By Love Unveiled

by Deborah Martin

  Garett knelt beside Marianne and plucked the mask from her lap. Marianne’s eyes locked with his as he held the mask up to her face.

  “You may not believe this,” he told her as he surveyed her critically, “but the entire time you were treating my sword wound that fateful night, I couldn’t bring myself to believe your lie about the smallpox. I felt certain your face had to be as captivating as your voice.”

  She looked skeptical. “My voice? But my words to you were harsh.”

  He dropped the mask into her lap. “Not all of them. You spoke of flowers when all that grew in my heart was weeds. That’s when I knew I had to have you. I wanted the flower you hid beneath your veils of mystery.”

  Settling onto the ground beside her, he took her hand. “It took me some time to unveil you, didn’t it? Thank God I managed it at last.” His other hand cupped her cheek; then his thumb began rhythmically stroking her lower lip.

  “And did you find the flower you sought?” she whispered, her breath quickening.

  “That and so much more,” he murmured. “I found a garden. The garden of my heart in yours.”

  Then he swallowed her smile of delight with a kiss.

  Turn the page for a special look at the first delightful romance in the new Duke’s Men series

  WHAT THE

  DUKE DESIRES

  by New York Times bestselling author

  Sabrina Jeffries

  Coming Summer 2013 from Pocket Books

  Lisette had serious trouble feigning sleep once Mrs. Greasley started talking again.

  “Forgive me,” she asked, “but what does a land agent do, exactly?”

  Holding her breath, Lisette waited to see how the duke would manage this. He’d been stubborn about taking up her choice of profession, and now she couldn’t even help him with his choice without giving up her pretense of sleep.

  “He collects the rents,” Lyons answered easily, to her surprise. “He makes inventories. He surveys the farms, keeps a terrier of the common lands…”

  As he continued to list an impressive number of duties, Lisette marveled at his knowledge. She could not have helped him with this, to be sure. Papa had always just said that his land agent “managed the estate,” indifferent to what the man actually did. And Papa had only been a viscount. She’d assumed that a wealthy duke with vast properties would have even less need of such knowledge, and would know little about the inner workings of his estates.

  In Lyons’s case, she’d been wrong. Mr. Greasley asked more questions, and the duke answered every one easily. Astonishing.

  As the two men began to talk of leases and enclosures and things that were far beyond her ken, the rumble of Lyons’s voice and the swaying of the carriage began to lull her into a doze. She had been up very late and had risen very early. And they wouldn’t reach Brighton for some time…

  She came slowly awake a while later to find the coach dark and the duke’s arm about her shoulders. Her head had slid down to the center of his chest, and her hand was on his waist.

  Horrified, she jerked herself upright, embarrassment filling her cheeks with heat as he pulled his arm from around her shoulders. “Where are we?” she asked, trying to get her bearings.

  “On the outskirts of Brighton,” he said in that low timbre that did something unseemly to her insides.

  She couldn’t look at him. She’d been practically on his lap! How mortifying. He must think her the most vulgar creature imaginable.

  “You were sleeping very sound,” Mrs. Greasley offered. “You must have been tired, deary.”

  It was said so kindly that Lisette winced. She felt a little guilty about how her fake tiff with her “husband” had led to a very real tiff between Mr. and Mrs. Greasley. Still, they seemed to have patched it up. The woman was leaning companionably against him, and he didn’t seem to mind.

  Lisette turned her face to the window. Thank God this nightmare stretch of the trip was almost over. The incident with the Greasleys had proved only too well that she couldn’t necessarily travel with impunity.

  The duke had known it, too, and tried to take advantage. She couldn’t fool herself that she’d gained the upper hand with her little performance. She’d just gained a reprieve, that’s all. He could have chosen to drop the facade the moment he realized he might get the truth out of the Greasleys. He could have revealed that she was not married to him, and asked them flat out what he wished to know. And in one fell swoop, he would have ruined her and possibly Dom’s business.

  Why hadn’t he? Because he was a gentleman?

  More likely it was because he could tell that the Greasleys didn’t know enough to help him. Thank God she’d mentioned both Toulon and Paris to them in the past, and thank God the two cities were in very different parts of France. Otherwise, she was almost certain Lofty Lyons would have abandoned her in Brighton to hunt down Tristan in whichever one they’d named definitively.

  She’d made a narrow escape. Too narrow.

  Fortunately, she had little chance of encountering more neighbors. So once they parted from the Greasleys she ought to be safe from discovery, at least until they were on their way to Paris.

  Surely Lyons would never abandon her in France. That would be most ungentlemanly, and he was nothing if not a gentleman.

  Most of the time.

  A shiver skittered down her spine as she remembered the feel of his strong arm about her shoulders. And worse yet, the way his hand had toyed with hers earlier. She should have tugged hers free. Why hadn’t she?

  Because it had been so… intimate. No man had ever held her hand in such a fashion, boldly but tenderly, too. It had utterly unnerved her. Even now, with her hand still tucked in the crook of his arm and his thigh pressed against hers, she felt that same quivering in her belly that she’d felt when he’d caressed her hand.

