My Darling Duke

by Stacy Reid

  “Have you never been to town?” Katherine asked with a frown.

  A brief shadow crossed Penny’s face. “Not as yet, I’m afraid, but I do not long for it in any manner. Just curious sometimes.”

  There was an echo of need in her tone, though she tried to mask it with a smile in his direction, as if she wanted to comfort him. It occurred to him once more that his sister needed to be out in society, mingling with other young ladies her age and social background. She asked Katherine dozens of questions: about the theater, Vauxhall, the museums, balls, and dances. And Katherine generously answered each query with admirable patience.

  A dark feeling of shame washed over him. His sister needed a life beyond Scotland. The isolation he’d wrapped them in was impenetrable. They did not even allow the high society of Scotland into their home, and the neighbors had learned over the years not to call or send invitations to McMullen Castle.

  The matter would be rectified, and very soon.

  “Penny will be traveling to town,” he murmured. “Eugene will of course accompany his cousin.”

  A silence fell over the table, and Eugene arched a sharp brow.

  “To London!” Penny gasped, lowering her fork. “Are you to come with me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then I shall not leave you,” Penny said, her eyes flashing with defiance.

  “You are not abandoning me,” he said with patience. “You are simply heading to town to visit with my godmother, Countess Darling, who will take you under her wing and show you the sights, take you shopping, introduce you to your society.”

  “I do not care to leave you, Alexander, and you shall not make me!” Penny cried, her eyes wide with a pain he did not understand.

  “Penny—”

  “No. Not now. Please.”

  He had not seen his sister appear this dejected in years. Not wanting to wound her further, he nodded. Penny squared her slim shoulders and lifted her chin bravely, but her lower lip trembled as his sister directed her attention to Katherine.

  “Miss Danvers,” Penny said brightly. “Please tell me about your sisters. The newspapers mentioned you have three. Are any my age?”

  Katherine cleared her throat, and the compassion in her eyes was a curious thing to witness. With a smile, she launched into amusing anecdotes about her sisters, especially the younger Henrietta, who had a penchant for harboring animals in their home, to their mother’s great distress.

  “I never heard anything to equal it!” Penny chortled.

  Soon the tension left Penny’s shoulders, but she still did not glance in his direction, as if she could not bear looking at him. Several moments passed in discourse, and he made no effort to join in, yet he did not leave the table. The animated manner in which they conversed felt peaceful.

  Laughter tugged his gaze to Katherine. A broad smile had blossomed at her lips, and her eyes were alight with humor at some amusing anecdote from Eugene. Her head was turned a little away as she listened to whatever Eugene said with such polite raptness. Or was it more than politeness? Did she admire him, perhaps?

  Her quick smiles and flushing cheeks, her teasing remarks to Eugene, filled Alexander with a cold, dark feeling. Is this jealousy? he wondered, having never endured the emotion before.

  His cousin also seemed enthralled with her. He had a flush on his face and the look of a man about to become besotted. A moment of stark despair pierced Alexander at the awareness that they would suit each other well. Eugene would be a duke one day, and he was quite affable and kind. Miss Danvers’s wild and bold appeal would captivate him for years to come. Eugene had been blathering lately about finding a wife and settling down, and it seemed Alexander had unwittingly delivered to him a most appealing candidate.

  Instead of eating and joining the different conversations—the weather in Scotland, politics, the latest fashion, gossips—he gave in to the compulsion to simply watch Miss Danvers. He observed her covertly with unabashed interest, noting every expression, the way she gave her undivided attention to Penny and Eugene, the furrow of her brows, the way she laughed with her eyes first, the indelicate way in which she devoured food that she enjoyed.

  She looked up, noticing his avid regard. Katherine appeared surprised and then, faintly but unmistakably, embarrassed at the intensity of his stare. She glanced down momentarily, her eyelashes long and striking against the paleness of her skin. How had he not noticed how silky and beautiful her skin appeared?

