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

by Christi Caldwell

  “My lady,” he said tightly. “I don’t take meetings based on lies.” He reached for the bell-pull but she rushed over in a rustle of black satin skirts.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded. “I needed to speak to you.”

  Vail chuckled, the sound empty and mirthless to his own ears. “And here I thought no words between us were to ever be spoken again.” He tossed back that sentence she’d etched in his memory the day he’d called upon her in London and learned she’d accepted the offer of an aging nobleman.

  She winced. “I deserve that, but you must know, I need you to know I’ve thought of you and only you for the past eight years.”

  That utterance would have once sustained him. Life had changed him, however. It had made him stronger, harder, and, as such, Adrina may as well have been speaking on the weather or tedious ton gossip. “I have neither the time nor the inclination—”

  “Please,” she implored, again, holding out a hand. “It is not entirely a… personal call. I’ve brought a book.”

  He stilled, eying her warily. He’d met her, the village squire’s eldest daughter when she’d been eighteen and he twenty. She’d had the brightest laugh and delighted in discussing gossip and visiting the milliner’s, but never had she expressed a smidgeon of interest in a literary work.

  The countess worked her eyes over his face and then rushed over to his desk. “My late husband’s collection,” she explained. “I’m…” She grimaced. “Required to sell his books.” So, marrying her titled lord had not earned her a fortune. That realization brought no glee…just pity. Adrina’s violet, doe eyes softened. “You were the only one whom I thought of…” She stretched the small leather copy toward him. “Who might help.”

  Vail searched for some emotion from that admission: joy, triumph. Instead, he fixed on her gloveless hand, gripping that book dangerously by the spine. Of course, he wouldn’t expect her to know the proper handling. Few did…and yet Bridget was one of those who did. The first woman he’d ever known with that skill. Wordlessly, he collected the tome.

  “I gathered one that held the greatest value,” she murmured.

  Not lifting his gaze, he assessed the age of the leather and shine of the etched leathering hinted at its newness, and flipping to the front page confirmed it as such. “I’ve no need for this work, my lady,” he said without inflection. Even with their shared past, in this instance, she was no different than any other lord who stepped through his doors to sell him a valuable title. “I expect you can find someone else who might aid you in the sale of your late husband’s collection.”

  Adrina lifted tear-luminescent eyes to his; twin pools of hurt. “The title, Vail. Look at the title.”

  He found the title. Wordsworth’s Poems.

  When he’d met this woman before him, he’d been so captivated, so convinced he’d fallen in love at first sight, that he’d enlisted his friend Huntly’s aid to woo her. Poetry had been Huntly’s solution. Mocking derision is what he’d been met with and pouts and pretty calls for baubles and ribbons. “It’s hard to believe you’ve developed a sentimental appreciation for poetry now,” he said dryly, holding that book out. “Byron,” he reminded her. “It was Byron’s earliest works I read to you from.” The same day she’d urged him to seek out a commission from his father, the duke, for she could never wed a bastard without prospects. He’d humbled himself for her before that man he’d spend his life hating, and he resented himself as much as he did her for that faulty decision.

  She jerked as though he’d struck her and then her tears fell freely, noisily. “I-I certainly understand y-you were hurt,” she said, her soft weeping and words muffled by her palms. “B-but you needn’t be cruel.” Over her hands, she stared pointedly at him.

  Swallowing a sigh, he fished out his kerchief and held it out.

  The lady took the white scrap and proceeded to cry her sloppy tears into it. Mayhap he was as heartless as he’d been referred to by business partners and written of in the newspapers, for those well-timed crystalline drops left him unmoved. He remained coolly aloof until her tears dissolved into a shuddery hiccough.

  “I am sorry you have regrets,” he finally said. “But this,” he motioned between them, “ended long, long ago.” And he was better off for it. He knew that now. “Given that…” And the fact that he wanted nothing to do with her in the present. “It is better for the both of us if you find another buyer for the works you are intending to sell.”

