Another pang pulled at her heart and she detested all those who’d made the kindly man’s life a misery and loving Alex all the more for having once been a friend to him.
He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. She must be madder than a madman running the halls of Bedlam to turn down such a safe, practical offer. “Thank you, my lord,” she said softly.
He bowed. “My lady.” With that, he took his leave.
Seated on the comfortable squabs of his carriage, he withdrew his watch fob for surely the hundredth time and consulted the time on his pocket watch. With a curse, he stuffed it back into his pocket then tugged the red velvet curtain aside. He peered at the clogged roadways. The cheerful hothouse blooms on the opposite seat stared mockingly at him.
At this rate, Primly would have put his offer to Imogen, married her and spirited her off to the country. He growled and banged on the roof of the carriage and his driver pulled hard on the reins of the team. “Bloody hell,” he muttered as the jerky stop tossed him against the side of the carriage. The flowers tumbled to the floor.
“Lord Alexander?” the servant, James, called.
Alex shoved the door open and leaped out of the conveyance. “I’ll walk the remainder of the way.” He grunted as the jarring movement coursed up his leg.
The liveried servant adjusted his cap and eyed the busy streets skeptically. “You’re certain, Lord Alexander?” He glanced about the crowded streets and then to Alex.
“I am.” With that, he started along the fashionable streets of Mayfair, onward toward… He cursed and spun around and nearly collided with James. The man gave a lopsided grin and held up the forgotten bouquet of white roses.
“You forgot your flowers, my lord.”
Dismissing, the curious stares from passersby trained on him, he accepted the flowers with a murmured thanks and strode down the street once more. Dread stirred in his chest and built slowly as he imagined Primly, even now, dropping to a chivalrous knee and offering Imogen his name, and worse, his heart. Alex picked up his pace, weaving between the throngs of lords and ladies out at the fashionable hour. He should have arrived earlier. He’d not required the flowers. Only he’d wanted the flowers. After what the Duke of Montrose had stolen from her, Imogen deserved sonnets and flowers and love and more. He gritted his teeth so hard pain radiated up his jawline. What good would his meager offerings be if she’d already accepted Primly’s damned suit? She could not have. And God help Alex for being the bastard he was, for if she did, he wanted her to break it off with the other man, throw him over, and have Alex…
Panic built in time to the frantic beat of his steps and he lengthened his stride as the white stucco finish of her family’s townhouse came into focus. Alex sprinted the remaining distance. He bounded up the handful of steps just as the front door opened.
Lord Primly stepped out.
The flowers slipped from Alex’s fingers and fell in a thump on the stone stoop. Ah God.
An always, entirely, too cheerful Primly grinned. “Hullo, Edgerton. So good to see you.” No, it wasn’t. It was bloody torture seeing the other man here, knowing what, rather who, had brought him here.
“Primly,” he squeezed out past a tight throat. “A pleasure,” he lied. He wanted to hate the man. He truly did.
The man, who’d have Imogen for himself, dropped his gaze. “Oh, y-you’ve dropped your f-flowers,” he said, a smile in his voice. He picked them up and held them out.
Alex accepted the wilted bouquet in a confounded quiet. Did the gentleman truly realize what brought Alex here?
Surely he did not. For Primly’s smile widened as he tipped the brim of his hat. “Good day, Edgerton.”
Struggling for breath, Alex spun to the still open door and entered behind the greying butler. He shifted the rapidly wilting, crushed blooms in his hands and fished around the front of his jacket for his card. “Lord Alex Edgerton to see Lady I-Imogen,” he said with a newfound appreciation for how difficult it was for Primly to go through life in a constant state of anxiety. He shrugged out of his cloak and a servant rushed forward to relieve him of his burden.
The butler studied the card a moment and then motioned him forward. “Lady Imogen is receiving visitors in the drawing room.”
His mouth dry, Alex fell into step behind the old servant, his mind curiously blank. What if she’d accepted Primly’s offer? Agony gripped his chest. What if she saw the truth, that Alex was, in fact, the worthless bounder his father had always accused him of being? What if Gabriel and even Imogen herself had been wrong and she’d at last realized that he was unworthy…?
The butler stopped before an opened door. “The Lord Alexander Edgerton,” he announced.
Perched on the edge of her chair, with a book atop her lap, Imogen’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Alex,” she blurted. She hopped to her feet, her emerald green skirts rustling noisily. The leather volume tumbled from her lap, falling noisily to the floor.
He stuck his rumpled offering out. “I’ve brought you these.” Did that harsh, guttural tone belong to him?
She tipped her head at an endearing angle. “You—?”
Alex stalked over and spoke, cutting into her words. “I lied to you.”
