The Duke of Hearts

by Jess Michaels

  “You think she would return after such an abrupt exit?” Matthew asked, and his heart leapt at the thought.

  Robert shrugged. “I have no idea what goes on in the minds of women. But if this encounter between you was powerful enough to inspire you to chase, inspired her to run…it follows that she might return to the scene of the…crime might be too strong a word.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Matthew said. “Very well. I can do that. I’ll go back to the Donville and continue looking for her. And if you can find out her identity before I see her again, then all the better.”

  “What do you intend to do when you find her?” Robert asked.

  Matthew opened and shut his mouth a few times. There was a question he’d been trying very hard not to answer, even to himself. Check on her was the first answer that rushed to his lips, but he knew that his desire went far deeper than that. Deep enough that it was not something he wished to ponder overly much.

  He’d find her. And what to do would become clear then.

  Isabel watched as her uncle paced in front of the portrait of Angelica. The fact that he had insisted they take their tea in this parlor, in front of the shrine he had built there to the daughter he’d lost, was not helping Isabel’s nerves whatsoever.

  Every time she looked at Angelica’s beautiful face, she thought of Tyndale, poised between her own thighs, his wonderful tongue doing wildly pleasurable things.

  She thought of that, and the moment when his mask had slipped and she’d realized that the man who had given her such pleasure was the very one Uncle Fenton had been railing on about for years. The one he believed had killed her cousin.

  The one he despised more than any other man on this earth.

  “Uncle?” she said, interrupting his pacing.

  He jolted, almost as if he had forgotten she was there, and turned to her. He looked tired. Drawn out. He didn’t sleep much, she knew that. Grief had gripped him and it sometimes felt like it was edging toward madness. But she had no idea what to do for him.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  She swallowed hard. To talk to him about this was to open a Pandora’s box. And yet she had to do it. For her own sanity.

  “Do you truly believe that Tyndale killed my cousin?” she asked.

  He stiffened and his gaze grew faraway. Clouded. “She drowned,” he said, the tremble heavy in his voice. “She drowned and it was his fault. He did it to her. He did it.”

  Isabel gripped her hands in her lap. That was not exactly a satisfactory or even clear answer. There were so little details about Angelica’s death. Drowning, yes, she knew that. It had been labeled as a tragic accident by Society. People had clucked their tongues and murmured sympathetic noises at her family, at the duke, himself.

  It was only Uncle Fenton who implied that Tyndale had more to do with it. That somehow he was at fault. But he never made it clear what he meant by the accusation. Isabel had never felt motivated to garner more details from him. He believed Tyndale responsible and that had little to do with her.

  Until now. Now that she had climbed into a bed with Matthew, given herself to him entirely, the facts of that horrible night seemed far more pressing. And her uncle’s belief seemed far less acceptable. Tyndale had been nothing but gentle with her. Passionate, but kind.

  It was hard to believe he was a killer, as Uncle Fenton did.

  She tapped her foot beneath her gown and looked at Angelica’s portrait. They could have been no less alike. Her cousin had been fair and tall. Isabel was dark and petite. Angelica was popular and rich, Isabel came from a merchant’s family. Their only connection to Society was her uncle on her mother’s side.

  She’d liked her cousin, of course. Angelica had been a few years older and so sophisticated and beautiful. How could one not be enchanted by her?

  Now she found herself looking at the portrait and wondering about her relationship with Matthew. Not just the particulars of her death, but the details of whatever life they had shared. Had Angelica kissed him as Isabel had? Had she given herself to him?

  She didn’t know the answers. By the time Angelica was engaged to the man, they’d been living such different lives. Isabel was just coming out in their Society, her father was already arranging her own marriage. They barely wrote anymore, and when Angelica did her letters were filled with upper Society tidbits about people Isabel didn’t even know and vague references to her future.

  She’d seemed happy enough, certainly, and Isabel hadn’t been that interested in pressing into a world she had no connection to. Now she wished she had.

