he ever did was alphabetize his files and square papers into ninety-degree angles.
And now she was alone with him, in his tidy, ordered kingdom. Trapped.
Stop that, she commanded herself. You are being absurd. Her behavior these past days had been dreary and wholly unbefitting of her character. What did it matter to her if his home was unwelcoming? This was London. The center of the world. The only place where her dreams made any sense. A woman of her constitution did not arrive in London and reproach it for lacking the scenery of Grove Vale. She must rise to the occasion, not slump around and mourn the countryside, as she was doing in this chair.
“You dislike it here,” Archer said, returning before she had quite followed her own command.
“No I don’t,” she said, just to argue.
“I admit it’s not fashionable. The advantage of Hoxton is only its proximity to my counting-house. I can set you up somewhere grander, if you wish. Westmead House in St. James’s Square is much more lavish, if rather oppressive for my taste.”
“No need. Your home is lovely.” Her voice came out bright and hard at the notion that he would so casually suggest she decamp to a separate residence three days into their marriage.
He crossed his arms and stared at her for a moment, and then his shoulders dropped and the unemotional and somewhat frightening personage that had emerged in the carriage softened, just a little. His face said that he plainly did not know what to do with her. She shared his bafflement. She did not know either.
He touched her shoulder lightly. “Poppy, if this is about yesterday—if you’re still upset—”
“I am not upset,” she said primly. “Only tired.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said softly. “Poppy … while our arrangement is based on business, that does not mean we cannot be allies. Friends. I want that. And I want you to be happy here.”
His face held so much concern for her. So much bloody earnestness. This was his damnable skill—he looked at her like that, said things in that tone, and made mincemeat of her caution. He lured her to be that most dangerous of things: honest.
He was like a chimera. A man who didn’t care, wearing the face of one who did.
She shrugged off his touch. “I believe I shall take a nap. I assume I am to have my own room?”
He dropped his hands to his sides.
“Of course. Gibbs has prepared the chamber downstairs across the hall from mine.”
She turned to go, but he cleared his throat.
“I need to go to the counting-house for a few hours. I’ll be back by half nine.”
She tried to keep from gaping.
“But it’s late.”
“There’s something I must attend to.”
She felt her composure slipping once again. It was her first evening in his house. In his city. And he meant for her to spend it alone.
“Perhaps it could wait until tomorrow?” she ventured, forcing her voice to remain steady.
He glanced at the clock.
“I’m afraid not.”
Seeing her pitiful expression, he softened his tone, but only slightly. “Rest. We can have a late supper if you like. But don’t wait up for me if you’d rather sleep. It’s been a trying day.”
He turned and left without a backward glance. She heard him make some quip to Gibbs, positively jaunty to be rid of her. And then she heard his carriage drive away.
Where he was really going, she couldn’t say.
But no part of her believed that his destination was a counting-house.
Archer strolled into his counting-house to find Gordon, his secretary, waiting at his desk with the maps and papers he’d sent word to get in order.
“The deed is signed?”
“As of this morning,” Gordon said.
“Thank Christ,” he muttered.
“Is something amiss?” Gordon asked.
“Not anymore.”
He had realized this morning why his marriage was not working: he was conducting himself exactly the wrong way.
Had he married Gillian Bastian, and not Poppy Cavendish, it would have made sense to spend his early days being as courtly and gentle as he was able. Attending to her small comforts, easing her into the demands of the marriage bed, plying her with compliments. Making her feel secure in the irrevocable, lifelong decision she had made by marrying him.
But Poppy was as much like Gillian as a ship captain was like a ball gown. She had not entered this marriage expecting wooing. She had entered it expecting property and manpower. In her position, he would be anxious and irritable too, waiting to see if he had made a rotten deal.
He did not need to assuage her with affection. He needed to assuage her with an act of good faith.
He glanced over the plans. The property was perfect. As soon as she saw it, she could have no doubt of his intentions. Then, surely, the easy way between them would be restored.
“You’ve done well, Gordon. I’ll bring Her Grace here tomorrow. Have an architect on hand. She’ll not wish to waste time.”
“Very well, Your Grace. These came for you.” Gordon handed him a stack of letters.
He sorted quickly through correspondence, not planning to linger, and paused at a note from the Marquess of Avondale that did not look like a formal congratulation on his nuptials.
Westmead— In light of your recent happy news, a word of caution: the rumors are intensifying. Elena and I have an investigator looking for the source. Until the matter is resolved, utmost circumspection is advised. (But then, that shouldn’t be a problem with a new wife to distract you.) My best wishes for your happiness, if you are capable of such vaporous emotions. (Really.)
Avondale
This was not good news.
Avondale was his fellow investor in Elena Brearley’s club. In the past two years there had been rumors of its existence, despite the precautions Elena took to ensure discretion to her members. They had stamped down whispers before, but speculation now was especially ill-timed, with zealous evangelicals making thunderous condemnations against vice in every page and pulpit, kicking up sentiment that could make exposure ruinous.
