The Duchess Diaries: The Bridal Pleasures Series

by Jillian Hunter

  “Charlotte?” Phillip laughed. “Why don’t you say something? I hoped to surprise you, not give you a shock. What is this nonsense that spinster at your school was spouting about your marrying a duke?”

  “It’s true.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “It is. Let go of my hand.”

  “Not likely. I lost you once. It’s not going to happen again.”

  “Well, I’m warning you again. Let me go.”

  He didn’t. He gripped her harder.

  She lifted her free hand in the air. He glanced up. And her fan came down.

  “Jesus!” he exclaimed, reaching up to either protect himself from another blow or to feel whether a lump was coming out on his forehead. “I’ll have a bruise there in the morning. How will I explain it?”

  “Perhaps you should have thought of that before you attacked me.”

  “Attacked?” He narrowed his eyes. “London has changed you, Charlotte, and not for the better. I will be glad to take you back where you belong.”

  She leaned away from him. Where she belonged? She knew where she belonged. It was here, with Gideon, and not with this embarrassing pretender from her past. Perhaps when she’d first arrived in London she had been homesick for her family and their country home. But she hadn’t missed Phillip. And she most certainly had no intention of allowing him to take her away from the duke.

  Sir Daniel Mallory often walked alone at night, usually with no destination in mind. Tonight he was on his way to London’s most exclusive brothel. For business. A clash with the proprietress was certain. They had engaged in a secret liaison last year during one of his investigations. These days they met infrequently and clashed like thunderclouds when they did.

  He expelled a sigh, reviewing his conversation with Miss Charlotte Boscastle. She had caught him off guard with her confession.

  Working for the Boscastles paid well; it gave him time to spend with the niece and nephew he had taken into his home after his sister had been murdered.

  Finding a lady’s diary wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of his profession, even though he understood why it caused the family distress. Even though it meant he would have to question a witness who harbored an intense hatred for him in her heart.

  Gideon straightened. He could not have seen what he thought he saw—a man accosting Charlotte in the corner of the theater lobby. Who did this joker think he was? Who dared to lay his hands on a lady in public? Well, Gideon did, but that was entirely different. He had yet to meet a woman who shunned his attention when he set his mind on seduction.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, cutting off an acquaintance midsentence. “There is trouble afoot, and I intend to stop it.”

  He plowed unceremoniously through the crowd, ignoring the whispers he left in his wake, until he reached the man Charlotte had just crowned on the pate with her fan.

  Chapter 17

  Audrey Watson sat alone in the upstairs parlor where she occasionally entertained select guests.

  She maintained an elegant but well-guarded seraglio. Secret traps from the roof to the cellar caught the curious intruder who hoped for a glimpse of the house’s celebrated decadence. But privacy was guaranteed to a paying guest.

  Many university students thought the risk of capture was worth the chance to meet the infamous Mrs. Watson. On occasion she had even invited a brave invader or two to enjoy her company.

  Naturally she had her favorite guests. The Boscastles had the right of entrée on any given evening, and her attachment to the family had nothing to do with sexual favors and everything to do with friendship.

  Therefore it was unfortunate that the family had hired Sir Daniel Mallory as their private agent and bodyguard.

  It was well after midnight, the time during which the house came to life. She had already been informed that Sir Daniel had arrived to speak with her. She waited for a servant to bring her uninvited caller into her presence. Her nemesis, as she tauntingly referred to him. Sir Daniel challenged every aspect of her unconventional life whenever he had the chance. Ever since they had engaged in their short affair, he seemed to have assumed the unsolicited role as her personal policeman.

  Her heart seemed to beat in time with his footfalls on the carpet. She could feel the disdain in his eyes as he waited for her to acknowledge him. With a provocative smile she looked up past him to her bodyguard. “You may go. I don’t think our hero of the metropolis means me any harm. Do you, Sir Daniel?”

  He smiled without humor. “No more than you mean yourself.” He gestured to the chair across from her. “May I?”

