A Wicked Duke's Prize: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Henrietta Harding

  “Luckily for you, it seems you’re already engaged to him,” Tabitha said.

  “I refuse to marry him if he ignores me in this manner,” Rebecca shot back. “It’s entirely rude. It’s… No. I will not allow this.”

  Rebecca burst up from the floor and paced, her little feet clacking across the hardwood. “I think it best that I go there,” she continued. “I must demand answers from him. We’re both far too direct to let this silence go on any longer without understanding. I cannot live in this grey area a moment more.”

  Tabitha groaned slightly, then shifted up, grabbing the back of the bed and standing. “I can feel it, Rebecca. You’re on the verge of doing something quite rash, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t quite know what you mean,” Rebecca returned.

  “Your eyes are burning that frantic orange. You’re going to demand that I…”

  “Well, you must come along with me,” Rebecca said. “Unless you feel entirely too unwell…”

  Tabitha cranked her shoulders back. “I feel quite all right now. But Rebecca, think about this a moment more. If you barge into his estate without word, won’t you give him the wrong impression?”

  “I don’t quite care what sort of impression I leave him,” Rebecca retorted. “He’s proved himself to be a wretched individual, and I wish only to… to tell him he won’t get away with it a moment more.”

  Tabitha sighed and collected up the basin. Without speaking, she padded past Rebecca, into the hall, then stepped delicately down the stairs. Rebecca followed behind her, all the way to the back of the house, near the garden, where a maid stood washing other dishes, other basins, her hands ruddy with the intensity of the soap.

  Tabitha thanked her and then walked out into the garden and perched on a bench, her hands still over her stomach. Throughout this manoeuvre, Rebecca felt a strange void between them, as though she couldn’t fully articulate Tabitha’s thoughts. When she joined her on the bench, she waited for a number of seconds before Tabitha again spoke.

  “Your rash nature is such a confusing one to me,” she said softly.

  “And yet, you so frequently went along with my adventures throughout our youth,” Rebecca replied. “This could be the final one, you know. Some day soon I might be just a simple old lady in a big house, living out the last of my days. I must live while I can. And I want you there along with me.”

  Tabitha clicked her tongue with distaste.

  “Tabitha, rather soon you’ll be far too pregnant to leave the house,” Rebecca said. “And also, I require a chaperone, you know. Our engagement hasn’t yet been announced to the public.”

  Tabitha’s eyes flickered. “Did you have a chaperone along with you during your escapade in the Covington garden?”

  Rebecca chuckled. “Of course not.”

  “A difficult thing it will be if your children have any of your terror,” Tabitha said.

  This last admission seemed an agreement, although a subtle one. Rebecca could sense it. Rebecca squeezed her best friend’s hand, just a bit too hard, and Tabitha shrieked and said, “All right! Let me tell Anthony we’re going for a brief ride. I know he won’t like it if I’m gone for long.”

  Anthony fluttered about the carriage as Rebecca and Tabitha situated themselves within. The door remained open to show Anthony’s greying face, his sagging cheeks.

  “You don’t need to worry about anything, Anthony. We’ll be quite all right,” Rebecca said. She couldn’t help but think him moderately idiotic, out there like a nervous child, but she ensured she kept her eyes forward, unrolled.

  But this time was different. After all, Anthony was to be a new father and therefore had a fresh face to the world. He cut his chin higher and said, with a stutter, “I’m afraid I’ll have to join the two of you. Just in case.”

  Rebecca allowed her eyes to roll this time. She turned swiftly towards Tabitha and said, “I really don’t see that that’s necessary. Do you, Tabitha?”

  But Anthony didn’t allow her to answer for herself. Instead, he clambered into the carriage and perched across from them, his eyebrows low. “Darling, your morning sickness doesn’t necessary stay in the morning. I know you like to think it does, but I’ve found you doubled over after dinnertime, insisting you’re fine, with a grey tinge to your face. I cannot allow you to go without me. The previous girlhood adventurous times… I’m afraid they must come to a close. Or at least, continue with the addition of myself.”

  Rebecca let out a low moan and turned her eyes to the ground. This felt entirely ridiculous to her, the stuff of idiotic and ill-conceived marriages. But she felt sure that Tabitha wouldn’t be allowed to come along, and surely wouldn’t, if Anthony didn’t remain in the carriage. Thusly, as Tabitha still bumbled along, seemingly aching for what to say, Rebecca cut forth with a, “Oh, very well,” and Anthony snapped the door closed.

  The ride to Owen’s was a quiet one. Anthony seemed to stare at his wife without pause, a fact that turned Rebecca’s stomach. Once, he even reached across the carriage in an attempt to take Tabitha’s hand, but she retreated and turned her face to the window.

