He was the ninth Duke of Ware, with relations and connections to every noble house in England and half the royalty of Europe. He hardly needed to instill more respectability or status into the family.
He was one of the richest men in Britain. He did not need to marry an heiress.
He sat in the House of Lords, as his ancestors had all done, but politics was not his passion. He had no urge to make a politically powerful marriage.
In short, there was no reason he couldn’t marry an ordinary woman.
They talked in bed, sometimes silly conversations that left them both shaking with laughter, sometimes more thoughtful conversations that left him quietly impressed. She had seen something of the world—more than he had—and she had an appreciation for small things that surprised and humbled him. Her curtsy, for instance; that grand elaborate motion that looked like a ballet in one movement had been taught to her when she was eight by a Russian ballerina. She drolly recounted how she had practiced and practiced in front of a mirror, anticipating her presentation to the czar—which of course never came. But the curtsy remained because it reminded her of that ballerina, who had refused to wear anything not made of red silk, who kept a pet mongoose, and who had been kind to a little girl.
Jack wondered why she’d been in St. Petersburg in the first place, but she never said. He found he cared less and less what Sophie’s secrets were, but more and more what her feelings for him were.
She wouldn’t be a conventional duchess, but that hardly mattered. The Duke of Exeter had wed a country vicar’s widow and the world had not ended, not even the toplofty little world of the ton. And really, wasn’t his opinion the one that mattered? Wasn’t his preference paramount as to who stood by his side at balls and had her portrait in the gallery at Kirkwood and bore his children? As Sophie lay curled against him one night, relating another silly story from her childhood about some pastries in Vienna and the stray cat she’d tried to hide from her parents, Jack listened with a faint grin and thought to himself: I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks. She’s worth it.
His growing feeling that he should follow where his heart and mind were urging him to go lasted until his mother joined him for breakfast one morning, three weeks to the day after Sophie had come to Ware House.
“Good morning,” she said as the footman pulled out her chair.
“Good morning.” Jack watched with mild surprise as she seated herself. The duchess usually took breakfast in her room, and not at this early hour. Her appearance this morning was decidedly unusual.
By the time the servant had fetched everything she wanted and arranged it at her place, Jack was nearly finished with his meal. His regular habit, before Sophie, had been to go to his study for an hour before taking a morning ride in the park, depending on the demands of the day. Now, since Sophie, he had put Percy to handling more of the routine matters. Now he rode every day, rain or shine, and today he planned to stop by the boxing saloon for the first time in years. He wasn’t ready to climb in the ring again, but it felt good to get out of his study and do something. He pushed back from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, Mother.”
“Are you well, dear?”
The question, asked in such a gentle tone, caught him off guard. “Perfectly,” he told her, thinking that he’d never been better. “What makes you ask?”
Concern creased her brow. “You’ve not been yourself these last few weeks. Neglecting your work, going out every night and staying out until dawn . . . It’s not like you, this wildness. Of course I wonder.”
It wasn’t as wild as the way he had behaved before his father died, and it didn’t hold a candle to Philip’s regular habits. “Percy is handling things well. Father ought to have trusted him more. There’s no need for me to personally approve every purchase at Kirkwood House or review the plan for repairing the ice house at Alwyn.” He cocked his head when her reproachful expression didn’t abate. “What worries you, Mother? What friend has come to you, faint with horror over the hours I keep?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I’m your mother. My concern springs from my own observations. And I cannot help noting that you have changed your habits very dramatically since the incident at that club.”
The Duchess of Ware never said the name Vega’s, not even when she was imploring him to save his brother from it. And Jack bit back a grin at the way she referred to his wager with Sophie. She had no idea how much he’d changed since then. “Perhaps it shook me out of my calcified ways,” he said mildly.
“Not for the better!” she exclaimed. Her butter knife clattered on the plate. “How can you go to that wicked place every night?”
“Wicked? I go with Philip. Are you equally worried for his habits?”