  Her too plump lower lip trembled and he braced for another onslaught of her tears. But her sharp cheeks remained evenly set as she drifted over. That same cloying hint of jasmine that clung to her frequent missives, hung now on her willowy frame, oddly pungent. Pungent when there was a soft, sweet pureness to Bridget’s floral scent. “Do you know what I believe, Vail?” she whispered in sultry tones, mature ones she’d acquired in their years apart. “I believe,” she continued, gathering his lapels and stroking her fingertips over that fabric. “That you would send me to someone else because you want me as much now as you did then, and you fear yourself around me.”

  He stiffened and gathered her hands in his, setting them from his person. “I—”

  Footsteps sounded in the hall. “Vail—”

  He and Adrina looked to the doorway. Bridget, a journal in hand, jerked to a stop in the doorway. Her mouth formed a small circle of surprise that met her eyes as she lingered her gaze first on him then Adrina, and slowly back to Vail. “Oh. I… Forgive me, my lord,” she said, her voice revealing not a hint of emotion.

  He shook his head. “Mrs. Hamlet, Lady Buchanan was just leaving,” he said, making the decision for that other woman.

  Despite the terse command there, Adrina revealed that time and life had shaped her into an unapologetic noblewoman. “Mrs. Hamlet,” she greeted. “And you are?”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that she’d no right to come into his household and question anyone—particularly this woman before him—but Bridget quietly answered before he could bring forth the stinging rebuke.

  “I am His Lordship’s housekeeper.” She dropped a belated, but respectful curtsy.

  Adrina passed an up and down glance over her, lingering a horrified stare on Bridget’s crescent-shaped birthmark. A lesser woman would have wilted under the regal noblewoman’s censure. “His housekeeper?” A tinkling laugh escaped his former love’s lips.

  Bridget merely inched her chin up and met that dark stare.

  Vail’s hands curled reflexively into tight fists and fury blazed to life inside. This was the scorn she’d faced. Through it, she’d remained strong and unflinching. His admiration for her grew.

  “Vail,” the countess said, angling her body dismissively, giving Bridget the cut direct. “I want you to keep this,” she spoke in hushed undertones, pushing that wholly unsentimental book into his hands. From the corner of his eye, he detected Bridget casting her focus to the mural overhead. “Please, think on what I’ve said.”

  Which part of it? Her collection he could do without, for the sheer reason it was his business to know the most well-stocked libraries and her late husband’s was decidedly not one of them. And her presence in his life proved tedious for the reminders it raised of his own past mistakes. “My lady.” He dropped a requisite bow.

  She swept past him, the hint of jasmine lingering in the air as she took her leave.

  Her leather journal held close, Bridget shifted back and forth on her feet. “Forgive me,” she said somberly. “I’ve now interrupted two meetings.”

  “And both interruptions were welcome,” he said truthfully, loud enough that she might hear him clearly from where she stood.

  A hesitant smile tipped her lips. Where Adrina’s even, plastered grins contained the same hint of artifice as her tears, Bridget’s rang clear with sincerity. “Marlborough’s?” she asked, dryly.

  “Perhaps not at first, but certainly after.” He motioned her forward.

  She met him in the middle of the floor.
Teasing smile aside, she opened the leather journal and turned it toward him. “I found this.” He followed her point to the bottom of the page. “Lord Waters was slated to turn over an original first edition Aphra Behn – Poetical Remains.”

  “And?” he asked.

  She shifted her ink-stained finger to the column beside it. “The title was originally published in 1698. By the markings, this copy is a second edition dated to 1699.”

  Vail traded Bridget the book in his hand for the records she held and skimmed the columns. Bloody hell. That was the price one paid for dealing with drunkards like that one. In the short time she’d been here, she’d singlehandedly identified two missteps in terms of the works he’d purchased, and also secured a meeting with Lord Marlborough he’d not have had a hope of having if it hadn’t been for her.

