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

by Christi Caldwell

  Bridget hugged her journals close to her chest in a forlorn little embrace. Her eyes, usually windows into her thoughts and usual excitement and joy, were an opaque mirror that revealed nothing.

  His stomach muscles clenched reflexively as he, at last, understood. She was a servant in his employ and he’d now taken her in his arms two times too many. Oh, my God. I am my father. “I see.” On wooden legs, he stepped away from her.

  Bridget tipped her head at a charming little angle. “What is it you think you see, my lord?” That question emerged reluctant.

  There it was again. An additional reminder that he’d crossed an unforgiveable line with a woman on his staff.

  He spoke in hushed tones, shame making his neck turn hot. “I’ve continued to force my attentions upon you. As such, I understand your reservations in accompanying me, anywhere.” However, I need you to. It only reinforced the self-serving blood that flowed in his illegitimate veins.

  Chapter 13

  Vail believed she didn’t want to be in his company. He’d somehow formed the opinion her refusing to join him was somehow a product of the burgeoning relationship between them.

  Leave him to his erroneous supposition. It was far easier and required no explanation. He’d, after all, crafted the reason and provided the answer for her. Wordlessly, she stared after him as he retreated: tall, impossibly proud.

  …Deaf, ugly, and weak is what you are, Bridget…

  Those hateful, hurtful words that had been hurled by her siblings in equal measure whispered forward as she confronted her own weakness again where Vail Basingstoke, Lord Chilton, was concerned. For she could not allow him to stalk off and let him believe she’d found him wanting.

  She briefly closed her eyes. “Vail,” she called out. He stopped but did not turn back. “My not wishing to accompany you has nothing to do with…with… what we have done,” she settled for. What was this that had formed between them in this short time? This inexplicable bond that wrought havoc on her senses and reason, in like measure. Registering that they now spoke in a hall of intimate matters, she cleared her throat. “I’d speak to you…alone.” For a long moment she believed he’d deny her request.

  Then with a terse nod, he urged her forward. They said nothing more until they reached his office. As soon as he’d closed the door behind them, Bridget clasped her hands close. He faced her and her throat worked. “Each time you kissed me, Vail, I wanted your embrace.” She’d long ago ceased to believe that those tender exchanges could or would ever belong to her. Carefully depositing her work upon the nearby walnut console table, she forced herself over to him, erasing the distance even as it was far safer. “I was as much a participant as you. I’m as responsible and, as such, I take ownership of my actions.” Somewhere along the way, she’d blurred her crimes with her pardoning his actions.

  He looked at a point beyond the crown of her head. “My mother was a servant,” he said unexpectedly. “She worked in a nobleman’s employ as a nursemaid to that man’s son and heir.”

  Knowing he needed to have this told, she gave him an encouraging silence.

  A muscle moved at the corner of his mouth. “She was young and in awe of the devoted father who came and visited his son every day. That devotion went against everything she’d been led to believe or expect about noblemen.” A humorous laugh escaped him; a darkly cynical expression of empty mirth so at odds with the affable gentleman he’d been around her. “My mother was, of course, too naïve to realize she was, in fact, the reason the duke came ’round.”

  “Your father,” she said softly with a dawning understanding.

  He nodded once and proceeded to speak in brisk, methodical tones. “He set her up as his mistress in town and, for two years, was faithful to her. The naiveté of that. To believe an unfaithful husband would be faithful to a mere mistress.” He chuckled, giving his head a disgusted shake.

  “Mayhap she loved him,” she ventured, laying a hand on his sleeve.

  The muscles bunched tightly under her grip, straining the fabric of his black jacket. “Then she was a bigger fool than I ever credited.”

  A kindred bond to that woman stirred within Bridget. “Because she loved where she ought not? One cannot control one’s heart.” She sadly smiled up at him. “If one did, then no one would ever suffer heartbreak and there’d only be happy marriages and joyous people and we both know that is not how the world truly is.”

