A Duchess to Remember

by Christina Brooke

  Those reactions had not denoted fear, but an awakening desire in an innocent but otherwise remarkably self-possessed young woman. The contrast was delicious, intriguing. He couldn’t get her out of his head.

  Had she thought about him in the intervening days?

  So many duties and pursuits had occupied him in the week since they’d met. Yet, Lady Cecily’s face, so vivid and striking, was rarely absent from his thoughts. He turned over their conversations in his head, took them out and viewed them with the critical appraisal of a playwright watching actors perform his work.

  He wished now that he could rewrite that script, that he’d taken what he wanted instead of holding himself so sternly in check.

  But no. His instincts about Lady Cecily Westruther’s interest in meeting him here might have been faulty, but his judgment about her lack of experience was accurate. He needed to take her in slow measures, to hold back every ounce of his own desire while he teased hers forth slowly, delicately, like silk thread from a cocoon.

  His lips twisted, mocking such self-delusion. He had fooled himself about many things, it seemed, including his power to compel her. He couldn’t recall ever being surprised by a woman before.

  It occurred to him that he wasn’t entirely sure of anything where this young lady was concerned. Where did he want it all to lead, anyway? His interest in her was far from platonic; yet, she was an innocent. Moreover, she was a gently bred lady. As such, she was forbidden.

  Why couldn’t he seem to remember that?

  Logic did not make so much as a dent in his determination to know more of Lady Cecily Westruther. Perhaps this strange infatuation would fizzle and die on closer acquaintance. Yet his character was not capricious. His first impressions of people were generally sound.

  When another half hour passed, Rand finally accepted he would not see her tonight. The evening held not the slightest allure for him now. He propped his shoulders against the wall to await the dawn and wished these people would get the hell out of his house.

  Five minutes later, one of the footmen brought him a note.

  The library. Hurry!

  He read it with a surge of triumph. Crushing the note between his fingers, Rand nodded his thanks to the footman and slipped away.

  * * *

  Was there ever anything so unfortunate? Cecily crouched, frozen, behind Ashburn’s desk as she waited for two very tedious lovers to finish their business and leave the duke’s library.

  She’d searched this room for nearly an hour before the library door opened and a man and a woman came in.

  Cecily had dropped to the floor, praying they hadn’t noticed her. But she needn’t have worried. Soon, it became clear that this pair’s attention was wrapped up in each other.

  A lady’s low, suggestive laughter thrilled across the room, followed by a masculine gasp.

  Oh, good God! That’s all she needed. She blew out an exasperated breath and waited for the lovers to do what they’d come in here to do, then go.

  Although on second thoughts, the gentleman didn’t seem all that loverlike.

  “Really! No, really, ma’am. I don’t think we ought. I mean, deeply flattered. Most beautiful woman I’ve ever beheld, but—”

  Whatever the besieged fellow had been about to say was cut off, presumably by the lady’s mouth. He continued to make muffled noises indicative of his wish to finish his sentence, but the lady was persistent.

  A low, husky female voice said, “You want to get back at him, don’t you, darling? You want to prove to him that you’re a man and— Oho!” The voice broke off with a low, husky laugh. “You are, most definitely, a man.”

  The gentleman sucked in a sharp breath. “Yes, I am angry. I do want to show him, but, er, n-not quite like this, d’you see. M’cousin’s a crack shot, you know, besides having the most punishing right hook. He wouldn’t take it at all kindly—”

  There was a deep groan, followed by a string of halfhearted protests from the hapless gentleman.

  “I’m sure I can make you forget all about Ashburn,” purred the lady. “I know I have.”

  Ashburn? That made Cecily prick up her ears. Cautiously, she peered around the desk.

  The pair were sprawled on a low-backed couch by the fireplace, apparently engaged in an elegant wrestling match. The couch faced the door, so from this vantage point, Cecily could see little more than a stray leg, or a hand, or the lady’s profile as she occasionally came up for air.