  He glanced over the top of the journal. Bridget eyed the tome in her hands. Had he not been closely studying her, he’d have failed to note the way she sniffed the edge of that copy. “Are you one of those who enjoys the smell of an old book?”

  Gasping, she yanked her head up. Color splashed her cheeks. “Jasmine,” she blurted. “It doesn’t have the scent of leather or aged pages. It smells like…jasmine,” she finished weakly.

  “Yes.” Adrina had always doused her skin in that strong, cloying scent. In his youth, it had been heady and seducing. Now, it reminded him of betrayal. He made to return his attention to the page.

  “Who was she?” she asked. It was a brazen question that a proper lady would wonder about and perhaps probe servants over. Bridget, once again, revealed a candid honesty.

  Handing back her records and accepting that book of poems, he settled for the simplest, most uncomplicated reply, “She is someone I knew when I was younger.”

  “I see.” And by those two syllables, she spoke as one who, in fact, did. Bridget dropped another one of those formal curtsies. “I thought you should know about Lord Waters. Once again, it was not my intent to interrupt you, twice.”

  He searched his mind for a reason to keep her here. “Bridget,” he called out as she reached the door. “Until our meeting tomorrow.”

  Chapter 14

  Strolling the streets of Mayfair on the way with Vail to an upcoming meeting, there were any number of things Bridget should be focused on: the peril of becoming someone familiar to Polite Society when she’d only entered their folds to steal from one of their own. The gawking stares directed at her cheek by unrepentantly bold passersby. Instead, all she could think about…was jasmine. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Or rather, the scent of it. The same floral fragrance that had wafted from the note in his office.

  Since she’d interrupted a second meeting of Vail’s yesterday and stumbled upon him with a slender beauty who embodied beauty and perfection, she’d been unable to think of anything but that pair. Their bodies’ positioning hinted at two people who’d shared…something. That mysterious note she’d spied upon his desk now indicated just what that something had been.

  This was the woman he’d spoken of in the Portrait Room. She hadn’t required him to confirm it to know it to be so. She was the woman Vail had fought a war for. And Bridget hated the woman with every fiber of her being.

  With the Countess of Buchanan’s perfect, cream white skin and flaxen curls, she was everything Bridget had never been, nor would ever be. Bridget had believed she’d found peace with who she was long, long ago. That she’d come to accept her imperfections. Only to stumble into Vail’s meeting with a beauty to rival Aphrodite and be proven so wholly wrong. Despondent, she stared blankly ahead.

  “…I discovered a copy of a La Bibbia…”

  For she wasn’t as at peace as she’d believed. She was filled with the same gripping, vicious resentment that some people were born perfect, without struggle, and then others, such as her flawed self, were born scarred and marked. Derided by Society for reasons beyond one’s control, and forever reminded of one’s defects daily in a mirror and in the whispers of strangers and—

  “…and I used it for kindling earlier this morn…”

  Vail’s words at last penetrated her single-minded focus. She whipped her head up. “You found what?” she blurted. And then his latter words registered and she shot her eyebrows to her hairline. “And you did what?” she squawked.

  He winked at her. “Neither,” he drawled. “I was merely seeing when you might be paying attention.”

  She opened and closed her mouth several times. “So, you didn’t obtain a copy of La Bibbia, Tradotta in Lingua Toscana? Because if you did—”

  “I certainly wouldn’t set it afire,” he assured her. A glimmer danced in his eyes. “And not solely for monetary reasons but also because I’m not so ruthless that I’d burn an original edition of the bible.” He followed that with a smile and she forced a matching one for his benefit.

  Only, he wasn’t ruthless. Despite what Archibald had shared in her cottage about the gentleman, there was nothing heartless about him. That evidence of his goodness chased away her false grin and filled her with a deeper sense of desolation.

  “Come, Bridget,” he murmured softly, dropping his head lower to hers. “I didn’t bring you along today so you might feel sad.”

