A Duke She Can't Refuse

by Gemma Blackwood

  “Not trouble, exactly.” Heat simmered in her cheeks. “I had a letter with me when I was visiting you yesterday. A very personal letter, and unsealed. I could not bear it if anybody read it.”

  “None of my servants have found any letter,” said Alexander. “Are you sure you left it here?”

  “Quite sure,” Daisy nodded. A bubble of hysteria, either laughter or tears, caught in her throat. “And I know your servants would have given it to you if they had found it.”

  “Do you? Why is that?”

  There was no help for it. He was determined to help her, and she could hardly demand that he left her alone to search his own drawing room without him.

  “It is addressed to you.” Her voice was a squeak.

  Alexander paused for a long, painful moment before answering. “And you do not want me to read it?”

  Daisy shook her head so hard her teeth rattled. “I will die if you do. I mean it. I’ll die, and I’ll never forgive you.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “Well, we can’t have that.” He brushed past her into the drawing room and went to the piano, bending down to look underneath it. “Not here.” He moved to the sofa where she had sat and chatted to Edith before playing.

  Daisy stood in the doorway, completely frozen, watching him lift up the sofa cushions with as much horror as she would have felt on witnessing a violent crime.

  “Here it is!” He straightened up, a folded piece of paper in his hands. Daisy squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Daisy?”

  He called her name the way a stable hand would soothe a frightened horse. Daisy cracked an eye open.

  Alexander was standing before her, the folded letter in his hand, holding it for her to take.

  The name Alexander was written on it in her handwriting, as plain as day.

  “I ought to explain,” said Daisy.

  “No explanation necessary.” He took her hand and pressed the letter into it firmly. “Whatever you wrote to me, you thought better of it, and I will not pry into what you do not wish me to know.”

  “No, it isn’t that.” She clutched the letter to her chest, hoping her pulse would soon calm down. “You see, I have a rather peculiar hobby…”

  “Please, sit. You are shaking.” He gestured to a chair. She sat down with a thud.

  “I write letters to people that I never intend to send.” Now that she had started, the words left her in a rush. “Whenever I have a feeling that I can’t bear to keep inside – when I am angry with someone, or upset, and so on – I write it down as though I am speaking to the person. It helps me make sense of my own thoughts.”

  His eyes flickered towards the letter and swiftly away again. “And you were feeling something about me. Something that you could not bear.”

  She nodded.

  “Have I made you angry?”

  “No. Please don’t ask me anything more.”

  Alexander’s mouth worked around a protest, but he swallowed it. “As you wish. I question the wisdom of bringing the letter to my house, if you never wanted me to read it.”

  “That was a silly mistake,” Daisy admitted. “Edith was concerned that we were not spending enough time together. I told her that we had developed a thrilling correspondence, and that pouring out our feelings to each other by letter was the only way we could contain ourselves in public. She begged me to tell her something that we had said to one another. You know how romantic she is! Well, I thought there would be no harm in bringing a real letter along and… pretending to read some phrases from it. But I must have forgotten to put it back in my bag, and I only realised this morning when I went to find it and throw it on the fire.”

  Alexander’s face was perfectly still. She wished she knew what he was thinking. Her own face, she was certain, was all too easy to read.

  “You invented phrases?” he asked, choosing his words with care.

  “Yes.”

  “Phrases about –”

  “About love. Yes.” She set the letter down in her lap and laid her hands over it. “I don’t like lying to Edith, of course, but –”

  “I know. You love Edith as much as I do. She is all sweetness and no guile. She would not be able to keep a secret.” He drummed his fingers against his chin. “Well, that seems to explain everything. I ought not to keep you here long. Did I see your carriage waiting outside?”

  He got to his feet, and Daisy stood too, her limbs moving awkwardly as though they had all suddenly grown an inch or two longer. “Is that all?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Unless there was something else you wanted?”

  There was more that she wanted than she could possibly tell him. “You aren’t going to ask to read the letter?”

  “You do not want me to read it,” he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Daisy breathed deeply for the first time in hours. “Thank you.” Tears of relief pricked her eyes. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “There’s no need to be upset.” He moved towards her, cupping her face in one hand. Concern softened all the strong lines of his face.

  “I’m not upset. I’m glad.” She couldn’t bear for him to see her cry. Desperate, she hid her face in the nearest place available – which happened to be Alexander’s broad shoulder.

  He stiffened for a moment, and then a pair of powerful arms closed around her, pressing her tightly. “Hush,” he murmured.

  Daisy relaxed against him, that cut-wood scent filling her senses. He was warm even through his clothes. “You are too good,” she said, her voice muffled by his jacket.

  “I am not.” His hands tightened in her dress. She began to feel a low, aching pull in her chest, as though her innermost self was yearning towards him. She wanted to be closer to him, closer even than the pressure of limbs and beating hearts could make them.

  A long breath shuddered through him before he spoke again. “If I were a good man…”

  He did not need to say anything more. Neither did she.

  All they had to do was let their lips meet.

  7

  It was wrong. It was foolish. It was unfair.

  It was perfect.