  “I don’t understand what all the fuss is about, anyway,” Anthony said suddenly. “I thought the two of you were meant to be married.”

  “It’s far too complex to explain to the likes of you,” Rebecca said.

  Anthony scoffed. “I daresay I understand men far better than you ever could.”

  “Do you think?” Rebecca said, her voice simmering with sarcasm.

  “I know that Rebecca Frampton has the firmly held belief that everything she does and says is far more intelligent and more interesting than anything anyone else could do or say,” he returned. “And I must say, I’m quite tired of it. Do you think that Tabitha truly wanted to go on this strange journey to Owen’s estate this afternoon? All week, she’s been ill. And when she hasn’t been ill? She’s been excitedly sewing up little outfits for our coming child. None of that has anything to do with your convoluted relationship to your non-fiancé. I daresay, both of you seem to be the most conniving and stubborn humans on this planet. Perhaps you deserve one another. But I cannot imagine that either of you will make it work.”

  “As if your marriage is all endless bliss,” Rebecca replied.

  “Won’t the two of you quiet down?” Tabitha cried. She smashed her hands across her cheeks and forced her shoulders forward.

  “Darling, I’m terribly…” Anthony began.

  “Just be quiet,” Tabitha repeated. “Please.”

  The carriage remained quiet the rest of the way to the estate. When they reached the mansion, Rebecca’s eyes flicked back to find Tabitha in the same position, her hands tight over her eyes. Anthony remained stoic, a bit grey. Rebecca’s heart thudded with guilt. She felt wretched for pitting herself against Anthony in this manner. Oddly, she felt endeared towards Anthony for speaking his mind regarding Tabitha’s wellness. She’d never held an ounce of respect for him. At least now, she felt his attitude came from at least an idea of love.

  This left Rebecca with a choice. Should she drag Tabitha along with her into the Crauford estate? It seemed entirely unfair. Beyond that, the thought of having Anthony there, lurking behind her, whilst she attempted to speak with Owen about anything that mattered, turned her stomach. She lifted her chin and said, “I believe I’ll just slip inside and check in on him. I don’t think I’ll be long.”

  “It’s difficult for me to imagine that,” Anthony returned.

  “I can’t imagine what you mean,” Rebecca said.

  “I think the better option is this,” Anthony said. He leaned forward, his eyes menacing. “I am going to take Tabitha home. I will leave you here to declare whatever strange or stubborn words you wish to dear Owen Crauford. Afterwards, I will send the carriage back, which will then return you to your father’s estate.”

  Rebecca spun back to Tabitha, willing her to say something, to declare her husband an idiot. But Tabitha seemed unwilling to counter her husband
’s words.

  “Very well,” Rebecca said. “Thank you for your company on the way.”

  She shot out of the carriage and slammed the door behind her. She swept towards Owen’s mansion with a strange glow, sensing herself stronger and, perhaps, more stubborn than ever before. Although she’d longed for Tabitha there by her side, a partial piece of Anthony’s speech had been correct.

  Their girlhood fantasies had to come to a close. Perhaps on the path she travelled, Tabitha couldn’t follow. Although this made her heart ache, she lifted her chin and creaked up the steps to lift her knuckles to the door. One second later, she knocked.

  Chapter 21

  Rebecca expected a butler to open the door. In fact, she’d built up quite an idea of the man who, in passing, Owen had said had been with his father’s family since his father had been in his mid-twenties. Yet when the door opened, Owen himself stood before her, his dark hair windswept, his eyes dark and cutting, his lips unsmiling. He looked shadowed and almost angry, as though he’d stepped from the pages of a nightmare. In that strange moment, as they stared at one another, Rebecca regretted everything. She never should have just stopped by.

  “Rebecca,” Owen finally uttered. “I didn’t expect you.”

  “No. I suppose not.” Rebecca swallowed, sensing how meek her words sounded, and hating it.

  Silence stretched between them. Owen stepped back and swept his hand out towards the foyer. “Would you like to come in?”

  Rebecca entered. As Owen closed the door behind her, her eyes swept over the empty walls, faded where paintings had once hung, and the parlour, void of furniture and decor, except for one single, shoddy looking chair in the corner. The fireplace looked dusty and the hardwood floor was discoloured, seemingly from where a large rug had sat in the centre of the room, perhaps for many years. Rebecca’s mouth turned to a round ‘O’.

  “Were you robbed?” were the first words she chose, although she regretted them immediately.

  She was grateful that Owen laughed, albeit quietly. His hand fumbled with his black curls as he said, “Nothing gets past you, does it?”

  “Everything you’ve ever owned. All of it. And your butler?”

  “It’s been a rather new situation,” Owen said. He stretched his legs across the parlour, until he turned and sat in the single chair, facing her. He sat about ten feet away, one foot over his opposite knee. “The butler, the maids, all our things, all sold off or told to go elsewhere.” He flicked a little piece of lint from his knee with a casual motion, as though he spoke of the weather and nothing else.