  Vail stared at her with something akin to surprise. “You’re a romantic.”

  She held her hands up to ward him off. “No,” she said quickly. She’d only ever been logical and practical. “I’ve never been accused of being a romantic.”

  “And yet, not being accused of it doesn’t make it not true,” he accurately pointed out.

  Bridget tightened her lips. He might believe she believed in love and fairytales and happily-ever-afters, like most other women, but she’d lived enough of life’s ugliness to recognize the reality that was life. “Acknowledging that some people love and lose, and are capable of that emotion, doesn’t make me a romantic. It makes me someone logical enough to see that love is real, just not a gift everyone receives. Your mother no doubt loved your father.”

  “Then she was a fool,” he said without inflection. “He got a child on her.”

  “You,” she said softly. “You wouldn’t be here even now if she hadn’t.” And for his heroics at Waterloo and the siblings he cared for, and the servants he was kind to, the world would be colder without him in it.

  Hard silver flecks blazed to life in his eyes. “And for the first year of my life, he was an attentive protector, still. He paid her visits and brought by gifts for me and for her. In the end, he had his man-of-affairs sever the arrangement, but not before he was generous enough,” he spat, “to coordinate the services of her next lover.”

  Bridget recoiled. What must it be to love so deeply and then to be so callously turned out by the one you gave your heart to?

  “Precisely,” Vail said, misinterpreting the reason for her reaction. “That is the manner of reprobate my father was.” His shoulders sagged. “And every time I hunger for you, every time I violate the moral code I hold myself to, I prove I am the same as him.”

  And then it made sense. He worried about becoming his father. Nay, he feared that he already was him. Bridget drifted over and, palming his cheek, forced his eyes down to hers. “You are not your father,” she said simply.

  He jerked. “You don’t know that,” he spoke in harsh tones, intended to push her away. “You cannot know that after but a week of living in my household.” He dropped his voice to a low, angry whisper. “I’ve wanted to take you in my arms since I found you studying my bookshelves.”

  Butterflies danced in her belly. No one had ever looked upon her as one to be admired, as any sort of beauty. She’d simply only existed for her imperfections…that hideous crescent stamped by the Devil as a mark of the Hamiltons.

  A pained laugh escaped him and he caught her gently by the shoulders. “Why must you have that besotted look over that?”

  “Because you’re the only one who has ever looked past my flaws.” And that in and of itself marked him so very different than anyone else in Society. “I don’t know your father but I know you enough to say you are not him,” she said again. “Because you worry about becoming him. For that alone, you can never truly be like your sire. Where he turned the care of his child and former lover over to ruthless lords, you are one who loves and looks after those who share your blood.”

  A negating sound left his lips and she silenced it with her fingers. How could he not see that in entrusting his cherished work over to a woman most of Society had deemed unworthy and unfit, he was far greater than all those shameful lords?

  Bridget gasped as he caught her wrist and brought it to his mouth, scorching her skin with the kiss he placed there. Little shivers radiated out, traveling up her arm, and wreaking havoc on her senses. “I need you there. Marlborough will not allow me
to examine his collection without your presence.”

  Of course. Her heart sank, as he neatly steered them back to what had led to his revelations. Lord Marlborough and his collection and Vail’s business. For the more she ventured out into Society, the more visible she became to the world. She’d existed as the Hamiltons’ hidden, shameful secret and had only emerged to commit a criminal act. The fewer who knew who she was, the safer it was…not only for herself—but for Virgil and Nettie. “Vail,” she began, needing him to understand, but unable to give him the truth.

  He retained his hold upon her; a gentle, yet unyielding grip. “Bridget, I do need you there, but I also want you there.”

  He wanted her there with him. A week prior to this moment, she would have called him a liar. Life had proven that even her own kin didn’t want her about. The inexplicable bond she’d formed with this man, however, challenged everything she’d previously believed—about the goodness a person was capable of—of how others viewed her or might view her.

