A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle

by Christi Caldwell

  “I did not lie with anyone,” she bit out. She’d had but two kisses from the man who’d been her betrothed and those were brief, chaste ones upon her lips. Never anything more.

  Her mother scoffed. “Are you calling the duke a liar?”

  She stiffened. Is that the way of this coldly reserved world they lived in? A mother would believe lies upon a page over her own daughter’s words? “I am.”

  Her mother’s broad nose flared and she studied Genevieve. Fury burned from within her eyes. Then, she quickly smoothed her features. Of course, one must never show emotion. How shameful for her mother to drop that mask for even a sliver of a moment. “You are ruined.”

  Yes, she was quite ruined. Beyond marriageable. What happened to women such as that? Rumored virtue-less, may as well, in fact, be truly without virtue. What happened to those ladies? A panicky laugh built in her chest.

  “You cannot stay here.”

  That decisive, emotionless statement snapped her back from the precipice of her silent ramblings. “No,” she agreed. There had, however, been something oddly comforting in the schoolroom. A peace. A quiet. The schoolroom had been the one place she’d felt accomplished. She’d earned the praise and pride of her nursemaids and governesses. Of course, on the day of her greatest failure, this place harkened to the time in her life when she’d done right. Genevieve made to step around her mother, when the woman shot a hand out, and wrapped it around her forearm. “I am leaving,” she said with a frown, wincing at her mother’s painful grip.

  “Not this room, Genevieve.”

  A pebble of dread knotted in her belly. Perhaps it was the events of the morn. Perhaps it was the shock of betrayal. And yet, she could not make sense of those decisive four words. “I don’t understand.”

  “Surely you see that you cannot remain here. You will be a visible blight upon your sister’s future. As long as you are here, people will talk and whisper. But your sister is young enough that she might make a respectable match in four years.”

  Did her mother truly believe her absence would make all of that go away? It was madness. Her mother spoke as though, in leaving, Genevieve’s very existence would be forgotten. By the firm set to her mother’s mouth, she knew. She’d be banished to the country. She smoothed her shaking palms over the front of her rumpled wedding dress. “Very well,” she said, proud of the steady quality of those words. But inside, she was shaking with equal parts rage and hurt betrayal—first her betrothed and now her mother. Was there loyalty, anywhere? “We will return to the country and when we return—”

  “Not us,” her mother put in impatiently. “You need to leave.”

  A dull humming filled her ears. She shook her head. No.

  “Yes.” The marchioness took a step closer.

  She imagined living in a world away from Gillian and tears flooded her eyes. Even though she’d so often deliberately needled her sister through the years, those bothersome sibling behaviors were now gifts she’d not give up. Ice traveled along her spine. Her teeth clattered noisily and she hugged her arms close. “Wh-where would you send me?” she croaked as the reality of her mother’s cold disdain stole the last of her logic. Her mother sought to snip her from the fabric of the family as though she was nothing more than a bothersome thread dangling from an embroidery frame.

  “Your grandfather’s property in Kent.” Her mother pursed her lips. Rumored to be as frigid and unyielding as a winter freeze, her parents would send her there. “I do not hold you entirely to blame. I attended Mrs. Belden’s when I was young.” She peeled her lip back in a disappointed sneer. “Perhaps you would have been best served by attending that institution. Instead, we indulged you with lax governesses and nursemaids.” She gave a flick of her hand. “Regardless, the mistake was mine for allowing you to remain here with those who encouraged your flights of fancy. Now we are to live with those circumstances.”

  We. A familial equation Genevieve no longer fit within. She turned her hands up and managed but one word. “Please.” The entreaty emerged garbled and hoarse.

  Her mother scowled and ignored the outstretched offering. “Would you be so selfish as to steal your sister’s right to a respectable marriage?”

  Guilt sliced at her heart. Even though it wasn’t her fault. Even though the duke’s words were all lies. They belonged to a Society where women had no voice and certainly one that would never be believed against a duke. And yet, for that, she would be sent away and never again see Gillian. She let her arm fall to her side. “I cannot leave,” she whispered.

