She studied him for a full minute. He waited, unmoving. “You didn’t go down on one knee.”
“Don’t take offense, but I kneel for no one.”
She thought of Griff who had gone to both knees, without hesitation, when it might have meant death. Griff who had come to her when she was lost in the throes of a nightmare and guided her out of it. Giving her a memory to replace it, another that involved going to his knees. But he’d told her it was all fantasy. That she should return to her duke. Griffith Stanwick would only give her one night. But what if she wanted more?
“You’re not going to be this contrary as a husband, are you?”
He barked out a short laugh, and she realized she’d never heard him laugh before. He had a good laugh, but it didn’t reach down into her soul, didn’t seek to take up residence there. She suspected an hour after he left, she wouldn’t even be able to recall how it sounded.
“Having never been a husband, to be honest I can’t say how I will be as one.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not true.”
“You have been a husband before?”
He grinned, and this time she thought maybe he did appreciate her tease. “No, but I know how I will be as a husband. Insufferable, no doubt. I have expectations and don’t like for them not to be met. You know at least one of them. You had Griffith Stanwick make inquiries on your behalf to determine what I wanted in a wife.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, that day in the park I thought you’d figured it out.”
“You may take some comfort in knowing that while I have expectations for a wife, I have much more stringent expectations for myself. I will be as good a husband as I can be. I will never strike you. I will never intentionally hurt your feelings. I will never be unfaithful. I will never give you cause to doubt my devotion.”
“Devotion is not love.”
“No. Love is not an emotion I believe myself capable of. But perhaps you shall prove me wrong.”
“You don’t strike me as a man who likes to be proven wrong.”
“Look how well you already know me, Lady Kathryn.”
“Unfortunately, I feel we know each other hardly at all. How well will we know each other five years from now? Or ten? And if I do not prove you wrong, if you do not come to love me—”
“You will have your inheritance. Your father explained to me what it entails. I should think you would be content with it.”
“One would think. My grandmother thought so, but I am beginning to suspect that she didn’t know me very well.” She gave a small, harsh laugh. “Until this moment, I’m not sure if I knew myself all that well, either. I was twelve when my grandmother died. All I wanted was to have her back, to have her love surrounding me again. But the cottage won’t give her back to me because her love isn’t housed within it.” She placed her hand over her heart. “It’s here within me, woven through all the memories.”
“I’m not certain I know where this is leading.”
“No, you probably don’t.” She wasn’t certain she’d known when she began. But she knew if she accepted his offer of marriage, she would be sacrificing a lifetime of memories filled with love.
“Someday, Your Grace, I hope you will find a woman for whom you willingly drop to your knees without hesitation. But as she is not me, my answer to your lovely proposal is no, I will not—I cannot—marry you.”
“There’s a duke tryin’ to get in.”
Griff was in the receiving room, watching as the artist he’d hired was quickly etching the features of the most recent lady to join the club onto the card that would identify her as a member. The man had begun working for him a few days after Kathryn had made the suggestion. He was quick, efficient, and damned accurate.
Kathryn’s idea had been brilliant, got people through the doors more quickly. They simply showed their card to Billy, and he let them in. He was usually quite skilled at sending away those who didn’t belong. Moving away from the artist, Griff gave his attention to the big bruiser.
“Told ’im dukes wasn’t allowed no entry, but ’e said ’e was allowed. Pompous bugger. I almost punched ’im to get ’im moving on, but thought I best check first, in case ’e had the right of it.”
He knew of only one duke that obnoxious. “Dukes aren’t allowed, but I’ll see to this one personally.”
When he stepped into the hallway, he wasn’t surprised to find that Kingsland hadn’t waited outside as he would have been ordered to but had come in far enough that he could get a better view of everything, was looking up at the floors visible from his position. “Your Grace.”
Kingsland lowered his gaze. “I’ve heard the rumors about this club. They say it’s not good enough for firstborn sons who are to inherit.”
“They’re not good enough for it.”
Kingsland chuckled low. “Spoken like a true second son. It seems to be flourishing, but you would benefit from having a man of influence speaking highly of this place.”
“I have men—and women—of influence speaking highly of it.”
He grinned. “Ah, yes, the Trewloves, I imagine. Chadbourne turned out to be a rotter, there, didn’t he? Turning his back on your sister as he did, although she recovered nicely.”
“My brother and I took our fists to him. I’ll do the same to you if you cause Lady Kathryn any unhappiness.”
“Her happiness is not my responsibility.”
“It damned sure will be when you’re her husband.”
“I’m not to be her husband.”
Fury like molten lava burst through him. “After all this time, you tossed her over?”
“She tossed me, old chap. Turned me down flat. Seemed to take exception to my not going down on a knee when I proposed, if you can believe it. Should have expected her rejection of my proposal, I suppose. It was a gamble on my part to choose a woman who had not sent me a letter.”
Everything within Griff stilled. “What do you mean she didn’t send you a letter?”
“Here, I always thought you had a semblance of intelligence about you. Am I using words that are too large, so it makes comprehension difficult?”
