One Summer of Surrender

by Jess Michaels

  He kept wanting to go to Vivien’s. To find Elise there and just have one more night. It took every fiber of his being not to do just that.

  “It’s over,” he reminded himself before he got up and walked to the parlor where his friends awaited him.

  He stepped inside and found Folly and Marina standing together at the fire. They turned in unison as he shut the door, and Folly tilted his head. “Christ, you look like hell.”

  Marina slapped his arm. “Folly!”

  “It’s true,” Folly said with a shrug. “I imagine he knows it.”

  “But I always appreciate the reminder,” Stenfax said in a dry tone as he motioned to the settee. “Would you like tea?”

  They both shook their heads and everyone sat, Folly and Marina on the settee, Stenfax in a chair across from them. “It’s nice to see you,” he said. “Regardless of my appearance. I had actually forgotten we had planned this meeting today. My apologies.”

  Marina leaned forward. She was a beautiful woman, with sharp green eyes that flitted over his face and read him in an instant. “You wanted to know about the Duke of Kirkford. The new duke, I suppose.”

  “Yes,” he said with a short nod. “I already know everything I ever wanted to know about the last one.”

  Both Folly and Marina frowned. Folly was the one who spoke. “I assume this means the rumors of your…reconnecting to Elise are true?”

  Stenfax stiffened. Folly had been a friend for years, and he trusted Marina implicitly. But he couldn’t spill everything in his heart to them any more than he was able to do so with Gray. All three of them were too involved. Too biased.

  “It was nothing,” he lied. “A brief dalliance with an old flame. It’s…it’s over now.”

  Marina pressed her lips together and it was clear she didn’t fully believe him. “And yet you still wish to know about the new duke.”

  Stenfax shifted. He should probably say no. He should probably mean no. After all, if he and Elise were over, he had no cause to involve himself in her life. She intended to take a protector, after all, and it would be that man’s position to defend her if she needed it.

  And yet he didn’t say no.

  “I was merely curious about him,” Stenfax said. “Especially after that scene when he dragged Elise to the ball despite her still being in mourning.”

  Marina flinched. “Ah yes. That was a dreadful night. The gossips are still chewing over that. They’ll work the marrow from that bone for a long time to come.”

  Stenfax swallowed hard. Elise would likely not survive socially, it seemed. Once upon a time he would have been happy for that. Now he felt a strange urge to protect her from the consequences.

  Not that he could.

  “You know that Felicity had…troubles with her husband,” Stenfax said softly. “A certain kind of trouble. I simply want to ensure the man isn’t abusing Elise in any way. As I would if I suspected such a thing from any man in my acquaintance.”

  Folly cocked his head with an incredulous expression. “Certainly. It has nothing to do with your past engagement to the woman and your present…dalliance.”

  “Not present,” Stenfax reminded him. Reminded himself.

  Marina sighed. “If you are determined, then I can tell you little good about Ambrose. He and our other cousin Roger were born on the very same day, so when Toby died, the two of them went to absolute war over the title. Both of them are cruel bullies, just as the last duke was.”

  Stenfax nodded. As much as he’d tried to steer clear of information regarding the inheritance of the hated title of Duke of Kirkford earlier in the year, he did know all that.

  “But do you think he would…harm Elise?” he pressed.

  Marina exchanged a look with Folly. “All my cousins are cruel,” she said softly. “And certainly capable of terrible things. I always suspected that Ambrose was jealous of Toby, of his marriage to Elise. And Toby flaunted it, flaunted her like a prize he’d won. I wouldn’t doubt that Ambrose is pursuing some kind of vile interest in her now that she’s a widow, but to physically harm her…I just don’t know, Stenfax.”

  This was not comforting. He gripped the chair arms hard enough that he felt them creak beneath his fists.

  When he was silent a long time, Folly said, “I suppose one good escape for Elise would be a marriage.”