  Why had he brought her then? She wanted to hurl the frustrated question at him. Why couldn’t he have simply allowed her to serve on as his housekeeper and never noticed that she was not only capable with antique books, but also hopelessly enthralled by the words contained within them. “I’m not sad,” she quietly offered. Liar.

  “That was belated,” he correctly pointed out.

  A handsome couple moving directly toward them snagged their notice on Bridget’s cheek. Such horror filled the delicate, blonde woman’s eyes that, this time, that derision struck painfully in her chest. Directing her gaze forward, Bridget jutted her jaw out.

  “I’m—”

  “Don’t,” she rasped, digging her fingers into the soft-flesh of her palm. “Don’t you dare.” She’d not have his apologies or pity or—

  He stopped walking and placed a gloved hand on her arm, halting her movements and forcing her to face him. “What did you believe I intended to say?”

  They stood in the middle of the pavement. A passing gentleman tipped his hat to Vail, who ignored that polite greeting. She gave her head a terse shake, hating that he’d expose her this way before the whole of London’s most powerful peers. She felt splayed open and on display.

  His hard lips tightened. “I asked what—?”

  “I don’t want your apologies,” she hissed. “I don’t want your pity.” She wanted him to treat her as he had from their first meeting where her hideous cheek and deafness didn’t matter. But she was a fool. It always mattered and always would. Her solitary existence stood as proof of that.

  He drew back, shock stamped in his features. “Is that what you believe I intended? To apologize? That I’d ever pity you?” Hurt filled that question. “What reason would I—”

  “Don’t do that,” she pleaded. “At least don’t pretend that I’m not different.” She loved him for being more honest and forthright than any person she’d ever before known. She… Loved him? A buzzing filled her ears, like a swarm of angry bees that had been set free inside her mind.

  Vail moved closer, so nothing more than a hairsbreadth separated them, pulling her from that panicky reverie. “You are correct,” he said in hushed, solemn tones. “You are different.” She winced. He’d given her that honesty, only to prove her a liar. She didn’t want it from him…not in this. “You are different than any other woman I’ve ever known.” The beautiful Lady Buchanan who’d staked a possessive hand upon his lapel, flashed behind her mind’s eye, and the breath lodged sharply in her lungs. “You are more clever and more skilled than any I’ve known.”

  He appreciated her mind. It should be enough. And yet—she drifted her gaze past his shoulder—for the first time in her life, she wanted to be beautiful…for this man.

  Vail moved his mou
th closer to her right ear. “And you are beautiful…” She made a sound of protest, moving away. “In every way,” he insisted.

  “I know who I am, Vail. I confront myself every day in the mirror.”

  “And what do you see?” he answered, not allowing herself to speak further. “You see a mark upon your cheek? You’ve let that define you. Do you know what I see? What I saw the moment you stepped inside my office and found you there?”

  Do not answer. Remind him of where I am and the strangers passing by, sick fascination over the couple conversing in the middle of a thoroughfare. She darted her tongue out, tracing her lips. “What?” she asked, unable to call the question back. Nor wanting to.

  “I saw these flame-tinged strands.” With his spare hand, he captured the errant curl she’d draped over her shoulder, rubbing it briefly. Her lashes fluttered wildly. The world was looking on. His actions were scandalous and the world would believe her to be his lover and she couldn’t bring herself to care from this day on to Sunday if the Lord himself disapproved. “I saw the curve of your chin.” He brushed his gloved knuckles over it. “Your eyes, pools that I could lose myself in. I was riveted in that instant.” Her breath caught. Vail’s thick, black lashes swept downward. “But it was and remains your mind and spirit that has captivated me.”

  All the air left her on a shuddery sigh.

  His eyes went to her mouth and, for a long moment, she believed he’d kiss her here, and she wanted it, wanted it even though the gossip columns would be abuzz with tales of Lord Chilton and… A stranger to Society, embracing in the middle of Mayfair. Regret darkened his gaze and he straightened. “Come, we’ll be late.”