Her feet carried her before her mind could defeat them. Deeper into the darkness of Whitley House she went. She knew where the ducal apartments were thanks to her several trips to search for additional papers. Darkness did not deter her. Nor did reason and common sense.
All she knew was the duke was alone in his chamber. And he was suffering. And she could not bear it. She reached his door, hesitated while her rational mind attempted to convince her she was about to commit sheer folly. Her hand hovered on the latch.
Why should she go to him?
She did not even like the man.
He was arrogant. Frigid. Condescending. A drunkard and a rakehell. She spent most of her day loathing him and the other part fearing the slivers of tenderness he could exhibit, so unexpected and sweet that they were like rays of sun after the coldest, darkest winter.
For he was also the man who had made time for his attention-starved sisters. Who had listened to her impassioned speech and implemented a change. Who had shed tears at the remembrance of his mother’s death. Who kissed her so well, she knew no kiss that came after could ever compare.
She made her decision.
The door clicked open. She stepped over the threshold.
Into his dark world.
The door closed at her back. The air changed. Awareness hummed through her. She was in the Duke of Whitley’s bedchamber. In the midst of the night. And for the first time, he was there as well. She could feel his presence, hear his rapid breaths.
He sounded like a horse that had just run its paces.
Though she knew she should go, her feet carried her the rest of the journey. Again, she knew her way, knew the lay of the furniture. One of the oddities of her mind was that she only needed to see anything once before she had it imprinted upon her memory forever. She knew his large bed dominated the far wall, and that it was flanked by tables on each side, that an armoire sat on the east wall, a small escritoire on the west.
His breathing increased.
Her courage flagged.
What had she been thinking, entering the duke’s chamber as if she had the right? And what did she mean to do, shake him awake? Touch him? Her actions had been so reckless. So foolish. So stupid.
Jacinda spun on her heels, intent to retreat from the chamber before Whitley was ever the wiser. Her foot settled into a weak floorboard beneath the lush carpet. A loud creak spilled into the silence.
His breathing stopped.
Her heart stopped.
“Ripley?” the duke’s sleep-roughened voice demanded.
Of course he would think her his valet. Jacinda had no desire to disabuse him of the notion. She pressed a hand to her heart, continuing her retreat wordlessly. The sooner she could manage to slip into the safety of the hall, the better she would feel.
Rustling bedclothes echoed through the chamber, followed by the unmistakable sound of two feet thudding on the floor. “Miss Governess.”
It was not a question, but rather a statement.
She inhaled sharply and held her breath. How did he know? It does not matter, her mind argued. Continue on your way. You must not falter. In nine more steps, she would reach the door.
Heavy footsteps stalked toward her. “Jacinda. I know it is you. I smell jasmine.”
For some reason, his words, which should have encouraged her flight, had the opposite effect. Perhaps it was his use of her Christian name. Perhaps it was he knew her scent, the sole luxury she allowed herself. Whatever the reason, she froze like a broken pocket watch, stopped on the last tick, unable to move beyond.
Hands settled on her shoulders, spun her about. In the darkness, she could not see him, but the lack of light only served to heighten her awareness of him. His heat blazed into her. She wanted to step into him, wrap him in her embrace. She wanted to turn and flee and never return.
“Perhaps, madam, you would care to explain why you are so adept at trespassing in the night where you do not belong,” he growled. “And before you begin, do not dare to claim you fancied yourself in the library.”
She swallowed. His grip on her shoulders was tight but not menacing, and his thumbs had begun to move ever so slowly, tracing the lengths of her collarbones. Almost in a caress. A frisson of something dark and delicious trilled down her spine.
“Forgive me for the intrusion, Your Grace,” she managed to say, though her voice was irritatingly breathless. “I heard sounds, and I believed you were in distress. I should never have crossed the threshold. Indeed, I would not have, had I not feared you were in need of assistance.”
