The Duke's Captive

by Adele Ashworth

  “Viola.”

  She turned abruptly at the sound of his voice, as surprised that she hadn’t heard his footsteps from the hallway as she was at the intimate manner in which he softly said her name. He stood leaning against the doorway, watching her candidly, arms crossed casually over his chest, the expression on his handsome face one of soft speculation. She couldn’t begin to guess how long he’d been standing there before he’d revealed himself, and the thought made her stomach flutter, her skin tingle.

  “Your grace,” she replied, offering him a curtsey as she forcefully tempered her nerves. “I didn’t hear you come in. I hope I’m not troubling you.”

  The side of his mouth ticked up in mild amusement as he stood upright and sauntered into the room. “Not at all.” His gaze traveled up and down the length of her. “You look well.”

  Heat suffused her cheeks, but she ignored it. “Thank you. As do you,” she returned properly, noting how he didn’t look just healthy; he looked marvelously handsome in casual navy trousers and a light gray shirt unbuttoned at the neck, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. And although God might strike her down for vanity, she suddenly felt rather thankful she’d chosen to wear her low-cut plum gown and a tightly waisted corset for this meeting. At least she felt better prepared for battle dressed in something she thought would please him visually.

  “So what can I do for you today?” he asked as he strode toward her side.

  She straightened, bravely holding his gaze. “This is not a pleasant social call.”

  He exhaled a long breath. “Well, after our encounter at Lord Tenby’s ball last week, receiving a pleasant social call from you had not occurred to me.”

  He stood so close to her now that even the faint traces of his cologne disconcerted her. Shaking herself, she stepped away from him as nonchalantly as possible and walked to the other side of the room to stand behind one of the brown leather wing chairs. Turning to face him, she placed her palms on the back of it for comfort.

  With fearless determination, pulse racing, she said, “Ian, I want you to tell me exactly what you said to Mr. Whitman that made him decide I would make an unworthy wife.”

  For seconds he didn’t say anything. Then he tipped his head to the side a fraction and asked cautiously, “What makes you think I said anything?”

  A flash of anger sliced through her. “Destroying my life is a game to you, isn’t it?”

  He seemed to think about that for a moment, then, dropping his arms to his sides, he replied, “Viola, no matter what I say to you in answer, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  She swallowed. “That’s probably the most honest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  He almost smiled. Soberly, he admitted, “If it’s truth you want, then it’s true I came to the city, back into your life, to destroy it.”

  Her heart lurched and her throat tightened with the sudden raw emotion of hearing it.

  “But that’s not what I want for you now,” he continued in a husky near-whisper. “Believe it or not, you’ve taught me a lot about myself in these last few weeks, and whether I recognize why I do certain things, I do know I care about your future. I just . . . didn’t want to see you married to Miles Whitman.”

  “It’s none of your business who I marry,” she said, squeezing the back of the chair, “much less whether I choose to do so or not.”

  “That’s true,” he admitted.

  “So why did you involve yourself in something that’s not your concern?” she asked after seconds of incredulity.

  He ran a palm down his face. “I can’t answer that right now.”

  She shook her head and shrugged a shoulder. “Or perhaps you’re lying about everything. How would I know at this point?”

  His eyes narrowed as he regarded her closely. “I’m trying to be honest with you, Viola. But there are some things between us that need discussing, that we need to resolve. It won’t help if you can’t believe me when I tell you that being with you again has helped me clearly see that destroying your future won’t change my past. Or make me happy.”

  Her lips thinned in disgust. “None of this is about you except where you enjoy the power you’ve had in changing my future to destroy any security or happiness I may have found with Mr. Whitman.”

  He smirked. “I think we both know you wouldn’t have found any happiness married to the man.”

  She narrowed her eyes to glare at him. “So is that why you disclosed to Mr. Whitman that I am Victor Bartlett-James? Because you care so much about my happiness?”

  His entire face went slack. “I told him no such thing.”

  She would not be undaunted. “He said he knows the sketch I sold you was an original, and that he can’t possibly court a lady who cannot be trusted to know her place where the sale of good art is concerned.”

  Ian chuckled, and she nearly picked up the lamp at her side to throw at his handsome face.

  “You find that funny? He could tell anyone—”

  “He knows nothing,” he soothed as he came even closer.

  “What did you say to him, Ian?” she asked again.

  “Sit down and I’ll tell you,” he ordered.

  She didn’t move, just clasped her hands in front of her, keeping her gaze locked with his.

  “Please,” he said, pointing to the sofa as he softened his request.

  Reluctantly, she stepped in front of it and lowered her body onto the cushion with grace, fluffing out her skirts around her legs and feet more out of habit than need. As she feared, he sat beside her, though thankfully keeping himself at a respectable distance. She waited, her body stiff, hands in her lap, watching him, smelling his cologne again, wanting very badly of a sudden to reach forward and touch his face.

  “I spoke with Whitman,” he admitted quietly, eyeing her closely, “not only because your friends were concerned about him, but because a marriage to him seemed oddly timed—”

  “That’s none of your business,” she cut in, irritated.