  His gaze lingered on the modest neckline of her crimson gown. The skin of her slender shoulders shone white and luminous in the candlelight. A very modest golden cross around her neck was her only decoration.

  For a moment, he pictured her wearing the family jewels that had been discovered in the safe after the terrible, tragic fire that had stolen his parents from him. There were so many pieces that had never been worn since that sad day. Alexander considered whether the diamond parure would look best against her velvet dress or whether the simpler ruby necklace would accentuate her beauty to perfection.

  His thoughts wandered to those of her wearing only jewels and spread upon his bed, then he drove such ideas out, sweeping them away like dust upon a floor. He could not allow himself to have such musings about Kitty Danvers.

  Penny sent him a few searching glances, but he still made no effort to join in on their conversations. He was content with observation.

  Dinner ended, and instead of withdrawing to his treasure room, he joined them in the music room. Penny, a very accomplished player, sat before the pianoforte and delighted them with a lively piece.

  “Please join me, Kitty,” his sister called with delight.

  Katherine accepted the invitation, moving to stand beside the pianoforte, and happily started to sing. She sounded awful. Alexander was nonplussed at the joy and confidence with which she sang, and from the outrageous twinkle in her eyes, the lady was quite aware she could not carry a tune.

  The impudent lady had the temerity to wink at him, clearly amused by his undisguised consternation. An odd warmth arrowed through his heart. And he wished then that they were alone, and she sang only for him. Somehow, he would make his ears bear it, and bask in her smiles and evident delight.

  He grunted softly at his whimsical musings. Her voice lifted, and he cringed, yet by God, he burned—everywhere.

  And it was all for her.

  Alexander was stupidly falling in too deep, and he was helpless against the need filling his heart for this woman. Bemused fascination filled him, for he did not fully understand this desire to keep her with him. This should not be happening, not when he had nothing to give any woman. Her presence in his life was simply to be a distraction from the tearing emptiness. Logically, he knew she could not fill that void forever, but his heart seemed to be recoiling against the notion.

  Alexander thought back to the cabin. How fleeting their moments had been, yet they had been the best time of his life in the past ten years. Or even before the tragedy that had taken so much. Never before had a woman made him feel so many tangled needs that were almost impossible to unravel.

  He wasn’t certain if the notion should sadden or thrill him.

  “Delightful, isn’t she?” a voice murmured to his left.

  He made no reply to Eugene’s observation, just silently agreed that she was, and so much more.

  “I was wrong to think her a wicked user. I misjudged her. Miss Danvers will make you an excellent duchess,” his cousin said, a touch of envy in his tone. “If you are of a mind to keep her.”

  Alexander’s heart tripped, then he allowed the ice to encase it and buried the warm feelings that dug at its deliberately hardened surface. For years he hadn’t allowed himself to hope or dream. Where there was no expectation, there could be no disappointment or despair.

  He closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath. “I’ve not known her long, but
a woman like Katherine Danvers deserves much more than to be a duchess. A title alone would not do for a rich, vibrant soul like hers. She deserves to be a wife in more than a name; she deserves children… I daresay she deserves the world.”

  His cousin sucked in a hard breath. “Are you falling for her?”

  “No.” Never that.

  He was not whole enough to ever allow himself to fall too deeply for any woman. That could lead only to heartache, and there was enough pain living in his memories and heart.

  “I’ve seen how she looks at you,” Eugene said. “She likes you and seems quite frightened by the notion. It is as if she expects you to hurt her in some fashion. What have you done?”

  You’ll break me.

  That haunted whisper stabbed deep, twisting the most peculiar sensations inside—anger and pain. “I’ve done nothing.” Alexander faced him. “I gather you enjoy Miss Danvers’s company. You have my permission to pursue her if that is what you are after.”

  Shock bloomed on Eugene’s face, but there was also want and need there. “Good God, man, are you certain?”