He wrote back to Avondale offering the services of his private tracer, lingering longer than he liked. By the time he descended to the street, his coachman was idling with horses at the ready.
“On to Charlotte Street, Your Grace?”
He hesitated. He had planned to make the second stop. Needed to make the second stop.
A session with Elena would restore his mind to order. Purge the uncertainty that rose in him when his thoughts turned to Poppy.
And yet he found he had lost his stomach for it.
It was too great a risk to go there with the club facing renewed speculation.
Hang the speculation. That was no excuse. He had always found ways of arriving undetected when the need arose. Fear had never stopped him before, only made him cautious.
What was stopping him was Poppy’s distress at being left alone.
You’re being bloody sentimental.
But no, surely it was only decent to offer his wife company until she was comfortable in his home.
His coachman was waiting for an answer.
“Back to Hoxton, please.”
In the darkness of the carriage, he rustled Elena’s key from under his cravat and worried it against his thumb until it hurt.
He would find a discreet way to go tomorrow.
He’d make certain of it.
Poppy paced her husband’s study, too restless and aggrieved to sleep.
Where had he really gone?
If she had been properly immune to him, it would not matter. But she wasn’t.
If she only knew what he was hiding, perhaps she could harden herself
to him. Avoid this miserable feeling of wanting more than she was due.
She’d wandered around his house all evening, hoping the furnishings might bear clues as to his secret self. But the rooms were tidy and impersonal, offering little evidence beyond neatness.
Gibbs, the butler, appeared in the study with a tray of tea she had requested.
“Is there somewhere I might put my things?” she asked him, looking at her husband’s orderly shelves.
Gibbs gave her a nervous look. “His Grace keeps this room just so. Perhaps you would like me to have your things moved to the sitting room? There is ample space and it has lovely views of the garden.”
She looked around. It would indeed gall her husband to disturb this space. She would take her childish solace in her ability to irk him.
“I prefer this room. Better light. I’m sure Westmead won’t mind.”
A vein in Gibbs’s forehead pulsed. Nevertheless, he nodded. “Of course. There is an empty cupboard there. Would you like me to help you unpack?”
“No, thank you.”
She sat down with her trunks and began to sort through her things. At the top of the pile was her old, fraying copy of The Gardener’s Dictionary. She opened it to the front page. Elizabeth Cavendish, 1731. She traced her mother’s pretty script with her fingernail, then put it aside and found her ledger. Still odious. She smiled. It soothed her to see and touch these relics of her life in Wiltshire. She did not limit herself to the cupboard but scattered them all about the room.
When she had emptied the first trunk—and satisfied herself that she had assailed Archer’s study thoroughly enough to irritate him—she began looking through the crates for her botanical correspondence. She opened a trunk marked only Westhaven and saw it was not one of her own, but was filled with Archer’s things. Neat stacks of books. Reports from stewards. Sheaves of correspondence bound in gleaming leather. Rather discordantly, an old muslin bag was tucked in among these items, ripped at the corner and coming apart. It did not look nearly expensive or well cared for enough to be something Archer owned. Curious, she plucked it from the case and opened it. From inside she pulled out a miniature portrait in a wooden frame. It was a pretty child, two or three years old, with curly blond hair. Georgie.
The likeness was not quite accurate—the eyes weren’t right and Georgie’s complexion was pale, not sun-kissed—but she smiled. It was rather sweet that Archer kept a portrait of his godson. She fished out a second portrait from the bag, wondering if it was Constance.
The face that looked back at her was not the deceptively angelic visage of her sister-in-law. It was the image of a ghost.
Bernadette.
Her guilty, prying fingers froze. She should not—should not—have seen this. But now that she had, she could not stop herself from looking back at the other painting. The little boy was not a poorly rendered Georgie.
He was Archer’s son.
Benjamin.
For a long time she sat there, looking.
Suddenly the desolation of his loss was real to her. Two living, breathing people who had once been precious to him now lived in a worn bag in the corner of his trunk.
She tried to picture him at the age of one and twenty faced with such a loss. To imagine the long expanse of years in which he’d borne that grief alone.
For two days she had resented him for holding parts of himself in reserve. But looking at these faces, she understood why such a man might analyze the risks of marriage and determine he could not afford them.
She could not fill a hole that was the size of these two portraits.
And he had not asked her to.
She was ashamed.
“You’re still awake,” Archer said, walking into the room at precisely the wrong moment.
She froze, caught.
There was nowhere to hide what she held in her hands.
Poppy was crouched on the floor of his study in a messy pile of her belongings. Drooped so, she looked like a bird who had returned to its nest to nurse a broken wing.
“What is it that you’ve got there?” he asked, trying to keep out of his voice his irritation at the hundreds of objects of miscellany she had seemingly spent the evening strewing about his pristine room.
