Tempted by His Touch: A Limited Edition Boxed Set of Dukes, Rogues, & Alpha Heroes Historical Romance Novels

by Darcy Burke

  “I know you’d wanted to marry out of doors, in a private corner of the park,” he said, “but do you think you could accept a cozy wedding here?”

  She found her voice. It wasn’t as strong as she wanted it to be, but it carried enough not to belie her tumultuous emotions. “At Merritt House?”

  He slanted her a devastating grin. “In my room.”

  She wanted to shake him until he looked as scared as she felt. Nevertheless, the fact that he wanted to marry her from his sickbed didn’t bode well for his personal outlook. He didn’t foresee himself being up and about in two days, on the date they’d planned for the clergyman and Lord and Lady Trestin to gather for a simple ceremony at St. James’s Park, witnessed by Con’s immediate family.

  She gripped his hand. Dash it, she tried, but she couldn’t keep her lips from pressing into a thin, scared line. He believed he was going to die.

  She nodded her assent. He grinned back at her, as if she were the blushing, excited bride he wanted to see. “Very good. I’ll let Bart know. He’s making the arrangements.”

  She was suddenly drawn into the welcome tedium of marriage preparation, rather than thoughts of her new husband dying before her eyes. “Did you get the license?”

  The shadow passed over Con’s face again. He had thus far been almost eerily good at pretending he wasn’t suffering, but now he looked stunned, like he was reliving facing his attackers in the alley. “I didn’t, but Bart browbeat Darius into fetching it for me. Highly unethical and possibly even illegal, but at this point, I’d say that’s the least of my concerns.” He flashed her another rakish grin intended to steal her heart and distract her from the seriousness of his health.

  She smiled back faintly.

  She stayed with him awhile longer, until he began to doze. Then she escaped into a powder room where she let her tears fall. In a few days Con might be dead. How could she bear to lose him? How would she live knowing she’d deceived him in a way that made it possible for him to die?

  When she was spent, she wiped her eyes and splashed cool water on her face. Then she returned to his room. She needed to see again that he was not at death’s door. The moment she entered his room, however, she perceived a change in the atmosphere. Had the room smelled like this before? A sickly, sweet stench of perspiration and clean linens and laudanum?

  Con moaned. She went to the bed, her footfalls heavy with dread. No. She couldn’t have been gone that long!

  She turned and raced from the room. “Lord Bart! Lady Montborne!” Someone, anyone who could help her. She was terrified to be alone. “Please,” she said, stopping a passing servant, “fetch your mistress.”

  Lady Montborne appeared in a nearby doorway. “What is it?” But she was already hurrying to Con’s room. “I shouldn’t have left him,” Elizabeth heard her say.

  She shouldn’t have, either. She should have called for someone else to sit with him while she’d collected herself in the powder room. It was too late to change it but not too late for her to feel responsible. If he died…

  She followed Lady Montborne but stopped in the doorway. Lady Montborne was feeling Con’s face and neck. Tears were in her eyes, but she otherwise maintained her composure. “Elizabeth, find Lord Bart and have him fetch the doctor. Constantine’s fever has worsened.”

  He moaned again and kicked his legs under the covers. “Cold,” he whispered. Elizabeth exhaled sharply. He could still speak! Surely that was a good sign.

  After exchanging a worried glance with his mother, she went to fetch more blankets and Lord Bart. Having tasks kept her occupied. When she returned, Lady Montborne had pulled a second chair to Con’s right side. The gesture touched Elizabeth. They would watch over him together. She felt a sudden burst of love for a woman who’d shown her nothing but kindness, despite all of the reasons she might have shunned Elizabeth instead.

  The doctor came. The doctor went. Darkness was kept at bay by a brace of candles. Elizabeth sat unmoving beside his bed, hating her inaction. Her entire future hung in the balance. Could she think of nothing to do that would help?

  Con’s mother slowly slumped in sleep against the wingback of her chair, leaving Elizabeth alone with her thoughts. There were so many things she might have done differently in her life. But the one thing she knew she would never regret was marrying Constantine.

