Only a Duke Will Do

by Sabrina Jeffries

  For a moment, he said nothing, just groaned and held her tighter, his lips ghosting kisses over her cheek and jaw and throat.

  Then he drew back and cast her a look of such anguish that it made her stomach sink. And in that instant, she realized she’d somehow tipped her hand.

  “You know now, don’t you?” he said hoarsely. “She told you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dear Cousin,

  Now you make me wonder, sir, about your real reason for anonymity. Is it genuinely because you wish not to harm my reputation, as you first claimed? Or does it come from your fear of engaging me in person? For I assure you, cousin, that if you ever attempted to govern me, I would make you rue the day you met me.

  Your irate correspondent,

  Charlotte

  “S—she?” Louisa stammered. “She who?”

  “Betsy, damn it.” He lifted Louisa off his lap and set her aside. Then with his back to her, he rose and began to button his drawers and his trousers. “She told you about…my grandfather and his ‘training.’”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Don’t lie to me!” He whirled around, his face suffused with anger until he saw her wary face. Then his expression softened. “Come now, sweetheart, I could tell from how you acted that she told you.”

  “Was I that obvious?” she asked, unable to keep the hurt from her tone as she drew on her nightdress.

  “No,” he said hastily. “Not until you said that you—”

  He caught himself, but she knew what he’d been about to say. That you loved me.

  Her heart twisted in her chest.

  “It doesn’t matter how I guessed it.” He stabbed his fingers through his hair. “The point is I did. And now I want to know exactly what the lightskirt told you.”

  “Don’t call her that!” Louisa protested. “She’s not a lightskirt anymore. And she didn’t want to tell me, I swear. I made her do it.”

  He laughed. “Made her. Right. What did you do—drag the woman from her childbed and beat her soundly?”

  “Of course not, but you know how I am once I get hold of something.” She crossed her arms over her chest as she fumbled to explain without making him more angry at Betsy. “I…um…saw that the two of you recognized each other, and I remembered that she’d worked in a bawdy house. So I demanded that she tell me how she knew you and…and it went from there.”

  “I see.” Shoving his thumbs beneath the waistband of his trousers, he thrust out his chest belligerently. “I can just imagine how she put it, how pathetic she probably made me sound.”

  “Of course not,” Louisa said evenly, determined to keep the pity from her voice. Simon would abhor being pitied.

  “Trust me, my friends at Eton would have given their eyeteeth to be trotted up to London to a brothel once a week and offered their choice of whores.” He began to pace. “What boy would not want a veritable feast of women who would do whatever he commanded?”

  “Except speak to him,” she murmured.

  He spun around to fix her with a bleak glance. “I want to know every bloody word she told you, damn it.”

  Louisa met his gaze steadily. Hide your pity, she told herself. Be matter-of-fact. “She said that your grandfather had rules for you and the women to follow. And that if you broke them, you got a thrashing.”

  “Nothing worse than the ones boys routinely got at Eton,” he bit out.

  “She said that if the women broke his rules, they were sent away.”

  That shook him. “I don’t suppose she told you where—that they were banished to the madam’s other brothel, the one that wasn’t so nice, where the patrons had a bent for…unsavory practices. Of course, I didn’t learn that for some years.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” she said softly.

  “At first I didn’t notice,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “At first I thought it was just a coincidence that the women who were kindest to me, the ones I showed a preference for, who didn’t lie there like mute statues while I did my business, weren’t there the next time I visited.”

  He clenched his hands into fists. “But after a few trips, it was hard not to notice. He never let them say their names, but I knew them apart anyway. So when I asked for ‘the pretty redhead’ or ‘the blonde with the long legs,’ my grandfather thrashed me within an inch of my life. I stopped asking.” He laughed bitterly. “The lesson was supposed to teach me not to care what happened to them, to realize that one woman was the same as the next. At least that’s what he kept telling me.”

  “Instead it taught you to feel guilty.”

  “Yes, once I realized that my choices made them disappear. He didn’t tell me where they went—just that it didn’t matter. I imagined them cast into the street, starving and destitute because I expressed a preference.” He shot her a self-deprecating glance. “Boys of fourteen tend to be overly dramatic.”

  “Boys of fourteen don’t belong in brothels.”

  He strode over to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel to stare into the cold embers. “He didn’t send many of them away. He didn’t have to. Not after he established his rules so thoroughly that none of us dared break them.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw. “Of course, that meant the women were terrified of me, terrified I might like them too much and they would lose their nice berths. So they were careful not to do anything beyond following my orders in bed. They didn’t look at me, they didn’t speak to me, they didn’t…respond when I spoke to them or…touched them. They lay there like…lumps of flesh.”

  Louisa’s heart constricted in her chest. Even she knew that young men wanted to be petted and flattered a bit. Not treated like bulls sent out to stud.

  A bitter laugh escaped his lips. “The irony is that if any of my friends had known, they would have begged to change places with me. Of course, I didn’t dare tell them—my grandfather had made it very clear that it was not to be spread around, and I was so afraid what he might do to me that I never broke that rule.”