  “Would you mind very much if I called on Sarah?” Isabel asked.

  Her uncle ceased his pacing and stared at her. He shrugged. “Whatever you like. Take the carriage, but I need it back by six. I have an appointment.”

  “Certainly,” Isabel said. “Thank you, uncle.”

  He ignored her and pivoted to look at the portrait of his daughter. She frowned. When he did that, he would sometimes get lost for hours. And drink. And God knew what else.

  She slipped from the room and asked for the carriage. Soon she was dashing through the streets, her hands clenched in her lap, wondering how she was going to tell Sarah what had happened.

  And wondering what in the world she would do next.

  “The Duke of Tyndale?” Sarah gasped. “The one your uncle is convinced killed your cousin?”

  “Yes,” Isabel said, sinking into the closest seat and covering her eyes. She had been at Sarah’s house for all of ten minutes and the entire story had spilled from her lips. “Oh God. I never meant to go so far with any man. But how could it be him, Sarah? How?”

  “It is a mighty coincidence,” her friend said, voice trembling. “But how…was it?”

  Isabel stared at her with wide eyes. Sarah had never been married—she was an innocent, and yet she seemed truly interested in details of activities that Isabel knew she shouldn’t talk about. But oh, how she needed to do just that.

  “Wonderful. Erotic,” she admitted with a deep blush. “Terrifying.”

  Sarah’s jaw tightened in displeasure at that last descriptor. “Because he was threatening?” she asked.

  Isabel shook her head. “No, not at all. He was gentle. He was even kind.”

  “I’m glad of that.” The tension seemed to bleed from Sarah’s face. “But it does beg the question of why you did it.”

  Isabel pushed to her feet and paced the room. “Because…my future is already laid out. My father ensured it. Now my uncle intends to do the same. Neither one is worried about my heart, my body…just my financial security. It is the way of our world, but it is so…”

  Sarah sighed. “Depressing. To think that there would never be…love or passion.”

  Isabel turned and found Sarah’s head bent. She moved to her and caught her hands. “How bad is it?”

  Sarah pursed her lips. “You want to change the subject and we shall, but not yet. I understand why, I do. And so do you. But what will you do?”

  “I don’t know,” Isabel said with a shudder. “What can I do after…this? I don’t want to believe that Tyndale is a killer. Not after last night. Honestly, not even before. But now I’ve…I’ve given myself to him and that was never in the plan to begin with. So what do I do?”

  “Does he know who you are?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t think so. My mask remained on, somehow. And even if it had come off, we never met.”

  “You didn’t?” Sarah seemed surprised.

  “You and I are from different worlds.” Isabel shrugged. “I wasn’t raised to go to Society parties like you were. Perhaps I could have done thanks to my mother’s connection to Uncle Fenton, but my father was against it. A lower-class snob, my uncle called him.”

  “But still, you were family. Close enough for your uncle to take you in once your husband died and your mother and father were gone.”

  The look on Sarah’s face told Isabel that she
was thinking of her own mother, so sick in a bedroom above. Isabel clenched her friend’s hands tighter in support.

  “No, never met. If they had married, I would have. I was invited to the wedding. But of course Angelica died before it could happen. I just know him due to portraits and my uncle pointing him out if we passed him in a carriage or a park.”

  “Isn’t it possible he saw a portrait of you?” Sarah suggested.

  “I suppose it is. But it’s doubtful. Angelica didn’t carry miniatures of me around, I assure you. If he saw one of me in my uncle’s home, it would have been one done when I was a little girl. There would be no way for him to recognize me.”

  Sarah seemed to ponder that a moment. Then she gave Isabel a look. “Could you…could you use the opportunity to investigate him?”

  Isabel drew back. She’d been so wrapped up in abject terror and confusion and heated memories of being in the man’s bed, she hadn’t thought of that as a possibility. “How do you mean?” she asked.

  “He wanted you,” Sarah said. “Enough that he gave you a wonderful and erotic night in his arms.”

