To Enchant a Wicked Duke

by Christi Caldwell

  She intended to go, until she’d passed the Morning Room and froze.

  “…You are doing this for you…”

  She hovered outside, an interloper on an exchange she had no place listening in on. She should go. Just as she should have gone. And yet, the angry tones and sharp voices raised while Nick spoke with his sister had held her to this doorway. And wrong or not, she listened still.

  “…your hatred will destroy you…”

  Those muffled words, a chiding rebuke leveled at Nick, reached through the doorway. Gooseflesh dotted her skin. What hatred did her husband carry that his sister would come here and speak of it now? It gave her pause, a reminder of how much she both knew him and, yet…how little she knew of him, as well. A memory flickered forward. Those cold shadows she’d seen in Nick’s eyes…

  “…do you think she will not find out who….”

  The she and who in question were lost, only stirring Justina’s disquiet. Footsteps sounded in the room and she frantically looked about, contemplating escape to avoid discovery. Plastering a smile on her face, she put her fingers on the door handle just as someone within opened it.

  Her husband and his sister looked back with equal degrees of shock.

  Cheeks warming, Justina cleared her throat. “Forgive me for interrupting,” she said weakly. “I was…” Eavesdropping like a naughty child. “I was…” Inventing cryptic tales within my head about your exchange. They both continued to stare. She made another clearing noise. “I simply wished to say hello,” she finished lamely. She’d little right to be standing outside during their personal discussion.

  The young countess smiled gently and stretched her hands out. “Please,” she began, taking Justina’s spare hand. “I wanted to visit and wish you happiness.” Lady Cecily shot a disapproving look back at her brother. “And scold my brother for failing to include his niece or me in the joyous occasion.”

  The joyous occasion. How hopeful and optimistic and, yet, the other woman could not know her brother had bound himself to Justina, all to save her from marriage to another. “Thank you,” she said belatedly. With the woman’s unintentional reminder, she reflected on the fact that he’d not included his family. She looked over at her husband, who stood with his face in a smooth mask which revealed nothing of what he was now thinking.

  “I do not wish to interrupt you any further on the day after your wedding,” the countess said, releasing her hands. “But mayhap you might come and visit with Felicity and me?” Her new sister-in-law gave her a warm smile that reached her pretty blue eyes.

  “I would like that very much,” Justina said returning her smile.

  “If you’ll excuse me?” Sparing one last glance for her brother, the countess sailed from the room and Justina was left alone with Nick.

  And alone, in light of all they’d shared last evening, left her uncharacteristically silent.

  Her husband studied her through thick, golden lashes. “Justina,” he greeted on that mellifluous baritone that sent heat rolling through her.

  “N-Nick,” she greeted. She wet her lips and his eyes went to that subtle, unintentional movement. “I was…” Her words trailed off as he strolled toward her with slow, languid steps.

  “You were just…?” he urged huskily as he stopped a hairsbreadth away from her.

  She gave her head a shake. How was it possible for a person to so affect her ability to string so much as a proper sentence together? He lowered his mouth to hers and claimed her lips in a hungry kiss that weakened her knees.

  But then, as quick as it had begun, he drew back, and she mourned the loss. He brushed his knuckles over her cheek and she leaned into that caress. “You are well this morning?” he murmured. Heat slapped her cheeks behind the question in his eyes.

  “I am,” she assured him quickly. “Quite fine.” Though slightly tender from their lovemaking, he’d awakened her body and left her feeling alive in ways she’d never known. “Are you?” she blurted.

  His hard lips twitched. “Indeed.” There was a wealth of meaning to that single utterance that sent another round of heat to her cheeks. His gaze went to her reticule. “And were you headed somewhere this day?” His questioning prodded her back to her previously unfinished thought.

  “Yes,” she said, gesticulating wildly with renewed enthusiasm for the lecture. “There is a lecture this morn on Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s works.” She held her breath and searched for a hint of disapproval from him on the scandalous enlightened thinker who challenged the place and station of women.

  “I see,” he said, revealing little with that two-word utterance.

