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

by Christi Caldwell

  Daniel blinked slowly and moved his gaze from Daphne over to the woman, sprawled in her chair. “I am not here for you.” He turned to Daphne. “I am here for you.”

  At the husky quality to that statement, butterflies danced in her belly. Daphne wetted her lips. “Are you unable to find a companion for Lady Alice?” she asked, hesitantly.

  With long, languid steps he advanced. “I am not here because of my sister,” he said to her, his low tone revealing nothing. He continued coming, until the rose-inlaid table halted his forward movement. That mahogany piece stood a small barrier between them.

  Two footmen came rushing into the room, but the marchioness held a staying hand up.

  Daniel moved around the table, so only a handbreadth separated them. He palmed her cheek and she leaned into his touch. “I am here for you.”

  “I don’t under—”

  “I love you,” he interrupted hoarsely.

  The cane slipped from Daphne’s fingers, bounced off the table, and clattered to the floor. The marchioness promptly stood and quickly exited the room, closing the door behind her. His words sang through Daphne, filling her. She touched her fingertips to her lips. He loves me?

  He spared a glance at the closed door and shook his head. “It took me time to realize it,” he said, gathering her hands. He raised them to his mouth, one at a time. The delicate brush of his lips on her skin brought her eyes briefly closed. “It took me thirteen years.” The column of his throat moved. “Mayhap my whole life, to see that which was always in front of me.” He released her hands and she mourned the loss of his touch. “I love you. I’ve loved you since you were a freckle-faced girl searching for treasures at the lake.” Pain glazed his eyes. “I spent my life running from that love…from any sort of feelings because I was so convinced I did not deserve it. I believed everything good that came to me was destroyed. I became what my father told me I was.” A broken laugh burst from his lips. “And because of that, I certainly didn’t deserve you.”

  That self-doubt had kept them apart. She never wanted to be without him, again. “You do,” she whispered, taking his hands once more. Tears clogged her throat and she swallowed hard. “You always did. You just never believed it.”

  “I don’t want to run from you anymore, Daphne,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. All beautiful unrestrained devotion, adoration…and love. “I want you to be my wife and I want to have fiery-haired girls with your spirit and strength. I want you to continue working here, if that is what you so desire.”

  Tears flooded her eyes, blurring his visage. How many gentlemen would support their wives in that endeavor? A single drop streaked down her cheek, followed by another. And another. Daniel caught one tear with the pad of his thumb and brushed it away.

  “I am in dun territory. I don’t have a fortune to offer you,” he said, stepping away. He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a coin. “I only have a treasure and if you marry me, it is yours.” Daniel held up a rusted coin with a lightning crack down the center of the King George III’s face.

  “Daniel?” she swung her gaze between him and that cherished coin. All sound melted away so that a humming filled her ears. Impossible. He pressed the rusted metal, warm from being inside his jacket into her palm. Automatically, Daphne closed her fingers around it and then she forced them open, staring down at the coin found all those years ago. He’d kept it. That small treasure unearthed in the mud beside their lake and he’d held onto it. She shook her head and lifted stunned eyes to his, once more. “But you said…you said you did not keep it,” her words emerged softly.

  Daniel shook his head. “You assumed I’d wagered it away. I merely said that was a likely assumption.” He flashed her a half-grin. “It also proved to be the incorrect one. I always kept it here,” he said quietly, touching his chest. “You were always here.”

  Her hand fell quavering to her side. “Oh, Daniel.”

  His smile died. “As I said, I don’t have a fortune to offer. My uncle has cut me off, but you and I can carve out a life together.” He sank to a knee, wringing a gasp from her. “Daphne Smith, will you marry m—oomph?”

  She hurled herself into his arms, knocking him back. Daniel came down hard with her atop him. “Yes,” Daphne breathed. Capturing his face between her hands, she touched her mouth to his in a gentle meeting. “But I was wrong,” she said when they broke the kiss. His eyebrows dipped, in question. “I didn’t find a treasure all those years ago.” A small, quivering smile turned her lips. “I found love, with you.”