  Isabel shuddered slightly. “You forgot terrifying. If you’re going to throw my words back at me, throw them all.”

  “But it was terrifying because you, the planner, did not control or expect what happened, yes?” Sarah pressed.

  Isabel sighed. “Yes. It was the shock of it, and of discovering his identity, that made me say terrifying.”

  “Well, then your running away likely only increased his desire.”

  Isabel wrinkled her brow. “Is that true?”

  Sarah stared off toward the window for a moment, her expression pinched. “When ladies run, gentlemen follow.”

  Isabel’s lips parted. The bitterness in her friend’s tone reminded her that Sarah was more involved in the world of Matthew and his friends than she was. And it had ended badly.

  “Are you thinking of the Duke and Duchess of Crestwood?” she asked. “That situation two summers ago?”

  Sarah glanced at her. Isabel knew there were few people she had told that story to. That her friend had thought for a moment that Crestwood might be interested, but his passion for Meg had been too powerful, despite her engagement to his friend. The entire situation had exploded, and in a moment in her cups, Sarah had said something to Meg and been taken to task on it.

  Now Sarah’s cheeks were dark with embarrassed color. “They’re well matched,” she admitted at last. “It’s obvious they deeply love each other. I just…I’ve lost so much since then. I think I regret the opportunity, the last one I had, rather than the man.”

  “I wish I could help you.”

  “You can’t,” Sarah said. “I am in the position I am in. There is nothing that can be done about it. But you are in a different position. You’ll be taken care of, no matter what happens. So you can do things so you don’t regret the opportunity or the man.”

  “Are you talking about the opportunity to, as you say, investigate Tyndale, or to have an excuse to see him again?” Isabel asked.

  Sarah smiled, and some of the trouble left her gaze. “Both. One leads to the other, at any rate.”

  Isabel got up. “You are talking about me seducing him in order to determine if he did something to my cousin.”

  Sarah nodded. “It would be dangerous, I suppose.”

  “Except I can’t believe my uncle’s accusations are true,” Isabel said. “After spending a little time with him, intimately at that, I don’t see him as the kind of man who would do something to hurt someone he loved. To hurt anyone at all.”

  “You don’t want to believe it,” Sarah suggested.

  “I don’t want to believe it,” Isabel repeated. “But if I could prove his innocence, wouldn’t that free my uncle?”

  “He is obsessed,” Sarah said. “I’ve seen the altar he’s built to Angelica, I’ve heard him rail in desperation about her being taken from him. If you could free him of the notion that his daughter was murdered, I would hope it would leave him to grieve and perhaps move on.”

  “Yes.” Isabel’s thoughts on the matter becoming lighter as they analyzed the benefits. “That would be a selfless reason to do something so bold.”

  “And you want to see him again,” Sarah said, folding her arms and spearing Isabel with a look.

  Now it was her turn to have her cheeks heat. “I…do. I do want to see him again. I panicked when I realized who he was, but it doesn’t change that night and how it made me feel. It doesn’t change that soon I will never get to feel that way again. There is no reason for him to find out it is me, is there? I still won’t move in his circles. There is no harm that can come of it.”

  She was saying it to convince herself, not Sarah. And she was doing just that.

  “It seems like a scenario with very little downside,” Sarah said. “Unless he turns out to be a killer.”

  Isabel flinched at the thought and pushed it aside. “Well, if he does, then perhaps I could help bring him to justice. You are right. I should do this. It’s my only chance.”

  Sarah smiled softly. “You know I know about those. You can’t walk away from them.”

  “And I won’t,” Isabel said. “I won’t. I’ll go back to the masquerade and find him again. And this time I’ll do it with my eyes wide open and my agenda in place.”

  “But you’ll wait a few days,” Sarah said.

  Isabel’s heart dropped far more quickly than it should have. “Why?”