“Sounds.” His hands slid over the slopes of her shoulders, settling in the crook where her neck joined them. He toyed with the button on the high collar of her sensible nightrail that peeked out from beneath her robe. “What manner of sounds did you hear?”
Jacinda wetted her lips. “Sounds of distress, Your Grace. Groaning, moaning. I feared you were injured or otherwise in pain.”
A low, wicked chuckle crackled forth then. “Did it not occur to you I may have been otherwise engaged, Miss Governess?”
She stiffened, knowing instantly what he suggested. To her great shame, she had not imagined such a depraved scenario, though she now had to admit to herself it was not far removed from reality. “I… forgive me for the egregious error, if you please, Your Grace. It was not my intention to intrude upon your solitude or privacy in any fashion. Please rest assured I will never again make such an inexcusable mistake.”
“What would you have done, my dear, if you had entered the chamber only to discover I was not alone?” Wicked amusement underscored his tone.
Only he would pose such a shocking question. She supposed she would not have been at all surprised to find such a scene of corruption. Why, then, did the thought of the Duke of Whitley being otherwise engaged with a nameless, faceless female make her stomach clench?
“I have offered you my sincere apology, Your Grace,” she said, coolly refusing to answer his query, for she did not wish to examine the answer herself. “If you will excuse me, I would very much like to return to the sanctity of my own chamber now that I am assured of your good health.”
One of his hands moved from her shoulder to skim over her neck, settling at her nape. Long, thick fingers parted her hair, cupping the base of her skull. “No.”
No? Surely, he could not intend to keep her here against her will, in his chamber?
“Your Grace, I beg you. It would be most improper for me to remain, and I—”
“Crispin,” he interrupted.
Crispin. The name fit him, beautiful and stark. She longed to try it on her tongue. But she could not make her lips form it. “Your Grace. I must return to my chamber at once before my presence here is remarked upon. It would be quite ruinous indeed for the household to learn of my injudiciousness.”
“Why did you come to my chamber tonight?” he asked, his voice vibrating with an intensity she could not decipher.
“You sounded as if you were in pain.” The truth fled her, all she could give him. “You sounded… as if you needed someone.”
To her surprise, he did not mock her or somehow render her words indecent. Instead, he did the most shocking thing of all. He leaned forward and lowered his head so their foreheads touched. His hot breath fanned over her lips.
The gesture was at once intimate and yet tender. He had not kissed her. He did not seem intent upon seduction this night. Her in the unlit stillness of his chamber, with no pretense or distractions between them, he seemed somehow different. Softer, perhaps.
“Do you know what the Spanish fighters do to their enemies, Jacinda?”
His low, bitter question, seemingly torn from him, shocked her. She expected anger from him, coldness and condescension. But harsh revelations—confessions, even—seemed incongruous for the man she had come to know.
“I am sure I do not wish to imagine,” she began hesitantly, unsure of what to say.
“They bury men alive up to their necks. They nail them to church
doors and trees. Rip their bodies apart and let the ravens peck them to death.”
His words robbed of her breath and speech. She wanted to embrace him, but she was not sure if he would push her away. Dear God, the atrocities he must have witnessed at war. She was newly thankful she had never known what James had endured. His letters home had always been hopeful, filled with how much he missed her. She had always suspected he sheltered her from the vile truth of his circumstances, but he had done so knowing it would be easier for her.
“Battle is hell on earth, swords and cannon and blood and bodies, horses falling, the wounded screaming.” A violent shudder tore through him, so strong she shook with the force as well. “But the savagery of the guerillas was different. They attacked field hospitals and hacked wounded French to death. They burned men alive.”
The urge to comfort him could not be contained. It grew, a living thing, bigger than she was, until she could not keep herself from touching him. Her hands settled on his upper arms. Bare, firm male skin seared her palms. When she inhaled, it was his breath, and when she exhaled, hers became his.