  No… Yes… “You are my heir, and you’ll be a duke one day. You have wealth and status. You evidently admire Miss Danvers’s eccentricity. Whatever I feel for her will not go anywhere, for I shan’t allow it, so be free of guilt in your pursuit.”

  Then Alexander walked away.

  …

  The next evening, after a listless night tossing atop his bed and a day spent penning letters to the prime minister and parliament, Alexander looked forward to meeting with his doctors—an unusual state, for he usually felt bothered by the quarterly checks from the team. He met with three of his doctors in his library, quite pleased they had responded to his summons with the appropriate urgency.

  He sat in his wheeled chair by the open windows, gathering his thoughts and the matter he wanted to broach. The silence lingered, and as the clock struck the hour, he realized he had been lost in his thoughts for twenty minutes. Alexander worked the wheel of his bath chair and faced his doctors. His two most senior physicians—Appleby and Monroe—glanced at each other, concern masking their creased features.

  Dr. Appleby, a man of average height and slender build, with gray-flecked hair and spectacles, sat in a wingback chair by the fireplace. Dr. Monroe, a few years younger than Appleby and tall with surprising bulk to his frame, reposed on the sofa. The third doctor waited by the mantel, peering into the fireplace as if the dancing flames held some secret he desired to unearth.

  Monroe cleared his throat. “Your Grace, you seem well. How are you faring since our last visit?”

  That was the opening for all notebooks to appear, and his doctors waited on him with keen patience.

  “The pain in my lower back is more persistent this week. But I have pushed myself to be active and on my feet more than I normally risk.”

  “Have you taken any opium?” Dr. Monroe asked.

  Alexander’s gut tightened, hating to remember the haze he had once lost himself in to bear the constant pain and torment. “No. Nor have I been tempted.”

  They scribbled in their notebooks.

  “What about laudanum?”

  “I smoke my cigars,” he drawled mockingly, before saying, “There is a particular woman… When I think of her…I feel a hunger, unlike anything I’ve ever endured.” Alexander smiled without humor and said bluntly, “My member becomes hard, even if only fleetingly. That is a first since my accident; it happens only with her, and it has happened twice.”

  The quiet that enveloped the drawing room was keen.

  “That is exceedingly heartening news,” Dr. Grant said, the youngest doctor on Alexander’s team and the most enlightened. He alone seemed willing to adopt the latest and most controversial treatment methods, and it was one of the reasons Alexander had kept him on the team who attended him regularly.

  “Your Grace,” Appleby began, “I do not wish to encourage false hope. In the ten years since the unfortunate accident, your manhood has been flaccid. It is unlikely—”

  Dr. Grant interrupted Appleby, laying a hand on his arm and saying quickly, “I do not believe it to be false hope, Your Grace. I’ve long believed that your…lack of reaction to any such stimuli had to do with the terrible pain your body underwent in its fight to heal. You were not interested in anything else. I did not believe, as my colleagues do, that the nerve damage to your back and legs would prevent you from living a normal life. Your mind and brain simply directed their enormous energy into other areas of your body—healing.”

  Alexander frowned thoughtfully. “It has been several years, Dr. Grant.”

  “And your body is still healing. You have made incredible strides, Your Grace. The strength and tenacity you have shown I have never seen in another, but your journey is continuing. It would be very shortsighted of us to assume Your Grace’s body has finished healing or that it is not capable of improving further. Our understanding of human anatomy is still so extremely limited.”

  Alexander considered the earnest fervor of Dr. Grant, seeing the validity of his statement. The diagnosis of impotence had been given in those difficult early times.

  “You will never walk again, Your Grace, nor will you be able to sire issue.” That had been the pronouncement by one of Edinburgh’s finest doctors, and another team from England had reaffirmed it. Yet Alexander had defied their expectations and had painstakingly pushed himself past the crippling agony to walk again.

