The Other Duke

by Jess Michaels

  “Then sit down, let me ring for tea and tell me why you’ve traveled across town at nine in the morning to meet with me.”

  Serafina sank into the settee and watched as her friend called for a servant. After quiet conversation, Emma returned to take a seat in a chair beside the settee and smiled.

  “They will bring refreshments for us in a few moments. Why don’t you begin your tale now? I think I couldn’t wait to hear it now that you’ve come all this way.”

  Serafina sighed, stiffened her spine and her resolve, and told Emma about her conversation with Rafe on the terrace the night before.

  Emma stared at her, hardly interrupting her as she went over everything from Rafe’s attempts to admit his feelings to her demand for a home for herself. The one thing she couldn’t bring herself to say was that her husband had almost immediately found Lady Braehold, who she could only assume was a former lover, if the way they stood so close and Crispin’s awkward description of them was accurate.

  It was when she finished the initial tale that the door opened and a servant appeared with a tray. In truth, Serafina was happy for the interruption. As she told the story, her heart rate had begun to increase and she relived that awful night and her complicated feelings on the matter.

  Emma shot her a look and then said to her servant, “Just set it on the sideboard. I’ll pour for us.”

  The maid did as she had been told and then left the room. As Emma moved to the sideboard to pour the tea she let out a deep sigh.

  “I looked for you after you approached him,” Emma said. “But it was such a crush by then that I never found you again.”

  “I left shortly after our encounter, of course,” Serafina whispered.

  Emma clucked her tongue. “Rafe must have been hurt deeply by your demand that he fulfill his original bargain. If he was attempting to declare his love for you, that dismissal would have cut him to the bone.”

  Serafina flinched as she thought of Rafe’s pained expression and his tight voice. “Yes, I thought I had hurt him and I felt badly. But—”

  She cut herself off, once again hesitant to share the last part of her tale, even with her best friend. Of course it was that very last part which had kept her up all night and driven her here at this ungodly hour.

  “But what?” Emma asked, her eyes widening. “What are you not telling me?”

  She cleared her throat and focused her attention on her lap because she couldn’t look at Emma when she spoke. “He left me to call for the carriage and I stood out on the terrace trying to catch my breath, trying to stop feeling anything. I could see him leave the room and then come back, and I wondered if I should go to him, try to talk to him again. I might have done except he—he found other company.”

  “Other company?”

  Serafina nodded, but the motion was jerky. “He was coming back across the room when his brother approached him. And a lady. You may know her, Lady Braehold? She’s a viscountess. The viscount passed a year or so ago, perhaps.”

  “I think I might have seen her,” Emma said, her tone uncertain.

  “You would know her if you saw her,” Serafina whispered. “She is dark and exotic and just…just beautiful.”

  Emma’s eyebrows lifted. “I see.”

  Serafina’s foot began to tap beneath her gown and she clenched her hands in her lap. “You know how you can tell when two people are acquainted when you see them together? And I suppose as I gain more, er, experience I can also see when two people are more intimately bound.”

  Emma’s mouth dropped open. “You think this woman and your husband have been to bed together?”

  She nodded. “And Crispin all but verified it when he walked me to the carriage.”

  “Why did Rafe’s brother walk you to the carriage?” Emma asked.

  Serafina tilted her head. “Because my husband was too busy.”

  Emma didn’t physically respond to Serafina’s harsh tone. She merely shook her head before she continued, “So you saw Rafe and this woman together—and you simply left?”

  Serafina sighed. “What was I supposed to do run up and stake my claim?”

  “That would have been one option.”

  “I’d only just told my husband to let me go, and I suppose it is easier for him than he pretended it would be. What more was there to say? I slipped out to maintain the last shreds of my dignity.”

  “And you went home,” Emma said slowly.

  “I went home,” Serafina repeated, covering her eyes with her fingers for a moment. “I went to my chamber and locked my doors and pretended I was going to sleep.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I couldn’t!” she clarified. “All I could think about was Rafe’s face on the terrace when he tried to tell me his heart and his face when he was talking to her.”

  “What happened when he returned home?” Emma pressed.

  “I heard him at my door an hour later and I thought he might knock, but…but he didn’t. He just stood outside for a while and then went to bed.”

  “And this morning?”

  Serafina blushed. “He was still abed when I had my maid help me get ready and came here. I couldn’t face him.”

  For a while, Emma was silent, seeming to ponder everything Serafina had told her. With each passing second the quiet drove her mad and finally she threw up her hands.

  “Please tell me what you think!”

  Emma sighed. “You may not like what I think, Serafina, and I hesitate to tell you for that reason.”

  Her heart sank. “No I’ve come here for counsel and I want it, no matter what it is. I trust you to be as honest, but as kind as you can be.”

  “You have spent a month with this man, claiming you want nothing to do with a future with him,” Emma began. “You were reluctant about your physical bond and I understood why. And yet somehow you overcame those hesitations and I feel as though you like being in his bed now.”

  It was still difficult to admit that to an outsider, but she nodded. “Yes.”