  “You enjoy your work,” he pressed.

  “Of course I do.” Other than Virgil, examining precious literary classics had brought her the only joy she’d known in her hidden village of Leeds. Did he sense her weakening?

  “And you appreciate literature.”

  Since she’d first read of Lord Marlborough’s libraries and discussed it with Mr. Lowell, she’d yearned for so much as a glimpse of those rooms. And given she’d been a marquess’ daughter, it should have been a simple journey afforded a woman of her station. But she’d never really belonged to that world. She’d been snipped from the fabric of that existence, with her parent’s holding the threading needles.

  “Why should you not come?”

  If he were capable of the same perfidy as she and her brother, his own question would have set warning bells off for him. “Because…because servants don’t accompany their employers to the homes of other noblemen,” she cried, spinning away from him. Filled with a frantic restlessness, she began to pace. “By your own admission, lords have little use of maids and…” She stopped abruptly. “Society will note your peculiar relationship with your housekeeper,” she said, presenting him with the only argument that might resonate, hating herself all the while for deliberately hurting him.

  He gave a negligent wave. “I don’t give a jot what they believe about me. I care more about what I know to be true.”

  Bridget bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. How wholly unlike her father and brother this man was. Vail Basingstoke was a man of convictions and honor, and she stood before him a fraud in nearly every way. “Please, don’t ask this of me,” she implored.

  He set his jaw and met her gaze resolutely. “It hardly matters what station you’ve been born to or the status of your rank or finances. A person’s worth is defined by who they are.” He’d made up his mind and had taken the decision from her.

  Then, by the fierce glint in his determined eyes, it had never truly been a decision. He’d have settled for nothing but her acquiescence. She shuttered her expression, willing back the fear and panic that came in revealing herself before Polite Society. “Very well. I will accompany you,” she said, even as her mind raced. None except for the servants in their family’s Kent countryseat had known her and she knew what her parents had told them or the world in general after her disappearance with Virgil. A panicky laugh gurgled in her throat. That was assuming she’d even been anything more than a regretful afterthought.

  Bridget started as Vail settled strong, reassuring hands upon her shoulders. “You’re no mere servant. In the time you’ve been here, you’ve proven invaluable to me.” Invaluable to him. Given that few had ever seen her existence as anything more than a burden, she should find a beautiful solace in his words.

  I want more.

  And it was folly and dangerous, not only because she’d never thought there could be more with a man such as Vail, rather because she wanted him—this one man she could never have anything with.

  She froze. Afraid to move. Afraid to speak. Afraid to so much as breathe under the enormity of her folly. Oh, God. I care for him. A man she’d set out to deceive, who’d entrusted his business to her hands. In a short time, he’d come to matter. Her mind shied away from anything more.

  “I have an appointment tomorrow,” Vail was saying through her dread. She sent a prayer skyward that he’d restored them to the safe role of employer and servant. “We’ll leave before noon.”

  We’ll leave? Bridget closed her eyes. Of course Lucifer wouldn’t allow her even a slight reprieve. “My responsibilities are here,” she said weakly, in one last, desperate bid to extricate herself from that public visit.

  He dusted his knuckles over that hideous crescent birthmark in a tender caress that threatened to shatter her. “With your skill and capabilities in handling literary texts, it would be a crime for you to take on any other role.”

  Why could he not let her carry on as a mere servant? Why must he involve her in his business dealings? It only enhanced the deviousness of her betrayal.

  A knock sounded at the door and, as one, they looked to the entrance to where his brother, Mr. Winterly, stood. Cheeks flushed, Vail swiftly dropped his arm and backed away from her.

  “This arrived a short while ago for you,” the other man murmured, looking back and forth between them. He briefly settled his stare on Bridget’s disheveled tresses.

  Shame curled her toes reflexively.

  Mr. Winterly held out a small folded sheet of vellum.