  “Because you’re running, Isabel,” Sarah laughed. “And the longer you do so, the more desperate he’ll be in the chase. And in whatever happens once he catches you.”

  Isabel swallowed hard as she recalled his hands on her, his mouth on her, his big body moving over and in her. Desperate seemed a good thing when it came to desire.

  And she was about to see what it looked like on the Duke of Tyndale.

  Chapter Seven

  Isabel stepped into the hall of the Donville Masquerade three nights later and her heart leapt. Everything around her suddenly felt different. More alive. More vibrant.

  In her previous times coming here, she had looked, stared, felt her body react. She’d known she’d go back to her home and ease her desires with her own hand, and that would be the end of it.

  Now, as she looked at the writhing bodies, the dark and desperate connections, as she scented the sex on the air, she felt something different. A deeper kinship to passion, to play, to doing things one shouldn’t do, if only because of the protection of a thin mask.

  It was all still titillating, but now her eyes sought something different. She wanted…wanted…

  Him.

  There he was, standing across the room at the bar with the Duke of Roseford. Matthew wore a mask, but he was instantly recognizable, and her heart rose to her throat as she tried to decide if she should go forward with her bold and daring plan.

  Or run off into the night once more.

  It was he who decided that for her. Suddenly his gaze fell on her and he straightened up, his eyes locking with hers and somehow drawing her across the room to him. Almost against her very will. He was fire and she couldn’t resist jumping straight into the flame.

  She could scarcely breathe by the time she reached him, and she clenched her trembling hands by her sides so that they wouldn’t be too obvious as he swept his gaze over her from top to bottom.

  “You’re here,” he breathed.

  She had no opportunity to respond when his friend shouldered his way in between them and smiled at her. It was a rather dazzling smile at that—she could see why every woman in the room cooed over Roseford. She felt no desire to do so, even if she recognized his charisma and charm.

  “You are, indeed, Miss Swan,” he said.

  She froze. That was her secret name. The one she gave to gain entry into the club each time she arrived. He shouldn’t have known it.

  “Y-your Grace,” she said.

  H
e laughed and elbowed Matthew. “I am. The Duke of Roseford, at your service, most especially if you bore of this one. So, you know my name. But finding out yours has been quite difficult.”

  She swallowed. He’d been trying to find out her name? She glanced at Matthew, whose jaw was set hard and eyes were narrowed at Roseford.

  “Enough, Robert,” he growled. “If the lady wishes to remain anonymous, that is her right.”

  “Ah yes,” Robert drawled, and winked at her. “The eroticism of anonymity. I wouldn’t dare disrupt that.” He smiled. “I suppose I’m only curious to know more about the lady who has brought my friend back from the dead.”

  Isabel jolted at that choice of words, dark considering what her uncle suspected of him. When she jerked her face to Tyndale, she found his lips thin and white, his irritation at the relentless teasing of his friend clear. But beneath that was something else. Something deeper.

  But she couldn’t yet tell what it was. She didn’t know him well enough to read what he fought to conceal. Guilt? Heartbreak? Anger?

  “Go away, Your Grace,” he ground out.

  Robert laughed as he tipped his head to her in mock salute and then glided into the crowd and left them alone.

  “I’m sorry about him,” Tyndale murmured. “He’s…well, he’s Roseford. He means no harm.”

  “Is he really trying to uncover my true identity?” she asked, wishing her voice didn’t tremble so.

  He turned his face and sighed. She could tell the answer already. “I wasn’t certain you would return. And I wanted to know why you ran away when you recognized me.”

  She caught her breath. “You asked him to find out who I was?”

  “Robert has avenues to investigate that I do not,” he said. “So yes, I did ask him to try.”

  “Does he know? Do you know?” Her heart throbbed at the idea and the questions about what he would do now if he did realize who she was. What relationship she had to the woman he had been prepared to marry.

  His forehead wrinkled. “Why are you so afraid? Why were you so afraid the last time we were together? How do you know me? Or more importantly, how do I know you?”