His surprise didn’t stem from conceit, for he’d known she would eventually marry. She was too desirable a woman, she wanted marriage and children too much, not to do so. No, his surprise had stemmed not from the announcement, but from his own reaction to it. He’d felt as if he’d been hit square in the chest, a painful blow, leaving an ache that had taken ages to subside.
But it had subsided. He’d recovered since that day nine months ago. He’d reminded himself it was all for the best. He’d prayed for her happiness, and he’d tried to mean it. Yet he still hadn’t been able to toss this stupid little scrap of paper. He always kept it in his breast pocket, always within easy reach.
Go to Egypt? Abandon my father, my home, and all our friends? Sleep in a tent, drink water from a canteen, and bathe out of a tin basin? Are you mad?
The moment she’d said those words, in that appalled voice, her eyes wide with horror at the prospect, he’d known the inevitable end of the story. Three days of arguing, each of them trying with all they had to persuade the other to an impossible choice, each of them hoping the other would be the one to give in, to change, to embrace a life that only the other one wanted.
Go to Egypt? Are you mad?
The truth was, any hope that they could have a life together had ended the moment she’d spoken those words. Or perhaps it had really ended before that, when he’d received Sir Edmund’s telegram, and he’d seen a way to escape the pointless life that had been laid out for him since the day he was born.
Perhaps that was why he kept this scrap of paper—to remind himself of how narrowly he’d escaped a suffocating life of pointless duties and silly social rituals, a life he would have hated. Or perhaps, he thought with a wry smile, his reason was simpler. Perhaps he kept it just to prove to himself he was over her.
He realized he’d wadded the announcement into a ball within his fist, and he forced himself to relax his grip. Despite his words to Beatrix earlier today, he hadn’t come all this way to watch her marry some other man. God, he couldn’t think of a more dreadful prospect. No, he wasn’t here because of her at all, and unless she was standing right in front of him, he had no cause to think of her. What he ought to be thinking about was Paul and how to persuade his oldest friend to loan him twenty thousand pounds.
He had to find a way. Even after the British Museum paid for the antiquities he’d brought with him, it wouldn’t be enough to fund the excavation for the next twelve months. His own inheritance was nearly gone, and he hoped Paul would either loan him the funds or sponsor the excavation for the coming year. That would be enough time for him to finally uncover what he’d been digging in the Valley of the Kings for almost six years to find: the tomb of Tutankhamen, a tomb only he, Sir Edmund, and Howard Carter even believed existed.
He recalled the disdain in Beatrix’s voice when she’d mentioned his work, and it galled him that she knew he’d spent his entire inheritance without finding much more than pottery shards. Oh, they’d discovered plenty of artifacts—tablets of hieroglyphs, cylinder seals, a few bits of lapis and gold, plenty of sarcophagi containing mummified remains. All these were valuable finds, of course, important to science and to him as an archaeologist, but they weren’t the reason he’d gone to Egypt. They weren’t Tutankhamen.
Tut was there, though. Sir Edmund had unearthed the first evidence of that seven years ago—only a vague mention on a clay tablet, but Tut was down there somewhere, and he intended to find that Boy King before another year went by.
He knew his choice to follow his dream defied all Beatrix’s notions of duty, tradition, and even common sense. At this moment, she was probably congratulating herself on her escape, applauding herself for abandoning him in favor of a more successful, more important man. She had always humored his fascination with Egypt and archaeology, but she’d never really shared it.
He closed his eyes and tried to conjure the delicate sweetness of gardenias, working at it until that fragrance seemed as real now as it had a short time ago on the Stafford Road, as real as the heady fragrance that drifted through his bedroom window from the courtyard at home every night in February.
The sound of footsteps along the corridor broke into Will’s speculations, and he hastily shoved the crumpled bit of newspaper back into his pocket. He glanced up as the rosy-faced, round little Mrs. Gudgeon appeared in the doorway with a silver tray containing a bottle of amber liquid, a glass, and a siphon—all the necessary accoutrements of Will’s preferred medical prescription.