  “Please.” And at length, because she was a person who indulged herself in any random pleasure, she looked him in the face. Fascinating countenance, his. Not at all handsome, with that obstinate chin and those craggy cheeks that might have been creased from the tears he shed for the sinful world he could not save.

  Then she felt the judgment in his eyes that he had once masked, and her hackles went up in self-defense. “What do you want of me?”

  “A decent life, but we both know that will never happen.”

  “As long as there exist men like you to shift the blame. Why don’t you remove your cloak? Or are you afraid you will be tempted again?”

  His lips tightened. He turned his hat over in his hands. “I didn’t come here to fight.”

  “Or to find pleasure?”

  “The family we both respect has asked my help in finding a personal diary that disappeared in the night. It was last in the Duke of Wynfield’s possession.”

  Audrey stared at him. “The only rule that I faithfully observe is that all secrets remain safe in this house.” And for that reason she maintained a faithful clientele that consisted of politicians, dignitaries, impoverished poets, and affluent lords alike.

  He cursed through his teeth. “I know Wynfield was here. I would like to speak to the woman he met. Her name is Gabrielle, as I understand it.”

  She came to her feet. “In that case, Sir Daniel, you will have to make an appointment. However, I assure you that the diary is not in this house.”

  He rose and stepped forward to obstruct her way. “Damn it to hell, I will break you, Audrey.”

  “For a price I cater to all manner of improper desires—but these affairs are conducted in private. I’m sure you recall that I employ many bodyguards. At the slightest indication from me you will be escorted outside.”

  She dismissed him with a smile as the door opened to admit one of her guards. “I will do everything in my power to help find the diary.”

  “All the bodyguards in the world aren’t going to protect you from yourself.”

  “You are not going to save me,” Audrey said with a pitying smile. “Save yourself instead.”

  “From what?”

  “From your overbearing righteousness.”

  “What makes you think that I have unselfish motives?”

  “If this is a business proposition, I doubt that you could afford me.”

  He stared at her for a delicious moment of uncertainty before he exited the room. She followed him into the hall but went in the opposite direction without once turning around.

  “What a prick,” she said in a loud enough voice for him to hear her, and even then she caught a low drift of his laugh.

  Just like that he had ruined her night.

  Reform her, would he?

  She could sleep with him or ignore his existence at will. But she would never allow herself to want him again.

  Gideon turned in annoyance to the gentleman who was trying to get his attention. He had yet to deal with the lout who was rubbing the sizable lump that had risen on his perspiring forehead. “And who might you be? Another court jester to join the one I’m about to throw down the stairs?”

  Charlotte gave him a gentle poke with her fan. “Your Grace—”

  He wasn’t listening to her. He had just noticed that yet another gentleman had forged through the thinning crowd to reach Charlotte. He conceded
that she looked beautiful tonight, but three persistent admirers at once?

  “Give me your names,” he said arrogantly to the tallest of the trio. “I will personally knock all your heads together if any of you offend this lady again.”

  The tallest man, whose face had begun to look familiar, flashed him an impudent grin. “And who do you think you are to act as her protector?”

  He snorted. “I think I’m the Duke of Wynfield.”

  “And he is,” Charlotte murmured, looking quite pleased with the fact.

  “Is he?” the tall fellow asked Charlotte, with a familiarity that made Gideon wonder what other secrets she had to hide. “Imagine. Heath said that you were engaged to a duke, and we laughed ourselves back into the street. As if you would marry a peer of the realm we had never met.”

  The lout with the lump gave an uneasy laugh. “As if she would marry anyone without asking her family for permission.”

  The quietest member of this circus glanced thoughtfully from Gideon to Charlotte. It occurred to Gideon that except for the difference in hair color, this reflective gent resembled…well, hellfire, he could have been her brother. Gideon glanced appraisingly at the taller man. Those blue eyes betrayed a similar ancestry.