“I am so sorry, Your Grace,” she whispered, wishing with all her might there was some way she could take his pain from him and lock it away so it could never plague him again. But pain was not so easily removed once it had lodged itself in the heart, and she was not omnipotent. “I read many accounts of the war and your bravery, along with your comrades, but I cannot fathom what you must have endured.”
“Ah, yes.” His tone was grim. Cutting. Yet, he did not distance himself or reject her touch. “The reports of the fabled war hero. Such rot. And here I am, so sick with guilt that I cannot face my reflection in the glass. So shattered by the recollection of what I have seen and done I cannot even sleep through the night without drinking myself to oblivion or crying out like a babe in the night.”
Her heart stuttered for a moment, her entire being curiously hit by the sensation she was balanced upon the head of a needle. A breath in the wrong direction and she would fall. Surely it could not be he was admitting his role in Searle’s death after all, and in spite of her inability to uncover even one piece of evidence against him. “Guilt, Your Grace?”
“I am responsible for the death of my best friend.” The low admission sounded as if it was torn from the deepest depths of him. “That bloody day will haunt me forever.”
Trying to understand, desperate to believe she misunderstood his words, she cupped his face, wishing she could see his eyes and read his gaze. His beard stubble pricked her palms. “You cannot have been responsible.”
“Oh, but I was. Searle and I were tasked with running intelligence with the Spanish guerilla fighters. The guerillero we met on the day he died was the most ruthless, untrustworthy blackguard on the entire Peninsula.” He shuddered again, his breath catching. “I should have known something was amiss, that something about that day was different. I should have required a stronger force to accompany us. But I was too damned proud, and Searle and El Corazón Oscuro were arguing. Someone clubbed me over the head from behind with a musket. When I woke, the charred body of a French captain hung above me, and there was blood, so much blood. Searle’s hand, still wearing his signet…”
Dear, sweet God. The tiny seed of doubt vanished, obliterated by the visceral hideousness of his recollections. No man as broken and racked with guilt as the duke could actually be guilty of arranging his friend’s death. The two disparities did not equate. “Your Grace, you need not speak of it,” she urged, hating the anguish in his voice. Hating he had been a witness to such barbarism.
Hating anyone would dare suspect him of treason when it was clear he had loved his friend like a brother. His desperate anguish could not be feigned. What he had seen could never be unseen, and it was a scar he would forever bear upon his psyche.
“Those murderous pigs butchered him, and I had no recourse. No bloody way of finding or helping him.” His breath hitched. “By the time I woke on the floor, left for dead, he was already gone in every sense of the word. There was nothing I could do save remove the signet ring from the hand so I could send it to his mother. I never told her the manner in which I came to have it in my possession. And Christ on the cross, she cannot know. It would kill her as it has me. Each day since then has eaten me alive from the inside. I cannot forgive myself for failing to see we had been led to our slaughter, no better than cattle.”
“It was not your fault,” she said achingly, for it was what he needed to hear.
What she needed to say aloud. The Duke of Whitley had not murdered his friend. He was not colluding with the French or anyone else. His every correspondence suggested he was, at heart, a good man. A good man who spent his days numbing himself with drink and pleasure in an endless attempt to keep his mind from the weightier matters troubling him.
“Do you know I have not spoken of that day with anyone?” he asked suddenly.
She shook her head slowly, uncertain if she should be grateful for his trust or suspicious of it. “Your Grace, I—”
“Crispin,” he interrupted with his renewed demand. “You’re in my chamber, in my arms, in the blackest hour of the night. Surely you can say it now.”
“Crispin,” she tried, and swallowed, finding she liked it far too much on her tongue.
“Do I frighten you?” His question, issued in that velvet-soft drawl she had come to know so well—never failing to elicit gooseflesh—startled her.
Yes.
“No.” Her answer was breathless. Simple. Another lie between them.
