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

by Christi Caldwell

  “Clever girl.” The earl’s eyes twinkled. “Nor did it escape my notice that you didn’t put a price upon the volume.” He laughed and she joined in until he dissolved into a paroxysm of coughing.

  White lines strained the corners of his eyes, and he quickly yanked out a kerchief, covering his mouth. As he drew it back, she caught the bright flash of crimson and a wave of pity filled her. He stuffed the stained article back inside his jacket. When he looked to Vail, his earlier apathy was firmly back in place. “It is unfortunate your employer doesn’t have the same appreciation for literature.”

  Vail rolled his shoulders. Except where earlier he’d baited his guest, now he remained somberly silent.

  Bridget cleared her throat. “May I be so bold?”

  “Bolder than bursting into a formal meeting?” Vail asked from the corner of his mouth.

  Did she imagine the shared smile between the two combative gentlemen? “You’re not wrong. His Lordship does not appreciate DeFoe’s work.” At her side, Vail stiffened. He gave her a quelling look. She ignored it and continued, directing her words at his guest. “But I’ve found in the short time I’ve been in his employ that though he might not appreciate that work, it doesn’t mean he does not respect, admire, and even love other literary pieces.”

  “Humph,” the earl said under his breath, however, without his earlier rancor.

  “It’s true. He might not like DeFoe but he’s an ardent admirer of—”

  “Mrs. Hamlet,” Vail said tightly.

  She continued. “Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.”

  “Chilton?” the earl asked, eying the other nobleman opposite him.

  Bridget nodded. “Oh, yes and—”

  “That will be all, Mrs. Hamlet,” Vail said tersely and she fell silent. She clasped her hands before her. She’d overstepped.

  “If you’ll excuse me?” she said quietly, dropping a curtsy. She had the door’s handle in her grip when Lord Marlborough stayed her.

  “Mrs. Hamlet?” he boomed.

  She slowly wheeled back.

  “A pleasure. It was an absolute pleasure.” He favored her with a wink.

  Avoiding Vail’s piercing gaze, she returned the earl’s smile…and left.

  Following his meeting with Lord Marlborough, Vail couldn’t determine whether he should sack Bridget Hamlet for bursting in and commandeering the appointment, kiss her…or thank her. He was dangerously close to two of the possibilities, ones that had nothing to do with packing the lady up and sending her on her way.

  Striding through the halls, he called for his brother, Gavin.

  The younger man came skidding around the corner so quickly, he crashed into the wall. He caught himself against the plaster. “Your L-Lordship,” he called out, panting as he sprinted over. His trembling lower lip hinted at a man on the verge of tears. “I forgot to see him out,” he blurted, and then covered his face with his hands.

  Vail slapped him on the back. “It’s quite fine. No harm has ever come to a gentleman who saw himself out.” Whether people talked about the unconventional way Vail ran his household mattered as much as their opinion of him as a Ravenscourt bastard.

  “B-but I knew he was leaving and then, after the yelling started, I ran for Edward.” Gavin wrung his hands together. “And then it was just so much fighting, I didn’t remain.”

  Through those worried ramblings, Vail gave his shoulder a slight squeeze. “The fighting ended.” A credit to an impertinent housekeeper who’d interrupted his official meeting with Marlborough. “I’m looking for Bridge…Mrs. Hamlet,” he amended.

  “She was with Edward in the Inventory Room.”

  With Edward. His literature-loving, affable brother who also happened to be smitten with the young woman? “Sh-should he not be?” Gavin whispered.

  No, he should not be. Given that Edward was to be meeting shortly with one of Vail’s contacts at King Street, it certainly didn’t merit that he was now closeted away with the same woman who’d charmed the un-charmable Lord Marlborough. Smoothing the involuntary frown, he shook his head. “No, that is fine. I—” As was his custom, Gavin spun on his heel and himself marked the end of the discussion. Wheeling back, he readjusted his path.