  Justina coughed into her spare hand. “Yes, well, then. I shall allow you to your business.” She started to turn when he called out, staying her movements.

  “Justina?”

  “Nick?” she returned.

  Her husband folded his arms at his broadly-muscled chest. “Would you rather attend your lecture alone?”

  Would she rather attend alone? “Uh…I don’t…”

  The right corner of his lips quirked up. “If you’d rather I not accompany you?” He stared patiently back.

  He wanted to join her. When she’d arrived belowstairs, prepared to leave for her visit to Gipsy Hill, she’d not dared think to so much as ask him to join her. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. Her parents’ marriage was one where two people carried on and conducted their lives entirely separate from one another. And with his request, the remainder of her heart was lost to him. “You can accompany me,” she suggested.

  “You’re certa—”

  “I’m certain,” she said, her words coming quickly.

  He held out his fingers and she slid hers into his. His larger palm immediately swallowed her smaller one, engulfing it with his strength and warmth.

  A short while later, they walked through the clogged streets of Lambeth, winding their way between gypsies hawking their wares and patrons in coarse garments. “How often do you visit the lectures?” he asked as they strolled down the pavement.

  “Every week. Sometimes more,” she added. She stole a sideways peek, searching for a hint of disapproval. Instead, his gaze remained contemplative. “What is it?” she added, when he remained curiously silent.

  Nick paused, forcing her to a stop. He gestured down the street to that establishment that had become so important to her. “You sit at the back rows listening to the opinions of others.” Her breath caught as he delicately tapped her temple. “What you have to say, Justina. What opinions you have are no less important. You wished for a salon.” He held her gaze. “Form your own.

  Form my own.

  As the street continued bustling on around them, they held one another’s gazes. She’d once dreamed of love, like her sister knew. Dreamed of a life different than the life her mother lived. And somehow, with the hand of fate, she’d found this man. Where most dukes would demand nothing less than a proper, staid wife, Nick would have her turn their home into a place for scholars to assemble.

  A rogue wind whipped about them and tossed a bonnet at her feet, cutting across the beautiful moment. She paused and knelt down to rescue the article. With her gaze, she took in the row of satin roses sewn along the brim, tracing it with her fingertips.

  How important those pieces had once been and, yet, even with her love of literature now, the pretty articles still beckoned. A wistful smile played at her lips. Her husband knelt beside her in a moment that felt so reminiscent of their first meeting. Had it really been but a fortnight ago when they’d met in these very streets?

  Just as he’d done with that book from this very cart, Nick reached for the bonnet and she handed it over. “It is lovely,” he acknowledged.

  “Would you like to try it on, my lady?” the gray-haired woman asked, stepping closer.

  Justina quickly jumped to her feet. “Oh, no.” She held her palms up. “I’ve no need for a bonnet.” She’d long ago forced aside her silly fascination with such fripperies.

  “Ah,�
�� her husband drawled, shoving lazily up into a stand. “But surely one who once collected them, you would, at the very least, wish to try it on?” he murmured. Her heart beat faster as he removed the satin one currently on and replaced it with the gypsy’s. “We will take it,” Nick said. Never taking his eyes from her, he removed a heavy purse and handed it over to the old Rom woman.

  Justina made a sound of protest, but he touched his fingertips to her lips, silencing her words.

  “Do you believe there is something wrong in appreciating literature and admiring a bonnet or a fan?”

  How easily he saw her every thought. It was as though their souls had melded on these very roads, all those days ago.

  The wind pulled at the strings of the velvet bonnet and whipped them in the air. “For so long, my family and Society saw only a girl who loved baubles and fripperies.” Though, her siblings and mother hadn’t judged those interests, they’d formed an opinion of her intelligence because of it. She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. “These,” she said, removing the article and holding it up for his inspection. “Came to represent all I was. I wanted to be more than bonnets and baubles,” she added, in a bid to make him understand why she’d ceased collecting them.

  “And you think because as a girl you collected bonnets, that as a woman you should disdain them?” Her husband carefully disentangled the item in question from her fingers and traced the same path with the tip of his index finger along the brim. “Appreciating a beautiful garment or bonnet does not make you vain. It does not make you less clever than you are. It makes you a woman with varying interests and there is something far more beautiful in a person who appreciates much, than a person afraid to appreciate at all.”