  She stiffened. Skrimshaw was right. She’d better take care. The duke had been the one to assert he was her husband, and that shifted everything. Now there was no reason for him to treat her like a sister, no reason for them to have separate rooms… anywhere.

  Her pulse gave a flutter at the thought of spending several nights on the road alone in an inn room with him.

  Lord save her. She’d better be careful.

  She slanted a gaze up at him. He was looking entirely too unreadable. After her little display, she’d expected him to be a good deal angrier. But he’d conceded defeat and acted as if nothing had happened. It had put her on her guard again. He had something up his sleeve. What could it be?

  They reached the coaching inn a short while later. As the Greasleys took their leave, Mrs. Greasley surprised her by murmuring, “Don’t let the man bully you, deary. If you don’t stand up for yourself at the beginning of the marriage, he’ll be no good to you for anything but grief.”

  The sage advice, coming from a woman who clearly had her own husband tied neatly in knots, bemused her. Had Mrs. Greasley noticed more about their relationship than Lisette had given her credit for? Or was that just the woman’s usual advice to newly married couples?

  It didn’t matter. Lisette had to survive the duke’s presence only long enough to extricate Tristan from this trouble. And standing up to Lyons when he tried to bully her wasn’t the problem. She could manage that. It was when he was being sweet that he was most dangerous.

  Was that his current course—to kill her with kindness?

  Trying to figure out his game consumed her throughout the next hour, while he went off with the innkeeper to arrange for their room and their passage to Dieppe, have their bags sent up, and ask that a meal be provided. So much for traveling as a regular person. Clearly he had no idea how a regular person traveled.

  Then again, he’d changed the rules by claiming to be a land agent. Such men did have some money—they would be able to afford a decent room in an inn, and they would be used to giving orders.

  She had to admit it had been rather clever of him to hit on that role. It put him in that nebulous land between
gentleman and tradesman. He worked for a living, but it required a certain amount of polish and skill. It meant that his accent wasn’t too odd, nor his knowledge of certain things too unbelievable. And clearly he had realized that he knew the role well enough to play it.

  She only wished she knew the role of a wife half as well. Would a real wife let him handle all the arrangements without voicing an opinion? Would she complain that the rooms they were led to were too small?

  Thank God there were two of them—a bedchamber and a sitting room. That somewhat eased her fear of being alone with him. One of them could sleep on the settee while the other took the bed. They wouldn’t be quite as much in each other’s pockets as she’d feared.

  He must have planned it that way, and for that she was grateful.

  As soon as the innkeeper left, scurrying off to arrange for their dinner, the Duke of Lyons walked over to the ewer, poured some water in the basin, and began to wash his hands.

  The silence stretched maddeningly between them. “I imagine that you find the public coaches very dirty, Your Grace,” Lisette said.

  “I find traveling very dirty regardless of the coach, Miss Bonnaud.” He dried his hands, then faced her, leaning back against the sturdy bureau that held the wash basin and crossing his arms over his chest.

  His unreadable stare made her feel the first tendrils of alarm.

  “It is, that’s true.” She walked over to her bag and opened it, determined to appear as nonchalant as he.

  “That was a very enlightening performance you put on in the carriage,” he said at last. “I was impressed.”

  She didn’t suppose “Thank you” was the appropriate answer. “You pushed me into a corner,” she said defensively. “I didn’t have a choice. We agreed that I would help you find Tristan if you would let me go along. You couldn’t expect me to jeopardize his safety by telling you too soon where he is.”

  She shot him a veiled glance. Her voice grew stronger the longer she talked, but it didn’t seem to change his stance any. He just kept staring at her with a piercing gaze. An oddly compelling gaze.

  It was most unsettling. “Because you know very well,” she went on, “that the minute I do, you’ll abandon me and go off on your own.”

  “True.”

  She gaped at him. He didn’t even bother to deny it. “Well, I can’t have that. I have to protect my brother.”

  “Do you?” He pushed away from the bureau. “I’m beginning to think you have a darker goal.”

  That took her completely by surprise. “Darker goal?” she asked, her blood freezing in her veins.

  “When I first met you, I assumed you weren’t part of his scheme. But your play-acting today proved that you are masterful at pretense. How do I know that our entire conversation this morning wasn’t a pretense? That you aren’t leading me away from London at this very moment for some devious purpose?”

  Devious purpose? Masterful at pretense? He thought she was some sort of swindler! “That’s a vile accusation! I would never do such a thing!”

  “And why should I believe you?” He strode nearer, his face dark with threat. “You’ve proved yourself very good at dissembling. For all I know, you and your brother cooked up this plan together.”

  “B-but why? Why would I do that?”

  “That’s what I want to know.” He loomed over her. “I ought to have you tossed in the gaol until you tell me the truth.”

  “Because I cry well?” she squeaked.

  “Because you are attempting to defraud me,” he said in an ominous tone.

  He was going to throw her in irons, just because she could do some acting in a pinch!

