The Duke's Revenge

by Marlene Suson

  Mrs Raff was much taken aback that not only did the duke know the identity of Alyssa’s illustrious grandfather, but was not at all concerned by it. However, she was not a woman who gave up easily. “First you make her false promises, then you abduct her, ruin her, and now you cast her upon the world with nothing at all.” Her shrill voice trembled with righteous indignation. “Well, you will not succeed! Neither I nor her grandfather—and you will find that he is a man of considerable influence—will settle for anything less than your doing right by her.”

  “Save your breath, madam,” Carlyle said coldly. “It is my intention to do so.”

  For a moment, Mrs Raff was speechless, looking like a sail that had suddenly lost the wind. “Is it?” she scoffed at last. “Let me tell you that there is only one way that you can do that! You must marry her!”

  “But of course,” Carlyle said as casually as though he were agreeing to tea with breakfast.

  Both mother and daughter gaped at him in open-mouthed astonishment. Mrs Raff was the first to recover. The look of malicious triumph that gleamed on her mama’s face tore at Alyssa. Mrs Raff pressed her victory, insisting, “You must wed her at once.”

  “The sooner the better,” His Grace agreed amicably.

  “You are mad!” Alyssa cried.

  “Probably,” he replied carelessly.

  “You cannot marry me!”

  “I can and I shall.”

  “No, you shall not!” Alyssa cried frantically. “I refuse to marry you.”

  “You stupid fool!” screamed Mrs Raff, so vexed that she reached out to box her daughter’s ears, only to find her wrist captured in the duke’s punishing grip.

  “Do not dare!” he snapped. “There is, madam, one condition to my agreeing to marry your daughter. It is that you are not welcome in my house now or ever. Take it or leave it.

  Mrs Raff reverted to outraged mother. “You think that I would leave my innocent daughter unprotected under your roof until you are wed?”

  “Why not?” he asked coldly. “You deserted her when she was in leading strings and needed you more. Furthermore, you cannot argue that her innocence needs protecting in one breath, and in the next that I must marry her because I have robbed her of it.”

  Mrs Raff tossed her head so indignantly that the fruit wobbled precariously atop her hat.

  The duke said blandly, “I would not shake the tree too hard, madam. You run the risk of losing your fruit—and a ducal son-in-law.” His hard, glittering eyes bored into her, and a cynical smile played about his lips. “Of course, the world need not know that he refuses to receive you unless you choose to tell it.”

  A bitter half smile quirked Alyssa’s mouth at how well Carlyle understood the workings of her mother’s mind.

  Mrs Raff contemplated his veiled ultimatum, then turned abruptly and walked to the door, where her exit was promptly halted by the width of her skirt. She uttered a strangled expletive that should never sully a lady’s lips, viciously crushed her skirt to her, and ramrodded it through the doorway into the hall.

  The duke followed her to the door, beckoning to Pedley who was standing just beyond it. “See that she is returned to London immediately.” His Grace smiled urbanely at his long-time retainer, whose ears were as sharp as a hunting hound’s. “It comforts me, Pedley, to know how deaf you are. It would be a great pity should anything that transpired in this room be repeated outside of it to anyone—anyone at all.”

  Master and servant exchanged looks of perfect understanding.

  “Furthermore, Miss Raff has departed with her mama. Neither you nor any of the other servants have yet seen Miss Eliot, who is about to become my wife.”

  Another look was exchanged between the two men before the duke shut the door and strode back to Alyssa.

  “That will not stop the talk,” she said.

  He smiled sardonically. “Will it not? My servants are very well paid, and I am considered an excellent master.”

  “Let me go back to London, too. I do not want to marry you.”

  “I know you do not,” he said grimly, “but I promise you that it need be nothing more than a marriage of convenience.” His distaste for his proposal was very clear in the harsh lines of his face. “We can go our separate ways. You need see me only rarely, and I will not demand intimacy.”