  Stalking over, Vail claimed the page. With a slight, stiff bow, Mr. Winterly backed out of the room.

  Vail flicked open that sheet and worked his gaze quickly over the words written there. He immediately folded it and stuffed it inside his jacket. Expression guarded, his firm lips set in an unforgiving line, and this towering figure before her was very much the ruthless businessman her brother had spoken of. “I have a meeting with a seller.”

  He owed her no explanations. “Of course,” she forced herself to say, grateful for that wall he’d erected and the diversion that now called him away. She was grateful, so why did she feel this dejection at his abrupt departure. “I-I should return to cataloguing your most recent purchases.”

  He frowned. “It is your day off.”

  How many noblemen would note such a detail? How many would care?

  “I enjoy my work here,” she settled for, praying that would suffice. The alternative was further questions that served as unnecessary reminders of the young boy living alone with Nettie. “You should go, Vail. Your meeting.” Please, just go….

  With a hesitant nod, he turned on his heel and left.

  As soon as he’d gone, a panicky laugh gurgled in her throat and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle that half-mad sound. All her life, she’d mourned that she was forced to conduct her work as a secret to Society for no other reason than because she’d been born female. Only to find the one man unafraid to acknowledge the role she played should be this one.

  Reclaiming a spot at the mahogany desk, she resumed the work she’d left when Mr. Winterly had gone. Vail might have confided his fears that he would become his shameful father, but the truth remained, of her and him, only one of them shared their family’s vile blood—and that was her.

  Vail didn’t deal in unscheduled meetings. To do so with buyers and sellers conveyed too much of an eagerness and jeopardized the profits one might earn. Such a lesson had been learned during his first transaction when he’d operated under a different set of rules…that punctuality demonstrated one’s honor and character. That had been the last appointment he’d ever arrived on time to.

  Taking those desperately requested meetings, however, was an altogether different matter. Early morn appointments and unexpected visits bespoke a seller’s desperation and to not grant that one was the height of business folly.

  Never before had he thought of declining one of those sessions. Until Bridget. What was it about the lady that mad
e him want to damn the seller in his office and remain with her?

  Mayhap it was her total lack of artifice. With her cleverness and acumen in the antique book industry she stood apart from the lords and ladies he dealt with daily. By her admissions and faint pleading, however, she didn’t recognize her worth for what it was—greater than all those miserable peers who’d dare make her feel inferior. But it was also something he understood…because he’d once felt precisely as she had. As a boy, all Vail had been so very focused on was how different he was from the lords and ladies of Polite Society. He’d hated his lot and resented that he and his mother had been treated beneath those fancy members of the peerage. Too many nights he’d lain abed, staring at the plaster ceiling of a temporary home imagining himself becoming powerful like the duke who’d sired him.

  In time, he’d found pride in the work he did and the battles he’d fought against Boney’s men. When he’d returned from war and been titled for those acts of bravery, the last thing he’d given a jot about was Polite Society. He’d naively forgotten what it was to live on the fringes of that world as Bridget did.

  And she didn’t see her own inherent worth against those lesser people.

  Reaching his office, Vail stopped at the edge of the doorway. To carry thoughts of Bridget into his meeting only posed a distraction. He forcibly thrust aside her visage and masking his features, entered the room. “Lord…”

  The blonde-haired, cloaked woman at the center of the room, spun to face him.

  Adrina.

  “Vail,” she greeted in her singsong voice that had so enthralled him as a young man. Tall, willowy, and in possession of a halo of golden curls, she’d always epitomized a flawless English lady. Now, he found himself preferring Bridget’s understated beauty. Adrina cleared her throat. “It is so very good to see you.” Three years away from thirty, she was older, more mature than the girl who’d married an old earl after Vail had gone off to war, and yet her golden tresses shimmered with the same shine. Only her eyes appeared harder, sadder. Once that would have gutted him.