  He looked down at her. “These are your—”

  “—brothers,” she said. “Unbelievable, isn’t it, that we sprang from the same source? Oh. And this is Mr. Phillip Moreland, my old…friend.”

  Phillip. An indefinable memory rose in the back of his mind.

  Where had he heard that name before? Surely not from Charlotte’s lips. But her diary—oh, yes. He stiffened. Phillip was the object of her past infatuation. Charlotte’s heart had been broken by this clod. And why should Gideon care? Because if Phillip had returned her affection, Gideon would not be standing on the edge of that cliff called matrimony.

  Still, no man could interfere in his affairs with impunity, even if Gideon himself had lost control of his own destiny. He felt foolish enough for having landed in this situation. He did not need anyone’s help to make him look worse.

  He took a menacing step forward. As if sensing trouble abrew, a group of passing theatergoers paused to stare.

  The duke in the company of an unknown lady was reason enough to stir interest.

  But Wynfield’s challenging a man in the theater was far more enthralling than the predictable play they had just sat through.

  “What gives you the right to approach this gentlewoman?”

  The lout straightened, managing to come to the level of Gideon’s chin. “You’re obviously unaware of my identity or you wouldn’t dare to ask.”

  Gideon scoffed. “You’re obviously unaware that I’ll dare to do whatever I want. And keep your grubby hands to yourself.”

  “Grubby? Grubby?”

  Gideon nodded enthusiastically. “That’s right. A grub is one of those little maggoty creatures that leaves a residue of slime wherever it crawls.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Charlotte snapped open her fan and applied it with a vigor that was presumably intended to dampen his rising temper. “Gentlemen, please, this has gone far enough.”

  Gideon leaned away from her reach, conceding that she was more dangerous with that lone accessory than her delicate appearance suggested. In fact, everything about Charlotte was misleading. How else could he explain why he was standing in a theater lobby with smoke billowing from his nostrils, willing to defend her to the death?

  Then Charlotte gave him a smile, and it didn’t matter whether she had deceived him or not. In some unsullied remnant of his heart he recognized that her intentions were pure and passionate, and that he needed to guard her for his sake as well as hers.

  “Move away from her,” he added. “Or I shall move you myself.”

  Phillip’s face reflected a slow-dawning realization that Gideon was serious. “You wouldn’t.”

  “I think he would,” a voice cheered from the growing crowd. “Do it, Your Grace!”

  Before Gideon could take further action to thwart this pest, Grayson and Jane made an ill-timed appearance and everyone started talking at once. In the midst of the mayhem Charlotte’s two brothers managed to introduce themselves to Gideon, and vice versa. But her former love remained silent, his eyes straying to Charlotte with a wistfulness that tempted Gideon to finish with his fists what Charlotte had started with her fan.

  Unfortunately Grayson dispelled that satisfying possibility by suggesting that all seven of them pile into one carriage and go out for chops. “I’m half-starved,” he announced, oblivious to the tension in the air.

  “I’m not eating chops in my new Devine evening gown,” Jane said indignantly. “Your chefs can make chops at home if you have a hankering for them. Come, gentlemen. Charlotte. In case none of you has noticed, there is a nasty-looking man on the stairs making a sketch of us that will probably appear in the morning papers. I for one do not intend to dignify his existence by posing for him.”

  Chapter 18

  Charlotte was relieved that her brothers had trundled off with Phillip in a separate carriage. It had started to rain, and she could only imagine how intense the ride back to the academy would prove with Gideon in his mood. She had thought the rumors of his pride to be exaggerated. She could not fault his behavior tonight, however. He had clearly taken his role as her betrothed to heart.

  She could fault him as he followed her through the front door of the academy into the hall. The residence was quiet, but Charlotte instantly detected the whisper of curious girls at the top of the staircase.

  “Your Grace, I cannot thank you enough—”

  “Yes, you can,” he said, and pulled her into his arms. Evidently he intended to further explore the passion he had shown her at the theater.