  He snorted. “Not that my blithe young classmates would have understood. Every randy young idiot thinks that having a pretty woman lie willing beneath him, demanding nothing while he takes his pleasure, would be ideal.”

  A shudder wracked him. “But none of them have ever seen terror pass over a woman’s face because he said she had lovely breasts. Or had his every word reported to his grandfather by the madam who watched—”

  “Watched? Someone watched you?”

  “Of course. How else could my bloody grandfather make sure we did as he wanted?”

  “But Betsy said that she and you managed to break the rules.”

  Pushing away from the fireplace, he strolled toward her. “Your friend Betsy wasn’t the average lightskirt. She had been raised a gentlewoman.” A cold smile touched his lips. “Betsy said she thought the rules were cruel. So the second time I bedded her, she passed me a note saying that if I was to give the madam a guinea, I could do as I pleased.”

  He shook his head. “I do not know why it never occurred to me to pay them off before. I knew even then that money could buy me anything. And my father certainly gave me a sufficient allowance to afford it. Instead I spent over a year like that, enduring his ‘training.’”

  “You were young. And terrified of your grandfather. You accepted it because that’s how he told you it was. I’m actually surprised that the madam even agreed to go against him.”

  “She had grown impatient with him, I think. Anyone could see I was miserable—and she probably figured it would be better to cater to a duke’s heir with plenty of years ahead of him for frequenting brothels than to an aging earl who paid well but made her girls unhappy.”

  “So you and Betsy started your…friendship.”

  He must have heard the tightness in her voice, for he cast her a concerned glance. “It was not like that between us.”

  “That’s what she said,” Louisa choked out. It was hard not to resent the one woman who’d
given her husband solace in the brothel.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” He came up to draw her into his arms. “You have no cause to be jealous of Betsy. It was nearly twenty years ago. And most of the time all we did was talk.”

  “I know. She told me.” Louisa had even asked Betsy what they’d discussed.

  School. His friends. How much he liked pudding. All sorts of silly things.

  “You have to understand,” Simon said, holding Louisa close. “Betsy was the only woman I could talk to. Literally. When Grandfather came to get me at Eton, he took me straight to the brothel. I never went home. I saw Regina only at holidays, and she was an indifferent letter writer.”

  Louisa knew why, but suspected that Simon did not. Regina was probably still too embarrassed to admit that she’d only learned to read and write after her marriage, when her husband had helped her past her strange problem with seeing the letters wrong.

  Simon rubbed her back. “Grandfather paid my schoolmates to report on me if I dared speak to an ‘unsuitable female’ there, and if I did—”

  “You got a thrashing.”

  He nodded against her head. “But Betsy would listen to me rattle on about nothing. She would tell me things. About women, what they liked. I thought she hated my grandfather as much as I did.”

  “Until she became his mistress.”

  Stiffening, he pulled away from her. “She told you about that, too, did she?”

  “I already knew that she’d once had an earl for a protector. And that it didn’t last long.”

  He looked surprised by that. “Didn’t it?”

  “No. She left him the first chance she got. She saved every penny he gave her, then fled to Bath and took a job as a milliner there. Until she met her husband and he moved them back to London.”

  That seemed to shake Simon. “I always assumed…he always said—”

  “That she remained his mistress until he died? What else would he tell you? That a woman left him? Used him? He would never do that.” Louisa laid her hand on his arm. “She feels bad about what she did to you, you know.”

  “Comes a little late, don’t you think?” he said acidly, shrugging off her hand. “She certainly didn’t feel bad back then. She put me behind her without blinking an eye. After he discovered us talking one night, he only needed a few moments of privacy with her to convince her to become his mistress.”

  Louisa’s throat felt tight and raw just thinking of how that must have hurt Simon. “He gave her no choice. She could either become his mistress or be sent off to that other brothel. And she feared that if she didn’t become his mistress, she’d never escape that life.”

  “That’s what he threatened?” For a moment, Simon looked irate. Then he scowled. “No, I don’t believe it. She would have told me. He left us alone to say our good-byes.” The bleakness in his gaze struck her to the heart. “I begged her not to take up with him. I told her I would make her my mistress, even though I knew I couldn’t afford it on my allowance. But she said—”

  “That she didn’t care for you, was bored with coddling you.” That she wanted a real man in her bed. Louisa couldn’t torment him by reminding him of that. “Yes, I know what she said. Your grandfather gave her no choice there, either. She had to either crush your budding friendship or watch him thrash you for it. And she couldn’t bear to see you thrashed.”

  He stared at her in stunned disbelief for a long moment. Then his expression crumbled. “Oh God. All this time I have thought that she—”

  “Betrayed you. Pretended to like you when she really didn’t. Of course you thought that.” She put her arms around him, relieved when he didn’t push her away. “It was better than recognizing the truth—that her defection was just another of your grandfather’s awful ‘lessons.’”

  He buried his face in her neck. “But it should have occurred to me that he was capable of that.”

  “Such cruelty? How could you have imagined it? How could anyone imagine that someone who cared for them would treat them so horribly?”

  He was trembling now, his arms tense with the effort not to let it show. “It wasn’t all horrible, you know,” he protested. “On the way to and from London, he taught me everything he knew about politics. He was an intelligent man and very knowledgeable.”