Damn, but he wanted to plow his fist into that perfect aristocratic nose. “You are either too daft to have recognized her name, to have known it was from her, or you overlooked it. I saw her working on it.”
“She may have written the bloody thing, but she never sent it. After meeting her at the park, I paid particular attention to the letters, reading each one, carefully searching for hers, interested in finding out what she had to say.”
“You didn’t meet her at the park. You met her at a ball two years earlier. You bloody well danced with her.”
“Did I? Hmm. Fancy that.” He studied Griff. “I got your letter, though. Thought perhaps she had decided to have you write me. Decided it was brilliant strategy. But then, while she and I were dancing, I discovered she knew nothing at all about it. I found that even more intriguing. Why did you write it?”
He wanted to tell the man to go to the devil. Instead he confessed. “Because of the wager I’d made that you would select her. I wanted to influence your decision.” And he’d done it for her, to see she gained what she wanted. But he wasn’t going to tell this buffoon that.
“As good a reason as any, I suppose.” He glanced around. “Well, good luck with your enterprise here. Wish I’d thought of it. It has the potential to make a good deal of money.”
The Duke of Kingsland turned on his heel and headed for the door.
Griff took two steps forward. “Why did you take so blasted long to ask her? The truth this time.”
The duke glanced back over his shoulder. “A foolish whim on my part. I was waiting for her to look at me with as much yearning as she’d directed your way that day in the park.”
Chapter 21
With his usual confidence, the Duke of Kingsland strode into his favorite gentlemen’s club and headed straight for the library where he knew the others waited. He was not a man accustomed to losin
g, and it didn’t sit particularly well with him. Ruthless strategy was the watchword. It was the watchword of all the Chessmen—he and his friends so dubbed when they attended Oxford. They knew well how to play the game. Any game. With a cunning and merciless strategy that ensured they won, and that was the reason they’d been both feared and revered. They knew the intricacies of rules, and knowing the particulars meant knowing how to successfully break any rule in order to ensure the Chessmen were always victorious.
He easily spotted the trio sitting in leather wingback chairs in the far corner of the chamber where their words would not be overheard by others. A tumbler of scotch stood at the ready resting on a table near an empty chair. They’d been anticipating his arrival.
Without ceremony, he dropped onto the thick leather cushion, grabbed the glass, and lifted it. “Pay up, gents.”
“Bloody hell,” Bishop said. “She turned down your proposal.”
After tossing back a good bit of his scotch, he gave a half-hearted grin. “She did, indeed. She chose the pawn over the king.”
“How did you know she would?” Rook asked. “I’ve never known you to bet against yourself, and yet in this instance you didn’t hesitate to do so.”
“How do I know anything? I observe. That long-ago day in the park, I could have cut the sexual tension between them with a knife, so thick was it. They just hadn’t recognized it yet for what it was.”
“This outcome is going to make you appear rather foolish after investing all this time in her.”
“What choice did I have? His traitorous father mucked things up, which resulted in the young lord being sent out of our orbit for a while. But as soon as I heard he was back in it, I knew it wouldn’t take long for matters to be put to rights.”
“If he hadn’t come back?”
“Marrying her would have been no hardship. I found her remarkably interesting.” Not particularly quiet, but interesting.
“I suppose the question now, however, is whether the pawn will choose Lady Kathryn as his queen,” Bishop mused.
“A thousand quid says they are married before August,” King said, striving not to give the impression he was already counting his winnings.
“That’s rather specific, which leads me to believe I would be a fool to take you up on that wager.”
“You would, indeed. Perhaps I’ll place it in the betting books.”
Knight studied him. “For a man all of London will deem to have lost, you don’t seem particularly troubled.”
“I didn’t lose. I’m going to receive a thousand quid from each of you blokes. Besides, I never expected to truly win her. Even if she’d consented to marry me, I think her passions would have always resided elsewhere.” He could have lived with that, because his resided elsewhere as well. Love was not something he sought. But power, influence, and wealth were other matters entirely.
“I heard through one of our contacts that Marcus Stanwick is striving to bring honor back to the family,” Knight said.
“Two thousand quid says he’ll succeed,” King challenged.
“You’ll not get any takers from us for that wager.”
“I don’t envy him his task.” But he had little doubt the once-future duke was up to the undertaking.
“You still need a wife,” Bishop said unnecessarily, as though it was something King could forget.
“We all need wives.”
“Will you go about finding yours in the same manner?”
“I see no reason not to. It saves me a lot of bother.” Only the next time, he’d select for his queen a woman who would be in no danger of spending her marriage pining for another.
Chapter 22
Wearing only her chemise and drawers, Kathryn sat on a blanket on the sand and watched the waves lap at the shore, enjoying the motion and the constant slapping. Earlier she’d discarded her frock and taken a quick dip into the frigid water. Now the late morning sun had almost dried her and was presently kissing her skin.
When she departed this place the day after her birthday, when the promise of it was no longer hers but had transferred to her cousin, she would no doubt again be marred by freckles, and she no longer cared. They would mark spots where not only the sun had kissed her, but Griff had as well. And she wanted those reminders of him.