  He raised an arm and laid it flat across the back of the sofa. “None of my business, true, and yet I care.”

  She shook her head fractionally, confused. “Care so much that you destroy my reputation?”

  “I did no such thing.” He sighed, then said, “Miles Whitman admitted without any reservation that he intended to marry you for your art collection, mostly to sell. He wanted you only for financial gain, Viola. I merely told him all the artwork he thought you owned actually belongs to your son. He knew the sketch was original because he knows good art, that’s all. He doesn’t know you’re the artist Bartlett-James, at least not from anything I told him.”

  Viola continued to gaze into his lovely eyes, seeing no deception, yet perfectly aware he could be keeping details from her for his own benefit.

  “You had absolutely no right to step in like that, Ian.”

  He blinked. “The man wanted to marry you for your fortune. He was quite honest about his purpose.”

  “Perhaps such a fact is irrelevant to me,” she shot back, eyes flashing. “It’s not your place to interfere with my future. I didn’t interfere when you said you were anxious to court Lady Anna, a lady who, by the way, is absolutely wrong for you in every regard.”

  “Is she,” he stated rather than asked.

  Feeling a sudden rush of heat to her cheeks, she quickly countered, “But, again, it’s not my place to determine your needs in a wife. Who you choose is your business.”

  “Ah.” He cleared his throat. “Well, just so we’re clear on the matter, I never had any intention of courting, or marrying, Lady Anna,” he revealed, tone lowered. “I admit that implying an interest was a means to get to you. But even if I’d found her remotely engaging, she cannot compare to your elegance, your wit, and level of passion. She is, as you say, absolutely wrong for me in
every regard.”

  Viola squirmed a little in her stays, finding his honestly compelling yet totally unable to grasp his ultimate purpose. Her female instincts urged her to ask what he thought of her wit, elegance, and level of passion, as if they mattered horribly, but her sensible nature won the battle.

  “I don’t understand you,” she said, returning to the point. “You have no intention of marrying me, have even explicitly stated that you’d rather see me dead than take your name, and yet you purposely interfere in my life to deny me a marriage to a man of my choosing.” She threw her arms out in wonder. “Do you still think to keep me as your mistress? Is bedding me at your whim the underlying impetus behind your desire for control? Do you think I have no say in such a matter?”

  His brows furrowed slightly and he hesitated. For a moment it seemed to her that he actually looked torn by indecision. Then he sighed softly and reached out for her hand, taking it into his own and caressing her fingers as he looked down at them.

  “That was a truly horrible thing to say to you, Viola,” he whispered huskily. “Please know that I spoke so rudely from anger and a misunderstanding of your intent at the time. I didn’t actually believe what I said.” He drew a sharp breath and looked back into her eyes. “I have no desire to control you, either, but for reasons that baffle me, I do want to be with you. I just don’t know what that means yet.”

  She felt a stirring within of her own sorrow and regrets, wanting to believe him wholeheartedly because his voice and words expressed nothing but honest confusion and remorse. Still, even with such a heartfelt apology, he had yet to explain his manipulation of her future with any understanding she could grasp.

  “Now it’s time for total honesty from you,” he said, cutting into her thoughts.

  In nervous response, she tried to discreetly pull her hand from his, to no avail as he moved his palm to her wrist and gripped it.

  “I would like to know,” he continued slowly, holding her gaze, “why you once said, not too long ago, that you have little desire to marry again, and yet only weeks after that statement, you pursued with vigor the opportunity to marry Miles Whitman?”

  A trace of terror sliced through her. She remembered their conversation in her studio, how she’d tried to be so vague about her past and her future, not realizing how intently he’d listened to her babbling and would one day request her to answer for it. But she had no intention of revealing too much now. It could only make matters worse.

  With dignity, she stood. “It doesn’t matter, though if you must know, I simply changed my mind. Ladies do it all the time.”

  His cheek twitched in a half smile. “True,” he agreed, raising his body to stand beside her, though keeping her at arm’s length by refusing to release her wrist. “But I want you to tell me, without prevarication, what happened to change your mind.”

  She swallowed back tears of frustration, refusing to look away from his challenging gaze. “So you can mock me?”

  “So I will know what’s in your heart.”

  Melting within, she relented. “You happened, Ian.”

  His eyes widened minutely, as if he didn’t quite believe she offered him that truth so simply. And then his expression clouded, and, quite unexpectedly, he reached up and ran his thumb very gently over her lips. She shivered and lowered her head.

  “We’re an odd pair, aren’t we?” he said seconds later, his voice silky, reflective. “I want to rid you from my mind and I can’t stop thinking of you. You are happily widowed, but I come back into your life and you suddenly want to marry a man you don’t love or desire or need for any reason, a man who wants only your fortune, just to rid yourself of me.”

  “Ian, stop. It’s more complicated than that.”

  “I agree, but I can’t stop,” he whispered. Slowly he began to rub his thumb across her wrist in feathery strokes. “I know there is something missing between us, but I’m unsure of what it is. Sometimes I think we both long for each other but we’re afraid of it and what acting on it might do to us. Our history together stems from a thing so wretched. Sometimes I think bedding you again is the answer, but I know it will only leave me wanting more, and in the end the void will still be black, and the nights lonely.”