  Her heart thudded wildly in her chest.

  “Come,” the gypsy murmured, an indecipherable glint in her eyes. Tucking her recently acquired purse in a pocket sewn within her crimson skirts, she motioned with her hands. “For your generosity, let Bunica look at your palms and see what the future holds.”

  Nick grinned wryly. “A man makes his own fate.”

  “Ah,” she said in mysterious tones that tempered his cocksure grin. “The fates unfurl many paths…and it is only for you to choose the one to travel.” Bunica motioned once more and Justina looked to her husband.

  Skepticism marred his sharp, chiseled features.

  “Is there not truth that we took different paths a fortnight ago and ultimately found each other?” Justina reminded him. She took the bonnet from his hands, waited.

  The woman crooked her fingers. “Surely, my lord wishes to know of life and love…and the children he will one day have.”

  Nick held Justina’s gaze and then with a wink, tugged off his gloves. “Tell me,” he said as the old woman took his hands and studied his palms. “Will my daughters have the clever wit of their mama?”

  All she’d wanted was a husband who saw past a superficial beauty to the woman she had become inside. Love for this man clogged her throat and made it difficult to swallow.

  The gypsy’s quiet, self-murmurings pierced the charged moment between her and Nick. “This line runs to your heart and it is full,” Bunica said. The gypsy gave a grunt of approval. “You know great love.”

  Over the old woman’s head, Nick’s gaze collided with Justina’s. For all the searing intensity with which he stared back, Justina could almost believe he did, in fact, love her. The gypsy made a tsking sound. “You also know darkness, my lord.”

  A harsh glint lit his gaze. At the prophetic words so very close to those uttered by his sister that morning, a chill wracked her spine. She thought of the parts of his past her husband had shared, of his shattered youth and struggle, to the life he now lived.

  “See, this line here,” Bunica went on, “is the line of darkness. But this intersecting one here, the mark of your heart, shows the triumphant power of that emotion.”

  And in that simple telling, the woman was right. How many times had the love Justina had for her mother and siblings been enough to pull her from the sadness of a heartless father? Did Nick see the strength in that emotion, as well? If he did not, she would show it to him. She would prove that overwhelming strength could blot out all darkness.

  “You will know great love and…” Bunica raised his hand closer to her eyes and peered at the skin. “Happiness, with four babes.”

  Most gentlemen would have pulled their hand back and called the gypsy’s words drivel and, yet, her husband stood patiently through her prophecies. Some of the tension went out of Nick as he caught Justina’s eye. “As long as they have their mother’s spirit, I hardly care if they are boy babes or girl ones.” He winked and a tremulous smile pulled at her lips.

  The gypsy released his hand. She then held hers out toward Justina.

  Swiftly removing her gloves, Justina turned them over to her husband along with the bonnet. She then offered her palms to the old gypsy. Their hands touched. An instant of heat scorched her and she gasped at the stinging warmth. Bunica immediately released her when the gypsy’s gaunt cheeks went ashen. A cold chill scraped along Justina’s spine. “What is it?” Justina murmured.

  The old gypsy scrunched her mouth and then, with a nod, reached out again. This time, when their fingers touched, there was a muted heat to the woman’s gnarled hands. Concentrating on Justina’s palms, the woman studied them in silence. “I see wickedness and death,” Bunica said quietly. Justina’s stomach knotted. It was silly to believe in gypsy lore and magic and, yet, she remained transfixed in silent horror. “I see the death of dreams and blood—”

  The charged tingling broke as Nick wrenched Justina’s hands away from the gypsy’s and glared at the old woman. “We make our own fate,” he reiterated, fire burning in his eyes. “It is nothing more than a gypsy’s game,” he bit out.

  Of course, it was madness to believe a person could see the future, nonetheless, the cold inside remained. Justina worked a tremulous smile for Nick’s benefit, but her lips ached with the forced smile. “I wish to know the rest,” she murmured, even as she did not. Over her husband’s protestations, she held her palms up.