  “When that shift happened, I hoped you would allow the same for your heart. Your qualms were reasonable at first, but I prayed that you would open yourself. And yet you didn’t. You refuse to allow this man to care for you, even though he stands before you and offers you something more than you could have ever hoped for.”

  Serafina shifted. “I can’t—”

  Emma lifted a hand. “Wait.” With a frown, Serafina allowed her friend to continue. “So last night he tried to tell you his heart and you turned him away, all but demanding he go back to his life as if you two had never married. And yet when he does exactly as you requested, you are so jealous that you can’t sleep.”

  Serafina wanted to shut out the words, but she couldn’t. “Everything you say is the truth,” she whispered.

  “Of course it is!” Emma laughed. “You wanted this! So you now have two options. You can stop being jealous and allow your husband the freedom that you claim you desire him to exercise.”

  “Or?”

  “Or you can go and get him back,” Emma said softly. “If he wanted to tell you his heart last night, I will almost guarantee that he didn’t change his mind in a span of fifteen minutes. And since he returned to your home within an hour of your last seeing him, it also implies he did nothing untoward with this woman, even if they do share some kind of history before your marriage.”

  Serafina pursed her lips. She supposed that was true. After all, she knew from experience that Rafe was the kind of man who treated his lover with care, taking his time for her pleasure.

  She flinched at the idea that he had ever done so much for Lady Braehold.

  “Look at you, tied up in knots over this man.” Emma smiled. “You are already lost, Serafina. You just haven’t admitted it yet. And I would hate to see you throw away something beautiful in order to protect yourself. Especially since I think you’ve already found that pushing love away doesn’t exactly make one’s feelings change.”

  Serafi
na shook her head. “I don’t have feelings for him. I can’t have feelings for him.”

  Emma’s smile fell. “If you keep telling yourself that, you’ll lose everything. I hope you won’t be so foolish.”

  Serafina got up and looked toward the door. “So what you suggest is that I go home…to his home…to—to our home, and I tell him what? That I’m jealous and confused and a mess of a girl?”

  “I suppose that would be a start.”

  Serafina shook her head. “Why did he have to be him?”

  Her friend laughed. “Because you deserve him. Now go. And tell me all about it once you’re finished.”

  Serafina could hardly breathe as she left her friend’s home and took the long carriage ride back to Rafe’s. With every thundering hoof beat of the horses, her heart responded in kind, and she searched everything in her for an answer to what she would say to Rafe when she saw him.

  Rafe glanced up from a ledger sheet he hadn’t been focused enough to read and forced a smile for his butler. “What is it, Lathem?”

  The servant glanced behind him. “It’s your wife, Your Grace. She would like to speak with you.”

  Rafe’s heart promptly lodged in his throat. He had not seen Serafina since the night before. When he looked for her, he had been told she left to see Emma. Left without so much as saying good morning. That had haunted him for hours. But now she was here.

  He let out a long breath before he allowed himself to speak. “Send her in. I’m happy to discuss anything she would like.”

  Lathem turned into the hallway and Serafina appeared next to him in the doorway. Her face was pale and there were hints of shadow beneath her eyes. Good. At least he hadn’t been alone in his lack of sleep the night before.

  “Come in,” he urged, standing as he nodded Lathem away. The butler gently shut the door behind Serafina, and Rafe couldn’t help but notice the way she jumped slightly when he did.

  Which did not leave him feeling confident in whatever she desired to say.

  “You don’t ever need to be so formal as to require a servant to meet with me. Not in this house,” he began, motioning toward the chairs across his desk. She ignored him and continued to stand across the room, fiddling with a loose thread on her sleeve.

  “I wasn’t certain how you felt after our conversation last night,” she admitted. “So I thought it was better to approach with caution in case you didn’t wish to see me.”

  He moved around the desk. “I will always wish to see you.”

  Those words forced her to look at him, and her expression lit a flickering light of hope inside of him. She still hesitated, yes, but there was something in her eyes that she had never shown him before. A desire that went beyond the physical, a yearning for the connection she had always distanced herself from.

  “Serafina,” he said, taking another step toward her. “What do you need to talk to me about?”

  She drew in a breath and then shook her head as if to clear it. “Could we perhaps go for a walk in the park? The air would do me good, I think.”

  That request was unexpected, and Rafe leaned back to examine her face from a different angle. She was waiting, expectant, fearful, and he finally nodded.

  “Of course. Will the one just around the corner do, despite it not being as popular as Hyde Park or St. James?”

  She nodded. “I am not going there to be seen, Rafe. I’m going there to talk to you. As long as there is air and grass, I will be pleased.”

  “Very well.” He reached for her and was happy when she didn’t flinch as he took her arm.

  They walked through the house and out the front door. She was silent as they moved through the streets, nodding hello to his neighbors and hesitating at the corner for carriages. In fact, she said nothing at all until they passed through the gates of the little park nearby.

  She sighed and released his arm as she looked up in the sky. The sun reflected on her porcelain skin.

  She was utter perfection.

  “I have thought a great deal about our conversation last night,” she said, looking at him at last.