  Rebecca swallowed. She couldn’t envision it. All the things she’d ever known, all the help, gone in a flash. “My goodness,” she whispered.

  “My mother won’t speak to my father,” Owen continued. “She looks hollowed out, strange. It’s funny what anger will do to a person. She looks apt to destroy him at any moment, if only she had the strength. They’re gone at this moment, actually. Off to the doctor. I daresay they’ll hardly have funds to pay him. We’re on our last legs here.”

  “We’re alone here,” Rebecca murmured.

  “Indeed. Which, as you must know, is against societal rules. Alone here, in this big, wide, empty house. A beautiful house, if you look at the bones of it. Goodness, it has so much potential for a very different kind of family.”

  “It’s terribly unfair, what your father has put you through,” Rebecca said. She cut towards him, her heart thudding in her throat. “But seeing it so stark like this, I understand why you must marry me, unless you find another way.”

  Owen gave a passionless shrug. His eyes remained burning towards her, still with an air of violence.

  “Rather rude not to offer me the chair, don’t you think?” Rebecca said. She now stood in the centre of the parlour, no more than three feet away from his chair. His smell lingered in the air, marvellously thick – burning fires and sandalwood and horses and the outdoors. She slipped her hand across her stomach and felt the flutter of her own heart, the burning of her cheeks.

  “Do you feel that I’ve wronged you, not offering you a place to sit?” he asked.

  “I suppose I’m always looking for something to take issue with, with regards to you,” Rebecca replied. She arched her brow and continued, “Although I must tell you, Mr. Crauford. Although I detest the idea of marrying someone I didn’t choose, I do not consider you to be the worst person I’ve ever met.”

  This was the heaviest way she could have verbalised it, her way of telling him, without too much romantic heart-clutching, that she could, perhaps, fall for him. This was her declaration of love, or the promise of it, and her heart ached at the thought of this revelation. She waited, terrified, her eyes taking in his. What could he possibly respond? Anything turned her stomach.

  “I suppose I don’t consider you to be the worst person I’ve ever met, either,” Owen returned. His own eyebrow, just the one, cranked high to match hers.

  Rebecca gave a half-smile, then strung her arms across her chest and blinked at him, unsure of what to say next. She felt they were at a standstill, both awaiting the other’s next move. For the first time that afternoon, Owen gave her his own sly smile, one that made the base of her spine quiver with apprehension.

  “Did you come all the way here today to tell me that, then, Miss Frampton?” Owen said.

  Had she? God, she supposed she had. For the first time, she felt an image of herself, as Tabitha surely saw her – an adventurous thrill-seeker, ravenously tearing through her own life without any regard for how it affected others.

  “Do you want the truth?” Rebecca said. She felt oddly breathless, her stomach stirring with pleasure and a desire that seemed as deep as the ocean.

  Owen leaned forward so that his elbows dipped into his knees and his pouty lips were no more than a foot from hers. Maintaining eye contact, he murmured, “I’ve never wanted the full truth. Just whatever version suits us best.”

  Unencumbered, fearful, wild with adrenaline, Rebecca swept towards him and kissed him, her eyes closed and her heart bursting. The mansion was enormous around them, an empty beast, void of all its previous treasures. Rebecca’s gown was swept up towards her stomach, as they kissed harder, with more passion, their tongues sweeping across the other, almost in competition. Owen’s hands cranked over the bulge of her breasts and then tore the fabric down, to allow the nipples to pop forth. He broke the kiss slowly, achingly, and Rebecca opened her eyes to watch as he dove towards her nipples, his tongue wet and hard against her own bead-like ones.

  She cranked her torso hard against his, to feel a massive bulge beneath her. Memory of the night at the ball surged between them, made her heart flutter with apprehension and fear. Could she do this again? Oh, but she wanted to. She ached for it. His fingers were at the back buttons of her dress and he was unbuttoning frantically and then pulled it apart, to drop the fabric to the ground. Her breasts bounced as he lifted her, standing, and carried her, her legs wrapped around his thick and muscular torso.

  “Where are you taking me?” she whispered, breaking the kiss for a moment.

  “The bedroom,” he replied.

  “Oh? They didn’t also take the beds?”

  “Don’t be a brat.”

  Once in his bedroom, Owen dropped her across the mattress and hurriedly tore his trousers to the ground, unbuttoned his shirt. Rebecca watched, stunned and hot, as he unveiled his mighty chest, his firm stomach, and then the enormous cock, which sprung up, thick and red and pulsing. He crawled over her to kiss her once more in the soft light of his bedroom, then plunged into her. Her back arched with pleasure and her nails slipped into the soft skin of his back.