  As Daisy’s lips parted beneath his, Alexander forced himself to break away. She gazed up at him, her hands on his shoulders and her eyes wide, perfectly at ease, perfectly innocent.

  “My first kiss,” she said. As if she needed to tell him.

  Alexander cursed and lowered his arms, removing himself from their intimate embrace. He took a step back, for good measure. Daisy blinked, surprised, but if she was upset, she did not show it.

  “You had better leave.” The dusky floral scent of her perfume lingered on his jacket, as vivid as though she were still in his arms. It did strange things to his thoughts. He might be able to keep his voice cold and stern, but he knew his expression was betraying him.

  He saw his own desire reflected in Daisy’s eyes.

  What had he told her? The first man to kiss you must want it so desperately that all his better instincts desert him. Well, he had tied a noose for his own neck there. His better instincts had fled the moment Daisy’s head fell to his shoulder.

  Was he a simpering schoolgirl, to have his head turned by a love letter? Heaven help him, he hadn’t even read it. For all he knew, it was nothing more than a long and agonising list of his faults.

  Daisy stretched out a hand towards him. “Will I see you at the theatre tomorrow night?”

  Of course. They had planned yet another excursion to parade his adoration of her in public.

  An act that was growing easier to perform by the day.

  “Certainly. I always keep my word.” Except when it came to kissing her. But he could not help that now. He took her hand and shook it firmly, the way he would with any close friend.

  Although it had to be said that none of his other friends had a wilful smirk that was so damnably distracting.

  “Tomorrow, then.” Daisy pressed a
hand to her lips and blew him a kiss. “I’ll see myself out.”

  That was for the best. He was in no mood to speak to his butler, or any of his staff. The papers he had been perusing in the library in preparation for the voting in the House of Lords that week had now lost all their scant appeal.

  After hearing the front door close, he went to the window and watched Daisy hurry back to her carriage. He supposed he ought to worry that Ralph Morton would shortly appear at his doorway brandishing a pistol and a special licence, but something told him Daisy was too clever to let her brother know where she had been. If anyone could charm the servants into keeping her secrets, it was her.

  She had charmed Alexander effectively enough, had she not?

  He returned to the study, walking like a man in a dream, sat down at his desk and took up a blank sheet of paper. He dipped his pen into the ink.

  “Dear Miss Morton.” His lips formed the words as he set pen to paper. Formality was a necessity for what he had in mind. If he had any morals at all, he would put an end to her foolish ideas without delay. Matters were about to get entirely out of hand.

  It was with great surprise, then, that he looked down at what he had just written and discovered the words:

  My dearest Daisy

  Alexander groaned, set the pen aside, and caught up two great fistfuls of his hair. He knew exactly what it was he had to write. It was high time that she turned her romantic ambitions elsewhere. Their engagement was to last only until she had secured real affection from another. If she let herself become infatuated with him, that day would never come. A gentle but firm reminder of their position was necessary, in plain black ink.

  But he was in no state to formulate that letter now. He leaned back in his chair and looked up to the ceiling.

  Was he, too, feeling something he couldn’t bear? Would writing it down exorcise it from his mind for good, or leave him in greater torment?

  He pulled his chair close to the desk and took up the pen again.

  My dearest Daisy,

  I have just broken every promise I made to you and to myself, and I cannot bring myself to regret it…

  8

  Daisy adored the theatre. She loved everything from the Grecian columns which greeted the guests as they stepped from their carriages to the oranges sold by cheerful girls in the stalls. Most of all, she relished the stories unfolding on the stage; every aspect of human nature played out before her in gorgeous costume and perfect order. She loved the poetry. She loved the theatrical speeches and the dramatic deaths. She hated all people who chatted while such drama was unfolding before them, but she had to admit she was in the minority there.

  To the ton, the theatre was a place to be seen, not to see. Rich men took boxes for the Season simply to show that they could afford them. Ladies wore their finest dresses and sat in the best possible light so that everyone could see how glamorous they were.

  And she, of course, would be sitting next to the Duke of Loxwell, so that everyone could see that he loved her. Which he did not.

  Though, if she let her imagination get the better of her, she could almost believe that their kiss had changed something.

  All the fairy tales claimed that love’s first kiss had magnificent powers. Daisy was not a child anymore, and did not believe in magic, but she had to admit that she had never thought her first kiss would be followed by a curse word and a stern dismissal. If she went only by Alexander’s words, she would have believed he regretted every moment of it.

  When she remembered the kiss, however…

  Daisy’s lips warmed as she sat at her dressing table, her maid brushing her hair in preparation for her excursion to the theatre. She let her eyes fall closed.

  It was most unwise to recall the soft pressure of Alexander’s lips. The way his breathing quickened. The delightful way his hands clutched her body closer.

  Sometimes the most unwise things were also the most delicious.

  “Daisy!” Her mother swept into her room without knocking, as was her habit. The maid was so startled she almost dropped the hairbrush. “Daisy, how are you wearing your hair tonight? Lady Selina had such an elegant style yesterday, with those braids pinned up and the curls hanging down. I really think you should do something similar.”