Her eyes flashed. Jack had long known Philip was her favorite son, and it did not surprise him when she refused to address that. “We were discussing you, not your brother. Are you neglecting your duty because of him?”
Jack wanted to laugh. Philip had provided him an excellent excuse to see Sophie, and he was very grateful for that. “I’m not neglecting my duty at all. In fact, one might say I am observing my duty—the duty you pressed upon me—by keeping an eye on my brother and preventing him from ruining himself at the tables.”
Now she was piqued. “Stop blaming Philip,” she snapped. “I wasn’t speaking of your duty to him, but of your duty to Ware. Your father would be gravely disappointed.”
Jack said nothing. For seven years he had done everything possible to make his father proud, and never once had his mother complimented him on it. She only mentioned how disappointed his father would be whenever Jack refused to do as she wished. And Jack had long since given up trying not to disappoint his mother.
“There.” Her tone softened at his lack of argument. “Leave Philip to his own devices tonight. I am sure he cannot get into very much trouble in the span of a few hours. Come with me to the theater.”
“The theater,” he repeated in surprise. This was new, this gentle entreaty.
“Yes.” She sipped her tea. “I have already invited Lady Stowe and Lucinda to share my box. They will be so delighted to see you at last.”
But he would be more delighted to see Sophie. Lady Stowe talked a great deal and laughed even more, a high girlish titter that made his head ache. Jack couldn’t fathom spending three hours trapped in a theater box with her. “Not tonight, Mother.”
The duchess sighed. “Wait.” She motioned to the footmen, who silently left the room. “Let us be plain with each other, dear. You are being unpardonably rude to Lucinda and Lady Stowe.”
“Rude!” Jack began to wish he’d taken breakfast in his study. “How have I been rude to Lucinda?”
His mother gave him a severe look. “You have avoided her all Season when you ought to have been doing the precise opposite.”
“I have not avoided her,” he said. “I have been otherwise engaged. And more to the point, why on earth should I seek her out? That is what you mean, isn’t it?”
“You know very well what I mean. Everyone expects you to propose marriage to her this year.”
If the ceiling had caved in on them, Jack couldn’t have been more astonished. “Propose? Marriage—to Lucinda? She’s just a girl,” he protested, incredulous.
“She’s eighteen,” replied his mother, unruffled. “And you gave your father your word, as he lay dying, that you would marry her. She’s grown up expecting your offer, and now you’re haring about London like a boy just out of university without a care in the world when you should be courting her.”
Jack was dumbfounded. It was true he had promised his father that he would look out for Lucinda, but . . . marry her? No, he most certainly had not promised that. He glanced at his mother, hoping to see some trace of hesitation, but she was wholly serious. Good God. Did she really think he had engaged himself to a child, seven years ago . . .
?
He leaned back in his chair, suddenly filled with suspicion. “Mother, I never vowed to marry her. She was a child when Father died.”
“And he begged you to look after her, the daughter of his dearest friend.”
“Right. ‘Look after her’—that’s what he asked, and that’s what I promised. And I have.”
The duchess waved one hand. “A few bills paid! That’s not what your father meant, and you know it.”
It had been far more than that. Jack knew Percy had been acting virtually as Lady Stowe’s man of business for the last seven years, letting her houses, hiring her servants, arranging for everything a household could need in London. Knowing Lady Stowe, he’d probably paid a great many bills of hers, as well. Jack was sure the new Lord Stowe, younger brother of the late earl, appreciated that very much, as his sister-in-law was not known to be a thrifty woman.
But Jack had been glad to do it. It was the last thing his father had ever asked of him, and he would have walked through fire to keep his promise. He remembered the day his father and Stowe, friends since Eton, had set out on the duke’s yacht, Circe. There was a brisk wind, a few raindrops now and then from the gray sky above, but nothing ominous in the air. A good day for sailing, the duke had declared. Sailing was his passion, and the river near Kirkwood was wide and smooth.