  “I swear I’m not doing any such thing,” she said, her heart in her throat. “You know why I insisted on your taking me with you. You do! I don’t know where you’ve got this daft idea that I’m some swindler, but nothing could be further from—”

  He started laughing. She gaped at him, now all at sea.

  That merely made him laugh harder, and he gasped, “You’re not… the only one… good at pretense.”

  And suddenly she understood. This was revenge for her play-acting this afternoon.

  Planting her hands on her hips, she glared at him. “You are a horrible, horrible man! How dare you terrify me like that? Why, I ought to—”

  He dropped onto the settee, laughing so hard he could scarcely speak. “If you… could only have seen… your face… when I mentioned… gaol…”

  She walked up to hit him on the arm. “That was not remotely amusing!”

  “I… beg to… disagree…” he choked out, holding his stomach in mirth.

  Glowering at him, she strode over to the ewer, brought it back, and poured its contents on his head.

  He jumped up off the settee, sputtering, “What the devil was that for?”

  “For making me think you were going to pack me off to gaol, you… you… oaf!”

  “Oaf?” he said as he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and began to wipe his face. “That’s the best you can do?”

  She narrowed her gaze to slits. “Cretin. Devil. Arse.”

  He smirked at her. “Careful now. Aren’t you supposed to be a respectable married lady?”

  “You nearly gave me heart failure!”

  “You deserved it, after all that crying and nonsense.” He mimicked her. “M-my brother was right. I sh-should never have m-married you!”

  Tossing the empty ewer onto the settee, she crossed her arms over her chest. “The words might have been feigned, but the sentiment is still valid.”

  “It wasn’t my idea to do this,” he reminded her.

  “And it wasn’t my idea to pose as a married couple. Thank God that’s pretend.” She headed for the other room.

  “Oh yes,” he said irritably as he followed close behind her. “You would hate being married to a wealthy duke who could buy you whatever you wanted and show you the world you so obviously crave to see.”

  That he had noticed her love of travel vexed her immensely. She whirled on him in a temper. “I would hate being married to any man who would own me. Who would want to tell me what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and with whom. No, thank you.”

  He slicked back his wet hair. “Is that really how you see marriage?”

  “As a prison for women? Yes.”

  “And you see no advantage in it,” he said as he came right up to her.

  “None.”

  “What about children?”

  “My mother had two. She wasn’t married.” Though Lisette would never follow that example, she wasn’t about to admit it to His High-and-Mighty Grace.

  He lifted one imperious brow. “And you ended up in poverty as a result.”

  “So did my half brother, and he is legitimate. The fact is, in this country, unless you’re the eldest, you inherit at the whim of your father. Marriage is no protection against that, especially if a woman is marrying far above her, as Dom’s mother did.”

  “What about companionship?” he prodded.

  “I have two brothers who will never abandon me. That’s companionship enough for me.”

  “And love?” he asked softly. “What about that?”

  She glanced away, not wanting him to see her ambivalence on that subject. “Love is the chain men use to hold a woman prisoner. They offer her love and in exchange for her devotion, they give her none. I learned that well from my mother’s example.” Forcing a bright smile to her face, she met his gaze once more. “So you see, Your Grace, I find no advantages to be had in marriage.”

  “You’re forgetting one more,” he said, his eyes locked with hers.

  “Oh, and what might that be?”

  “Desire.”

  She fought a shiver at his provocative tone. She hadn’t forgotten that one. She’d ignored it. “Desire is only an advantage for the man.” She’d been telling herself that for years, but it somehow rang hollow when she said it to him.

  “You can’t be that naive.” His voice was n
ow a low thrum. “Surely your mother enjoyed her nights in your father’s arms.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Maman didn’t talk about such things.” Her mother had been determined to act respectably outside the bedchamber, probably thinking that it would convince Papa to marry her. Obviously it hadn’t worked.

  “And you? No man has ever tempted you with desire?”

  Not to any great extent. Until he had come along. And she wasn’t about to admit that to him. “No.”

  Something flickered in his face. The thrill of a challenge? Or something darker, more visceral? “Then it’s about bloody time someone did.”

  He grasped her face between his hands and sealed his lips to hers.

  SABRINA JEFFRIES is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Royal Brotherhood trilogy, the School for Heiresses series, and the Hellions of Halstead Hall series. Her stunning holiday novel, ’Twas the Night After Christmas, marked her first hardcover release. Many of her early novels were published under the pen names Deborah Martin and Deborah Nicholas. There are more than six million copies of her books in print worldwide.

  The winner of numerous awards, Sabrina Jeffries also headlined the novella collection The School for Heiresses and contributed to the holiday anthology Snowy Night with a Stranger. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and son.

  Follow Sabrina Jeffries on Twitter, join her 9,600 fans on Facebook, and visit www.sabrinajeffries.com.

  http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Sabrina-Jeffries/

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  COVER DESIGN BY MIN CHOI • COVER ILLUSTRATION BY JON PAUL • AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY JESSI BLAKELY FOR TAMARA LACKEY PHOTOGRAPHY

  Also by Sabrina Jeffries

  ’Twas the Night After Christmas

  THE HELLIONS OF HALSTEAD HALL SERIES