  Daniel guided them back to their feet and flashed another grin. “And you do know what they say about reformed rakes?”

  She shook her head slowly, unable to sort through the joy, love, and giddy lightness dancing inside. “What is that?”

  He flashed her a crooked grin. “We make the best husbands.”

  “You are wrong, Daniel.” Daphne smiled. “They make the best heroes.”

  Epilogue

  One month later

  London, England

  “What does he want?” Daniel gritted out.

  Tanner shifted back and forth on his heels, looking between him and Daphne. “Uh…?” He cast an imploring glance at his mistress.

  “Tell him to go to hell,” Daniel muttered, attending the ledger on his lap. He’d far more interest in: one, making love to his wife, two, attending the investments Begum had vetted for him, and three, well, really anything else than accepting his uncle’s company.

  Seated at his side, Daphne, who’d previously been evaluating her notes for Ladies of Hope, nudged him, earning a grunt.

  Daniel scowled. “I am not—”

  “He is your family,” she reminded him gently.

  He well knew who the bastard was and he’d not have in his household a single bloody person who disparaged his wife. “Tell him to go to—”

  “Sending me to hell now are you, boy?”

  Daniel snapped his teeth together so hard, pain shot to his temple. Tanner shot his employer an apologetic glance and Daniel waved it off. He’d learned through the years, the viscount’s tenacity was a skill that could be taught to battlefield soldiers.

  Daphne came to her feet and when he remained insolently sitting, she glared at him.

  A silent battle ensued. With a sigh, he shoved to his feet.

  “Your wife has far greater manners than you ever did,” his uncle observed, needlessly.

  “My lord,” Daphne murmured, putting a hand on Daniel’s arm.

  He flexed his jaw. “What do you want?” he demanded, not wasting any time with pleasantries.

  Uninvited, the viscount claimed a chair and motioned to the sofa. “Please, please.”

  By God, the high-handedness of the bastard. He opened his mouth to deliver a stinging diatribe, but Daphne caught his gaze.

  Do not, she mouthed.

  “By the accounts in the gossip sheets, congratulations are in order,” Lord Claremont said crisply as he tugged off his gloves and stuffed them inside his jacket. “Your sister is betrothed to the Pratt boy. A poor barrister, but a good man.”

  When Daniel remained stoically silent, Daphne cleared her throat and spoke for them. “She is happy and that matters most.”

  He flicked his stare over her a moment, lingering on her cane, and then with eyes that revealed nothing, looked to Daniel. “I warned you, that should you wed Miss Smith, you’d never see a pence.” He pursed his mouth. “You did it anyway.”

  “I love my wife,” Daniel said, his voice a steely avowal. He slid his gaze over to Daphne and their eyes locked. His throat constricted. He’d let her walk out of his life too many times. He’d never again let her go. No matter the size of the fortune the viscount had dangled before him. “I’d burn your eight thousand pounds before I gave her up,” he said, returning his attention to his uncle.

  His uncle chuckled. “Given your antics at White’s, I well believe that.” The viscount withdrew his gloves and tossed them down onto the table. They la
nded with a quiet thwack. He again reached inside his jacket and fished around. He extracted a thick sheet of folded velum. “Though, burning eight thousand pounds would be a waste of good funds,” he said, handing over the page.

  Daniel stared at the ivory sheet.

  “Go on, take it,” his uncle urged.

  With stiff fingers, Daniel unfolded the sheet and skimmed the page. He furrowed his brow and then whipped his head up. “What game do you play?” Daphne plucked the page from his hands and from the corner of his eye, he detected her racing gaze over the words inked there.

  The viscount reclined in his seat. “No games. You forfeited eight thousand pounds when you gainsaid my wishes and married the woman you loved. But it secured you twenty-thousand,” his uncle said with a small grin.

  His fingers shaking, Daniel accepted the note from Daphne and re-read it. “I do not understand,” he said gruffly.

