The Way to a Duke's Heart: The Truth About the Duke

by Caroline Linden

  By the time they reached Mill Cottage, she could stand it no longer. “What happened with Mr. Scott?” she blurted out as he helped her down from the carriage. “Why would Lord Worley blackmail your father? I thought this would please you, but I can tell it hasn’t. What’s wrong, Charlie?”

  Without a word he took her by the hand, striding off so rapidly she almost stumbled and fell before getting her balance. Away from the house he led her, around the stable and across the grassy lawn where they had shared lemonade only a few days ago. Tessa clapped one hand to her head to keep her bonnet from falling off as he towed her down the crumbling stone steps to the old mill.

  “What is wrong?” she demanded again, breathlessly, as he finally stopped on the far side of the building, in the shadow of the slip where the wheel had once turned.

  “Nothing at all,” he said, and kissed her, bearing her back against the wall. Her eyes fell shut as she succumbed at once to the spell of his kiss, ruthless and demanding. With one hand he held her nape, tipping her head just so as he plundered her mouth, and with the other he stroked her back, her waist, and finally her hip, drawing her firmly against his erection.

  “Charlie,” she gasped when he broke off the kiss. Her heart galloped inside her chest and she clutched at his sleeve, her head spinning and her breath ragged.

  “Shh.” He plucked her hand off his arm and stripped off her glove. “We’ll talk later.” He brought her hand to his groin, drawing her palm down his length. “Part your legs for me.”

  “Here?” She gaped at him, startled out of the fog of desire he had conjured around her.

  “Do it,” he said in the same wicked, velvet voice.

  Tessa’s throat closed up. They were out of doors . . . although very sheltered from view. She moved her right foot over a few inches.

  His eyes were pure black now. “More,” he growled. He brought her hand up and then down again, showing her how aroused he was.

  Tessa jerked her chin higher. Now she was aroused, too, curse him. Defiantly she lifted her foot and raised her knee, curling her leg around his and flexing her foot to pull him closer.

  “Yes,” he muttered, ducking his head for another scorching kiss.

  She shook off his grip on her hand and began stroking him at her own pace. Her other arm she flung around his neck for balance. As he made love to her mouth, his tongue plunging deep then tangling with hers, he was hiking up her skirts between them. His fingers slipped over the slick folds between her legs, then pushed high inside her. Tessa moaned as a thousand sparks of lightning shot through her. His thumb circled lightly, then firmly, over that deliciously sensitive flesh. His fingers pushed deep and then withdrew, only to do it again. Tessa could hardly breathe; with one hand she yanked at the buttons of his trousers. Charlie did nothing to help her, just continued his maddening assault on her senses, pushing her toward delirium.

  The last button came free as she felt her muscles tensing up in anticipation. Tessa was almost gasping for air as she slid her hand inside his trousers and finally took him in her bare hand. His chest tensed up as he sucked in a sharp breath, and then he seized her wrist, forcing her to guide him between her thighs before he pulled her hand away and thrust deep into her.

  She must have made a startled noise; he paused for a heartbeat, his eyes sweeping over her face. She managed a nod. A shiver seemed to ripple through him, and he pressed closer, then surprised her by boosting her up off her feet. Tessa tightened her grip on his shoulders, hazily fearing they would fall, but that was the last thought she had. Charlie leaned her back against the wall, his hands curved under her hips, and rode her with a hard, driving rhythm. He didn’t stop even when she clutched at him and gave a little scream and almost bucked him off in the throes of climax. Only as she went limp in his arms did he clasp her tighter, leaning his weight on her as he shuddered in his own ecstasy.

  “Darling.” His kiss was gentle, even though his arms trembled and his chest heaved with every breath.

  Eyes still closed, Tessa reached for him, holding him close as she rested her cheek on his shoulder, her face pressed against the crumpled linen of his cravat. Darling. He was more than dear to her, more than just a lover. She had known Charlie was dangerous from the moment she first saw him, although she hadn’t guessed how thoroughly she would succumb to it. He had invaded her life, earned her respect, utterly enslaved her body, and now stolen her heart as well.