Stowe hadn’t wanted to go. Lady Stowe was unwell, expecting a child, and she wanted Stowe to attend her. He still didn’t have an heir, only a daughter, Lucinda. She was a quiet, bookish girl, tall and gangly at eleven, her wiry red hair always falling over her face, at least in Jack’s memory. He had been home only because his favorite horse had developed a foot infection and the grooms at Kirkwood were the best in England. And by that unfortunate stroke of luck for his horse, Jack was there when his father and Stowe climbed aboard the Circe with a pair of servants and set sail.
The storm hit suddenly, blowing up the river in a matter of hours. It passed just as quickly, but when the sun came out again, the Circe limped back to shore, her main sail ripped and trailing in the water. A swell had almost capsized the boat, and Stowe was swept overboard. In horror, the duke had dived in after his friend, to no avail. The servants and the duchess had to drag the duke to his bed. By the next day he had a raging fever, and Lord Stowe’s body washed ashore not far from the house.
It took four days for the duke to succumb to the fever. The doctors came and bled him several times before saying there was nothing else they could do. Privately Jack thought Lady Stowe’s screams of grief, and the news that she had lost her unborn child, had made his father want to die. I killed him, the duke repeated over and over in delirium. I killed Stowe. The night before he died, he’d grasped Jack’s hand and made him swear he would look out for Lady Stowe and her daughter. Unnerved and frightened by his father’s weakening health, Jack swore it.
But that promise had not been to marry Lucinda. He narrowed his eyes at his mother, guessing what she was up to. “If he had asked for my promise to marry Lucinda—who was, as noted, merely eleven years old at the time—I would have refused, not only for my sake but for Lucinda’s. She deserves to have some say in her husband. You and Lady Stowe have decided I ought to marry her, haven’t you?”
“It would be for your own good,” she replied, unrepentant. “You’ve gone completely mad lately. Your father would be appalled if he heard half the things you’ve done in the last month. Trust me in this—marry a proper young lady, one who’s grown up preparing to be your duchess, and it will restore you to your right self.”
“My right self,” he echoed in disgust.
“Precisely.” She nodded once. “You are a duke, a Lindeville, and must live like one, with a respectable duchess. It’s time you saw to your duty to have an heir.”
Jack barely heard that last shot about duty. His mind had belatedly stuck on one thing his mother said: Lucinda had grown up believing he would marry her. Christ. Was that true? It would put him in a terrible spot if so. Even though he’d never mentioned marriage to her, even though she’d never hinted she expected him to, if she believed they were informally engaged, and had been for years, what could he do? He had taken care of her and her mother as if they were family. If everyone in town believed he and Lucinda were betrothed . . . if his own mother and Lady Stowe had been telling people there would be a marriage . . . everyone would believe it.
Even worse, Lucinda might believe it. She had made her debut this Season, the only child of the late earl with a handsome dowry. All of London would expect her to make a splendid match this year.
And Lucinda herself . . . They’d always got on well. If Lucinda expected to marry him, she’d never said a word, not even in jest. But perhaps she’d not thought about it. She was a pretty girl, and an eligible one. Had she really been preparing to be his duchess since she was eleven? Had she turned down offers of marriage because she expected one from him? Jack rubbed his suddenly damp palms on his knees. Bloody hell.
It wasn’t merely that he didn’t trust his mother not to manipulate things to suit her. It wasn’t even that he didn’t wish to marry Lucinda, who was more of a younger sister to him than a desirable woman. It was that he’d damn near decided he wanted to marry Sophie, her secrets and mysteries be damned. He wanted her. He wanted to be with her, all the time. He was falling in love with her.
What would he do about Sophie, if he found himself unwittingly engaged to marry Lucinda Afton?