  Bunica studied the lines once more. “There is evil…but there is also light here.” She touched a chipped fingernail to the center line intersecting from Justina’s wrist to the middle of her palm. “This mark is of far greater strength and has the power to overcome even death. As long as you claim control of your life, my lady, you will know happiness.”

  Justina stared at that single line from which others connected. There was no talk of love and laughter and babes. How very different a future this woman painted for her than the life Nick would know. By the gypsy’s prophecies, it was as though they were two different people, leading entirely opposing lives. “Is that…all?” she asked haltingly.

  Bunica nodded and released her for a second time.

  “It is rubbish,” Nick growled. Reaching for Justina’s hand, he collected her fingers and glowered at the gypsy. “I called it rubbish before and it is still rot. We make our futures.” Angling his shoulder in a dismissive manner, he cut Bunica from Justina’s direct line of vision. “We will make our future, Justina,” he vowed and he spoke as a man who’d taken on the world once and triumphed.

  She thought of the story he’d shared of his childhood. Of all he’d endured after his father’s death, and the responsibility he’d taken on, and her love for him swelled. He didn’t see how, with love, one would always, ultimately triumph. “It is not all darkness, Nick,” she reminded him gently. “She saw light.” The knowing gypsy’s eyes remained on them, blatantly taking in their exchange. “And light and hope has the power to heal all.”

  Her husband’s eyes blazed a path over her face. “You are remarkable, Justina Tallings.”

  Tallings. She belonged to him. Nay, they belonged to one another. It was a bond she’d longed for even before her sister had made a beautiful love match with Edmund. It had sustained Justina when she’d seen the misery that was her mother’s cold u
nion. An eerie sense of being gripped her and she glanced about for the invisible foe this gypsy had conjured with her prophesizing.

  Forcibly thrusting aside the dark thoughts, Justina turned to thank the woman. Bunica reached inside her pocket and withdrew a ruby and pearl bracelet. Shimmery white pearls lined the gilded band that led to a gold filigree heart at the center with a single ruby in the middle. “It is for you,” she murmured, holding it out.

  With reverent hands, Justina studied the piece. Her gaze lingering on the single heart so very much like the pendant her sister had once worn and then gave to another. Several semi-precious stones were missing from the piece and, yet, there was a simplicity to the bracelet that made it far more beautiful than the gaudy baubles adorning the necks, wrists, and ears of fashionable ladies. “It is beautiful,” Justina whispered.

  “As long as the gild and pearl lie against the wrist, the wearer of the bracelet will forever know that true love doth exists.” The whispered prophecy rang loud amidst the mundane street sounds.

  Another patron approached the wagon, calling the gypsy’s notice away, leaving Justina and Nick alone.

  The whispered words of hope, rolling around her head, blended with the ominous future she’d portended for Justina. She started as Nick claimed the bracelet from her fingers. With slow, precise movements, he looped the bauble around her wrist and then pressed the clasp. Then, raising her hand to his mouth, he placed a gentle kiss to the place where her pulse pounded. “I love you,” she said softly and he went motionless; unblinking under the weight of her profession.

  Nick shook his head once.

  “I do,” she said to herself with soft surprise, as passersby rushed around them. Andrew and Gillian had spoken with a surety of Justina’s love for Nick. They saw the romantic, whirlwind courtship and not much more. Justina’s love, however, came not from what he’d done in marrying her. For that, he’d have her gratitude. Rather, she loved Nick Tallings for being a man who urged her to speak her mind and use it without apology. Who believed she had a mind, when not even her family saw her as in possession of a clever wit. She was stronger for his presence in her life. “I’m not asking or expecting you to love me,” she assured him, when he still said nothing. Not yet. Mayhap in time, he’d come to feel the same depth of emotion in his heart. “You have given me so much.” Her gaze fell involuntarily to the bracelet, lingering on that single heart. “You don’t demand or expect me to be a biddable miss.” The woman her father had demanded she be. “You applaud me for thinking and using my voice.” Which, having borne witness to her own mother’s stifled existence, Justina saw that for the gift it was.