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

by Christi Caldwell

  She’d just not have everything she’d always dreamed of.

  Unbidden, her gaze went to Cedric’s brother-in-law seated across from his wife. As another silent, special exchange passed between that pair, Genevieve hated herself for envying them that unadulterated love. Using the tip of her fork, she shoved her largely untouched eggs about her plate and stole another look at her husband.

  What would their marriage be like? He’d spoken to her of living a life of her pleasures; a life that included artwork and gardening, and no infernal balls or soirees, but she’d been so enrapt in his knowledge of her interests and the freedom he’d presented, that she’d not allowed her mind to consider what they would look like—together.

  Mayhap I did not consider it because I didn’t truly wish to know…

  Her throat constricted under the weighted truth—she wanted to matter to him. Surely, with his romantic gesture in selecting Kensington Gardens, surely there was more there. Even as he’d given no indication that he anything more than liked her. With trembling fingers, Genevieve set her fork down as terror stuck in her chest.

  Cedric settled his larger hand over hers. She started. “You’ve not touched a bite,” he whispered close to her ear and delicious shivers fanned out at the point of contact. “Lady St. Albans.”

  She started. Lady St. Albans. There was something foreign and at the same time…terrifyingly right in being linked to this man. “I find I am not hungry,” she conceded.

  He tipped his head to where the duke sat, frowning at the head of the table. “Mayhap you’d care for the kippers, then?” he asked, just as the icy lord placed one of those oiled fish in his mouth.

  Cedric rang a laugh from her lips and there was something so very freeing in being permitted that unrestrained expression without recrimination or chiding from her strait-laced parents.

  From his seat opposite her, Lord Montfort called out, interrupting her teasing exchange with Cedric. “I confess,” he said loudly, as all the other guests fell quiet. “I am intrigued by the woman who has brought the notorious St. Albans up to scratch.”

  Necessity. With the collection of stares trained on her, she could hardly provide that unromantic, if very true, reality. She gave him a wry smile. “There is hardly anything intriguing left about me, my lord. I daresay I’m well known by most.”

  Her mother’s horrified gasp echoed from the room.

  Cedric captured Genevieve’s fingers and twining them with his, he raised their joined hands to his mouth. “My wife is being modest.” Actually her words had been anything but modest. It was, however, nigh impossible to point out such a fact when he caressed the inseam of her wrist with his lips in that heady, distracting way. “It was our mutual love of grand libraries,” he said, directing his words at her.

  Her throat worked as he took her down a not-too-distant path of his hand on her foot in the duke’s library.

  The earl erupted into a fit of hilarity. His shoulders shook with the force of his laughter. “St. Albans and books,” he said during his bout of amusement. “Next, you’ll tell me the gentleman prefers art and poetry.”

  How was it possible for a man who’d known Cedric since he’d been a boy to know even less than she did about the gentleman? She frowned and opened her mouth to disabuse him of his erroneous assumption about her husband, but Cedric lightly squeezed her fingers. Genevieve looked up questioningly, but he gave a slight shake. She frowned. “Do you find a problem with artwork and literature, my lord?” she put to the earl, refusing to let the matter rest.

  The gentleman settled his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Not all artwork and literature,” he said on a whisper infused with a wicked edge.

  “Ah.” She continued, not missing a proverbial beat. “Then you must surely be a devotee of I Modi by Raimondi?”

  The rakish earl closed his mouth and opened it, and then promptly closed it. A slow, approving smile turned his lips.

  “I do not understand,” her mother looked from her daughter to Lord Montfort. “What is I Modi?”

  And apparently, even a sinner was capable of embarrassment for the earl flushed. “I am unfamiliar with that artist.” The roguish glimmer in his eyes bespoke the lie there as he promptly redirected the discourse. “I must know Lady St. Albans, what was it that had you select Kensington Gardens for your nuptials.”

  Her selection? She furrowed her brow. “My lord, I don’t—?”