  Immolation, indeed. She felt like a straw, liable to burst into flames every time he touched her.

  He took a deep breath and gently let her down. It took a few moments to disentangle from each other; Tessa realized with a start that she had been wrapped around him, arms and legs, and her clothes had snagged on the buttons of his coat. Charlie grinned as he freed his buttons from the trim of her pelisse, and her heart jumped and bounded at the sight. She smiled back rather helplessly, letting him help her set her skirts to rights and then smoothing his cravat into some semblance of rectitude. Folding her arm snugly around his, Charlie led her back around the mill, toward the table and chairs. Tessa blushed at the sight of fresh lemonade and glasses, set out by a silent, invisible servant. What Barnes must think of them for running around the mill and then reappearing like this.

  She sat down and poured two glasses, but Charlie remained on his feet. The lighter, peaceful look faded from his face as he drew out the letter from the Nunney curate and looked at it.

  Tessa waited, but he said nothing. She sipped her lemonade. She shifted in her chair, trying to think what had made him somber again. “Do you still hold your father in contempt?” He glanced up, his eyes puzzled. “For the scandal,” she clarified. “For all the trouble you had to go through.”

  He gave a deep sigh. “Contempt . . . No.” He hesitated, then put the letter back in his jacket pocket. “I have to make a short trip.”

  “Oh.” Tessa blinked. Perhaps he meant to see his brother. “To Bath?”

  “No.”

  “To—To London?” she asked uncertainly. He did have to go to London, to present the curate’s letter and settle his title and put a final end to the uncertainty. But it wasn’t a short visit to London, and once he went, there was no reason for him to return to Frome.

  “Not to London, either.” He wasn’t looking at her but staring toward the road, his eyes shadowed.

  She wet her lips. “To see Lord Worley?”

  His nod was barely perceptible.

  “Oh.” She sipped her lemonade some more. He hadn’t touched his. Quietly she set her glass down and pushed it away. “What will you do?”

  “I owe him an apology,” he said, an odd note in his voice. “And he owes me an explanation.”

  He was not here with her, but somewhere else, far distant in his mind. Tessa felt a renewed tremor of apprehension. “Will it be . . . ?” She hesitated, not sure how to ask. Would it be dangerous? What did he plan to do to Lord Worley? Why did he say he owed the man an apology? And why must he go at all? Surely Charlie’s discovery of Dorothy’s grave had unstrung Worley’s poisonous bow. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to ask again why Worley would blackmail him about his father’s marriage.

  “I imagine it will be quite cold and civil.”

  “Civil?” she exclaimed. “Civil? When he was blackmailing your father?”

  “I don’t think my father had much to do with it, in the end,” he said after a moment.

  That only made her more nervous. She rubbed her hands together, wishing she hadn’t drunk the lemonade. There was a bitter taste in the back of her throat. “Why do you say that?”

  He sighed. He sat down in the other chair and scrubbed his hands over his face. “When we first met,” he began, not quite looking at her, “what did you think of me?”

  “I was all wrong,” she said quickly.

  “But what was your first impression?”

  Tessa bit her
lip. “A wealthy, conceited, indolent rogue. A—A scoundrel, I suppose.”

  He nodded. “Precisely. You wouldn’t be the first to call me so, with good reason.”

  An awful feeling bloomed in her chest. “How did you offend Lord Worley?”

  “Do you recall,” he said, more slowly than ever, “the other night, when you said your family sent you away to recover your nerves and your dignity?” Tessa gave a wary nod. “You were fortunate. I . . . I also had an ill-fated love affair in my youth. She was beautiful and coy, and I was young and impatient. My father disapproved and prevented the marriage, and in response I stormed off to London, vowing never to speak to him again.” His mouth bent bitterly, sadly. “What an arrogant little coxcomb I was.”

  Tessa sat in mute anxiety, unable to open her mouth.