She finally turned to look at him and he realized she was not ignoring him. She looked stricken, hunched over something in her lap.
His frustration with her curdled into an urgent, melting need to make it better. He should not have left her here alone all evening. He was an arse.
“Poor girl, what is it? Surely London is not as bad as that.”
He reached down to take her hands and found there was a hunk of something hard in them. Wood.
He glanced down and froze.
The object she’d been examining was a portrait.
Of his son.
For a moment he could hardly see. The stab of his boy’s face was still so physical. It hurt to look.
He made himself set the portrait aside. He found its pair in her lap, and took that too. And then he slumped beside her. He did not know what else to do.
“I’m so sorry,” she sighed.
“It’s all right,” he said, not quite sure that it was, but helpless to say otherwise.
She looked up at him, her eyes tired and glassy. “I was angry at you. And you’ve done nothing wrong. I’m sorry.”
He leaned back against the cupboard.
He did not know what to say.
He did not know how to feel.
She sometimes made him feel so much. So much.
She picked up the portraits and studied them. He averted his eyes. He wished she would put them away. It ravaged him, to look at them. It ravaged him to remember them at all.
“I forgot how beautiful she was,” Poppy said.
Her words were like a stab in the chest. Because so had he.
“I wish she was here,” she said. “I wish they both were.”
His heart came dislodged and landed somewhere in his knees. “So do I.”
And it was true, though he had long ago learned to live in the aura of their absence.
“Your son,” she said shakily. “He looks just like Georgie.”
He could barely get the word out. “Yes.”
She edged out from beside him and turned to look at him with her lovely, solemn face and wrapped her arms around his neck.
The gesture was so simple, so childlike, that he felt himself breaking. No one had ever consoled him quite like this. He supposed no one had ever known he’d needed it. He had turned to different forms of solace.
He looked up and placed a kiss on her lips. She tasted of salt, the way she had when he’d first kissed her in the forest.
She returned his kiss tenderly. No biting, no jostling for control. Just her tongue meeting his, letting him lead where he wanted. Letting him draw life from her.
“Archer, take me to bed,” she whispered.
He lifted her from her nest of papers and carried her down the stairs to his room.
Slowly, he undressed her. He took his time.
When he went to undress himself, she stopped him. Drew his shirt above his head and dropped it on the floor, not pausing to fuss about his scars. Without a word of question she dragged the leather cord from around his neck and dropped it too. She simply dropped it all in a messy pile and pulled him with her toward the bed.
He lowered himself on her lovely, moonlit body.
And when she took him in her arms, the feeling of her skin was something he wanted with a ferocity that scared him.
Chapter 22
Archer waited until breakfast to ask her to the counting-house. After she’d shyly kissed his temple and left his room to dress. After he’d gone into his study to find that she’d tidied up her mess and put his family’s portraits in a place of honor on the mantel.
By the time he handed her down from the carriage and onto Threadneedle Street, he’d begun to doubt himself. He so badly wanted to make her happy with this gestu
re. But a desk at an investment concern was not most women’s dream of wedded bliss.
Still, he enjoyed leading her inside, through ground-floor rooms that buzzed with conversation and the clinking of expensive china. Though he was known as an investor, the core of his business was accruing information. His stewards did the work of intelligence officers, cultivating networks whose knowledge could be stitched together to make predictions on supply, demand, and price. Over the years, he and his partners had honed this to an art, methodically working their sources to reveal a hidden map of markets—serge, porcelain, timber, ore—that others couldn’t see.
He was proud of what he’d built here. Many of his stewards had risen from apprenticeship to become powerful figures on the Exchange in their own right. With his backing they made fortunes, employed hundreds. And the concern collected dividends, and used them to expand.
He took Poppy to the top floor of the building, where each of his senior stewards had a private desk. He led her to an empty one in the sunniest corner of the room. Behind it was a map of England, plotted with pins in different colors.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Your wedding present, Cavendish.”
She smiled. Truly smiled. “My own desk. And look, you went to the trouble of decorating,” she said, gesturing at the map.
Her quiet pleasure made him almost bashful. “The pins are the nurseries of southwest England. The blue lines are waterways; the black dots are ports. Based on our research, the most suitable parcel of land for a trading nursery would be just west of London, near the large red pin, at Hammersmith. We made some inquiries and found a two-hundred-acre plot with access to the river.”
“Very good intelligence, Your Grace. I shall look into it.”
He took the deed from his pocket and held it out to her, nervous as a boy. “No need. It’s yours.”
She scanned over the lines. “It’s mine?”
She looked at him queerly. Perhaps he had overstepped.
“That is, if you want it. I don’t mean to intrude in your affairs. Though, if you expect me to build you a nursery by winter, we’re going to need a piece of land to build it on.”
The Duke I Tempted Page 18