“Ah,” he said, gratified by such a welcome sight. “At last.”
“Sorry, sir. Someone has come to call, and with the Americans in the north and with most of the staff on board wages, I had to answer the door myself when the bell went.”
“Callers already?” That surprised him. English country life was less formal than in town, but if he remembered the proper etiquette at all, it was his responsibility to call on others first, since he was the one arriving after a long absence. He became even more surprised when informed of the identity of his visitor.
“It’s Lady Beatrix, sir. I’ve put her in the drawing room.”
“Beatrix?” Will groaned. Devil take it, did she intend to turn up every time his thoughts wandered in her direction? “What on earth does she want?”
“She’s come to inquire about the state of your injuries.”
Gudgeon might believe that, but he had no illusions that Beatrix gave two straws about his injuries. Besides, if she had, she’d simply have asked Gudgeon, left a card, and been on her way. “She came alone?” he asked, wondering if he’d imagined the housekeeper’s use of the singular pronoun. “Her aunt isn’t with her? Or some other woman?”
“No, sir. Shall I tell her you are indisposed?”
Will opened his mouth to heartily endorse that suggestion, but then he changed his mind. For Beatrix to come unchaperoned, she must want to see him pretty badly, and that made him curious.
“No, Gudgeon,” he answered. “Show her in by all means, but bring me that whisky first.”
The housekeeper obeyed, crossing the room to place the tray on the table beside his chair. She poured two fingers of whisky into the glass, added a much less generous measure of soda water, gave the contents a quick stir, and stepped back.
“Thank you, Gudgeon,” he said, and picked up the glass. “If my earlier encounter with Lady Beatrix is any indication,” he added with a wry grin as he gestured to his knee, “I’ll need all the fortification I can get.”
Gudgeon did not smile back or betray any other emotion, for it was not her place. She merely bobbed a curtsy and started for the door. But she’d barely taken two steps before she stopped. “Your Grace?”
“Hmm?”
When the housekeeper turned to look at him, Will caught an unmistakable flush of warmth in her cheeks. She glanced at her surroundings, then shifted her weight from one foot to the other and looked at him again. “It’s good to have you home again, young master. This house was a sadder place after you’d gone.”
That took him back, rather. Gudgeon had been the housekeeper at Sunderland in his father’s time, and the old tyrant had never tolerated any personal expression or opinion from herself or any of the other servants. Before he could recover enough to answer, the housekeeper gave him another curtsy and vanished out the door.
So the house had been a sadder place without him? Given his father’s sour temperament, that didn’t come as much of a surprise. He glanced around the study—his father’s favorite room, a room of dark blue paint and walnut paneling that he’d always found particularly depressing. Perhaps that was because here he’d always been called on the carpet for not living up to the Sunderland family image and his father’s expectations, something that had occurred with tiresome regularity, especially the fortnight before he’d gone to Egypt. His father had practically shouted the house down after learning his intent to accompany Sir Edmund, and the news of his broken engagement had nearly given the old man apoplexy.
�
�I wish I could say it was good to be home, Gudgeon,” he murmured, and took a hefty swallow of whisky. “But the sooner I’m gone from this place, the happier I’ll be.”
Chapter Three
By the time Mrs. Gudgeon announced her name, Will was prepared for Beatrix’s arrival. He’d shifted the footstool a bit so that she could clearly see his outstretched leg from the doorway. If she hadn’t left him in the road, he wouldn’t have had to walk on his injured knee, and the swelling would have been minimal. Because of her and that automobile of hers, he was laid low in this manner, and she deserved to have a clear view of her handiwork.
“Forgive me for not standing up,” he told her with mock cheer. “But that’s rather difficult to manage at present, thanks to you.”
If he’d hoped for a display of conscience on her part, he was disappointed. “I don’t see a splint, so your leg isn’t broken.” She gave his knee a skeptical glance. “That is, if it’s injured at all.”