  “Of course you will,” her mother said with a matter-of-factness that froze her on the inside. “For Gillian, you will.” Then, turning on her heel, she started for the door.

  A burgeoning panic clogged Genevieve’s throat. “Wait,” she managed to cry out, as her mother gripped the door handle. “When can I return?” Her body trembled with the force of terror spreading through her.

  Her mother cast a look over her shoulder. “Why, when your sister makes a respectable match.” On that sure pronouncement, the marchioness left, closing the door behind her.

  And just like that, the thread was cut.

  Chapter 1

  London England,

  Spring 1818

  As Lady Genevieve Farendale stepped through the front doors of the lavish London townhouse, she wondered just exactly how parents decided going about ending an imposed exile on one’s daughter.

  Was it a certain number of days or hours? Or was it something more arbitrary? As simple as waking up one day and realizing that there was, indeed, a fabric of the family missing that needed to be restored. Given their remarkable absence from her life all these years, she’d venture it certainly wasn’t the latter.

  Whatever precipitated the reinstatement into one’s family, however it had come about, five years had been the amount of time. Five years of remaining in the country while her family spent the Seasons in London. Five years of no letters or words. And five years marked the end of her penance. Penance for an imagined crime.

  “My lady?”

  Genevieve blinked at the butler, Dunwithy. Time had left wrinkles at the corners of his rheumy eyes and upon his cheeks. And yet the spectacles perched on his slightly crooked nose were the same. Odd, a servant should be more a member of the household than the marquess’ oldest daughter. The man stared expectantly at her, startling her into movement.

  Wordlessly, she shrugged out of her modest cloak and turned it over to his waiting hands. Other servants, unfamiliar, young footmen rushed forward to collect the trunks and valise. Of course, they would not have been in her father’s employ all those years ago. As such, they’d not remember the shame of that long ago day.

  “May I show you to your chambers, my lady?” the butler offered.

  With the servant’s question echoing through the soaring foyer done in Italian marble, she looked about. What had she expected? A warm, familial greeting from an abjectly broken mother and father who pleaded her forgiveness? An exuberant reunion from the younger sister, whom she’d not spoken to in years?

  “My lady?” the butler urged again.

  How long had she remained silent with no one but her ancient grandfather? He was now given to sleeping his days away and leaving her to her own thoughts for company. And so, she lifted her head and followed behind the butler. As she began the long walk to her once familiar rooms, one of the liveried footmen stole a sideways glance at her and then quickly looked away. A dull flush marred his cheeks.

  Her lips twisted in a bitter, humorless smile. So they’d heard the whispers, too. What had they heard exactly? Tales of the shamelessly wanton lady who’d spread her legs for her betrothed and the gentleman’s friends? That had been a popular one bandied about. In fact, it had been the one that had found her standing alone at the altar with a collection of intimate guests looking on. Or mayhap it had been the rumor spread that she’d slept with her betrothed’s younger brother. That had caused quite the stir among the gossips…and
even the non-gossips.

  The thick carpets muffled the sound of her footfalls. As she walked, Genevieve passed her gaze over the familiar in some ways, altogether different in other aspects of her home. The gilt frames bearing the proud Farendale ancestors remained fixed in the very spots they’d always been. Those pompous bewigged lords stared down their long Roman noses. However, the wallpaper was different. Pale satin, that harkened to the country skies of Kent, and as much as she’d thought she despised her banishment and abhorred the country, she’d been wrong. So wrong. A hungering gripped her to go back to that remote estate where she could paint and write and sing and simply be—without any of the whispers and only the servants for company.

  But alas, it was not to be. Because as time had proven once before, the dream of simplicity was all imagined. Proper betrothals; broken and shattered. The allure of anonymity, ended in one six-hour carriage ride.

  “Here we are, my lady,” the butler murmured and opened the door.