  She tried to pull away again, but instead of releasing her, he wrapped his free arm around her waist and drew her against his hard body.

  “But the one thing I want most, Viola,” he whispered, leaning in to nuzzle her ear, “is to see you happy, to hear you laugh, not from sarcasm or anxiousness, but from joy. I have dreams of it, maybe memories of it. I don’t know. But since I’ve come back into your life, I have never once heard you laugh from sheer happiness, and nothing, right now, haunts me more.”

  He began dropping tiny kisses onto her neck, running his lips along the delicate skin, and her legs went weak. He must have expected her to crumble against him, because he seemed to be bearing her weight suddenly as his lips found hers.

  She couldn’t resist should she try. Being with Ian felt like joy in the morning, and never had it been so sweet and precious as it felt right now. He kissed her with a mixture of passion and tenderness, urgent desire and gentle need, his tongue teasing softly, his fingers brushing her cheek as if he found her priceless to his touch. And when at last she moaned softly and whispered his name against his lips, he pulled away, resting his forehead against hers for several long moments before leaving soft kisses on her brow, her lashes and nose and cheeks.

  “You’re so beautiful, and soft. . . .”

  She whimpered, uncertainty filling her as she gently pushed against his chest. “I have to leave, Ian,” she said shakily.

  Through a low sigh he relented, gradually releasing her.

  A feeling of deep loneliness enveloped her when he finally let her go. Unable to look at him, she tipped her head toward the wall next to the doorway. “I brought your portrait, completed and, I think, an excellent likeness.” Drawing a long breath for confidence, she added, “And I wanted you to know that John Henry and I are going to be leaving the city soon.”

  When he didn’t say anything to that, she finally raised her lashes and dared to look into his eyes. He studied her intently, his face still flushed from their kiss, his eyes still smoldering beautifully, and it took all that was in her not to throw herself into his arms again.

  Slowly he straightened and formally clasped his hands behind his back, his features growing hard. “Where are you going?”

  She swallowed every torrential emotion that threatened to surface. “First to Cheshire for the winter. After that, I don’t know, though perhaps somewhere on the Continent.”

  “I see.” Seconds later he asked, “May I ask why?”

  Trying to sound brave and matter-of-fact, she said, “With this portrait finished, I have no other financial obligations here, and John Henry needs to be in the country where he can ride and play and thrive in greater space. And to be perfectly honest, your altering of my future by ruining the chance of a perfectly good marriage for me is the last battle I want between us. I’ve come to tell you I surrender, Ian. You have won the war.”

  “I haven’t won anything,” he maintained in sudden, quiet fury, “if you take my son away before I even meet him.”

  That statement, uttered in such heartfelt anguish, melted her to the bone. And perhaps because of all they’d shared so recently, perhaps because she’d always cared so deeply for him for reasons she’d never fully understood, this time she truly sensed his hurt and couldn’t bring herself to deny it.

  Lowering her lashes to avoid his penetrating gaze, she turned her back on him and walked out of his gorgeous green salon for a final time, his sweet kiss still lingering on her lips, the memory of which she hoped would last a lifetime.

  Chapter Twenty

  I am very frightened, for both of us. I am three weeks late for my monthlies, and now fe
ar I carry his child. Everything right now seems so bleak, though I am praying for his rescue as I leave for the masquerade ball. Please, God, be with us both this night.

  It is time. . . .

  After days of overcast skies and generally dreary weather that matched her mood, the sun shone brightly upon waking this morning, and Viola decided she would take John Henry to the park with the nanny. It would do them both good to get some sunshine and fresh air, and getting the opportunity to sketch for the first time in ages might take her mind off her troubles.

  She didn’t want to leave the city, or England. Frankly, she didn’t want to leave Ian, but she couldn’t deny the anxiety he roused just knowing the power he had over her when it came to her son. But it would all soon be in the past. This morning, she vowed, with the chill of autumn in the air, and the warmth of the sun on her face, her life stood on the verge of beginning anew and she would enjoy it.

  Viola sat on a wooden bench, watching John Henry play with several other children near the sandbox. Thankfully plenty of other mothers and nannies had taken advantage of the beautiful day and ventured out as well, allowing her the opportunity to just sit and watch and enjoy the quiet moment by herself.

  She couldn’t help but smile when she watched her son play. In many ways he took after her, especially with his creative mind, the manner in which he thought about the world, and his very talkative nature. But in other ways, primarily physical mannerisms, there could be no doubt he was Ian’s child. Every time her son became angry about something his brows would pinch together and he would scowl at her with his head tilted in exactly the same angle his father did, his hands in tight fists at his sides. When he grinned, she could see the same dimple in his left cheek, and when he contemplated something she said that he didn’t understand, his forehead would crinkle and he would stare at her as if she had no brain. And they both had the same small, key-shaped birthmark high on their left thigh.

  There were times like this when she would grow melancholy and dream of a different life, where Ian raised his son and loved her and married her and they lived a life full of differences of opinion, joy, and surprises.