  “I refused to see that he had valid reasons for stopping it. I refused to see anything but my own wounded pride, with the unfortunate result that I never stopped thinking I had been unfairly divided from my true love.”

  She licked her lips and made a guess. “Lady Worley.”

  He hesitated, then gave a slight nod.

  And then she didn’t want to know any more. Something else he’d murmured stuck in her mind—about giving up married women—and she didn’t want to hear anything about the ravishingly beautiful Lady Worley who had been his first love, and almost his ruination. She rubbed her hands on her skirt and jumped to her feet.

  “Well, then, you must let Lord Worley know he wasted his efforts,” she said in a loud, too-bright voice. “With Mr. Thomas’s letter, you have nothing to fear from him.”

  He rose, too. “I’ll be back in a few days.”

  “You will?” She dared a quick glance at him.

  He seemed to become himself again. He gave her a sideways glance and a rueful smile. “Did you fear I wouldn’t?”

  “You didn’t say,” she pointed out, not wanting to admit that yes, she did fear he wouldn’t come back to her. Here in this provincial town, she could ignore the fact that he was, or very soon would be, a duke. Here in the quiet of a Somerset cottage, she didn’t have to think about his intentions, as yet unstated and unclear. Here she could pretend that things would go on as they were, without the interference of family or the demands of a title or the allure of a more sophisticated woman he’d been in love with for years.

  “I’ll come back,” he said. “Will you wait for me?”

  She still had her doubts, but something inside her melted as always when he looked at her that way. “Yes,” she said, shoving aside the doubts. “I will.”

  Chapter 19

  Uppercombe, the seat of the Earls of Worley, was a rambling estate from the time of the Tudors set deep in the Somerset hills above Kilmersdon. Charlie gave a cursory look for any signs of neglect as he rode up the winding drive, but there were none. He didn’t really expect to see any. If Worley had sent the letters, it wasn’t because of money, nor any other reason connected to Durham or even to Edward and Gerard.

  It was because Charlie had had an affair with Lady Worley.

  He had never forgotten how deeply it cut when Maria Gronow refused his frantic proposal to elope. She’d left him, bereft, standing on that little bridge in the woods near Lastings, after telling him she loved him desperately . . . but not desperately enough to defy his father and run away with him. When she’d married the Earl of Worley less than two months later, it had seemed his life was permanently blighted, forever robbed of the woman he loved through his father’s callous interference. For years he’d nursed a smoldering fury that his father had refused to bless the match, blaming Durham for his loss of Maria. He’d gone to London hell-bent on putting his thumb in the duke’s eye at every turn to repay some of the pain his father had caused him.

  But after a year or two he had stopped thinking of Maria so much. A variety of other pleasures filled his hours. The Worleys didn’t spend much time in town, remaining in the country most of the year. Periodically Charlie would hear gossip that Lady Worley had borne another child, filling up the nursery at Uppercombe, and he told himself she must be blissfully happy. She must have fallen in love with Worley and become a devoted wife and mother, no longer the bewitching young siren who dreamed of being the toast of London on his arm. He told himself he was glad she was happy, and over time the scar across his heart ceased to ache when he thought of her.

  If only he’d been wise enough to leave it that way.

  He pulled up his horse in front of the house but remained in the saddle. Perhaps he should turn around and ride away. He’d found the marriage record, found Dorothy’s grave, and secured the proof he needed that his father had legally and legitimately wed his mother. His inheritance and title would be secure, and nothing Worley or anyone else did could change that. What was there to gain by stirring up old hurts and past mistakes?

  Slowly, Charlie dismounted his horse. A servant came running up to take the reins, and he handed them over. He owed his brothers a full explanation, including any apology due for his own actions. He had earned whatever retribution was coming. And, he supposed, he should be man enough to face the consequences of his actions, whatever they might be.

  The butler was waiting when he reached the door. “Tell Lord Worley I’ve come about his letters,” Charlie told the man, placing one of his father’s calling cards on the butler’s salver. They were inarguably his now, embossed with the title Duke of Durham in elegant script above the ducal coat of arms. Edward had put them in with the rest of the duke’s papers, where Charlie found them after emptying the satchel.