  It hardly mattered whether Bridget was with his brother. Why…aside from Huntly, there was no one he trusted more than Edward. He’d proven himself skilled with keeping Vail’s vast collections catalogued. In addition to his bookkeeping, the younger man had an urbane charm that had served Vail’s business well. Why did those skills suddenly grate? As he came upon the Inventory Room, the sounds of their voices drifted to the hallway. Lively words flew back and forth.

  “The volumes in one of Lord Chilton’s Collection Rooms are rare not because of their value but because of who owned the titles,” Edward was explaining.

  “I always found that aspect of book collecting peculiar.” Vail stood outside the room, transfixed by the quiet insistence of the young woman’s voice. How many ladies whom he’d known before had any opinion on the art of collecting, either way? “It matters far more what’s contained on those pages than whose hands they’ve been in.”

  Edward snorted. “You find it peculiar? Or obnoxious? Because I…”

  At the intimate path their discourse followed, Vail entered.

  The couple seated at the mahogany table, heads bent close, remained absorbed in their discussion. Edward said something that earned a husky laugh, and the sound of that wrapped around him. A bolt of lust went through him. So, this was the siren’s song written of in those sailor’s tales. Tempting. Enthralling. It had the power to keep a man frozen and batter him against the jagged rocks. It—

  Edward’s answering chuckle effectively doused his ardor. And then, even with the distance between them, he detected the subtle dip of his brother’s gaze to Bridget’s generous bodice. For all his earlier silent thoughts of the contrary, Vail cared…he cared very much. An answering growl rumbled in his chest.

  From over Bridget’s shoulder, Edward shifted his gaze. He scrambled to his feet and retreated several steps. “Vail.”

  Bridget instantly hopped up and faced him squarely. All laughter died from her lips and eyes. A charged intensity passed between them. He damned the lady’s earlier ease with his damned brother, when she’d greet him with a stoic silence.

  Edward cleared his throat. “I was just—”

  “Meeting on King Street?” For all his attempts at dry humor, the completed question emerged clipped and impatient. Edward blushed. Not allowing him a reply, Vail looked again to Bridget. “I would speak to Mrs. Hamlet alone.”

  “Vail,” Edward began, casting a concerned glance between them. “It is my understanding…” Leveling him with a glare, Vail managed to kill that defense. Edward’s mouth tensed and, for a moment, he believed his younger brother intended to battle him right there. But then, with a curt bow, he stalked past Vail and took his leave.

  The rapid rise and fall of Edward’s footsteps faded, so that the only lingering sound was that of the inordinately loud long-case clock.

  Never taking his gaze from Bridget, he reached behind him and drew the door closed. She followed his every movement with a proper wariness radiating from her eyes as he wandered over to where she stood.

  His spirited housekeeper folded her hands primly before her. “W-Was your meeting successful, my lord?” That faint tremble was the only outward sign of the lady’s unease.

  “Oh, it would depend on which person you’re inquiring after: me or Marlborough?”

  Bridget wrinkled her pert nose. “Well, you, of course.” A slight admonishment underscored her retort. She spoke so simply, so matter-of-factly as though there could be no doubt where her loyalties lay, that a peculiar, but not unwelcome warmth filled his chest. The spirited young lady sighed. “Very well. I should not have interfered.”

  “No,” he murmured, continuing his advance. Only where she’d once retreated, now she remained proudly rooted to the floor; shoulders and head til
ted back in a beautifully bold defiance.

  “It was certainly not my place and I understand why you might,” she stuck a finger up. “Be angry.”

  He stopped before her. The enticing floral scent that clung to her skin wafted about them. “And is that what you think?” he asked in hushed tones. Vail placed his mouth close to her temple. “That I am angry?”

  Positioned as they were, his ears missed nothing: Bridget’s audible swallow, the faint sound of her top teeth striking her bottom ones. “I-I suspect that is a l-logical reaction.”

  The evidence of her tangible nervousness grated on his nerves. Did she believe he’d harm her or turn her out for her earlier boldness? But then, how many lords would have done that very thing? He caught an errant curl that had, somewhere between Vail’s meeting with Marlborough and his trek through the household, managed to escape its constraints. Gathering that silken lock, he tucked it back behind her ear. “And you are nothing if not logical, are you?”