  He motioned her toward the path, and they walked together toward the center of the park. There were few others in their way, so they could talk openly.

  “As have I,” he admitted. “Your words weighed heavily on my mind all night.”

  She bit her lip, drawing his attention there. How he wanted to touch her. To kiss her. To somehow mark her as his so that even if she ran away, she couldn’t fully escape the changes he had made in her.

  “Did you think of me even when you were with Lady Braehold?” she asked softly, her gaze suddenly focused on the ground.

  Rafe waited a moment to answer because he was stunned by that question. Here he had thought his brother a fool to try to spark Serafina’s jealousy with another woman. And yet jealousy was exactly what he heard in his wife’s voice, even after she had set him down on the terrace.

  “Yes, actually,” he admitted. “But it is obvious you have questions about the lady. Would you like to ask them?”

  She froze. “It would be indecent.”

  He laughed. “What is a bit of indecency between spouses?”

  She glanced up at him, and he could tell she wasn’t certain whether to smile at his quip or glare at him for the same. She did neither in the end, but shifted uncomfortably.

  “I don’t—when did you—is she—” She cut herself off with a frustrated sigh. “Crispin said you and the lady were ‘old friends.’ What does that mean?”

  Rafe cocked his head. “I suppose you want to know if she is my lover?”

  She sucked in a harsh breath at his direct response to her meandering question, and her cheeks brightened to high pink. He hated himself a little for doing it, for he normally would not speak to a lady the way he was speaking to her. But these were not normal circumstances. Everything was on the line now and he couldn’t be so foolish as to pretend otherwise.

  “Yes,” she whispered when he continued to wait for her answer. “That is what I want to know.”

  He hesitated. Telling her the truth was a risk, but he owed her his honesty. That was the only way forward, as difficult as it was. He straightened up.

  “She was.”

  Serafina’s face jerked toward his, and there was a brief moment where betrayal slashed across her features. Then she covered her emotions with long-practiced grace he truly admired. That ability had helped her survive his cousin.

  But he didn’t want her using it with him.

  “I see,” she whispered.

  “No, you don’t,” he said with a shrug that dismissed anything he’d shared with the viscountess because it meant nothing to him. “Lady Braehold was my lover. Once. Before you and I met, let alone were married.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Once?”

  He laughed. “It is possible, you know.”

  “Then why were you talking to her last night?” she asked.

  “Because Crispin reintroduced us. Because it would be rude to refuse to speak to a lady in the middle of a ballroom where others might see and judge us both harshly.”

  “It wasn’t out of interest in rekindling whatever you once shared?” she whispered.

  He stopped on the path and leaned into her, crowding her space on purpose, forcing her to react by leaning back a fraction. “Are you saying you care, my lady? Because I seem to recall you telling me last night that you did not. That you would not. And that you wanted to fulfill that bargain we once struck to live separate lives.”

  She clenched her hands at her sides, her cheeks darker than they had been even before and her eyes unfocused. “Will you make me say it?” she finally said, her voice broken.

  He caught her hand and lifted it slowly to his heart. “You must, Sera. You must say it now.”

  “I hated seeing you with that woman, knowing that it had been implied that you were lovers,” she huffed out in one breath. “She was so beautiful, Rafe, and when I looked at you two together I just—”r />
  He grinned and tugged her against him before he dropped his mouth to hers right there in the middle of the park. She gasped against his lips, but then her arms came around his neck and she melted against him, returning his kiss with as much passion and heat and desperation as he felt.

  And as much as he would have loved to lay her down and make love to her with the sun kissing her skin, not only was that very imprudent, but they were far from finished discussing the matter.

  He set her aside gently and smiled down at her. “Hear me, Serafina. Are you listening, truly listening?”

  She nodded.

  “I will never lie to you. There were women before you, Lady Braehold being one of them. But they meant very little to me and I likely meant very little to them.”

  Serafina swallowed hard. “It is unfair of me to feel these things, I know. I was the one who told you that you should carry on your life, and I know that carrying on will ultimately mean some other woman warming your bed.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t you understand? I have no intention of taking any other lover, so your jealousy is misplaced. But I think you and I need to discuss why you were jealous.”

  Her lips parted. “You’re right,” she admitted, and her shoulders rolled forward. “You’re right, Rafe.”

  “Then tell me,” he urged her, motioning her to a bench that sat surrounded by rosebushes that were in full bloom.

  She sat and he took the place beside her. As much as he wished to do so, he didn’t touch her. From her hesitation, he knew she needed her space, her own way to come to the conclusion he so desperately needed her to reach.

  “You know my past,” she began softly. “You are probably the only one who knows the depth of it.”

  “Even more than Emma?” he asked, truly surprised at that admission.

  She nodded. “I spared her from some of the worst details, but not you.”

  He drew back. What she said meant a great deal. It meant everything. “If I earned that kind of trust, I am deeply happy for that,” he said softly.

  She smiled at him, her hand fluttering in her lap as if she wanted to touch him, but she didn’t. “You did, Rafe. But you must see how that past has mangled me, not physically, but in every other way. Do you know why I wanted us to live separate lives?”