  Stenfax flinched at the idea. “She isn’t to be out of mourning for another few months. And that scene at the ball would likely make it difficult.”

  “It may be part of why Ambrose created it,” Marina said with a frown. “If Elise is resistant to his advances, he is the kind of man who would work to eliminate any hope for her to escape.”

  Stenfax got to his feet. The more he heard, the more concerned he was for Elise’s safety in this volatile situation. And the more he realized just why she was pursuing a protector. Scandal surrounding her wouldn’t matter to a man who only wanted her as a lover. And with the right man she would find a home, money for herself and true protection from the new duke’s twisted desires.

  But she had to find that protector soon, it seemed.

  “You are very involved in this for a man who claims to have no connection to the duchess,” Folly said.

  Stenfax frowned as he looked at his friends. “I never said I had no connection. We all know that isn’t true. I just hope I can ask you not to speak to Gray about this conversation. You know how he worries.”

  Marina laughed. “If you don’t think Gray isn’t already worried, you’re a fool, my dear. He is convinced you may be caught in Elise’s web a second time. Only Rosalinde has kept him from locking you up in a cage and shipping you back to the country already.”

  “Thank God for Rosalinde,” Stenfax muttered. “But please, I promise you both, I will not get myself hurt again. I just…I just want to make sure she won’t either.”

  Marina tilted her head, and for a moment she had the strangest expression on her face. Then she said, “Are you certain you can perform both those feats at once?”

  In truth, he wasn’t. But he had to try. To protect Elise, he had to try.

  Elise wrote a line in her letter and sighed. This activity should not have taken the last hour, but she was dreadfully distracted and unable to focus.

  She knew exactly why she was distracted. Lucien. She had been utterly miserable in the three days since they’d last been together. She’d wept, she’d stayed in her bed. The mourning she’d been pretending to feel for Toby was easily achieved at the thought of truly never seeing Lucien again.

  She’d lost him once before, but this time seemed…worse.

  She hadn’t even been able to drag herself to Vivien’s. Which was a very bad thing. Ambrose had written her once during the past three days. He was pushing her to either get in his bed or get out to the street.

  So she was running out of time. But how could she surrender herself to a lover when everything hurt so much? Would she simply pretend any man in her bed was the man she really wanted there? Would she become one of those mistresses with the empty eyes who laughed while her soul was eaten from the inside out?

  “There isn’t any choice,” she murmured, pushing her letter away and covering her eyes with her hand.

  “Your Grace, I’m sorry to disturb.”

  She turned to find her butler, Wiggins, standing at the parlor door. His lined face was pulled down in a deep frown and she caught her breath.

  “If my visitor is Ambrose, tell him I have a headache. Tell him I’m dead for all I care, I don’t want to see him,” she said, harsher than she should have.

  “It’s not the new duke,” came a voice behind Wiggins, and Elise stiffened. She pushed to her feet when the owner of the voice forced his way past her servant and entered the room without invitation.

  “Gray,” she whispered.

  “Your Grace?” the butler queried, shooting Gray a long look.

  “It’s fine. Leave us.”

  He did
so, and she drew a long breath as she stared. Stenfax’s younger brother, Grayson Danford, had once been a great friend of hers. She’d spent many days as a girl playing with Felicity, Gray, Stenfax and the son of one of their servants, Asher. She remembered Gray’s wide grin and his bright, mischievous eyes.

  Today he looked at her like she was trash that had been deposited in his path, and her heart hurt.

  “May I get you tea?” she asked.

  He shook his head without speaking and she pressed her lips together. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “I heard of your marriage late last year,” she said, forcing her voice to be bright. “And I saw you with the lady when I was at the Swinton ball last week. She is lovely, Gray. And rumor says you are very happy, so I am happy for you.”

  Gray’s face didn’t soften even a fraction. “I’m not here to discuss Rosalinde,” he said, his tone clipped. “This is not a social call, so you may drop the pretense. We both know we are not friends.”