  His tempting housekeeper darted the tip of her tongue out. That pink flesh trailed a path over the seam of her lips. “I’ve been known to be referred to as such, Vail.” Vail. For her reservations and unease, she still took ownership of his name and he reveled in that connection.

  “And how else have others come to view you, Mrs. Hamlet?” he murmured, walking a small circle about her, studying her contemplatively. Wanting to know about the people who’d been in her life. Who was her family? Did she have any? Or was she now a widow with only herself in the world? The idea stuck painfully in his chest.

  Bridget captured her chin in her right hand and tapped her index finger in a distracted beat against her cheek. She’d the look of a student considering the correct answer to a tutor’s exam. “Practical,” she said with a nod. “I’ve also been referred to as bookish.” She opened her mouth to again speak, and then brightened. “Am I to take it to mean you’ve forgotten my whole interruption with Lord Marlborough?”

  His lips twitched and he fought back that grin. “You should not take it to mean that.”

  Her expression fell. With her slumped shoulders and slight pout, she was so damned endearing. Had she been any other woman, he’d have accused her of artifice. Where Bridget Hamlet was concerned, there could never be anything but raw honesty. The lady wasn’t capable of anything but. Then nodding, she flared her nostrils. “Very well, my lord. Let us cease dancing around the true matter between us. Yes, I did interrupt your meeting, however…” She raised that same finger. “…I should point out that you were handling it rather atrociously before my arrival.”

  Yes, he had been. And where he was not too proud to admit so, it was wholly more enjoyable taking in the lady’s passion as she spoke. “Is that what you believe?” he asked, instead. Had anyone else challenged the way he conducted himself in his business dealings, he’d have sent them to the Devil.

  She snorted. “It is what I know.”

  Goodness she was magnificent in her directness. Even Adrina, whom he’d considered himself in love with, had flirted with her eyes and left him guessing what she truly wanted, felt, or thought at a given moment in any day. “Very well.” He lifted his chin. “Let us hear your opinion on my meeting with the earl.”

  “Taking a strong-arm approach with Lord Marlborough would never see you with the first right to view or purchase a single volume in his collection.”

  “And you presume to know the best way simply by listening at a keyhole?” His question was intended without recrimination. The men Vail dealt with were ones who fought boldly for supremacy and control.

  “I’ve been told you are ruthless,” she said, ignoring his question. Was that a deliberate evasion? An insult?

  Except, he was ruthless. Where matters of his business and caring after his siblings were concerned, he didn’t make apologies and certainty didn’t make himself beholden to Societal rules of propriety. “Is that what you think?” Feigning nonchalance, he dropped his right hip onto the edge of the table, even as her answer mattered more than it should.

  “I believe you care for your siblings,” she put forth, unerringly accurate in that. “I trust that a man who hangs portraits of men, women, and children he’s known but a few years speaks to someone who loves deeply.” He shifted, disquieted by the ease with which she spoke of his emotions. “And do you know what else?”

  Vail fought to draw forth a glib reply; one that would undercut the somberness of her pronouncements—but came up…empty. “What is that, Bridget?” he asked, strangely wanting her to complete that statement, to know precisely what she thought. When to Polite Society he was nothing more than the Bastard Baron; with his vast wealth and peculiar penchant for his business, she saw beyond it.

  “You are not unlike Lord Marlborough.”

  That startled a laugh from him and his shoulders shook under the force of his hilarity. Nearly thirty years or so separated them and the other man lived, breathed, and slept his literary love.

  Bridget pursed her mouth.

  He instantly masked his features. “You were serious.”