Chapter 21
Sophie knew she was running a tremendous risk by continuing to see Jack. Every night that he came to her door was another chance for a nosy neighbor to spy him and start malicious rumors that could upend her life. She’d already had to tell Colleen, after Jack left his gloves in the hall one night and Colleen discovered them the next morning, and even though the maid promised to be discreet, Sophie was acutely aware that most servants gossiped. More than once she told herself to make a clean break with him, for her own good and for his.
But then he would tap on her door, and she would fling it open without hesitation, her heart soaring as he slipped in and caught her close for a passionate kiss. It was enough to make her abandon her own rules, despite the risks. Love might be making her stupid, but it was also making her the happiest she’d been in many years. At times she felt like she was glowing with joy, just thinking of him, and therefore she resolutely refused to think about how or when it might end.
There was one test she dreaded, though, and before long it arrived. Sophie had put off her friends again and again. She knew they had heard something of her scandalous wager. At first she had brushed their questions aside, calling it a momentary and mortifying lapse in judgment. That was true, and it aligned with the story she put out to everyone else. Once Jack began spending almost every night in her bed, though, she couldn’t maintain the lie, not to her dearest friends—but neither could she settle on what to tell them. She postponed their regular tea and responded to their letters without mentioning a word about Vega’s or Jack or much of anything, really; she wrote of the weather and the new shoes she bought.
It wore on her. She didn’t want to lie to Eliza and Georgiana, but neither did she want to drive them away by being distant and secretive. When Eliza sent a note asking if they would take tea together as usual after several weeks, she replied in the affirmative. The gossip about her wager seemed to have died down. No one in London seemed to know about her affair with Jack. She could only hope her friends had lost interest in the whole thing. And if they hadn’t, and asked directly about the wager or Jack . . . she would have to remind herself that it was for their own good that she didn’t tell them everything. The Countess of Sidlow was very vigilant of Georgiana’s associations, and even Mr. Cross, who had been such a friend to her, might balk at letting his only daughter spend time with a loose woman.
She went down to her tiny drawing room when Colleen announced Eliza’s arrival. “Eliza! It’s so good
to see you again.”
The other girl smiled and returned her embrace. “And you! I’ve been perishing of curiosity to hear from you, and you’ve been a terrible correspondent of late.”
She had been, deliberately. But if she meant to continue seeing Jack, she’d better learn how to carry on with her life and still keep her secret.
Sophie flipped one hand carelessly and took a seat. “I’m much the same as ever. How have you been? I trust your father is well.”
“Papa is very well,” said Eliza, beaming now. “As am I. Oh heavens—I can’t keep my news secret any longer! Sophie, I’ve met a gentleman!”
Sophie gasped. “You have? Eliza, how wonderful!” It was clear from Eliza’s flushed happy face that she had more than met a gentleman. Eliza had met many gentlemen . . . who were all well aware of that fact that she was sole heiress to her father’s considerable wealth. None of them had made Eliza blush and smile as she was doing now. “Who? When did you meet him? How have you not said a word about him before?”
Eliza laughed. “He’s wonderful! He really notices me, Sophie. He’s engaged in some business with Papa, so he comes to call regularly, and he pays attention to me as no one else ever has.” She rolled her eyes and gave an embarrassed laugh. “Of course, he’s so charming, he may treat every young lady that way, which is why I didn’t say anything sooner . . .”
Sophie scoffed. “Only if they are as sweet and kind as you, but so few are. I don’t see how all the decent gentlemen in London don’t fall in love with you.”
Her friend blushed. “That’s ridiculous and you know it. But . . . oh Sophie, I’m in love!”
Even though she felt genuine joy for Eliza, even though the starry look in Eliza’s eyes made her truly pleased, Sophie felt a sharp pang in her chest. She couldn’t say that she too had fallen in love, because her love was not the respectable kind that might lead to a happily-ever-after. Her throat felt tight and her smile a little wistful as she said, “Tell me everything.”
My Once and Future Duke (The Wagers of Sin #1) Page 21