  His uncle settled his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “Daniel, I’ve known you since you were a babe chasing shadows on the walls with your eyes. Do you believe I truly couldn’t see good in you?” Regret filled the viscount’s gaze and he touched his fingers to an imagined brim as he looked at Daphne. “I’d ask you to forgive me for suggesting you were less than appropriate as a match for my nephew. The moment you stepped into his office and challenged me, I knew you were the only one who could reform this one.”

  His wife favored the viscount with a soft smile. That sincere, tender expression caused a lightness in Daniel’s chest. How had he spent his life hiding from that joy? “It was an equitable match. I may have reformed your nephew, but he reminded me of the joy in living.”

  Pride filled Daniel. Pride in her strength and courage and wit. Her generous heart. And the truth that she belonged to him just as much as he belonged to her. He forced his attention back to his uncle. When Daniel spoke, his voice emerged hoarse. “I don’t know what to—”

  “Don’t say anything,” his uncle interrupted. “I don’t seek repayment. Nor do I have any more demands for you. You’ve made me proud, Daniel.”

  Those words, ones his own father had not even had for him, gripped him, and he swallowed hard. His wife slid her fingers into his other hand and squeezed.

  “Make good with the funds, boy,” his uncle said gently. He shoved to his feet. “But seeing the wife you had the good sense to marry, I expect you’ll do just fine.”

  Daniel looked to his wife. “I assure you,” he said, lingering his gaze on Daphne’s freckled face. “I will do far better than ‘just fine’, Uncle.” Together, he and Daphne would know happiness and love and, in that, there would be nothing more they needed.

  A twinkle lit the older man’s eyes. “I do not doubt that, my boy.” Much like he’d done when Daniel had been a small boy, his uncle patted him on the back hard and then left.

  As soon as he’d gone, Daphne wrapped her arms about Daniel’s waist. When she lifted her gaze to his, merriment danced within her eyes. “It would seem you’ve found your treasure, now.”

  “You’re wrong,” he murmured, lowering his brow to hers. “We both found it twenty-three years, ago, together, when we first met.” Only now they were joined together forever, as they were always meant to be.

  She collected his hand and brought it to her flat belly. “And now we’ve found one more.”

  His heart started and he went still. Was she saying…? Were they…? His mind sought to work through that veiled insinuation. She dangled forth the hint of a dream. One she’d shown him he desperately wanted—a family with her. “What?” he demanded hoarsely.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Though, if one wishes to be truly accurate, we’ve created him together.”

  Daniel collected her by the shoulders and searched her eyes, needing the words from her. “What are you saying?”

  That twinkle deepened in her expressive eyes. “We are going to have a babe, Daniel.”

  A babe. Emotion surged through him, sucking his lungs of air and leaving Daniel frozen. Where he once would have scoffed and sneered and ran from the swell of joy and love that now gripped him, now he turned himself wholly over to it. He let it fill him, healing and euphoric. There would be a child with Daphne’s smile and spirit and strength. He struggled to swallow past a tightened throat.

  His wife’s smile dipped as indecision flared in her eyes. “Are you not—?”

  “A girl,” he rasped. “It will be a girl like you.”

  Her features softened. “You do realize there will also be rakes and rogues and—”

  “Over my bloody body.” He growled, battling back rage at the imagined scoundrel courting any future daughter’s favors. “A boy,” he bit out. “It will be a boy.”

  With Daphne’s laughter filtering about the room, Daniel swung her in his arms and joined in.

  The End

  One Winter with a Baron

  By

  Christi Caldwell

  Dedication

  For Nana and Papa

  This one’s for you!

  Chapter 1

  London, England

  Winter 1819

  Baron Webb was a rake, in dun territory and, at best, a mediocre sibling. As such, no respectable, unmarried lady in all of Polite Society desired him.

  Except Miss Sybil Cunning. To her, he was perfect for those very reasons.

  He also happened to be one of the sole remaining gentlemen who’d not departed for the countryside this London Season. As such, it had drastically reduced her pool of gentlemen of which to select from.

  Nonetheless, he would do. He would have to.