  “Deadly.” As she spoke, her gaze took on a distant quality and, though she was looking at him, her gaze penetrated through him. “He’s not someone who wants wealth just to assuage his own greed. He’s not been driven to collect over the years so he might have the largest and greatest library in England.” Which the gentleman did and the fact that this woman knew as much spoke to an even greater skill in Vail’s world. “He is merely a man who loves two things: literature and family. You and Marlborough both care for your kin.” Bridget shook her head. “He’s not selling his books so he might grow his fortune for greed but to see his daughters are cared for when he’s gone.”

  A sad glimmer reflected in her eyes. And he wanted to know the reason for it. He wanted to ask question he had no right to. In her short time here, she’d gleaned much about his relationship with his brothers and sisters…and yet this woman before him still remained a mystery.

  Bridget collected his hand in hers and gave a light squeeze. “You needn’t treat all your clients the same. What strategies might work in acquiring the works from one man might be wholly unsuitable with another.”

  He started. The advice she gave flew in the face of every strategy he’d undertaken. He’d gone from a modest business to one of the most powerful fortunes in the kingdom.

  She drew in a slow, shuddery breath. “I understand you might be angry at me for—”

  Vail cupped his hand around her neck and gently brought his mouth down to hers. She instantly melted against him; her yielding lips pliant and eager as she returned his kiss. The last woman he’d shared any parts of himself with had ultimately betrayed him. Adrina had been so single-minded in her lust for Societal rank that she’d erroneously believed he, as a duke’s bastard, could afford her that power. When he’d gone to war, she’d wed a titled gentleman. As such, he’d simply accepted as fact that all women were of similar grasping natures. Until Bridget Hamlet.

  She parted her lips, and he slipped his tongue inside the moist cavern to duel with hers. A fire burned in his blood for this woman and he’d already accepted that in hungering for her as he did, it marked him very much Ravenscourt’s son. But in this, Vail could not rouse sufficient—any—regret.

  Reluctantly, he drew back and a little groan spilled past her full lips. He laid his cheek along the top of her head. “Marlborough has agreed to let me evaluate his collection and present him with first offer on his tomes.”

  Bridget looked at him through dazed eyes. And then she widened them. “Oh, Vail. That is wonderful.”

  “Under one condition,” he murmured, brushing a loose strand behind her ear. “I’m not allowed anywhere near his titles unless I bring along the delightful Mrs. Hamlet.” Given her open love and regard for antiquated texts, he expected that familiar eager glimmer whenever she came upon a book.

  She opened and closed her mouth several times like a trout tossed ashore. “What?”

  He grinned. “Y
ou’ll accompany me.” In part because the earl had ordered him to not bother darkening his door unless she was there. In larger part, because she belonged there. In the short time she’d been in his employ, she’d demonstrated not only a remarkable skill with precious books but also an appreciation. As such, no one deserved to be there more than she did. She met that news with an intractable silence. “You’ll join me for my meeting at the Earl of Marlborough’s townhouse,” he finally said, clarifying when she still said nothing. He braced for the familiar glimmer of excitement always revealed in her expressive eyes.

  Bridget gave her head a negating shake. “No.”

  He frowned. That was it? No? And yet, though he’d believe he proffered a gift in the opportunity for her to see Marlborough’s collection, neither had it been a request, either. “No,” he repeated, slowly, cautiously. This woman who loved literature and lost herself in evaluating valuable texts would decline?

  Then in a wholly dismissive move, she returned to the table and devoted her attentions to gathering her leather journals and pens. “I cannot go there,” she said tightly. Bridget filled her arms with those books and tools. “If you’ll excuse me, my lord.” She dipped a curtsy and made to step around him.

  Vail instantly slid into her path. “I’ve known you a short while,” he began.

  “A week,” she needlessly supplied.

  He started. That was all the time that had passed? Yet, he’d already shared more of himself with her than he had since Adrina.

  Bridget took another step around him, startling him from his surprise.

  He placed himself between her and the door. He could point out that his hadn’t been a request. Remind her that she was in his employ and that appointment was part of her recently acquired responsibilities. Only, he didn’t want her joining him through coercion and force. For then, he’d be just like many of his mother’s former lovers who’d ordered her about. “Why?” he asked softly. “Why would you not wish to join me?”