  “Mama, Lady Selina will be at the theatre tonight. Will it not embarrass her if we are both wearing our hair in such a particular way?” Daisy smiled at the maid in the mirror and nodded to her to carry on as she had been doing. “Besides, Selina is the last person I want to compete with for looks. I am sure to come off worst.”

  Lady Peyton sat down on the bed and frowned across at her daughter. “You must do something special, my dear. We want the duke to be entranced by you, after all.”

  “Alexander is exactly as entranced with me as he ought to be.” Which was not at all. It was not as if it had been his first kiss. She would be deluding herself to believe it had meant as much to him as it had to her.

  Lady Peyton waggled a finger at her. “You would do well to heed my advice, Daisy. No gentleman is so constant in his affections that his head cannot be turned. Until the wedding ring is on your finger, you are not safe. It is time you started dressing and behaving like a duchess.”

  “But I am not a duchess, Mama.”

  “Not yet!” Lady Peyton’s hands clasped together the way they always did when she spoke of Daisy’s excellent match. “But soon! Only think! My friends are already green with jealousy. When you are presented at Court as the new Duchess of Loxwell –”

  Guilt stabbed at Daisy’s stomach.

  That presentation would never come. Kisses or no kisses, Alexander did not intend to marry her. While the lure of the title held little appeal for her and she could not sympathise with her mother’s ambitions, Daisy would certainly regret disappointing her when the time came.

  She wished her sister-in-law were still in London. Jemima knew how to manage Lady Peyton’s flights of fancy as no one else could.

  “Mama, Alexander has only just taken on the responsibility of a dukedom,” she said. “He has no desire for a swift marriage, and nor do I. You must not start making plans for something so far in the future. You will build everything up in your head, and then be disappointed when it does not live up to your expectations.”

  “Oh, my dear girl,” sighed Lady Peyton, leaving the bed and coming across to stroke Daisy’s cheek. “My only daughter is to be a duchess! Nothing will ever disappoint me again, I assure you.”

  Daisy ducked her head, unable to meet her mother’s eyes. She fought to maintain a calm expression as a sick feeling settled in her stomach.

  Luckily, she was saved from further raptures on her mother’s part by a knock at the door. A footman entered, carrying a small, black jewellery box.

  “This has just been delivered, Miss Morton.” He laid the box carefully on her dressing table. “It came with compliments of the Duke of Loxwell.”

  Lady Peyton let out a shriek of excitement. “Open it, Daisy! Open it at once!”

  “I won’t send a reply,” Daisy told the footman. “I will see him soon enough anyway.” And the last thing she wanted was to appear overly keen.

  Lady Peyton was practically lifting off from the floor in her excitement to see what Alexander had sent. Daisy exchanged a smile with her lady’s maid, who had set the hairbrush aside, and opened the box.

  “Oh, my!” Lady Peyton gasped, peering over Daisy’s shoulder. “Oh, my word!”

  “Miss, it’s beautiful!” breathed the maid.

  Daisy lifted the necklace carefully from the box. There were certainly a lot of diamonds. Light caught in the dripping jewels and sent rainbow sparkles across the wall.

  Apparently, Alexander and her mother had something in common. They both thought it was time she started dressing like a duchess.

  “Daisy, you may wear your hair any way you like,” Lady Peyton declared. “The man clearly adores you.”

  Daisy held the necklace up by the gold chain, letting
the diamonds spin gently through the air. She could not entirely agree with her mother. Alexander knew her well enough to understand that she did not set particular store by jewels. The necklace was no declaration of love.

  It might, however, be an apology.

  If only she knew which it was that he regretted – the kiss, or the brusque dismissal afterwards.

  “May I put it on you, Miss?” asked the maid. Daisy let her take the necklace, feeling a strange pang as the gold chain slipped from her fingers.

  Her mother and the maid let out twin sighs of wonder as the diamonds settled over Daisy’s collarbone. Daisy stared at herself in the mirror, lifting her hand to touch the jewels. Checking they were still real, and that she had not imagined them.

  Now that she wore it, she could no longer deny that it was the sort of necklace a man sent to his lover. The necklace had a magic about it, however she tried to maintain her practical mindset. It transformed her from a plain young woman to someone elegant, sophisticated… beautiful.

  Had Alexander given her such a beautiful object because he thought she was beautiful, too?

  “Oh, Miss,” said the maid. “You do look like a duchess now.”

  Daisy had to agree.

  Alexander had a truly unmanageable number of people jostling for his attention from the moment he entered the theatre, and for once, he was glad of it. Any distraction was welcome if it would keep him from overthinking his next encounter with Daisy.

  Of his sisters, only Selina and Anthea had accompanied him that evening. Anthea was always the first to ask to see the latest play, and Selina was keeping a strict eye on her as she dived headfirst into a lively debate with a group of young men who considered themselves intellectuals.

  Selina was not so distracted, however, that she did not give Alexander a nudge when Daisy Morton and her mother entered the foyer.

  “What a lovely necklace she is wearing,” she said blandly. Alexander did not meet her eyes. He strode across the room, bowed to Lady Peyton, and kissed Daisy’s hand. A ripple of excited whispering spread through the crowd of theatregoers. The sight of a duke courting his betrothed was infinitely more exciting than a commonplace play.