  “Very knowledgeable and very depraved.” She stroked Simon’s hair, wondering how Lord Monteith had ever been able to treat her dear husband so coldly. “He tried his best to make you depraved, too. You have no idea how much Betsy regrets her part in it.”

  His bitter laugh tore at her. “She should have called his bluff. I would have preferred a thrashing. Thrashings were nothing to me by then.”

  “I know that,” she said, her throat raw with unshed tears. “But she didn’t.”

  “Betsy always was tenderhearted,” he choked out.

  “If it’s any consolation, she loathed being with your grandfather. Said he was a hateful man. And she’s always wished she hadn’t done what he asked.”

  He breathed hard and heavy for a moment, then with a quick squeeze left her arms. “Actually, she did me a favor,” Simon said wearily. “After that, I balked at playing his games. I told him no matter how much he thrashed me, I would do as I pleased, would bed whichever women I pleased however I pleased. If they disappeared, so be it. Between my not caring what happened and the madam’s irritation with him, he lost his hold over the situation. The brothel trips stopped.”

  “But the damage was done,” she said.

  “If you want to call it that.” With unsteady motions, he picked up his shirt and pulled it on. “Infernal as his methods were, they did work. I did learn a valuable lesson.”

  “That women are interchangeable?” she said tartly.

  “No. I never did learn that.” Chucking her under the chin, he shot her a rueful smile. “If anything, going to the brothel taught me the reverse. One way I rebelled before Betsy came along was by trying to arouse my companions even when they were terrified of me. I tried everything, did everything. And that’s how I discovered that each woman has different preferences.” His smile faded. “And that paying for a woman muddies one’s enjoyment of the experience.”

  “That’s why you were celibate in India.”

  “Yes. That and the fact that I learned my grandfather’s other lesson very well.” He met her gaze steadily. “He did succeed in teaching me to put my ambition above all else. In teaching me not to let…passion cloud my judgment.”

  Passion. He used that word a great deal. She began to wonder if for him it meant something else. “What about love?” she whispered. “What is its place in your little hierarchy?”

  He jerked away from her. “It has no place,” he said in a hollow voice. “That’s the one thing my ‘depraved’ grandfather managed to beat out of me—the ability to love. If you haven’t realized it by now, you will. I am incapable of loving anyone.”

  “You don’t believe that,” she said, heartsick to hear him put it in such bald terms. “And neither do I.”

  “No?” Every muscle in his body went rigid. “Do you know who I was with at the club this evening, Louisa?”

  A sudden premonition sent a chill down her spine. “Who?”

  “Sidmouth and Castlereagh. We were discussing my future as prime minister.”

  “You did say you might need them to gain that position,” she said warily.

  “Unfortunately, I need them more than I anticipated,” he said, his voice as distant as she’d ever heard it, “which is why I am…taking you to my estate in Shropshire in the morning.”

  He couldn’t have astonished her more if he’d slapped her. “I don’t understand.”

  His fingers curled into his palms, and he couldn’t seem to look at her. “They made it quite clear that they would prevent my ever becoming prime minister if I did not immediately ‘disassociate’ myself—and my wife—from the London Ladies.”

  “What? How dare they!” She drew herself up, shaking from head to toe with anger. “
They have no right to interfere if you choose to support my group!”

  “I told them that. They did not agree. They left me no choice but to comply.”

  She stared at him, her stomach roiling. “So you’re going to cut me off. Even though I upheld the terms of our bargain. Even though I changed my candidate—”

  “They don’t care about our bloody bargain, damn it!” He whirled on her, eyes blazing. “And they don’t care who your candidate is, either. They simply want you and your ladies to stop interfering in politics.”

  Even knowing why he was doing this didn’t assuage the hurt. “And since you told my father—and them—from the beginning that you would manage that, you immediately agreed to pack me off to Shropshire?”

  “That was not their idea,” he admitted. “They undoubtedly expect me to demand that you resign.” A bitter edge tinged his voice. “Of course, they do not know how seldom my wife heeds my demands. So I am taking you away to make it easier for you.”

  She struggled to contain her anger. “For me? Or for you?”

  “Both.”

  Panic seized her. “But you’re going with me.”

  “Not to stay. Just to introduce you to the staff and—”

  “Set up my prison.” Her anguish threatened to choke her. “That’s why you wanted to make love to me. Because you knew it would be our last time.”

  Guilt suffused his face. “Just for a while, until Parliament adjourns and I can join you.” He dragged in a harsh breath. “You would have left the London Ladies soon anyway, once you conceived our child.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That was our agreement.”

  “It was not! I agreed to stop going to the prison, that’s all. I said nothing about ending my other activities, like pushing for reform and trying to promote our candidate. And anyway, when you said you would support Fielden, I thought you had come to accept my participation in the group. That you might even approve.”

  “I know what you thought. And it’s true that I—” He broke off, then cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his eyes looked utterly implacable. “It does not matter what I intended. I did not realize how determined they were to scuttle your organization. Now that I do, I have to take different measures.”