  He must live to the wedding.

  And then, she would tell him about the quarry, wouldn’t she? They’d be man and wife. He needed to know.

  Her belly tightened. She couldn’t escape the uncertainty of Lord Bart’s reaction. Con would forgive her, but how would Lord Bart feel? Or the rest of his family? What if he refused to represent Con in a way that would sway the jury’s heart toward returning Oliver?

  She remained by Con’s side all through the night as he battled the fever. Several times, she and Lady Montborne worked together to change his damp bedding and bathe his face and neck in cool water. He became delirious, but it was to be expected, the physician had said. If he survived the deliriousness and became coherent again, his chance of dying diminished.

  Elizabeth stayed by him through it all, until he began flailing and yelling. She had to leave the room a moment then to calm herself, though she concealed her weakness by running to fetch Lord Antony. Con couldn’t be left to toss in his bed, not when he might reopen his wound. He needed one of his brothers to hold him down, and Lord Antony had offered his help, should it become necessary.

  Lady Montborne remained with him. Her eyes were kind and worried, not judging, when Elizabeth stepped out. With Lord Antony’s calming presence behind her, she returned to the room even more determined to be strong for Con. But she fell to her knees and folded her arms over his mattress when he began to sob, “Oliver. Oliver. Come back. I can’t have failed…”

  His wretched self-blame broke her heart. He’d done all he could. Surely he must know she didn’t fault him for her father’s treachery, or for her own failing.

  Con wrapped his hands in the bedsheet and slammed his fists against the mattress. He cursed Captain Finn. A stream of profanity even Mrs. Finn would be proud of. Elizabeth lifted her head from her forearms. She couldn’t give in to Nicholas, either. How had she not seen it earlier? She’d all but abandoned Oliver just because Nicholas had taken him. Why hadn’t she tried to talk to her former lover? She’d given in without a thought to fighting him toe to toe, just as she’d done when he’d ordered her out of her apartment rooms so many weeks ago.

  He hadn’t cowed her. The moment Con was well again, she’d haunt Nicholas’s front steps until he let her in. Or if he didn’t, she’d come back again the next day, and the next, until he knew that no matter what he tried, what underhandedness he perpetrated, she would never give up on Oliver.

  Oliver would know she’d tried, even if she never succeeded.

  Night turned to day. His brothers entered and left, all but Darius. She and Lady Montborne attempted to feed him broth and water, but most of it ended up on the bedsheet and they had to change his bedding again.

  He slept, and he cried out. She did everything she could to comfort him.

  Another agonizing day passed before she was awakened by Lady Montborne shaking her shoulder. “The fever has broken, Elizabeth! The dreams are gone.”

  Elizabeth blinked the sleep from her eyes and sat up. Con’s face looked pale and peaceful beneath the deep purple bruises marring his skin. She reached out and touched his forehead, just under the bandage. Cool. Her heart soared. She felt the first relief she’d had since the day the constables had come to seize her son. “He’ll live?”

  Lady Montborne nodded vigorously. Her lips pressed together. Then she turned and dashed from the room.

  She reappeared moments later with Lord Bart trailing behind her. He wasn’t smiling, but relief softened his eyes. “Mother is asking if you’re still having the wedding here. It would have been in a few hours.”

  Elizabeth came to her feet. She hadn’t given the ceremony a second tho
ught. Just known with all of her heart that she must marry Constantine, sometime. When he was well again. “Didn’t you call it off?”

  He shook his head. “That would have been admitting defeat.”

  A smile crept across her lips. In an earlier age, this man would have been a warrior. “Then I shall have to freshen up a bit. How long before they arrive?”

  Before Lord Bart could respond, her hand was seized. She startled and looked at Con. He had her hand in a loose grip but the set of his jaw was determined. “Don’t leave me.”

  She laughed nervously. “I can’t get married looking like this.”

  He didn’t let her hand go. His cheek fell against the pillow, however, as if the effort to hold his head up were too much for him. “Don’t leave.”