  She saw the gentleman’s hands close on the whiteness of his seductress’s upper arms, but he wasn’t pulling her close; he was trying to separate the woman’s body from his own.

  The lady quickly overcame such feeble resistance. And a man, Cecily supposed, was only flesh and blood, after all.

  Soon the gentleman’s negatives became less forceful, until no became Oh, God, not here. A sentiment with which Cecily thoroughly agreed.

  “Yes, here,” the lady insisted.

  And then the library door opened and His Grace, the Duke of Ashburn, walked in.

  * * *

  The tableau Rand found in his library winded him like a punch in the gut. For several seconds, his mind reeled. He’d been so fixed on Lady Cecily Westruther that for a fleeting instant, he thought it was she on that couch with another man.

  Fury blazed through him, darkening his vision. A possessive, animalistic urge made him want to rip the man apart with his teeth. Rand had started forward, fists clenched, before he recognized the woman. Not Lady Cecily. Louise.

  In a tangle of half-clad limbs, long dark tresses, and petticoats, his former mistress was enthusiastically servicing another man.

  His cousin Freddy, to be precise.

  Emotions swiftly flooded Rand. Relief that it was not, after all, Lady Cecily on that couch. Anger at Freddy for this petty piece of revenge. For his former mistress, he felt only disgust tinged with regret.

  He’d been as gentle as he could when breaking it off with Louise. Guilt had made him absurdly generous over the parting gift he’d bestowed on her. But he had ended the affair all too soon after beginning it, and that must have been a blow to Louise’s pride. He’d intended their association to be a long one when he took her as his mistress a month ago.

  But a month ago, he hadn’t met Lady Cecily Westruther.

  A cold sense of calm pervaded his body. He watched the couple struggle up from their undignified positions and did not allow himself to feel even the slightest hint of betrayal. He’d be foolish to lay claim to either party’s loyalty or affection, not even Freddy’s. He ought to know by now that people always acted out of self-interest. Particularly members of his family.

  Louise fixed him with a triumphant, defiant stare and did not trouble to cover herself. See what you’re missing, she seemed to say. As if he’d ever want her now.

  Freddy, on the other hand, looked as if he might cry. His fingers fumbled over buttoning the fall of his pantaloons.

  Rand was searching his brain for something remarkably witty and devastatingly cutting to say, when a voice called from behind his desk, “Oh, thank Heaven! They’ve been at it for such an age. I thought I’d be trapped in here until dawn!”

  Chapter Six

  Rand froze. A string of oaths went through his mind but he managed to stifle the urge to curse aloud.

  In an hour or so, he might bring himself to smile at the way Lady Cecily’s entrance on the stage transformed the scene from tragedy to outright farce.

  Louise’s smugness turned to horror. Shrieking with outraged modesty, she scrambled to cover herself. Freddy flushed a deeper shade of red, if that were possible. He sprang to his feet, trying even more desperately to straighten his clothing.

  Ashburn moved to open the door wide in a mute invitation to leave. Without another glance in his direction, Louise fled in disarray.

  To his credit, Freddy stood his ground like a man, albeit a man who faced execution. Well, that was something. At least the young idiot wasn’t such a fool as to run.
/>   Rand put up his brows. “As usual, Freddy, you’re a little late.”

  He kept his body relaxed, his voice even, though his nerves were taut. He couldn’t shake the grip of a deep, cold anger. Damn it, hadn’t he vowed he wouldn’t let this matter?

  “Shaking in your shoes, coz?” he drawled, eyeing Freddy up and down. “Did you expect me to fly into a rage over your dalliance with my former mistress?” He placed only the slightest emphasis on the word former.

  A soft gasp from Lady Cecily reminded him of his company. Damn it to hell! What a sordid business.

  “It wasn’t like that!” Freddy protested.

  Rand observed him without expression. “You mistake, Freddy. I know exactly how it was.”

