It was then that a footman appeared at the door and announced his guest. “The Duke of Kenning.”
The visit was not a surprise. But it was getting late and Ambrosia would be returning soon. James had taken his time with his response and now his timing couldn’t have been more inopportune.
“Send him in.”
Duncan deduced that James had been so adamant over his pursuing Ambrosia because of his own feelings. One could hardly fault the man for trying, but now that Duncan had solidified the relationship, he’d be damned to allow James to continue with his flirtation and had simply wanted to warn him of the ramifications of any future infractions.
James entered with his typical joviality and constant state of impeccable dress. “Duncan! I came as soon as I could. What is so important that you had me rush all the way over here?”
Duncan looked up at the clock. It had taken James close to twelve hours to respond.
James obviously knew what he was thinking. “I was entertaining that soprano you dropped so suddenly. She’s had me tied up all day. Quite literally, actually.”
“I’m engaged,” Duncan stated bluntly, not caring to relive his brief time spent with the voluptuous Italian girl.
James didn’t even blink at the declaration. “Wonderful! Pass the brandy.”
Rather than wait for the brandy to be passed, James promptly took it from him and began pouring himself a liberal splash of the amber liquid.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” Duncan returned, taking the bottle back once he was finished.
James smiled. “Oh, I am. I knew you could do it! Now, tell me—who is the lucky bride to be?”
Duncan smiled slyly. “Why, it is none other than the Miss Ambrosia Tisdale.”
James went slack jawed and gasped, his hand dramatically clutching his chest.
Obviously, he had missed his calling in theatre. “Miss Ambrosia Tisdale? You don’t say?”
“Yes,” Duncan exclaimed with equal sarcasm. “The very one!”
James laughed, then helped himself to a particularly long drink. “May I ask how this all came about?”
“What do you mean?” Duncan asked with feigned naiveté.
James was growing increasingly tense. “Did you compromise her? Were you forced into it? Whatever happened? Last I heard you were ridding yourself of the girl altogether and now you two are engaged?”
“What does it matter how we became engaged? I thought you’d be quite pleased, considering it’s what you wanted all along.”
James put both hands in the air, as if proclaiming his innocence. “Your happiness was my only concern through all of this. It was about you, Duncan, not me.”
Duncan leaned over and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Was it?”
“Of course. What other possible motives could I have had?”
Duncan’s tone became considerably more acerbic. “You tell me?”
“I don’t care overly much for your tone, Ol’ boy,” James warned. “Do you have something you’d like to share with me? If so, please, do elaborate. I’d love to hear what it is you’re thinking right now.”
“I don’t think you would, James.”
James put the crystal glass down on a neighboring table. “I know what’s going on here. That bitch told you about the money.”
Duncan would have punched him right then and there if he could have recovered from the shock of his effrontery. “What did you just say?” he asked, bewildered by James’ startling reaction.
James began pacing about the library. “I warned her not to. I told her it would devastate you at a time when you couldn’t bear it. But that damned righteous piety of hers makes it impossible to see things as anything other than right and wrong, black or white!” He clenched his fists in and out. Duncan hadn’t expected such a strong reaction and was frankly taken aback by the intensity James was displaying.
“What about the money?” he asked, pretending to know far more than he obviously did. The conversation was taking a most unexpected turn and there had to be a source for such an unwarranted reaction.
James was seething. “I did what I had to survive. I had no other options. I’ve tried to remedy the situation. Think of all I’ve done for you over these months—the lengths I’ve gone to secure your future?”
Duncan shook his head, thoroughly confused. “James?”
“You’re a rich man now. That dowry will more than make up for the piddle I’ve taken.”
“I was the one who gave you the idea,” James continued. “There’s no way you could have thought of it on your own. You needed a rich, desperate woman and I found her for you. In fact, I practically served her up on a silver platter for you. I orchestrated all of it. I invited you into my world so you’d have every opportunity to meet with her. I found out which route she walked each morning so you could happen to meet her there. I suggested your name to the Viscountess so you’d be invited to that ball, and it was I who arranged for that damned maid to catch the two of you in the garden that night.”
“You couldn’t have had any idea we were in the garden. I told no one-”
James snorted. “You told your Uncle you were leaving. He in turn, informed me. I followed you, and when I saw what was about to happen I made certain that I brought along a witness. We made it back inside before it rained, luckily enough. She was supposed to have told Lady Tisdale all about it, ensure that an engagement was guaranteed. But somehow it didn’t get done and now the damn girl’s vanished.”
“No she hasn’t.” A new voice joined the discussion from the doorway.
Duncan froze, sensing the floor of his life about to drop out from under him.
Ambrosia stepped forward. “She didn’t vanish. She was fired, but somehow managed to recover her position. Probably by using that little gem of information you just spoke of.”
Duncan finally turned to face her. In his time on the earth he’d been caught red handed a number of times. But not once could he remember ever feeling this particular piercing through his chest, the kind he felt now as Ambrosia stared at him with eyes full of . . .