She no longer wore her motoring coat and goggles, he noted as she came further into the study, though she still had on those Turkish trousers, making him remember the time he’d told her she should wear trousers and ride her horse astride so she could go faster, and she’d looked at him as if he’d suggested she go naked. Did she even ride horses anymore? he wondered. If she did, no doubt it was with Trathen. That thought impelled him to take another swallow from his glass of whisky.
“I like the trousers,” he told her. “Rather daring of you to wear them, I must say. But really, Trix, since it’s of daring that we’re talking, isn’t coming here without a chaperone carrying things a bit too far? I know I’ve been away from England a long while, but I’m sure calling upon an unmarried gentleman is still against the rules in civilized society.” His hand tightened around his glass. “You’re not married yet, you know.”
She made a sound of impatience. “Don’t be ridiculous, Will. We’ve known each other for donkey’s years. A chaperone is hardly necessary.”
“Hmm, I wonder if that’s how Trathen would see it. Does he know you’re here?”
“Leave Aidan out of this.”
“That would be the gentlemanly thing to do,” he said amiably. “Lucky for me, I’ve been living amongst uncivilized heathens so long, I’ve forgotten how to be a gentleman.”
“You never knew how.”
He ignored that. “What would Trathen think if he heard you’d come to see me? What if he knew that scarcely two hours after I arrived, you came running over, alone, to welcome me home?”
“Welcoming you is the last thing on my mind. And as galling as it is to be reminded of how I used to moon over you and follow you everywhere—”
“Not everywhere,” he cut in incisively. “Please, Beatrix, do be accurate about these things.”
“Those days are long past. I haven’t the least interest in running after you now.”
“Ah.” He settled himself more comfortably in his chair and pasted an expectant look on his face. “You’re not concerned about me, and you’re not here to welcome me, so you must have come to apologize.”
“Apologize?” she cried. “What reason have I to apologize?”
“I’ll accept it, of course,” he added. “And I’ll be jolly civil about it, too, just to demonstrate that a lifetime of the breeding you so highly value didn’t go to waste—”
“If anyone should apologize, it’s you. I’m here,” she added before he could attempt to debate the issue, “because I want to know the real reason you’ve come home. Is it because of my wedding?”
“I thought you said I wasn’t invited.”
“You’re not. But if you were determined to make a scene in front of over five hundred people, I hardly think lack of an invitation would stop you.”
He grinned at that and raised his glass. “True enough,” he said, and took another drink. “But now that I’m home, excluding me from the guest list will raise more eyebrows than inviting me would, don’t you think? The Dukes of Sunderland are invited to every social event in Devonshire. Deuced impolite of you not to invite me to your wedding. Besides, wouldn’t having me there be the best way of proving to everyone that you don’t care tuppence for me anymore?”
“I don’t need to prove that. Everyone already knows—”
“That you’re still holding a torch for me?”
She smiled sweetly. “Only if I can use it to burn you alive.”
He glanced down, memory enabling him to see beneath those full, brown velveteen trousers to the generous curves beneath. “As I recall,” he murmured, lifting his gaze to her face, “you and I never needed any torches to burn for each other.”
He had the satisfaction of watching her smile fade, but other than that, she gave him no reaction but a disdainful stare. “Your memory is flawed.”
“Is it?” He stood up, sucking in a deep breath at the pain in his knee, and began walking toward her. “I don’t think so.”
As he closed the short distance between them, he caught the fragrance of her, and a memory flashed across his mind—their engagement cotillion, a dark corner of the garden, and kissing gardenia-scented skin. Amazing how the scent and sight of her could bring it all flooding back as if six damned years had never gone by. Arousal stirred within his body, and pain, too, and both made him angry, with her and with himself.
“My memory is functioning perfectly,” he murmured, leaning closer, close enough that when he spoke again, his breath stirred the delicate wisp of hair that peeked from beneath her hat and curled against her cheek. “Would you like proof?”
She set her jaw. “No.”