  Louise had used the boy to punish Rand, to make him jealous. But he didn’t feel one particle of pain or jealousy on her account. Their liaison had been entirely free from finer sentiments. He was dismayed that she’d found it necessary to go to these lengths to punish him; it showed he was not such a good judge of character as he’d supposed.

  Regardless of whatever physical intimacies they’d shared, Louise simply did not have the power to hurt him.

  But Freddy … Well, that was different.

  His cousin took a step toward him, one hand lifted in supplication. “Rand, I—I can explain.”

  A civilized man would listen and try to understand. A careful one would take advantage of the situation to mend a bridge. Rand couldn’t bring himself to do either of those things.

  “Go away, Freddy,” he said, his attention fixing on Lady Cecily. “I have far more interesting things to do than listen to you.”

  * * *

  When the young gentleman named Freddy had gone, Cecily eyed Ashburn warily. He stood tall and silent near the doorway, watching her through the slits in his mask.

  When the hint of a smile tilted one corner of his grim mouth, Cecily’s heart jumped about in her chest. The most shaming and ridiculous melting feeling spread through her stomach.

  To make up for such weakness, she scowled back at him. Not that he could see her scowl with her mask covering most of her face, but it made her feel better.

  “I apologize,” he said unexpectedly. “You should not have been obliged to witness that.” He cocked his head as he moved away from the door, adding silkily, “Of course, you would not have witnessed it at all if you hadn’t been skulking in my library, up to no good.”

  She’d hoped he’d forgotten that with all the drama that surrounded her appearance on the scene. “I was not skulking, precisely.”

  “No, you were not skulking,” he agreed. “Skulking implies lack of purpose. You were searching. What did you hope to find?”

  “Actually, I came in here to hide,” said Cecily mendaciously. “I saw one of my Westruther cousins in the ballroom, and I couldn’t risk staying there in case he recognized me.”

  That was partly true, as a matter of fact. Not that Lydgate was at all likely to have noticed her, much less identified her in the throng. He only had eyes for the lush blond lady he’d taken as a waltzing partner.

  A little self-conscious, she added, “I was—er—waiting for you.”

  He held up a screw of paper. “But you didn’t write this note.”

  “No.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” he muttered. He went over to toss the paper in the fire.

  Ought she to tell him what had transpired in this room? Clearly, the young man called Freddy had been a reluctant participant in that hurried liaison. Would that matter to Ashburn?

  He’d probably resent her for raising the subject. She’d had enough dealings with her male cousins to understand that one must tread carefully around masculine pride.

  But in the grim lines of his face and the rigid set of his shoulders, she sensed the fury behind his apparent indifference. And she knew that such anger could only stem from hurt.

  “She threw herself at him, you know,” offered Cecily. “And she is so very beautiful. I don’t think any man could resist.”

  You did not, she added silently. It had not been altogether pleasant to see the lady Ashburn had chosen as his mistress and realize how greatly she herself suffered by comparison. Not that she wished to supplant the mistress. It was just that she knew now Ashburn’s admiration for her comparatively ordinary appearance must have been false. He wanted the diary; that was all.

  The duke’s right hand clenched and released in a reflexive movement. Then his features seemed to relax an infinitesimal amount.

  But he made no answer. Instead, he moved unhurriedly toward her, with that lithe, easy gait that rang of masculine confidence. Oh, he had confidence in spades, along with a dash of pure arrogance.

  Ashburn’s thin mask was inadequate to hide the contours of those sharp cheekbones, the lazy sensuality of his mouth. It did reduce his eyes to a hard, formless glitter, however. She couldn’t decide whether that made him more or less intimidating.

  How had she ever thought that he might require comfort, or that she might give it to him?

  In silence, he reached behind his head to remove the black strip of slitted velvet from across his eyes, then held it dangling from his long fingers.

  With a wave of his hand, he indicated a couch. Not the one Freddy and the mistress had used. “Shall we?”

  Apprehension fizzed in her stomach like champagne. She seated herself and clasped her hands in her lap.