  Lady Montborne and Lord Bart conversed a moment, then he left and she came to Constantine’s side. She bent and fell against him, hugging his prone form as best as his position would allow. “My son, oh, my son! You can’t know my relief.”

  He released Elizabeth’s hand and attempted to pat his mother’s arm. “There, there. I’ll do my best to stay clear of knives in the future.”

  She gave him another awkward squeeze, then straightened to look at him. Love suffused her face. It was a look Elizabeth had never seen on her own face, and yet she knew it. Lady Montborne adored Constantine. Elizabeth’s dazed realization was tinged with childlike jealousy…and her own motherly ache. Jealousy, because her parents hated her with a violent passion. An aching, because she’d never feel as deeply for any other person as she did for her Oliver. She might love Constantine wholeheartedly, but that love would never be the same as her own breath or the pulse of her heart. A mother’s love for her child was simply…different.

  If the roles had been reversed, and she’d been watching her son die instead of Constantine, would she have been as considerate of another woman’s claim to him? Could she have been generous enough to allow the woman—a virtual stranger—to stay at his side for days and nights while he suffered?

  For all of her adult life, Elizabeth had thought only of herself. Without hesitation, she knew she wouldn’t have shared her son with another woman, let alone a woman of questionable motivations. Yet Con’s family knew a different way. The fact that they’d so quickly accepted and included her, despite all the reasons not to, both warmed her and left her feeling vulnerable. Without Con, she wouldn’t have to consider anyone else…and yet… she’d be entirely alone again.

  Con’s bandages were changed and he was given a hair comb and a damp cloth to get himself in order. Once his hair was slicked into wet tufts and his teeth given a scrubbing with paste, he looked up at her and blinked as if really seeing her for the first time. “You look a mess, my love. My abject apologies. Please, see to your own toilette. I can wait.” He laughed. “I’m obviously not going anywhere.”

  She pulled a face. “Are you frightened by what you might be getting yourself into? Every morning, with me looking just like this?”

  His eyes glowed with so much emotion, she thought her heart would burst. “You look beautiful to me. More so because it would seem you never left my side. But it’s your wedding day. You should have the opportunity to wear your prettiest dress.”

  Lord Bart came into the doorway. He ushered in Mrs. Dalton, who bore a ribbon-tied box and a basket. Elizabeth had never been so happy to see her toiletries in all her life.

  “There’s a gown and other things, too, madam,” Mrs. Dalton said. “I brought several of your favorites.”

  “The servants will have a bath ready for you in a trice,” Lady Montborne said, beaming at her dark-haired son. “Lord Bart has it all arranged.”

  It was Con’s turn to pull a face. “It would seem my desires weren’t heeded at all. I must congratulate Elizabeth. She’s already won over all of you.”

  Elizabeth was afraid to hope it was true. Flustered, she ducked from the room. Mrs. Dalton showed her to a room where her gowns and bandeau boxes were stacked, and a smaller dressing room where a tub steamed with hot water. A servant knocked and imparted the news that the clergyman and Lord and Lady Trestin were waiting, and Elizabeth hurried to bathe as quickly as she could. She’d had days to think of little else but becoming Con’s wife. Yet her motions felt mechanical, as if she were in someone else’s body. Someone else’s hand taking up the soap. Someone else’s body being patted dry with a towel. Someone else sitting for her hair to be brushed out, dried by the fire and arranged. Shimmying into her stockings, stays, petticoats and gown, she couldn’t shake the sensation that this couldn’t be happening to her. She didn’t deserve a man as kind and giving as Lord Constantine. How could he want to marry her?

  She couldn’t shake her numbness. When she returned to Con’s room with Mrs. Dalton, his entire family was milling in the room. The guests of honor were brought in and suddenly, Elizabeth was married. Without so much as Con rising from his sickbed. It happened so quickly, it seemed that one minute they were repeating their vows and the next, huzzahs were chorusing through the room and Constantine was beaming at everyone. Elizabeth smiled, accepting hugs from Celeste and Lady Montborne, feeling her heart soar with happiness, yet not fully comprehending that it was done.