  Genevieve tugged off her gloves. She lingered in the doorway. “Thank you. That will be all,” she said dismissively, her voice hoarse from ill use.

  Relief flared in the servant’s eyes. He backed away and rushed down the hall with a speed reserved for a man twenty years his junior. She hovered in the doorway. Passing her soft leather gloves into one hand, she brushed the other over the doorjamb.

  Five years. It had been five years since she’d last stepped foot out of these chamber doors. One thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days to be precise. Her throat worked and she damned the weakness that came rushing back from simply being in this godawful place. But she’d braved isolation from her family and Society. Endured cruel whispers and lewd offers. Given all that, stepping inside her bedchambers really was rather insignificant. Willing her legs into movement, Genevieve forced her feet over the threshold. Her breath caught and she looked around.

  From the pale pink of the wallpaper to the floral Aubusson carpet, in this room, time stood still. She wandered over to the canopied bed and trailed her fingertips along the ivory coverlet. Why, even the upholsteries were the same. The only thing that had been missing from this nauseatingly cheerful room—had been the girl who’d slept within these walls. Setting her gloves on the rose-inlaid side table, she perched on the edge of the mattress and passed her gaze about. It collided with the only splash of green in this pink and white space.

  Shoving to her feet, her legs carried her unbidden over to that rounded, porcelain perfume bottle. With numb fingers, she picked up the piece, a gift given long ago, and liquid sloshed around inside. She fixed on the bucolic couple painted within the center of the bottle; a loyal love knelt at the feet of his sweetheart—their happiness forever suspended in time. How singularly wrong that any piece of him should remain in this room when she’d been sent away. Genevieve tightened her grip about the fragile piece; her knuckles whitening.

  A tentative rap sounded at the door and she yanked her head up. “Enter,” she called out, quickly setting the bottle down.

  The door opened revealing her maid, Delores—the one loyal figure she’d known these years. “Hullo, Lady Genevieve.”

  She mustered a smile. “Delores.” The foolish part of her soul where hope still dwelt had believed Gillian or her mother would be there. Yet, why should they? For the time that had gone, Genevieve may as well have been a stranger. Time had marched on. They’d lived their lives, and she…well, she had lived hers.

  Delores gave her a small, encouraging nod. “His Lordship has summoned you.”

  Genevieve’s weak attempt at a grin faded. Already?

  “Yes, Lady Genny.”

  She gave her head a shake, not realizing she’d spoken aloud. Genevieve nodded. “I’ll be but a moment,” she assured the young woman who nodded and then backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  Genevieve stood there a long moment with the porcelain clock atop the mantel marking the passing seconds. Nothing her parents had ever done had ever been without purpose. The lavish wedding celebration they’d planned for their eldest daughter to the sought after Duke of Aumere. The abrupt and lengthy exile of that same daughter. Of course, her return would have been driven by some motives which could only be a product of her father’s wealth, power, or title. Nervousness twisted in her belly and she fixed on the passing ticks of the clock.

  With the powerlessness in her existence these years, and even in this impending meeting with her father, there was something so wholly empowering in keeping that same faithless, shameful parent waiting. She sighed. Alas, all good moments came to an end. Time had taught her that in spades. Squaring her shoulders, Genevieve stalked over to the front of the room and, unhesitant, opened the door. Silence reigned in the corridors.

  But she’d wager the remainder of her sanity that servants laid in wait, holding their breath and listening for that long-overdue meeting between father and daughter. Stepping outside, she picked her way along the carpeted halls, onward to an office she’d been summoned too many times to remember. She’d been summoned there as a girl who’d earned his displeasure for her scandalous sketches and paintings. And again as a young woman who’d secured the match of the Season and, for a fleeting moment, earned his pride and approval.

  Then there had been the last meeting in that dreaded office. The meeting when her father, the person who’d helped give her life, had spat at her and pledged to never let her set foot in these halls again. Genevieve reached his office and came to a stop. She stared at the silver handle.