  “We were once,” she said, hoping her pain wasn’t utterly obvious. It felt like it was slashed across her skin in that moment.

  Gray barked out a laugh, and it was harsh. “That was before you broke Stenfax’s heart. And Felicity’s.”

  Elise caught her breath. What he said was fair, especially given what he knew of the circumstances. But oh, how it burned inside of her. She hated that she’d hurt both her best friend and the man she loved with all her heart.

  She moved toward him, a hand lifted in a sign of surrender. “It isn’t so simple,” she explained. “It’s far more complicated.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Do you think I give a damn about any lie you’d tell to save yourself?”

  “Save myself?” she murmured. “What do you mean?”

  Gray’s dark eyes narrowed. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing, Your Grace?”

  She blinked. “What am I doing?”

  “Very well, if you want to make me say it. I know that you are looking for a protector,” he said. When her eyes went wide, he said, “Oh, don’t worry, no one is speaking of it in Society, at least not yet. But I have my ways of finding out.”

  She straightened her shoulders despite the deep humiliation that made her limbs feel heavy and almost numb. “Do you intend to threaten me with that knowledge, because as you say, no one is speaking about it yet. But we both know my position in Society is so precarious that nothing you say or do will change it now.”

  His brow wrinkled. “This is not a threat, Your Grace. I am not the kind of man who would blackmail you.”

  She stared at him a long moment and remembered his kindness as a boy. She shook her head. “No, I know you are not. Then what do you come here for?”

  “Your situation must be precarious if you would go to such desperate measures,” he continued. “You turned to Stenfax from that desperation, did you not? Perhaps you hope he will marry you out of the danger you’re in. Or at the very least, make you his mistress so that you can escape.”

  “That isn’t true!” Elise burst out. “I didn’t orchestrate anything between Stenfax and me.”

  Gray rolled his eyes. “Oh yes, I believe you, the ultimate liar and actress. You forget that I know what you are capable of doing to obtain whatever you desire.”

  She turned away. She was so low in his estimation that nothing she said would be believable to him. And what was worse was that Stenfax felt the same way. He was not so hard as Gray, but he had said he couldn’t trust her.

  There was nothing she could do or say or explain to change any of their minds. This family that she had loved and longed to be a part of was lost to her. And she grieved that loss all over again, just as she had three years before when she’d turned away from it the first time.

  “So you came here to call me a mercenary and a whore,” she said softly. “Now that you have done so, are you finished, Gray?”

  “Not quite. I came here to tell you to stay away from my brother.”

  She spun to face him, surprised by those words. Stenfax and Gray were best friends as well as brothers. Obviously Gray knew of their affair, but in three days Stenfax apparently hadn’t told him about ending the affair. Why?

  “I don’t care about your desperation, I don’t care about your lies, I don’t care about anything except that you stay away from Stenfax,” Gray continued, his gaze cold and even.

  She swallowed hard. “You are too late in your order, Gray. Stenfax has already ended things with me. He hasn’t seen or talked to me in days. I have no doubt he will never come to see me again. And if you’re worried about me, I will not pursue him. I’m perfectly aware of the damage I did before. Of the damage I could do if…well, it doesn’t matter. It’s over. And my word will have to appease you, for I have no other proof excerpt for it.”

  Gray held her stare for a long moment and there was a strange expression on his face as he did so. As if he had searched for her lies and instead found a kernel of truth. He finally nodded swiftly.

  “See that it is over. Good day.” He turned away and stalked from the room without so much as a backward glance for her.

  Once he was gone, Elise sank into a chair, her hands shaking, though Gray certainly hadn’t posed any threat. But still, his appearance moved her.

  Because it reminded her of the stakes. She couldn’t spend time mourning the loss of her love. She couldn’t regather herself.

  No, she had to go to Vivien’s tonight. She had to find a protector. That was the only way to end this.