  Whenever he had crumpled to the floor, he had been a beast, snarling at his servants to leave him be. And he had crawled, digging grooves and cuts into his elbows and palms as he had pushed himself to make it from the floor by his own strength. Remembered despair and helplessness swamped his senses.

  “Eight years ago, Dr. Monroe, you told me in no uncertain terms I would never leave this bath chair. Yet I do so daily, for hours,” he murmured.

  Sympathy lit in the doctor’s light green eyes. “And the cost must be terrible, Your Grace. Your back and legs were shattered in several places from your fall from a three-story window. I am a man of science, but I still believe it a miracle you are alive—and that you can walk today. As for other functions, the treatment we recommended then did not work at all, so I am not sure what to make of this.”

  The man glanced at his colleagues, appearing flustered.

  Several remedies had been suggested at the time, and some of the most outlandish, such as eating alligator testicles battered in butter, Alexander still recalled. He had not been interested in women, still cut too raw from pain and grief. And over the years, nothing had roused him. His friend George had certainly sent beauties to his castle to entice him to live as mad, bad, and dangerous once more. Alexander had been bored, their high-pitched giggles and lush attractions incapable of touching the empty well inside him.

  “I ignored most of the treatment advised then. Eating goat and alligator balls made no sense, and the few poultices made by you, Appleby, simply irritated my balls,” Alexander said drily.

  The good doctor flushed.

  Dr. Grant stepped forward. “I must ask…how long have you been able to sustain an erection with…ah, this particular lady?”

  The memory of the raw desire he’d felt a few nights ago wafted through him with visceral strength. “It was fleeting, but it happened.” And almost every moment when he thought of kissing her, the ache low in his gut grew until he felt mad from want.

  The doctor cleared his throat and, prudently refusing to meet his eye, said, “Might I encourage you, Your Grace, to attempt, ah…another connection with this lady, a sustained connection?”

  Alexander considered the man. “She is not a doxy but a lady.”

  Dr. Grant tilted his head. “I understand, Your Grace. I would urge you to consider self-ministrations for a few nights. I’ve never believed your nerves there to be completely damaged, simply that y
our mind…was uninterested. And if the mind is locked away from thoughts of pleasure, the body will remain unresponsive.”

  Dr. Monroe surged to his feet, a fierce scowl on his ruddy face. “What nonsense! Self-ministration is harmful to the body and mind!”

  Grant scowled and, in an unlikely fashion, rolled his eyes.

  Alexander was aware of the different theories in society on self-pleasure. Dr. Grant had brought the matter to him a few years ago, and he hadn’t dwelled on it, simply because the emptiness had been spreading, taking all that was light and painting his world in dull shades of gray. But now he could see…and feel himself lying atop the cool crispness of his sheets, taking his manhood in hand, and stroking it…with visions of her, smiling, flashing an ankle, touching him, kissing him. The elegance of her spine, which had been revealed when he’d undressed her in the cabin. How desperately he’d wanted to run his tongue along her curves.

  The memory of her sweet mouth and purrs of pleasure had heat rolling through him like a violent wave. Uttering a low curse beneath his breath, Alexander pushed such thoughts from his mind. With an annoyance unlike him, he dismissed the doctors after issuing his customary invitation to dinner, which they accepted.

  What am I to do about you, Katherine Danvers?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Alexander wheeled himself from the library down the hall to his room of solace. With a pained grunt, he eased from the confines of the chair, stood, and opened the door. He lowered himself back into the bath chair and wheeled himself into the room.

  A faint sound had him gently closing the door and propelling toward the back of the room where the shelves stretched toward the high ceiling. He faltered at the presence of Katherine on her knees before one of his wooden boxes. Plucking an item from the box recently shipped from Egypt, she stood and held it up to the light pouring in from the window. It was a necklace with a scarab amulet. She studied it for a while, running delicate fingers over the back of the scarab. With an evident thrill, she placed it back in the box with care and withdrew another item.