  Cedric grabbed his glass of wine and held it aloft. “A toast,” he called out quickly. “To my wife, the devotee of art who, with her beauty, can rival any masterpiece.” His words were meant to distract. That much was clear by his hasty interruption and the mottled flush marring his cheeks. Yet, his toast combined with the heated look he trained on her, momentarily obliterated the confusion stirred by Lord Montfort’s incorrect assumption.

  A brief moment later, he was drawn into a discussion with the earl. Genevieve sat there, studying her husband as he spoke: his practiced grin, his effortless words, and the ease with which he charmed a smile from even her mother. Compliments from him slid off his tongue with an ease a bard would have been hard-pressed to not admire. She picked up her drink and took a sip of water. But what was real where Cedric was concerned? Rather, what was real where she was concerned with her husband?

  “I have not properly welcomed you to the family.” The blonde beauty at her side jerked her attention sideways. With the delicate planes of her face and piercing eyes, she possessed a regal beauty that painters would vie to capture on canvas. For that beauty, however, there was a wide smile that reached her eyes. “So please, allow me to rectify that.” She held out her fingers. “Welcome.”

  Genevieve quickly took her hand. “Thank you, my lady.”

  The marchioness gave her a gentle look. “Please, we are sisters, you must call me Cara.”

  Sisters. Yet, she knew nothing of this woman who shared Cedric’s blood. Were they close? Had he been the protective sort of brother? With each piece she discovered about him, there was a need to know more about who he truly was. Unbidden, she again slid her gaze over to her husband who now conversed with Gillian. Whatever he’d said roused a snorting laugh that earned a frown from her mother; raising the gentleman a notch in Genevieve’s estimation.

  “What was he like?” she asked quietly, looking to her new sister-in-law.

  The young woman froze with her fork halfway to her mouth. She hesitated and then lowered the silver utensil to her plate. “What was he like?” she murmured. Except, the way she worried her lower lip and skirted Genevieve’s question spoke more than any word could.

  “As a boy?” she prodded.

  “I…” Lady Cara briefly settled her gaze on her brother. “I do not know. Cedric was taken under my father’s wing early on and schooled in the ways of a future duke.” The faintest smile; a sad smile hovered on her lips. “A duke does not have much need of a daughter.”

  Genevieve cast a pointed look in her own father’s direction. “Neither does a marquess,” she said gently.

  They shared a slight smile borne of understanding; a kindred connection that came from two women who’d really served no worthy purpose beyond the match they might make. As she took in the hard, emotionless set to the duke’s face, Genevieve’s heart tugged. Where her father’s disinterest had afforded her a world of make believe, pretend, and the friendship of her sister, what must it have been like for Cedric? What must it have been like for a boy to grow up under that coldness?

  “There are…no stories you might share of him?” she asked tentatively, hating that she craved those pieces like cherished treasures.

  “We are not close,” Lady Cara said with a directness she appreciated but that brought a frown to Genevieve’s lips.

  Are. Not were. Having been best friends with Gillian until that relationship had been severed with her removal, it was anathema to all she knew about siblings to expect Lady Cara didn’t know something of her brother.

  “You see, my brother has
long lived for h-h…” she stumbled over her words and paused, appearing to search for appropriate words. “Himself,” she settled for.

  The muscles of her belly clenched. Even as the charming rogue with an ever-present grin, the gentleman who’d met her in the gardens and spoken of art, or chased away her sadness with a game of short-answers, that was not a man who cared only for himself.

  Lady Cara searched her face. “But,” she put forward tentatively. “I saw him in the gardens this morn and beside you even now,” she cast her gaze briefly in her brother’s direction. “And the way he is with you is not how he is or has been ever with anyone.”

  Emotion swelled in her heart. The romantic Lady Cara who wore her love for the gentleman she was married to would see stars amidst dust. “Oh,” she said softly. “There is nothing there.” Not on Cedric’s part. At least nothing that moved beyond the practical. Genevieve fiddled with the stem of her crystal glass.

  “You do not care for him, then?” Lady Cara asked, surprise flaring in her eyes.