  He wasn’t left waiting long. The butler showed him into the library, where Lord Worley stood with one elbow propped on the mantel. He didn’t say a word until the butler had closed the door behind him. “Lord Gresham,” he said then, a trace of malice in his voice. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

  “You may call me Durham,” replied Charlie. Neither man made any pretense of a bow.

  Worley’s brow arched. “Precipitous, by the rumors one hears.”

  Charlie just smiled. “You shouldn’t listen to rumors, sir.”

  The earl’s lips curled into an expression every bit as sardonic as Charlie’s own. “Oh, but the pleasure they afford! The foibles of our fellow man are better than a farce on the stage. Surely you agree.”

  “Of course. And one should credit them with as much truth as a farce on the stage. There is often more fiction at work in gossip than in the finest drama.”

  “And yet, like some of those dramas, gossip is often based so closely on truth.”

  Worley was enjoying this, Charlie could tell. “Or supposition, in your case,” he said, tired of prevarication. “An old story, fleshed out with threats and blackmail demands.”

  “Well.” The other man rocked back on his heels, looking rather pleased with himself. “One doesn’t want to be ignored or overlooked.”

  “And yet you didn’t sign your name. I daresay you would have received an immediate response if you hadn’t taken pains to conceal yourself.”

  Worley gave a faint chuckle. “Do you think I didn’t want to be caught out? Do you think I didn’t want you to know I sent them? You’re as foolish and oblivious as gossip says, if so.” He leaned forward, his humor vanishing in a sudden glitter of hatred. “I wanted you to know, whelp,” he said savagely. “I didn’t think it would take even you this long to work it out, but I never planned to conceal it from you.”

  “You shouldn’t have sent them to my father, in that case,” Charlie shot back. “He told no one for over a year. If you relished the thought of the agony you were causing me, know that it only began when he died and we discovered the letters in his effects.”

  Worley’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, that was a miscalculation. I expected your brother Edward would open them and drag the entire affair into the light, demanding answers. I would have been delighted to see yo
ur own father enact my vengeance.”

  “You underestimated my father and my brother. My brothers and I are all, in our own ways, very much Durham’s sons.” Charlie opened his arms wide in a gesture of defenselessness. “For instance, you can see I have no hesitation in confronting a man. I don’t ask unknowing and uninvolved people to send libelous blackmail letters for me.”

  Worley’s smile was poisonous. “Ah, poor Mr. Scott. He finally told you.”

  “I worked it out on my own,” replied Charlie evenly. “How did you know Hester Swynne was really Dorothy Cope?” That was the only link missing in the chain, as far as he could see.

  The other man raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really—surely you wouldn’t have believed your father paid court to a lowly wench from Mells. It was only a guess, I admit, but it seemed to me there was more to it. I sent a chap out to ask some questions, and he found old Jeremiah Scott—and lo, the vein was even richer than expected. The man’s gone barmy with age, but a bottle of strong port loosened his lips remarkably, even to the point of confessing himself a bigamous husband. I expect it was a relief for him to tell the tale, after keeping it secret for so long. Durham actually married the tart! Isn’t it shocking what men will do to get a woman to open her legs?”

  Charlie’s hands were in fists, and he took a deep breath, forcing his fingers to uncurl. Worley was savoring every bloody moment of this, and Charlie wanted to shake that damned triumph off his face. He dropped his hands. “Undoubtedly—which brings me to the reason for my visit. I was wrong to dally with Lady Worley.”

  At her name, the earl flinched and his expression darkened. Then his mouth twisted, but this time in rage. “You were sick with love for her your whole life, weren’t you? Both of you were just waiting for me to cock up my toes, all these years. And the widowed Lady Worley would have become the next Duchess of Durham, as she wanted to be all along. I always wondered if you were truly enslaved by her, as she often claimed. I know she was a virgin when I married her, which can only mean she made you dance to her tune as she made me.”