Ice.
She simply stood there with all the regality of a queen. Her shoulders back, her neck held tall. In such presence he felt lowly, insignificant.
“Ambrosia?” That was the only word he could muster to say. He meant it as a question, a request, an apology, and a plea. And above all, it had been a prayer. Duncan had never considered himself a spiritual man, but at that moment he knew he had finally found religion and hoped desperately God would make it so she hadn’t heard the damning conversation that would end the briefest happiness he’d ever known.
Ambrosia raised one eyebrow. “It appears you had quite the complex strategy. I had no idea that I was worth that much effort. How much is my father offering now for my hand in marriage? Twenty thousand pounds? Thirty thousand? An estate or two? Whatever my current rate, I am certain no two men have ever demonstrated such effort in trying to secure it.”
And with that, Duncan had his answer. God indeed did exist. And was giving him exactly what he deserved.
James raised his glass in the air, a salute to her cool demeanor and self-preservation.
“I hadn’t told him yet, James.”
The look on his face almost made up for the hurt he’d just inflicted.
Duncan felt his jaw tense. “What money, James?”
James recoiled, then finally spoke. “I’d taken money from your brother’s accounts. I had creditors demanding payment. My solicitor arranged it all. The investments, some of them weren’t even real.”
“That’s not all,” Ambrosia interjected. “You’d also planned to steal from Duncan. That’s why you were so adamant that we be married. You needed my dowry to pay toward your newest collection of debts. That was the fortune Amelia spoke of that you were supposedly coming into.”
James glared at her, but had been rendered silent by the weight of the truth that was now pressing down upon all whom stood in the librar
y.
Duncan’s head was reeling. She could have easily stormed out from the room, leaving him in the dark regarding James’ transgressions. But instead, she stood in front of them and endured what had to be a myriad of emotions; humiliation and outrage not being the least among them. All so she could expose James and make right the wrong that he had done to him. It was an act of selflessness that he could not possibly deserve at such a moment.
Duncan glanced briefly at Ambrosia, then fixed his gaze upon the man whom he believed to be his friend. “Jason spent his life trying to restore my family’s fortune.”
James ran a hand through his blond mane, never mussing a piece. “And he succeeded. The man was quite astute. But far too trusting.”
Duncan nodded his head, as if in agreement with his inference that Jason was the one truly at fault.
And in a way, the logic that the victim’s ignorance rendered him the guilty party was particularly fitting considering the predicament he now found himself in.
“I expect you to replace every pound, every farthing, every ha’ penny that you stole.” This he delivered with a tone thick with menace.
“How? I have nothing,” James argued. Unwisely.
Duncan shrugged. “You have estates. Cattle. Jewels. You’ll sell whatever it is you must to repay your debt.”
The two men stood in a way that only males did, one posturing for the other. James cast him a sideways glance as if summing up a threat.
“Or I assure you, I will ruin you in whatever way I can—socially and physically. You know better than anyone that I have no scruples when it comes to revenge. After all, I’m not the one with a reputation to maintain.”
James took a step back, a retreat. “Very well, then.”
“And James,” Duncan added, stepping toward the mantle. He looked into the mirror, his eyes focusing on Ambrosia’s reflection in the glass. “When you leave here today, know that I will never speak to you again. When I see you in public I will nod and acknowledge your existence, but only because I do not care enough about what happens to you to give any more consideration than that. I will not hate you because that would require far too much effort on my part. Nor will I forgive you. You will be nothing but a stranger to me, and after this day I will never give you another thought.”
“I bid you both farewell, then.” James turned to Ambrosia and bowed curtly. “You did this. He would never have turned on me before he met you.”
“You did it to yourself,” she contradicted.
James turned on heel and proceeded to escort himself out of the home.
The door shut, leaving Ambrosia alone with Duncan. He did not turn, but instead stared into a mirror above the fireplace. She knew it was not his own reflection that deterred his focus.
Ambrosia broke the silence first, her words soft, but firm. “I assume I can expect you to observe a similar code of conduct as you have presented to James.”
Duncan took a deep breath. “You wish me gone from your life?”
The words cut another gash into her now mortally wounded heart. “Yes.”
No. But there was no other choice.
“I cannot do that. Not after last night,” he stated determinedly.
Anger seared through her. “A night that happened because of months of your careful plotting and scheming.”
He turned, vehemently shaking his head. “No! A night that happened because we both very desperately wanted it to. I cannot tell you James was lying because he was not. You must believe that although I began with the most perfidious of intentions, I stand before you overcome with the most sincere purpose. I love you.”
Ambrosia’s breath caught in her throat, her heart pounding with such force that the words were almost obscured by the drumming.