  These assurances were clearly meant to quiet Alyssa’s objections, but they only strengthened them, filling her with profound despair. She could imagine no more exquisitely painful form of torture than a marriage in name only to this man whom she loved. And how he must hate the prospect of being trapped in a dreadful mésalliance that he wanted even less for himself than he had for his son. Once again, he would be bound to a woman whom he did not love. Remembering the loathing on his face when he had glanced at his late wife’s portrait, Alyssa’s heart was shattered at the thought of him looking at her like that.

  Misinterpreting her agonised look, he continued to try to soothe her doubts. “You will have more freedom than you do now. I promise to ask very little of you.”

  “What will you ask of me, Your Grace?”

  There was a fleeting look of ineffable sadness in his eyes, “Only that you accept my name. I cannot, under the circumstances, insist upon fidelity, but I ask that you be discreet and do not embarrass me. I shall do the same for you.”

  His words froze Alyssa to the marrow. How utterly miserable she would be, knowing that the husband she loved was with other women. She cried in revulsion, “Surely you cannot want such a marriage, either!”

  “Of course I do not want it!” he snapped impatiently. “But I have no choice.”

  “I do, and I choose not to marry you!”

  “You have none, either,” he said irritably. “Don’t be a paperskull, Alyssa. Your vulgar mother will create a scandal that will put you beyond the pale of polite society if you do not marry me.”

  “I do not care!” she cried, her dimpled chin rising to a defiant angle.

  “Well, I do.” There was a glint of amusement in his gold-flecked eyes. “My honour as well as yours is at stake.”

  His flash of humour disconcerted her. “You are already notorious,” she protested.

  “I may be notorious, but I am not yet infamous, and I have no desire to become so.”

  “You are quizzing me.”

  “No,” he said quietly. “My morals are not quite as black as you think. I abide by the rules of the game. Your vulgar mama is correct. One does not abduct and ruin virtuous ladies of quality, then cast them off.”

  “You have not ruined me!”

  “But when your loving mama is done, the world will think I have. And that is the same thing. What will you do then? Your grandfather will not take you back. Nor will your mama, if you deny her a duke for a son-in-law, even one who will not permit her in his house.”

  “I will find a position as a governess or a teacher in a young ladies’ seminary,” she said with quiet determination. The thought of what a dreary life she would lead filled her with dread, but not nearly as much dread as being married to a man she adored, when he did not return her love.

  “I cannot think that either career would be of long duration once your mother had brewed her scandal broth,” he said softly.

  He was right, of course, and Alyssa could not keep the dismay from her face.

  Seeing it, he said quietly, “We shall be married by special licence tomorrow.”

  Alyssa felt as if she were suffocating. “I beg of you to give me a little time to adjust to the idea,” she pleaded, determined to escape before the deed was done.

  As if reading her mind, he said with amusement, “It is not time to adjust that you want, but time to flee.”

  Seeing the spots of colour rise in her cheeks, he laughed. “Don’t try to run. You will succeed only in making me very angry.”

  “You would be well rid of me if I did flee,” she replied candidly.

  “I will be the judge of that,” he said, smiling. “Only recollec
t there is my reputation to be saved. Now promise that you will marry me on the morrow.”

  “No, I cannot!” she cried defiantly.

  “Why not?” he demanded, his good humour giving way to irritation.

  “I cannot, for it would be a lie. And I will not lie to you.”

  “That is some consolation,” he said dryly. “Why do you fight me like this when I am only trying to do what is honourable?”

  “I wish that you had not discovered honour at this late date!”

  His eyes narrowed speculatively. “Is it my reputation that makes you so determined not to marry me?”

  She looked away, no longer able to meet his penetrating eyes, and stammered, “You are reputed to love the ladies—a great many of them.”

  “No, I loved none of them.”

  “You said you loved your wife.”