  Once and for all.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lucien sat in a dark corner of Vivien’s club, watching Elise across the room. He had arrived before her and she didn’t know he was here as she stood with a small group of men, smiling and laughing with them. She was utterly beautiful in a low-cut blue gown, her hair in a loose chignon with curls that framed her face perfectly.

  She didn’t look lost like he was. She didn’t look broken. So once again, he was the one shattered by their parting. She could just move on.

  He frowned at the thought, even though he knew exactly why she was with those other men. He knew the threat she faced. He was here to help ensure she was protected, after all.

  Vivien slipped into a chair beside him and smiled. “Hello, my lord.”

  “Vivien,” he said, not in the mood to share his night with anyone, but especially the observant courtesan.

  “I never pegged you for a voyeur,” she said, leaning over so she could follow his line of sight. “Or perhaps it is only one lady who inspires such…proclivities.”

  He kept his lips pressed together, not rising to her bait as he kept watching Elise. She was with a middle-aged man named Carter and the much older Earl of Ryland.

  But the companion who bothered him most was the young buck Winstead, who had approached her at the Swinton party the previous week. He was an eager sort, clearly interested in having her, if his long looks at her bosom were any indication. She spent more time talking to him than the other two.

  “Have you ever asked her why she threw you over?” Vivien asked, like a fly buzzing in his ear.

  He jerked his face toward Vivien. “Most people don’t dare to broach that subject with me,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Vivien didn’t seem to be moved. “I’m not most people. Have you?”

  He looked at Elise again. The other two men had drifted away now. It was just her and Winstead. The young man touched her arm and he thought he saw Elise stiffen slightly before she smiled.

  “No,” he said in answer to Vivien’s question. Also as a response to Elise’s slow surrender to another man.

  “You’re afraid of the answer.”

  He looked at Vivien again. Her words were correct, in a way. He kept telling Elise he didn’t trust her, but it was more than that. He didn’t want her to say those things out loud. To verify what had haunted him for years.

  “I already know the answer,” he said. “My father a
nd grandfather and his father before him, they were terrible managers and gamblers all. They pissed away the estate in tiny increments. Building it back is tasked to me and it is a slow process. Elise’s duke had blunt and a higher title. Everything else she ever said to me was a lie.”

  Vivien was silent for a long moment, and then she leaned in. “Does it feel like a lie when you’re with her?”

  “No,” he ground out. “But I can’t trust her.”

  “You won’t let yourself,” Vivien corrected.

  “That’s right.” Lucien pressed a fist against the tabletop. “I know how that story ends. I can’t even trust myself. Not anymore.”

  He looked at Elise again. She and Winstead were dancing now. She smiled when she was looking at him, but when she wasn’t, her face looked…sad.

  He pushed to his feet. “I came here tonight not to talk to you about my past with Elise, but to make sure she had a future. I have heard nothing negative about Winstead.”

  “Nor have I,” Vivien said. “He is young, but he has means.”

  Lucien nodded. “Well, then it seems she is making a future just fine. She doesn’t need me. She never did.”

  Vivien watched him for a moment, a knowing expression on her face. Then she inclined her head. “You seem to be ready to go. Good evening, Stenfax.”

  “I won’t be back. Goodbye, Vivien.”

  And he turned and fled the room before Elise saw him. Before he had to see her locked in a future that once again didn’t include him.

  Elise watched as Winstead shut the terrace door behind himself and stepped toward her with a smile. He was a handsome enough young man, but she felt nothing as he reached for her hand and drew her toward the terrace wall.

  All she could think about was Lucien.

  “May I call you Elise?” Winstead asked.

  She nodded. “I would prefer it, truth be told.”

  He smiled. “And you shall call me Theo,” he said.

  She tried to keep her expression serene as he reached up to brush a lock of hair from her cheek. But in her mind, she saw Lucien again. Lucien doing the same a dozen times before and after she had betrayed him.