  Stealing a quick look to be sure Cedric remained engrossed in discussion with Gillian and Lord Montfort, Genevieve spoke in hushed tones. “You misunderstand me.” She cared for him. More than was practical or sensible and more than could ever make sense for their brief acquaintance. “I do care for him. He, however.” Her lips pulled involuntarily. It would be unfair to allow his sister to believe Cedric had given her anything different than what he’d pledged.

  “However?” Lady Cara gently encouraged.

  “Ours is a marriage of convenience,” she settled for lamely. Even as the words slipped from her, she winced. How mercenary that admission painted her.

  The other young lady said nothing for a long moment. “Perhaps,” she said, a pensive glimmer in her cautious eyes. “But there is more. I see it in you and I see it in my brother.” She leaned close. “When I’ve never seen any emotion from him, ever.”

  The Marquess of Grafton called his wife’s attention and Genevieve was left with her thoughts and Lady Cara’s fanciful words.

  Good God, he would have traded all the property coming to him with his marriage this day to be done with the infernal wedding feast.

  And it was not because the polite event was hardly his usual pleasures or pursuits, because if he was being just a bit truthful with himself, even with his miserable father at the head of the table, there had been something…rather pleasant in the laughter of his wife and the handful of other assembled guests. And in Genevieve’s subtle challenge of Montfort’s words. Except with her mention of I Modi, she’d only served to conjure all manner of wicked acts and positions marked in those wooden engravings and captured on forbidden pages.

  Now he sat beside his very casual wife, conjuring an image of looking through that notoriously scandalous book and putting all sixteen deeds into practice with her. Ultimately, however, he wished to spirit his wife from this oppressive townhouse he’d called home for nearly twenty years, reserve her smile for himself this day, and make love to her at last.

  As it was, she remained engrossed in a conversation with his sister.

  His skin pricked with the sense of being watched and he pulled his gaze away from Genevieve. His father stared back, his ageless face a familiar, expressionless mask, but then he turned his lips up in a slight, mockingly triumphant grin that glinted in his hard eyes. Wordlessly, he lifted his glass in Cedric and Genevieve’s direction.

  Cedric narrowed his eyes and tension rolled through him. But for the handful of curt words and furious eyes, the bastard had given little indication of his thoughts yesterday when Cedric expressed his intentions of wedding Genevieve. Sitting beside his bride, there was a perverse satisfaction in being married to one his father so disapproved of.

  “Are you all right?”

  His new wife’s quiet inquiry pulled his attention, jerking him back from thoughts of his coldhearted sire. Cedric transferred his glass to his other hand and claimed Genevieve’s fingers, raising them to his lips once more. “How can I not be all right when I’m wed to a minx who knows Raimondi’s work?”

  A becoming blush stained her pale cheeks. “You are a shameless flirt who is a master at diverting questions, Cedric Andrew Josiah James.”

  He grimaced. Did the lady miss nothing? “And you recalled that mouthful?”

  She smiled. “Yes, well, it is a lot of name for any man. I’d imagine even more so for a boy.” Then, Genevieve favored him with a slow wink. “I daresay we must be more judicious for the sake of a child when selecting names for our own.”

  Her words roused another flurry of wicked musings that involved guiding her naked form upon his massive four-poster bed, and laying between her legs… Until the reality of what she’d said trickled in. He yanked at his cravat. “Er…yes…” Because really, what did a gentleman who’d been clear that they’d never need worry after a child say to that?

  Little silver sparkles danced in her expressive green eyes. “I am merely teasing, Cedric,” she assured patting his hand and his shoulders sagged with relief. “Your name is a splendid one, too.”

  This was familiar. Pretty words and compliments he could handle. Not the serious talks of babes and anything that grounded them in the permanency he’d spent the better part of his life avoiding. “Thank you Genevieve Grace Falcot.” Their names went perfectly together; melded as though they’d been meant to be united. Inwardly cringing, he shoved aside such blasted romantic musings. What had she done to him that he didn’t even recognize himself in a mere week of knowing her?