  “At first. I was barely sixteen and green as grass when I was married to a woman years older and decades more sophisticated than I, a woman I hardly knew and who easily dazzled such a rustic calfling as I was.” He gave a harsh, contemptuous laugh at the memory that tore at Alyssa’s heart. “I had never had a woman; I had never even been to London. I was such a flat that I thought all marriages were like my parents’—they adored each other. I had a quick and brutal education. My wife lacked the concern for a stripling’s heart and pride that you exhibited toward Jeremy. It gave her considerable pleasure to trample on both.”

  Alyssa stood very still, her fingernails unconsciously digging into her palms, her heart breaking. The naked pain in his eyes all these years later told her how cruelly his wife had wounded him. It was all that Alyssa could do to keep from putting her arms round him and comforting him. No wonder he had been so enraged when he had thought that history was repeating itself with Jeremy.

  Carlyle’s face twisted cynically.. “In time I discovered that, unlike my wife, a great many women were not only delighted to have my attention but actively pursued my, er, companionship. I did not fool myself that my charm was what attracted them as much as my title and fortune. But after my disastrous marriage, I found it amusing to be courted rather than rejected.”

  The self-mockery in his voice hurt Alyssa almost as much as his pain had a moment earlier. No wonder he had so little affection for members of her sex.

  “I was not averse to indulging in brief affairs.” Wry amusement flickered in his hazel eyes. “Not nearly as many, however, as is rumoured, or I would be dead of exhaustion. Not a very honourable story, I grant you, but I never before abducted a woman, virtuous or otherwise, and ruined her. I will not do so now.”

  She tried another argument. “You cannot marry me, Your Grace. Only think how Jeremy hates me.”

  “Yes.” Carlyle studied her curiously for a moment. “Why did you try to protect me instead of telling him the truth?”

  “It was better that he hate me instead of you,” she said sadly. “I could not stand to be the cause of an estrangement between you. You were only attempting to save him from a dreadful mistake.”

  He smiled sadly, touching the dimple in her chin lightly with the tip of his finger. “I know that you meant well, and I am grateful. But he must know the truth.”

  “Oh, what a mull I have made of things!” Alyssa cried, her shoulders slumping in dejection.

  He reached up and stroked Alyssa’s cheek lightly, comfortingly, with his long, graceful fingers. “I have given you my word that ours need be a marriage in name only. Now give me your word that you will accept it.”

  His touch thrilled her so that it was difficult to deny him anything. But his confession about his marriage only made her all the more determined that she would not be responsible for his being married again to a woman that he did not want. “No,” she reiterated, staring miserably down at floor.

  “Why must you be so difficult?” he demanded in exasperation. His fingers moved to her chin, tipping it up. He glared darkly into her eyes. “I am not a patient man. I am attempting to do what is right; but good intentions, -when they run contrary to what I want, do not come easily to me. And I do not want this marriage of convenience, so do not test your luck.”

  His final sentence filled her simultaneously with despair and hope. He did not want to marry her. If she fled him, he might make no effort to reclaim her.

  Carlyle’s hands moved to her cheeks, holding her face gently so that she had to meet his curious eyes. “Is marrying me such a terrible fate?” he asked softly.

  His touch and his unexpected tenderness under mined Alyssa’s self-control. Try as she might, she could not keep the tears from her eyes. Wedding him would be heaven if only he loved her and wanted a true marriage, not a charade whose only purpose was to spare her reputation. “Yes,” she choked.

  He stared sadly into her tearful eyes for a long moment, then said, “I know that I have given you no reason to like me, Alyssa.”

  “Nor I you, Your Grace,” she replied shakily, trying to blink back her tears. “If only I had not let my anger rule my head that night at the Hagars’.”

  “Yes, if only,” he said, his tone suddenly savage, “but you did, and now I fear I must pay a dreadful price!”

  As she blinked in surprise at his sudden, inexplicable anger, he turned and stalked from the room.

  Tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks as his final words echoed and re-echoed in her mind: “And now I fear I must pay a dreadful price!”

  No! Alyssa would not let him. She clenched her hands into determined little balls. “I will escape you somehow.”