But she did not fear him in the manner he implied but rather in another altogether. He frightened her heart, for his vulnerability made her soften toward him in a way she had not before. Here was the man who loved his sisters and wept at his mother’s memory. Here was the man who danced with wild abandon, whose touch was gentle, who…
Swallowing, she realized she had not felt such a magnitude of emotion for a man before. Her heart and life had been closed, and she had been happy to make Father and his work her world. She had loved James, but she had been a naïve girl when they had wed. And they had scarcely had the chance to grow together when he had gone, never to return.
“Damnation, woman,” the duke groaned, and then he pulled her body against his so snugly there seemed to be not even a hint of distance between them. “I ought to frighten you. It would be wise for you to fear me.”
Every part of her, from her breasts to her hips, pressed into his hard, masculine form. She ought to push him away, she knew. To break contact. End this madness. But her hands moved to his back from his arms, stroking over the hewn contours. His skin was smooth and hot, like silk and velvet and yet so much power rippled beneath the surface. She never wanted to stop touching him. To stop comforting him.
His arms banded about her.
She felt calm in a way she had not for as long as she could recall, as if she had just come home after a long journey abroad. As if she had found the place where she belonged.
How silly. How untrue, surely. And yet, she could not banish the sensation skittering along her spine, settling low in her belly.
He buried his face in her hair, and for a span of time, neither of them spoke. They held still, the ink of the night somehow dimming the harsh realities that would keep them apart by daylight. Jacinda did something foolish next. She lay her head against his chest, listening to the solid beats of his heart. His skin was bare and real and so very alive against her. And her heart answered. Her hands continued to glide over the planes of his back, absorbing his strength.
Awareness hummed in the air. The intimacy of this midnight-embrace far surpassed any they had shared before, and she knew instinctively they had crossed boundaries together they had not meant to. But in the darkness, he was no longer the Duke of Whitley, harsh and unyielding, libidinous rakehell.
Instead, he was just a man. A man who had endured the hells of war and returned home to two wild sisters and a duchy. To false accusations to which he was not ev
en privy. To demons that haunted his sleep.
And for these few, stolen moments, she was just a woman. Not the woman who had been sent to scour his papers for cryptograms. Not the one who betrayed his trust even now by keeping the truth from him. Not a soldier’s widow who had buried herself in her father’s work and her studies.
But a woman who could not stay the swift river of emotion coursing through her. Who could not help but feel his pain and sadness. Who wanted to help him to keep the horrors of his past at bay.
One of his hands traveled to her unbound hair, caressing the strands over her back with a gentleness that destroyed her. He was so much more than she had realized on the day she had first walked into his study.
Everything she wished she could tell him clamored to her tongue. I am not a governess. I have been deceiving you. Sifting through your correspondence. Reporting your words back to another.
What would he do if she revealed all to him? One breath was all it would take, and the truth would come spilling out like an upended tin of loose buttons. Would he send her away immediately? Would he wish to punish her? It was almost certain she would never see him again, and why did that thought leave her with such an empty anguish, a searing pain in her chest?
She should tell him. Regardless of the consequences. She would inform Father of her decision that she was no longer capable of remaining in Whitley’s household and spying against him.
“Tears?” The duke’s voice was a decadent rumble against her ear.
Her cheeks were wet. She wept for the man in her arms. For the impossible duke she did not dare like but whom she nevertheless felt so attuned to. For the broken man who could not sleep for the ghosts that hunted him even in his dreams. For the man who had removed a signet ring from his friend’s disembodied hand so it could be returned to his mother.
Once they began, they would not stop. The tears rained down her cheeks, and she sobbed into his chest, marking his skin with the wetness of her sorrow for him. And she was so very sorry—for Whitley, for what he had experienced and witnessed, for every bit of suffering and anguish he had been forced to endure. He had woken to the horrible, unimaginable knowledge his friend had been tortured and murdered whilst he still lived and breathed.
Regency Scandals and Scoundrels Collection Page 15