Duncan continued. “I told James months ago that I wanted to end the farce and I had every intention of never seeing you again. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I needed to protect you. I didn’t feel as if I deserved someone as perfect as you. And even now, I am humbled by your strength and courage and-”
“Enough,” she said, louder than she had intended. “For someone who so fervently wanted to protect me, you certainly have a strange way of showing it. The damage is done, Duncan. I believed you to be deserving. I would not have given myself to you if I did not. I believed you to be a virtuous man, even if you didn’t believe it of yourself. But it is that doubt in yourself that leads you down these dubious roads, that cause you to make unwise choices. It’s as if you’re unable to accept your own goodness, so you go out of your way to prove the very opposite of your true nature. How can I believe you now, to trust that you have changed? That I am indeed not just a dowry to you? I would rather spend my life a ruined spinster, than as an object used to elevate your status.”
Ambrosia delivered those last words with such finality, it was as if she’d just shut the book and ended that chapter of her life, the one that should have ended happily.
He said nothing, but his hazel eyes betrayed his silence. The green was more grey and the gold flecks were not nearly as noticeable as they usually were. They spoke volumes, all of which she refused to hear.
How could a man that wore his feelings so evidently ever succeed in any game of cards?
She stared at him for a moment, drinking in the visage before her as if it was her last chance to quench a thirst that would remain for a lifetime. Duncan stood still, firmly planted in front of the mantle. His hair brushed casually against is collar, far too long to be considered fashionable. He wore a dove-grey waistcoat with simple buttons. He hadn’t been wearing his jacket and his shirt sleeves were rolled up just enough to expose the lanky muscles in both his forearms. A smattering of dark hair covered those bronze arms and a small tuft was exposed by the open buttons at the top of his shirt. He wore no cravat.
Then he reached out his hand toward her, his final gesture.
She wanted to flee, to escape, but such an exit was hardly befitting a young lady. Instead she curtsied. Then made her way from the room, never stopping to turn and look behind her.
It was ever a respectable departure.
Chapter 27
Two weeks had come and gone, and finally all the visitors at Brightly had found their way back to their own respective residences. The house party was over with only the Tisdale women remaining at the Estate after both William and Lord Tisdale were beckoned back to London for business. Ambrosia found herself seated at the pianoforte, perfecting a sonata she had recently learned.
It was Wednesday.
It was the same as any other day, but different.
Her life had been forever changed after experiencing love and the subsequent pain. She had been waiting for Duncan to find her and give her all that had been missing in her life. But now, she was no longer waiting, and more incomplete than ever.
She mindlessly tapped one of the keys. A brilliant C resonated sound throughout the carefully constructed arched ceilings of the Brightly music room. She followed that with an A, then a D. Soon, music filled the room.
But to her it still seemed so empty.
Flora made her way into the room and sat across from the instrument. She casually perused random sheets of music scattered upon one of the tufted ottomans that were scattered about the room.
Ambrosia finished the piece on a rather somber note. She peered over at her mother.
“Bravo, darling,” Flora applauded from her position on the settee.
Ambrosia nodded an acknowledgement. Her mother had been paying a discomforting amount of attention to her since she had returned from her two days in the city. Only Lillian knew what had happened. She had accompanied her on the ride from London back to Brightly. It was a silent ride, her sister’s intuition allowing her the space she needed. They never spoke of it again, though her mother had tried quite fervently to extricate the truth from them both.
“Really, quite fine work. We shall plan a musicale when we get back to London. Perhaps we could convince Tamsin to joi
n with her violin?”
They both knew that was an impossibility.
“What do you need, Mother?” Ambrosia shuffled through the music.
“Why must I need something to speak to my own daughter?”
Ambrosia peered over the instrument at the woman who was nervously wringing her hands. She raised a solitary eyebrow in response to that ingenuous remark.
“I had wanted to inquire if you’d spoken with the Earl as of late.”
Ambrosia carefully maintained her shuffling, despite the sensation of numbness his name still managed to evoke. “No, I have not. If you have questions regarding Lord Bristol, they would probably best be answered by looking in the broad sheets. So I’ve been told.”
Flora bit her bottom lip. “There’s been nothing written about him for a matter of weeks. It’s as if the man’s fallen off the face of the earth.”
“I wouldn’t know. The subject of the Earl’s comings and goings have never held much interest for me.” It was a partial lie. She did still hold a slight interest, but believed that like the lips on her collar bone, it too would fade as time distanced herself from his memory.
“But I do not believe that to be completely accurate.”
Ambrosia stopped shuffling.
Seemingly satisfied she had finally gotten her attention, Flora continued. “I have come across a most distressing account of an incident between you and Lord Bristol.”
“And, pray tell, what exactly is this incident?” Ambrosia asked calmly.
Flora proceeded to speak in hushed tones, as if the whole of London were listening on the other side of the walls, dramatically pausing between statements. “One of the servants came to me after our ball in London and relayed that she had seen you. In the garden. Alone. With Lord Bristol.”
“And that is what distressed you?”
Her mother raised a hand to her chest, affronted by the confession. “So you do not deny it? You were indeed in the garden that evening?”
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