She lowered the paper, staring at him as if unable to quite take the whole thing in. “I wonder if Daddy knows that Frederick is dead?”
“Since your father is sailing a yacht around the Greek islands right now with his mistress, I very much doubt it.”
“But Daddy helped you do this?”
“He jumped at the chance. He’d always wanted to do something of the kind. In fact, the whole investment scheme was his idea, for he knew Van Hausen was a crooked sort of chap, but he couldn’t implement this sort of plan himself because despite having a daughter who’s a duchess, he just couldn’t muster the level of influence in Knickerbocker society required to bring it all about. Enter my titled British friends. Lady Astor and her set were practically drooling when they visited New York. Jack flattered her shamelessly, I understand.”
“Something Lady Astor no doubt appreciated,” Edie said. “That woman likes nothing better than being buttered up.”
“She introduced my friends to Van Hausen, as well as to many of his other acquaintances, and the rest is history.”
“But Frederick would have investigated your friends. Once he discovered they were acquainted with you, why didn’t he suspect something was up?”
“I believe it was implied that we’d had a falling-out. Bad enough that I married an inappropriate girl for her money. But then, I came home from Africa and wanted to breed children with her. Van Hausen believed all that rubbish without a qualm and didn’t bother to delve any deeper. And when he heard that my supposedly former friends knew I’d discovered some gold mines in Africa, and how they wanted to get the jump on me, so to speak, Van Hausen practically stumbled over himself to form the company.” Stuart paused, then went on, “I think the idea of scoring off me added to the appeal of the whole thing for him.”
“Why? Because it renewed his pleasure at grinding jumped-up trash like me under his boot?”
“Something like that,” he said gently.
“So you ruined him.”
“We gave him the chance to evade the trap. An engineer’s report showed the mines to have no gold in them, and once he discovered that, if he’d had a shred of decency, he’d have withdrawn, made good on the money to the investors, and walked away. But he didn’t withdraw. He went ahead, he kept their money, he invested it elsewhere—with delicate hints conveyed through my friends to his friends, of course—and he lost that money, too. He committed fraud, and that’s when we knew we had him dead to rights.”
She paused, considering. “But surely you couldn’t have known he’d kill himself rather than go to prison?”
Stuart shook his head. “No, although I suppose it’s not surprising. He was a coward. He was also a greedy, selfish, insignificant man who wanted to be important. He felt he was entitled to things that didn’t belong to him. Money, success.” He looked into his wife’s eyes. “Women.”
She nodded in agreement, looking thoughtful. “And your friends did all this for you?”
“Yes. I didn’t tell them what actually happened to you.” He didn’t say his friends had probably guessed that part, but went on, “They didn’t need to know the details in order to help. They knew your reputation had been ruined and your honor besmirched, and that was all they needed to hear. We are Eton men. Honor means a great deal.”
“But what happened to me was a year before you married me, and yet, they still helped you avenge me?”
He smiled. “They are damned fine friends.”
“Do you suppose Frederick ever realized you were the one who brought it all about?”
“I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter.”
Edie seemed surprised by that. “Wouldn’t you have wanted him to know it was you, at the end?”
He shrugged. “Why? I don’t need the bug to look up and see me before my boot comes down and flattens him.”
She made a choked sound, half laugh, half sob. “And you did it for me. Oh, Stuart.”
“Darling.” He pulled away the tray on her lap, setting it aside. Then he opened his arms.
She came to him at once, tossing aside the paper, and buried her face against his chest. He felt her body trembling with reaction. “I can’t quite believe it,” she mumbled. “He’s dead. He’s dead.”
“Yes.” He caressed her back and kissed her hair. “It’s all right, Edie. It’s over. He can’t ever hurt you, and he can’t hurt any other women. Not now.”
She lifted her head, stricken. “There were others, besides me? Tell me,” she demanded when he didn’t answer.
“There were two that I am fairly certain he assaulted. Both were before you. Similar circumstances, but his father managed to have it hushed up, for the girls were both servants. His father paid them off and sent them away. But . . .” Stuart hesitated, for he didn’t want to tell her the truth, but he’d always promised her the truth when she asked. “But a man like that isn’t likely to stop,” he said as gently as he could.
“I never thought there might be others. I always thought it was me. I thought it was something I did, something about me that . . . that set him off. That I’d been a tease, or . . . that by agreeing to meet him, I’d given him an expectation, or led him on, or—”
“No, my darling,” he interrupted. “No. His actions had nothing to do with you. None of it was your fault.”
“But there are probably other women who have been hurt by him after what he did to me? Oh, no, no,” she moaned, looking stricken. “I should have known. I should have done something.”
“Don’t, Edie. Don’t.” He cupped her face, catching tears with his thumbs as they fell, brushing them away. “There was nothing you could have done.”
“I could have told the world what he’d done, so other women would know and be warned against him.”