Imogen opened and closed her mouth several times and then called out to the maid in the corner. “Lucy, will you see to refreshments?” She gave the servant a pointed look. The young maid hopped to her feet and hurried from the room, closing the door partially behind her. “Alex, I—”
“I lied to you,” he repeated. He dragged a hand through his hair. “I told you to accept Primly. I told you that I’d only attended Ferguson’s ball at my sister’s bequest. Both lies.” He tossed the bouquet of flowers onto the rose-inlaid table and claimed her hands, raising them to his lips one at a time. “I was there because of you.”
“I know that,” she said softly. Did she? Could she truly know that as he’d sat at his clubs, he’d been ravaged inside at the idea of her facing down the cruel ton, with no one but her empty-headed mother at her side?
“I’d intended to write you a sonnet.”
Her eyes lit with such pleased surprise, regret twisted in his belly. “But I’m rubbish at composing sonnets.”
Imogen’s lips twitched with a smile.
Alex picked the bouquet up and held it out to her.
“Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar
but never doubt thy love.”
Her lips parted on a small moue of surprise at the familiar lines of Shakespeare’s verses.
Alex held her gaze, the brilliant blue of her eyes piercing him. “If you wed Primly, it will destroy me.” Destroy him in ways his father never had managed. He fisted the bouquet so hard a vicious thorn bit through the satin wrap and pierced his gloved hand. “He offered for you, didn’t he?”
Imogen removed the flowers from his tight grip. “He did.” She set them down on the table.
Alex stared blankly down at the white roses. He’d lost her. “I see.” Emotion climbed into his throat and threatened to choke him. He pressed his eyes closed, aware now more than ever how woefully inadequate he was—how undeserving.
“I don’t believe you do.” A soft caress upon his cheek brought his eyes open. “Not if you insist on keeping your eyes closed as you do.”
“Did you accept his offer?” The moments since he’d asked that question passed with an agonizing slowness.
“I did not,” she said at last. With an exaggerated sigh she claimed his face between her hands. “How could I ever accept his offer when I love you as you do?”
His throat worked spasmodically. “I believed he would be better for you. He could offer you the title of countess.”
“Which I do not want.”
“And a routine, staid life.”
“Perfectly dull and boring.”
Alex looped his arm about her waist and drew her close. “You crave passion and excite
ment, do you, Imogen?” he asked, lowering his mouth close to hers.
“No, Alex,” her whispered reply froze him, their lips a hairsbreadth apart. “I crave only you.”
He’d spent his entire life proving himself to be a shiftless bounder, an indolent rogue who cared about no one’s pleasures but his own. Until this slender slip of a lady had shown him that he wanted more. “Then if you’ll have me, I’d make you my wife.” He wanted her.
Imogen leaned up on tiptoe and claimed his lips. He slanted his lips over hers, reacquainting himself with the soft, supple contours of her bow-shaped mouth. Alex drew back and she moaned in protest. “Is that a yes, love?”
A slow, saucy smile tipped her lips up in the corners. “That is a yes.”
Epilogue
“It seems dreadful giving it up,” Lady Anne, the Countess of Stanhope, said on a beleaguered sigh to the group of ladies accompanying her down the crowded, cobbled, London roads. “It has been such a part of our lives—”
The lady’s sisters, Lady Katherine and Lady Aldora, paused to shoot her a dark look, quelling the remainder of those words. “Do hush, it is hardly fair to keep the item,” Aldora scolded.
Walking beside the ladies, Imogen listened as the sisters debated the fate of a certain bauble. The item in question being the fabled heart of a duke pendant.
Anne bristled defensively. “I’m not saying we should keep it. Of course the pendant must find its way to some other young lady who might win the heart of her duke.”
“Or the heart of her love,” her twin sister, Katherine, murmured at her sister’s side.
Yes, the ladies, now joined together by bonds that moved beyond friendship, bonds to know true love, could all attest to the power of that heart pendant now carried in Aldora’s reticule.
“She is here.” Lady Aldora drew to a stop at the end of the pavement, eyeing the cluster of colorful tents at the end of Gypsy Hill.
“How do you know?” Lady Katherine asked, furrowing her brow as she took in the crowds littering the streets. The air rang with the peals of gypsy vendors hawking their wares.
“She knows because she has been here.” The lovely blonde Countess of Stanhope clasped her hands to her chest. “She has met Bunică not once, but twice and we shall now meet her….”
As the excited, young lady prattled on and on, Imogen stole a glance over her shoulder at the gentlemen trailing close after them. Her husband walked beside his friend, the Earl of Stanhope. Alex paused mid-sentence and looked questioningly at her. Imogen gave him a smile and he grinned in return. A contented sigh escaped her lips.
“Come along,” Lady Aldora said and then set off through the crowds, picking her way down the street. The lady’s sisters and their husbands followed along.