  “I thought you wouldn’t come,” said Ashburn in a low voice, taking a seat beside her.

  “I nearly didn’t,” she admitted. “I had to go to great lengths to deceive my guardian and get here with no one the wiser.” Cecily let her tone speak for her. This had better be worth my trouble.

  He dipped his head in a slight bow. “I am honored. And also … relieved. I’d toyed with the idea of going after you if you hadn’t turned up.”

  Surprise made her eyes widen. “Really?”

  She almost wished she’d failed to find a way to be here tonight just to see what he might have done. “How would you have gone about it? Ridden into my cousin’s ballroom and fetched me up on your saddle like Young Lochinvar?”

  He must have thought that the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard, for he actually smiled. “That method has its appeal, certainly. Though I hope I would have more finesse.”

  A little dazzled by that sudden, brief gleam of teeth, Cecily said faintly, “Indeed.”

  She rallied. “You told me you would have my brother’s papers sent up from the country. May I see them?”

  “The diary first, if you please.”

  Cecily eyed him speculatively. “You seem awfully desperate to get your hands on my brother’s diary.”

  “Pure academic interest,” he said. He held out his hand and repeated, “If you please.”

  She shrugged and went to retrieve it from where she’d left it on Ashburn’s desk. Handing it to him, she said, “And my brother’s papers?”

  He flipped the diary open and began to leaf through it. At her question, he hesitated, as if debating whether to tell her the truth.

  Then he laid down the diary on the table beside him and said, “I am afraid my staff have not been able to locate them yet.”

  He spread his hands, a gesture meant to convey openness, but it didn’t fool her. He added, “I am sorry to have brought you here under false pretenses, but there was no way I could send you a message.”

  She suspected he was very well able to find a way to communicate such news to her if he wanted. She’d wasted her time coming here; risked her reputation and Montford’s wrath for nothing.

  He moved closer, until she smelled the intriguing hint of his cologne.

  “May I?” Before she knew what he was about or could answer him, his hands had pushed back her hood and his fingers delved into her curls to locate the ties of her mask.

  She felt the cool rush of air against her heated face as the mask fell away and tumbled to her lap.

  His fingertips trailed down to the t
ies at her throat.

  She experienced the oddest sensation, light-headedness and a sharp tug of excitement in her viscera.

  She ought not to allow this. “Your Grace, I didn’t come here to—”

  “Call me Rand,” he murmured, working at the strings that held her domino together.

  “I don’t think that would be appropriate.” She put up her hand to bunch the ends of her domino together and remove them from the deft manipulation of his fingers.

  Why she needed to do that or was so panicked at the notion of his removing her outer garment when she had on a perfectly respectable gown beneath, she didn’t know. She counted herself a practical person, unfettered by missish rules and illogical conventions.

  Yet it was not the well-schooled debutante who objected to this intimacy but the instinctive, animal part of her. It felt frightening, thoroughly exposing, as if he peeled away more than an unnecessary outer garment.

  “Are you afraid of me, Lady Cecily? I would not injure you.”

  The perceptiveness of his gaze nearly undid her wits. Not injure her? She felt as if she danced on a precipice with him, that together they’d fall at any moment.

  “I did not come here to—to flirt with you,” she said in as strong a voice as she could manage.

  His lips twitched. “You think this is flirting?”

  She ignored that. “You know why I came.”

  Ashburn regarded her steadily. “I think that even if you did not acknowledge it to yourself, you knew why I wanted you here tonight. And I also think,” he added, holding up a hand to silence her protest, “that in your heart of hearts, you want what is going to happen now.”

  His voice had taken on a deep, husky timbre, almost hypnotizing in its mellifluence. His face was close to hers; his breath, sweet with wine, feathered over her lips. Those amber eyes captured hers; then his eyelids lowered and his gaze fixed on her mouth.

  Her lips tingled under that compelling inspection. He wasn’t even touching her, yet he commanded her utterly. Her usual flippancy deserted her like a rat from a sinking ship.