  The winter wind snapped the fabric of Sybil’s skirts about her ankles. She swept her gaze purposefully over the barren grounds of Hyde Park. Land that just two months earlier had been overflowing with riders, couples, and beleaguered nursemaids, sat empty with nothing more than the snow-covered trees as silent company.

  The baron was rumored to ride at this hour. Of course, gossips had been wrong on any number of scores and she, herself, was prime evidence of that very fact. She, the nine and twenty-year-old goddaughter to the Dowager Marchioness of Guilford, had been expected to wed the Marquess of Guilford. The gossip rags couldn’t have been more wrong on that score.

  She grimaced. Not that she had wished to marry the gentleman. Oh, Miles, a childhood friend, was and always had been nice enough. Polite. Proper. Courteous. And hopelessly boring as every last nobleman who’d seen nothing more than a plump, bespectacled, bluestocking. No doubt, the very reason her mother had hoped they’d make a match together. Because that was, after all, the way the world saw her.

  Sybil was the logical, practical bluestocking. A lady who’d never done a remotely frolicy thing in her life and wouldn’t know the meaning of pleasure, joy, or excitement outside the words she read in her books.

  Or that is how her well-meaning sister had phrased it. Exactly how she phrased it. And as it would have been very Sybil-like to point out that frolicy was, in fact, not a word, she’d let go of that particular detail and, instead, fixed on the accusation there. Two sentences. A handful of words. And just like, that she had questioned her contented-until-then existence.

  That was why she was here, seeking Baron Webb out. For if anyone knew anything of an immersive, feeling existence, it would certainly be one of Society’s wickedest rakes.

  “Where is he?” she muttered under her breath, the soft utterance carrying in the winter still. Surely she’d not been mistaken. She was nothing if not meticulous in her details and planning on all matters, the least of which being helping her father with the upkeep of his botany records and Mother with the running of the household.

  Pushing her spectacles back on her nose, she fished her cold fingers inside her cloak pocket. Her hand knocked against the heavy sack of coins resting there. Ignoring them, she reached instead for the small scrap. She fumbled to make her gloved digits move enough to snag the page and then pulled it free. Teeth chattering, she skimmed the already well-memorized clipping f
rom The Times.

  It is rumored that Baron Webb will be forced to sell his prized chestnut mount. It is well-known by all of Society that Webb cares for the creature more than even members of his own family. As is evidenced by his daily rides through Hyde Park every morning at nine o’clock, regardless of the weather.

  Yes. No mistake there. Refolding the page, Sybil stuffed the sheet back inside her green velvet cloak. Every morning. Regardless of weather. A gust of wind whipped snow into her face and she brushed the flakes from her lashes, blinking them from her eyes.

  Well, mayhap not a raging snowstorm. Mayhap that was entirely too much for a nobleman devoted to his horse and morning rides. Rides that, given the papers were, at best, short-lived. Sybil chewed her lip. Or worse, mayhap the gentleman had finally abandoned London for his country estate as the peers were wont to do. All the peers except her own family who lingered in London until the day before Christmas. Mother’s distaste for the English countryside was so at odds with her husband and two daughters’ love of Leeds. Alas, in their family of four, not even the Viscount Lovell had a say or control. Despite the unfair fate women suffered through in a patriarchal society, the Viscountess Lovell controlled every and any aspect of the family’s decisions with Father quite content to sit in his office and pore over his botany books, ignoring his wife.

  As such, Sybil had concluded she had at least a fortnight to: one, bring Baron Webb around to her plan. And two, put a test to her very existence and, at last, have empirical evidence that, with her books and without a husband, her life could never be fuller.

  Another sharp gust whipped at her skirts, battering the velvet. Sybil shivered and huddled inside the garment. It wasn’t that she was one of those self-pitying ladies who bemoaned her spinster’s state. She didn’t. She was, after all, the more practical of the three Cunning sisters. If a lady could not marry a good, respectable, honorable gentleman who hopelessly loved her…well, there really was no point in marrying.