  She waggled her eyebrows. “Well, I do say my mastery of your list is more commendable than the mere two you had to recall.”

  “You could have hundreds of them and I’d have recalled them all,” he said quietly, the words coming from a place of truth and sincerity that terrified the hell out of him.

  Her lips parted as all her amusement faded, replaced with a shocked solemnity that only ratcheted up his level of panic. Then she quickly closed her mouth and gave him a slight smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “As I said, Cedric, you are a rake who possesses a skill with words The Bard himself would have envied you for.”

  She believed his words spoken as nothing more than flirtatious repartee. She was right to that opinion and he’d not bother to correct her with the truth.

  Sipping from his glass of wine, unnerved by his wife’s potent hold over him, Cedric fixed on the passing minutes, until the last bloody course was at last cleared away.

  In short order, the assembled guests filed from the breakfast room. At his side, his wife stole intermittent glances up at him. Why could he not dredge forth the practiced charm? They reached the foyer and servants rushed over with their cloaks. A young footman helped Genevieve into her gray muslin garment and Cedric frowned at the gentle smile she favored the strapping man with that raised a blush on his cheeks. When had he ever cared about whom a lady reserved any or all of her attention for? Yet, the sight of his newly-minted bride charming a damned servant sent a spiral of red fury rolling inside.

  “All the same, aren’t they,” his father bit out in hushed tones for Cedric’s ears. “Get me my heir before that one goes tupping your servants.”

  Cedric jerked and, reflexively, he curled his hands into tight fists to keep from bloodying his sire senseless. He’d not show the bastard a hint of emotion. “Go to hell, Father,” he said cheerfully.

  Genevieve threw her arms around her sister. Folding her in a tight embrace, she whispered something against the young woman’s temple. Tipping his head, he took in that exchange. The young ladies spoke in hushed whispers, exchanging the occasional, periodic nod. There was a familial affection he’d thought impossible. For the first five years of his life, he’d known that warmth from his mother, but those moments had been so very fleeting they may as well have been imagined. He looked to his own sister, smiling alongside his equally smiling brother-in-law, the Marquess of Grafton; two people who, even given their connection, may as well have been strange
rs.

  He’d attended their own wedding as more a formal guest, who just by a matter of chance happened to share the blood of the bride. And he’d not imagined it could be any other way among family.

  Catching his gaze, the Marquess of Grafton came forward with a hand outstretched. “St. Albans.” Gone was all hint of the earlier warmth the man had shown Clarisse. In its place was a frosty reserve.

  Ah, so the man had, at some point, gleaned his wife’s brother was, in fact, a shameful rotter. “Grafton,” he returned, accepting the congratulatory handshake and then he let his arm fall to his side. Suddenly even more eager to be rid of the lot of them and the niggling of caring about their ill-opinion of him, he held his elbow out to Genevieve making her goodbyes to Clarisse. “My lady. Shall we?”

  His wife said one more thing to Cedric’s sister and then came over, took his arm, and let him usher her outside the walls of the oppressive townhouse he’d spent the better part of his life trying to be free of.

  He sucked in a clearing breath of the spring air.

  “It is awful, is it not?” Genevieve murmured, as they made their way to his waiting carriage.

  Cedric raised his brow. “Awful?”

  “The air,” she said by way of explanation.

  Motioning away the waiting servant, Cedric easily handed his wife inside the black barouche. “I rather fancy breathing. The whole allowing a person to live, business.”

  She laughed. “Oh, hush.” His wife settled her lithe frame in the red upholstered squabs. “I referred to the staleness of it.”

  He paused. “Is it stale?” Cedric cast a glance back out the open door at the hazy blue skies. He spent so little time in the country, but a handful of weeks each year in the hunting season, that he’d never really given it a note. His recent winnings last year of the country manor and properties had been in such rubbish shape, he’d been more fixed on the challenge of attempting to resurrect the basic heap of stone. The steward he’d selected oversaw the growing prosperity of that, allowing Cedric to return to London. He claimed the seat opposite his wife.