  Chapter 25

  Minutes later, a messenger was dispatched on the fleetest horse in Beauchamp’s stables with Carlyle’s hastily scrawled instructions to Hugh Page for a special licence.

  Then His Grace, learning that Jeremy was with his sister, hurried up the broad marble staircase, determined to get his unhappy confession to his son over with at once. The door to Ellen’s room was open, and his children’s voices drifted out.

  “Papa brought the most lovely lady to nurse me,” Ellen said. “I think I should like her for a mama. Her name is Alyssa.”

  “You are touched in the upperworks,” Jeremy growled. “She is the most dreadful woman I have ever met.”

  Ellen gasped in protest. “She is not!”

  “Of course she is not,” Carlyle said, entering the room and striding rapidly to his daughter’s bedside.

  “How are you feeling, my pet?”

  “Much better, Papa.”

  And he saw that she was. The fever was gone, and her brown eyes were once again bright and clear. He bent to kiss her. “I am so pleased, my pet.” Turning to his son, he said, “Come, Jeremy, I must talk to you.”

  The boy followed his father into the private sitting—room that was part of the ducal apartments. It was a cheerful spot with informal portraits of Carlyle’s children, parents, brothers, and sisters at various ages lining its walls.

  The duke led his son to a pair of beechwood chairs by a window that overlooked the gardens. When they were both seated, he asked Jeremy, “Why did you not tell me the truth about the trip you were planning to Gretna Green?”

  “You would have forbidden me to help in an elopement.”

  “The contrary, in George and Sarah’s case, I would have helped you. As it was, I knew you were lying to me, but not why. I erroneously concluded that it was you who was eloping with Alyssa.”

  “But we were no longer even betrothed.”

  “I could hardly have suspected that, when you asked me for eight hundred pounds to buy her a betrothal gift,” Carlyle noted dryly.

  Jeremy hung his head. “I hated lying to you, Papa. It is the first time I have ever done so.”

  “Deceit breeds deceit, my dear boy. I was so outraged by what I thought was happening that I, in turn, lied to you in my note about Alyssa coming to me. She did not.”

  “Then why is she here?” Jeremy asked in confusion.

  “I was determined to prevent her from eloping with you because I knew you w
ould not suit. So I abducted her.”

  Jeremy gasped. “You cannot mean her dreadful mama was right?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “But Alyssa said...”

  “She said only that she was not the woman you thought her to be. She was attempting to deflect your anger from me because she blames herself for the misunderstanding that led to my abducting her.”

  Jeremy groaned. “Her mama will make a dreadful scandal!”

  “No.”

  “How will you prevent it?”

  “The only way I can. By marrying Alyssa.”

  “Oh, no, Papa, you cannot,” Jeremy cried in horrified accents. “She is a termagant!”

  Carlyle’s lips twitched as he remembered Alyssa’s words; “I was so odious that I could hardly stand myself.”

  “A gentleman does not abduct ladies of quality and not marry them.”

  Jeremy shuddered. “You can have no notion how overbearing and managing she can be.”

  “I have a good notion,” the duke said in amusement. “Do you think I will not be master in my own house? Surely you know me better than that, Jeremy.”

  His son’s face lightened. “Of course you will know how to handle her.”

  Carlyle did not share his son’s conviction. Nothing in his broad experience with women had prepared him for Miss Alyssa Eliot, and he was far from certain how to achieve his objective with her.

  Alyssa remained in her room, refusing to go downstairs for dinner because she was embarrassed at how red her eyes were from weeping over the cruel twist of fate that would make the man she loved her husband in name only. Nor did she want to face him or his son.

  Before retiring for the night, however, she went to Ellen’s room to check on her a final time and found Carlyle bending over his daughter, bidding her a tender good night. As Alyssa watched them, a horrifying question assailed her: Was Ellen his daughter? Just then he rose and turned toward the door, seeing Alyssa’s question reflected in her eyes. His eyes narrowed angrily, but he said nothing, only nodded at her and left the room abruptly.