“What makes you think anyone would have believed you? Given his position and yours, would anyone have listened to you? No. You had no proof to offer. Had you come forward, claiming he forced you, you’d have faced even more degradation and blame than you’d already suffered. Society always views these things as the woman’s fault, especially since he got you to arrive at that summerhouse after him. I’ve no doubt he arranged it that way with you deliberately.”
“He did, yes.” She nodded. “It was his idea. He claimed afterward that I tried to trap him.”
“Well, there you are. And had you told the world what really happened, society would have condemned you for your lack of discretion more than him for his action. As to a plot of revenge, such as what I did, you could not have put together a group of investors to take Van Hausen down. Even your father didn’t have the necessary influence to do that on his own.”
“But—”
He pressed a thumb to her lips. “Edie, listen to me. You must not blame yourself. You judged, and rightly so, that there was nothing you could do other than kill him, and if you’d been caught, you’d have been hanged or sent to prison, and again, Joanna had to be considered. And even if you hadn’t been caught, to suffer having murder on your soul? No.” He shook his head. “Avenging you was my office. I knew that the moment I knew what he’d done to you. I only wish I could have wiped it out altogether, made it so that it never have happened at all, but I couldn’t do that, so—”
“But I don’t wish that,” she interrupted, sitting up.
He frowned. “Of course you do.”
“But I don’t, Stuart.” She shook her head. “I don’t regret that it happened. In fact,” she added slowly, as if considering it, “if I could go back and change it, I wouldn’t.”
“What?” Shocked, he stared at her. Almost a year together, and she still said things that absolutely confounded him. “You can’t mean that.”
“But I do mean it. As awful as it was, if it hadn’t happened, I never would have come to England. I never would have met you.”
He shook his head. “Perhaps, but still—”
“Remember what you said that day in this very room how you didn’t care if you limped for the rest of your life, because if that lion hadn’t mauled you, you might never have come home?” She smiled, caressing his face. “Well, I feel the same way. Even out of bad things, good things can happen. Even things that are sordid or painful can lead to things that are beautiful.”
Stuart’s chest felt tight, his body pinned in place, Fate holding on to him and making him see the beautiful thing right in front of his eyes. “God, how I love you.”
“And I love you.” She kissed him, then sank back amid the pillows. “All that said, however, I can’t pretend I’m not glad Frederick Van Hausen is dead.”
“Agreed.” He settled back beside her and closed his eyes. At once, an image of Van Hausen putting a gun muzzle in his mouth came into Stuart’s mind, and he took a moment to savor the sweet satisfaction of such a picture. But only one moment. Then he put the whole business aside. It was done, finished, settled right at last. It was time now to let it go.
“Stuart?” Edie touched him, her hand fanning over his bare chest, causing him to open his eyes. “What are you thinking?”
He turned and looked at his wife, in her white nightdress, surrounded by sheets and feather pillows, with her red-gold hair shining like fire in the morning light. “I’m thinking of what I’m glad about,” he said. “I’m glad I went to the Hanford Ball. I’m glad you tore out after me and proposed. I’m not so glad you shredded my pride, but—”
“Oh, you needed it,” she interrupted. “You were so damnably conceited.”
He picked up her hand. “I’m glad you like it when I kiss your hand.” He paused to press a kiss into her palm, feeling the way she quivered in response. “And I’m glad you made that silly bet with me about ten days and gave me the chance to win you.”
“It’s long past ten days now,” she said, and shoved back the sheets that covered the lower half of his body. Pulling at her nightdress, she eased over him, straddling his legs with hers. “It’s three hundred and thirty-some days now.”
“Yes, and you’re still trying to lead, I see.” He leaned forward to kiss her, but she stopped him.
“Would you like to?” she asked, hand on his chest. “Lead, I mean?”
“That depends.” He toyed with one of the pearl buttons on her nightdress. “Would you like it?”
“Yes, Stuart,” she said. “I think I would.”
He smiled, slipping pearl buttons free as he eased her off him and onto her back. With the buttons undone, he pulled the nightdress apart and slowly moved on top of her. “As long as you always remember the difference, my darling.”
“I don’t need to remember it, Stuart, because I know it.” She smiled as she closed her eyes and turned her head so he could kiss her neck. “I know it in my soul.”
About the Author
LAURA LEE GUHRKE spent seven years in advertising, had a successful catering business, and managed a construction company before she decided writing novels was more fun. A New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Laura has penned over twenty historical romances. Her books have received many award nominations, and she is the recipient of romance fiction’s highest honor: the Romance Writers of America RITA® Award. She lives in the Northwest with her husband (or, as she calls him, her very own romance hero), along with two diva cats and a Golden Retriever happy to be their slave.
Laura loves hearing from readers, and you can contact her via her website: www.lauraleeguhrke.com.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
HOW TO LOSE A DUKE IN TEN DAYS. Copyright © 2014 by Laura Lee Guhrke. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition MAY 2014 ISBN: 9780062118202
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062118196
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