Her parents had been none too pleased with her for not accepting the duke’s proposal, but she wouldn’t have been happy with him, nor would he have been happy with her. While it was very unkind of her, she did hope that somewhere was a woman who would bring him to his knees. She would take great delight in that outcome.
After he’d left, and after facing her parents’ disappointment, she’d had her packed trunk loaded onto the carriage and come to the cottage. She’d sent the coach and driver back to London as she had no plans to leave here before she reached the ripe old age of five and twenty. She’d been here a fortnight already, absorbing the calm and peace, allowing enough to fill her that it would see her through long after her hair turned silver and her eyesight faded.
She’d wanted to be alone with nothing to distract her from her purpose of hoarding memories. She’d not even bothered to hire Mrs. McHenry to see after things. Kathryn strolled into the village each day to purchase the food for her simple meals—fruit, cheese, bread, butter, and wine, lots of wine. She went to bed when she was sleepy, woke when she was rested. She read and embroidered and walked. And danced along the shoreline.
She was happy. Fairly happy. She required one more thing for absolute happiness: Griff. But she didn’t know how to obtain him. He’d made his position clear. He didn’t consider himself worthy of her. As long as there was the possibility of having the cottage, even if a hasty marriage to a stranger was the only solution to acquiring it, he would always feel that he’d somehow taken it from her.
But after her birthday, once she had no hope at all of ever having it, then how could he possibly be responsible for keeping it from her? She would gain a membership in his club and taunt him with her presence. She would wear provocative gowns and flirt outrageously. She would give him sultry looks and knowing smiles. If it took the remainder of her life to entice him back into her arms, so be it.
Without possession of the cottage hovering over her, she was free of all constraints. And she rather liked knowing she no longer had to worry about getting married. Marriage now was a choice that it had never been before. Who she married was more of a choice. She could wed the blacksmith’s son and not lose more than she would gain.
Unintentionally her grandmother had placed a burden on her shoulders that she suddenly found herself grateful to be rid of. The cottage was not her life. It never had been. Only now had she begun to realize it.
While her father was put out with her, she had little doubt that he would eventually set up a trust for her so she would have the funds needed to live comfortably after his brother inherited the vast majority of his holdings. And if he didn’t—
Well, if Griff could work the docks, she most certainly could find some sort of employment somewhere. Whoever hired her would be lucky to have her.
She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced to the side. Passion ignited, desire thrummed through her veins. Tall and lean, all muscle and sinew, Griff strode toward her. His feet were bare, his trouser legs turned up to expose his calves. Rolled up to nearly his elbows, his shirtsleeves billowed in the breeze. She wondered where his neckcloth, waistcoat, and coat were. Then decided it didn’t matter. Those sorts of accessories had no place here.
Nevertheless, without the trappings of them, he still managed to exude all the bearing of a lord. Even though the Crown had stripped him of his place in Society, he had climbed through the muck to reclaim it with his comportment, if nothing else. She could barely breathe for the perfection of him.
When he reached her, he lowered himself to the blanket in such a way that he faced her, his legs stretched out in the opposite direction from hers. His thigh touched hers, and while cloth separated t
hem, flimsy cloth on her part, the familiarity of it seemed almost as intimate as her lying beneath him.
“Last year, you didn’t send Kingsland a letter, didn’t interview for him.”
Not what she’d expected. An apology, perhaps. An I’ve realized I can’t live without you would have been preferable. “Hello to you as well. This is a surprise. How did you know where to find me?”
“I went to your residence and spoke with your parents. After a lengthy discussion, they reluctantly divulged your whereabouts.” He studied her for three heartbeats, four. “Why?”
Apparently, he had no intention of letting his original inquiry go without some answers, even if he’d only made a statement and not presented a direct question. He expected her to address it. She shook her head. How to explain? She bit her lower lip, tried to think of the right words. “Because I can’t be quiet. Because I couldn’t imagine that a man who wanted a quiet wife would be happy with one who likes to dance on the beach. And I don’t just dance on the beach, Griff. I dance when I wake up in the morning, after I crawl out of bed. Sometimes late at night, I dance through empty rooms. But mostly because as I said . . . I can’t be quiet. I want to talk to my husband. I want to tell him my troubles. I want to hear his. I want to share my opinions on matters large and small. I want to offer suggestions and have him think that even the ones that aren’t good still have value.”
“But after he called out your name, you didn’t turn him away from courting you.”
She shrugged. “You’d gone to such trouble and inconvenience that it seemed the least I could do was give Kingsland the opportunity to impress me.” Besides, Griff had disappeared, and she had wanted what marriage to the duke would gain her. A year ago, at least. The cottage had dominated her thoughts. For far too long it had dominated her life. Now she wanted something else entirely, and it was important he understand that. “He did finally ask for my hand. I told him no.”
“I know. He came to see me.” Well, that was a surprising development, and no doubt how he’d learned of her not sending a letter. “In turning him away, you will lose the cottage if you don’t find a titled gent to marry rather quickly.”
Scoundrel of My Heart EPB Page 23