  When she pulled that door open, she would reenter a world she’d never again wanted to be in. It would be like ripping open the bandage on the darkest mistakes of her foolish youth, and the resentments and pain she’d managed to bury these past five years.

  She firmed her jaw. She’d been called whore, liar, and wanton these many years. But no one would ever dare call her coward. Genevieve knocked once.

  “Enter.”

  Even as she’d been expecting it, she jumped. That thunderous boom had not been diminished by time. It still carried the weight of power and strength it always had. Genevieve pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  He didn’t even deign to look at her.

  She stood there, much like the recalcitrant child summoned to these rooms years and years earlier, awaiting the scolding to be laid out. Those were times when governesses and nursemaids had failed to tame her. She stood there…as though she’d never been gone. Look at me. Look at me and acknowledge me after five years. Tell me you were wrong.

  Her father tossed down his pen and picked his head up. But for the faint dusting of gray at his temples and several wrinkles on his high, noble brow, there was no hint of aging. He was the same man who’d so easily shipped her away. “Genevieve,” he called out and, jolted into movement, she pulled the door closed.

  No need to give the servants easy access to the gossip about the Farendale whore. “Father,” she said and came forward. She did a quick look about for her mother. Of course, she’d not bother to be here. Why should she? She’d had her other perfectly unscandalous daughter to worry after. The muscles of her stomach tightened and she hated that she should care still about their disregard. Without awaiting permission, Genevieve moved to the leather winged back chair in front of his desk and sat. “I trust you are well?”

  Her father’s mouth tightened. “The scandal has not gone away,” he said without preamble.

  “I am also well. Thank you for asking,” she said deliberately needling. By the vein bulging at the corner of his eye, she was one wrong utterance away from one of his notorious diatribes. “The scandal? Which scandal do you refer to?” And yet she’d always been hopelessly troublesome.

  He opened and closed his mouth several times. “The scandal,” he bit out.

  Genevieve inclined her head. “Ah, yes. Of course.” She paused and gave a solemn nod. “My scandal.” She drummed her fingertips on the arm of her chair until he pointedly glared at her hand and she stopped mid-move
ment.

  “You would be so flippant,” he said in frosty tones. “You speak so very casually without a regard for the fact that Gillian is gossiped about.” The marquess banged his fist on his desk. “Not a single suitor.”

  A frisson of guilt unfurled inside for the sister who’d be so marked as an immoral creature, all because of Society’s opinion of her. “I am sorry,” she said softly and folded her hands on her lap. She studied the interlocked digits. With but four years separating them, Gillian had been her loyal friend; albeit a young one. She’d lain upon Genevieve’s coverlet and pleaded for tales of the balls and soirees she’d attended and the suitors who’d earned a dance.

  And now, by her father’s account, Gillian had never known those perceived thrilling moments herself because of Genevieve’s scandal. That hungering to return to the obscurity of the countryside filled her and she launched her appeal. “I do not see how my being in London will serve to benefit Gillian. I can only serve as a reminder. Would it not be best if you allow me to return?” Please. Please let me go. Was there really much life for her in Kent, though? A voice needled at the back of her mind. Was that the future she dreamed of? One in which she was the detested, shameful child without any control of her future and fate?

  Her father folded his arms at his chest and eyed her contemplatively. “We have tried purging your memory from Society. The whispers have only persisted because of your stay in the country. Speculation of a…” His cheeks turned a mottled red. “Child.”

  “Ah, of course,” she said dryly, while inside she seethed with a gnawing fury. Her stay in the country? That was what they should call it? Not, the banishment forced upon her, but rather, a stay? She remained silent, wishing him to state his piece so she could be gone.

  “No,” her father said at last. “We’ve tried hiding our dirty secret.” Which would be her. She was that dirty secret. “To no avail. The only thing we did not do…” She went still. Oh, good God, no. “Is face it head on.” No. No. The litany ran around her mind.