  “Miss Boscastle!” a shocked voice said in the mounting silence. “Your Grace! There are ladies present!”

  Gideon released Charlotte with a deep sigh and glanced at the bespectacled woman lurking in the shadows. “Good evening, Miss Boscastle,” he said, his gaze smoldering as he backed toward the door. “And to you, Miss Peppertree—” He blew her a kiss. “Proper dreams.”

  Gideon felt a presence a few moments after he returned home and as he entered his drawing room for a brandy. He reacted before his uninvited visitor had time to rise from the high-backed wing chair that faced the fireplace. Swallowing an oath, he reached back for the walking stick he had propped against the door.

  The blade flashed in the dark. The other man turned, looking down his nose disdainfully at the weapon. “Do not move,” Gideon said, wondering whether the planets were in misalignment tonight. “I have trained at Fenton’s School of Arms—”

  “Well, so have I. In fact, we have trained together for many an hour.”

  “Dear God, Sir Daniel,” Gideon said, retracting the sword in vexation. “I almost bobbed your apple. What do you mean by breaking into my house? And don’t tell me you are on a treasure hunt. I do not find you desirable in the least.”

  Sir Daniel waited for Gideon to set down his stick. “To begin with I did not break into this house. Your butler admitted me.”

  “Nice of him to inform me. Where is he, anyway?”

  “In the kitchen consoling the housekeeper.”

  Gideon pulled off his gloves. “She is never awake at this hour. I assume your appearance frightened her.”

  “No, Your Grace. But the man lurking around the kitchen earlier tonight did.”

  “What man is this?”

  “I have no idea. It is not unusual for a thief to return for more goods once he has successfully burglarized a house.”

  “Sit back down, Sir Daniel, please. And tell me how you have arrived at the conclusion that the diary was stolen from my carriage.”

  “It is rather an unwieldy item for you to have dropped without noticing.”

  Gideon frowned. “Yes. But then, Harriet dropped it and didn’t notice in all the rush.” Gideon, however, had not been in any hurry to be admitted to Mrs. Watson’
s house. It seemed as if the minute he’d touched the diary it had begun to unsettle his affairs.

  Sir Daniel cleared his throat. “Excuse me. I should not have referred to the duchess by her first name. Now to return to this diary. I gather there is concern about its contents.”

  Gideon schooled his face into an impassive stare. Far be it from him to betray Charlotte’s secrets, especially when he happened to be the best-kept one until now. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Sir Daniel shook his head. “I thought perhaps you might enlighten me.”

  “No. I’m in the dark, too. However, I will assist you in any way I can.”

  “Do you have any enemies?”

  “The only one who comes to mind is Gabrielle Spencer. She works at—”

  “Mrs. Watson’s. Yes, I shall have to interview her personally. And perhaps you should, too.”

  Gideon’s brow lifted. “Haven’t you heard the news? I am an engaged man. It would be rather indelicate of me to visit a mistress when my wedding day is hurtling down at me like a meteor.”

  And his wedding night. Why did that seem to be approaching at a crawl? More importantly, why did he seem to be warming to the idea of marrying Charlotte? Because he had strong physical desires that he needed to satisfy? Because at vulnerable moments he found himself charmed by her and anticipating their future together more than he dreaded the idea of a marriage?

  “It would be more than indelicate if someone used that diary to ruin your nuptials,” Sir Daniel said, breaking Gideon’s concentration.

  “Do you have any idea who would resort to such behavior?” he asked.

  “Not yet.”

  It couldn’t be Phillip Moreland, as much as Gideon would like another excuse to dislike him. The man had only just arrived in London. Clearly he hoped to regain his place in Charlotte’s affections. Judging by her response tonight, she did not return the sentiment.

  Gideon put himself in the man’s shoes. If he were Moreland he would not easily give up the woman he desired. In fact, he might be at Charlotte’s door this very moment.