  Con didn’t seem to experience any such daze. He joked with his brothers and let his mother weep over his shoulder. But Elizabeth, though she didn’t try to keep her happiness hidden, couldn’t quite feel it was real. For all the men she’d thought she’d loved, she’d never known anything like her feelings for Con. He took her many faults and tamed them. And for the few good qualities she did have, he made them better. Motherhood, for one. He took her lopsided little family and completed it.

  Just hours ago, she’d thought he might die right beside her. Everything seemed to be happening at once, and to someone else. She couldn’t be this lucky. God hadn’t intended for her to be this happy.

  But of course, there was something missing. As she looked on, feeling as though she were floating over the congratulatory scene of someone else’s wedding, she felt a hollowness only a mother could feel. It would have been the best day of her life, if only Oliver had been there, too.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CON’S TRIAL COMMENCED one week after his wedding day. The bruises that covered his face and body were only just healing. Being bedridden had put a damper on his plans to find a suitable townhouse to let, one he could use to present himself to the court as a responsible, settled family man ready to care for a wife and child. It also meant he’d been unable to get his affairs in order, or consummate his marriage.

  He regretted that last the most.

  As he was led by his brother to the bar where he would stand in silence for the duration of the trial, he barely heard the din of reporters and spectators crowded into the gallery in the hopes of witnessing the brother of a peer be sentenced to a grueling fate. A fate less than death, Bart had assured him, for child stealing alone wasn’t considered a hangable offense. But a fate he feared nonetheless.

  Please, let him not be transported.

  He didn’t recognize most of the people assembled to witness his fall from grace. Nevertheless, he wasn’t alone. With the exception of Bart, his brothers and mother were cloistered in one corner of the gallery. Elizabeth sat stoically with them.

  He gazed at her, but her attention remained stubbornly fixed on the large windows over his head. His heart went to her. She’d always been so difficult to read. She’d hidden her true feelings for him from him and he’d had to move mountains to find them.

  Not today. Today, she was terrified. Was it fear for his fate? Or her son’s? Both?

  Another wave of panic crashed over him. He’d never told her he loved her. Not the right way, anyway. If he was to be transported, he would have to find time alone—

  He tore his eyes from his wife. He wouldn’t think like that.

  He forced himself to continue his assessment of the Central Criminal Court. Captain Finn sat at a semicircular table between a formidable
man in a dark blue robe and the large, ruddy figure of Lord Wyndham. Wyndham’s side-whiskers quivered as he spoke to Finn. His brows crowded low over his eyes in a scowl.

  The Recorder of London entered. Con caught Bart’s eye. His brother was his only defense counsel. He’d never relied on anyone else this much.

  Seats scraped as the gathered rose in deference. The trial was called to order, and Con squinted against a bright light shining in his eyes as he tried to see into the jurors’ stalls. Squinting at them, with his face bashed to a pulp, likely wasn’t making him look any more trustworthy, however, and he soon turned to concentrating on smoothing the furrow between his eyes. Lord Wyndham continued to scowl.

  “And now we shall proceed,” the Recorder said, leaning forward so that the gray curls of his wig brushed the table and his forearms bore the brunt of his weight.

  Con’s blood ran cold. This was it, then.

  The Recorder’s voice echoed through the Old Bailey. “Lord Constantine Alexander is indicted for that he, on the nineteenth of August, did by force take and carry away a certain male child of four months old, with intent to deprive Captain Nicholas Finn, the father of said child. Second count, for like offense, only stating the child to be taken by fraud.” He looked to Finn and his counsel. “You may call your first witness.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” the man in the dark cloak replied. He turned to Finn. “Captain Finn himself will be our first witness.”

  There was a pause as Finn moved to the witness box directly across from Con. His adversary looked on him with a mixture of pity and disgust, and just the right touch of pain.

  “Captain Finn, tell us about the fraud perpetrated by the prisoner.”

  Con forced his hands to relax at his sides. Willed his heart not to come thumping through his chest.

  “Almost fourteen months ago,” Finn said in a clear voice, “my mistress informed me that she was increasing. She believed herself to be in love with me and fancied we should elope.”