He ignored that answer, compelled to provoke her on purpose, push her, gain a reaction. “I remember you always favored pink undergarments,” he said in a low voice. “Pale pink with tiny satin ribbons and lots of lace.”
She stirred, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Her cheeks flushed pink and she looked away. A reaction at last.
“I remember how the pulse in your throat used to start hammering whenever I kissed you there,” he went on, relentless and not even knowing why. “I remember the little mole just above your left—”
“Stop it.” She backed up a step, and when he started to follow her move, she lifted her hand, flattening it against his chest. “I said stop. If you don’t, I shall be forced to tell Aidan you made advances toward me, and he’ll kill you.”
“He’ll try, perhaps. But first you’ll have to tell him you came running over to see me.” He paused, smiling faintly. “Alone. Only two hours after I arrived—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop saying that!” She jerked her hand down and retreated several more steps.
This time, he didn’t follow. All he’d wanted was a reaction. Besides, his leg was beginning to hurt like hell. Shifting his weight more to the left, he remained where he was, but he couldn’t resist needling her. A petty form of revenge, he knew, but all he had. “Trathen will wonder why you came here, you know. Speaking as a man, I can assure you of that.”
“Do you intend to answer my question? Did you come home to make trouble for me? To . . . to ‘upset the applecart,’ as you put it, and make some sort of scene at my wedding?”
She really thought he’d do that? Will studied her for a moment, noting the anxious way she was biting her lip, the way her hands were clenching and unclenching. Evidently she thought him capable of that very thing. “Terrible for you if I burst into St. Paul’s and strode up the aisle, shouting breach of promise, or something,” he murmured, not feeling inclined to reassure her. “The society pages would be full of it for days.”
She stiffened, and her hands unclenched to rest on her hips. “If embarrassing me is your intent, I can safely say you won’t succeed. Having been jilted practically on the church doorstep, pitied as the deserted fiancée, and laughed at for making such a fool of myself over you when you were only stringing me along, I can safely say that nothing you do will ever embarrass me again.”
“I strung you along?�
�� He gave a laugh, a laugh that sounded bitter, even to his own ears. “That’s the pot talking to the kettle. What about you?”
“Me?” She blinked, clearly taken aback. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you? What of all the times you pretended to care about my interests? All my books about Egyptology you borrowed, all the sketches of artifacts you drew for me, the rapt way you listened whenever I talked about excavating a site of my own one day? Pretending, always pretending, to be as fascinated by it all as I was. But that was a lie.”
“I wasn’t pretending, and I did not lie! I wanted to understand your interests, try to appreciate and share them.”
“Yet when the opportunity came to share them in truth, you showed your interest in Egypt to be nothing but a farce.”
“I never dreamed you’d actually go! I thought—” She stopped, as if suddenly realizing she was heading into deep waters. Pressing her lips together, she looked away.
“You thought it was a fantasy and nothing more,” he finished for her. “Wonderful and exciting to dream about digging up tombs or playing at it like we did when we were children, wasn’t it? But only if it never became a reality. All right for you to humor dear Will as long as we were still sitting by the fire here in merry old England, eating plum pudding at Sunderland for Christmas, going to London for the season, Epsom, Ascot, and Henley, coming back to Torquay for August, country house parties in September—”
“Yes!” she cried, interrupting his derisive catalog of a typical peer’s life. She met his gaze again, hers defiant. “What’s wrong with that?”
“It wasn’t the life I wanted! And you knew it. You always knew.”
“But it’s the life you were born to.” She shook her head, her defiance seeming to fade into bafflement. “You’re a duke.”
Even now, even after all this time, she still couldn’t see beyond their lineage. He doubted she ever would. “Yes, I’m a duke,” he conceded, making no attempt to conceal his contempt for that meaningless happenstance of birth, “and you want to be a duchess. First me, now Trathen.” He took another drink. “Well, for what you want in life, one duke’s as good as another, I suppose.”
Wedding of the Season: Abandoned at the Altar Page 4