Imogen fell back. The lone unwed woman at her side eagerly eyed the street excitement with little interest or regard for the legendary pendant. She touched a hand to Chloe’s.
The young lady startled and returned her attention to Imogen. She looked at her askance. “What—?”
“Surely you wish to wear the pendant, Chloe.” Imogen looked over at Alex who stood back, allowing the young ladies their privacy.
Chloe snorted. “Surely I do not.”
Imogen captured her other hand and gave them both a squeeze. “But you must want love for yourself.”
Chloe ran her gaze over Imogen’s face and then applied gentle pressure to her fingers. “Oh, Imogen. I knew you and Alex would be perfect together.” Her lips twisted up in a wry smile. “I also knew you were both too bloody obstinate to ever see the truth before you.” A mischievous twinkle lit the other woman’s eyes. “You merely required a little help.”
Imogen’s mouth fell agape. “Why…why…?” Why, her friend had played matchmaker with an ease most society matrons would have admired. She widened her eyes. “Alex did not tell me.”
Chloe squeezed her hands once more. “It is enough that you two found love.” She looked over at Alex, now consulting his timepiece, and then she returned her attention to Imogen. The earlier light gone from her eyes. “My brother is a good man. I know that. And that is how I knew he’d make you an ideal match. But there are no others. No others I’d trust beyond my brothers…” Her words trailed off.
Regret pulled at Imogen. When her own heart had been shattered by her sister’s betrayal, Chloe had forced her to hold onto the dream of love and magic and romance, and yet… She should not hold even a dash of any of those sentiments for herself.
Then as though she’d merely imagined the other woman’s grim solemnity, Chloe’s face lit with a smile. “Enough of this seriousness. With Alex wedded and my mother returned, she’ll be scheming to marry her remaining children off.” She wrinkled her nose. “And therefore I intend to enjoy my time with the gypsies. Mayhap they have some other manner of magic for one such as me.” With a wink, she hurried ahead after the twin sisters who lingered beside a red tent, where a coarse vendor peddled his wares, a monkey atop his shoulder.
A pair of firm, reassuring, and now familiar hands settled about her shoulders. “What is it, love?” Alex whispered against her ear.
She accepted the comfort of his touch, all the while staring after Chloe. “I am worried about her.” Even being thrown over and betrayed by her former love who’d gone and wed her sister, Imogen had still clung to a sliver of hope of happiness for herself. Chloe’s abject hopelessness in her own happiness chilled her.
Alex’s firm lips tipped down at the corners as he followed her gaze to his sister, laughing at something Lady Anne had just said to her. The clear, tinkling sound carried over to them and yet… “She will be all right.” He spoke as if more to himself.
How could he be so certain? Imogen chewed her lower lip, worrying. How could he know…?
“I know because I believe in love,” he murmured, his breath fanned her cheek. “You taught me that love is indeed very real and, more importantly, to trust in giving myself over to the power of those sentiments. You saved me, Imogen,” he said simply. “And believing that now as I do, how can I truly ever believe a woman such as Chloe will not know love?” Alex raised her gloved hands to his mouth one at a time, pressing his lips against her knuckles.
“But—”
“Do you believe in love?” he charged.
“How can I not?” How when her every day was brighter, her joy greater, her heart fuller because of him?
“Then trust, Imogen.” Taking her by the hand, he tucked it into the crook of his elbow. “Now come along. I daresay a lady who quotes Shakespeare and dreams of romance would relish being here at Gipsy Hill.”
Imogen leaned close to her husband. Trust. He’d have her trust that Chloe would be well. He spoke with the same bold assurance of a man who’d found love and believed. He credited her with having opened his eyes. And yet, as they set after Chloe, she acknowledged the truth—they’d saved each other.
The End
Loved By a Duke
By
Christi Caldwell
Dedication
To Sarah.
On this writing journey I embarked upon, finding you and your friendship has been one of the greatest gifts. You are my meme master, the eyes upon my drafts, and more…a friend and mother with whom I can celebrate the great, and also lean upon when times are hard. Thank you. For Everything.
Prologue
Leeds, England
1805
At just eleven years of age, Lady Daisy Laurel Meadows, in all her infinite wisdom, realized the inherent silliness of her name. Everyone knew it. She frowned at the adults scattered about the table, breaking their fast, and then settled her glare on the two people responsible for that silliest of names. Her parents, otherwise engrossed in conversation with the Duke and Duchess of Crawford, failed to note her displeasure.
That is, everyone knew it…except for her mother and father, the Marquess and Marchioness of Roxbury. They seemed to think there was nothing wrong in naming one’s daughter, Daisy. While her
surname was Meadows.
She propped her elbows on the table. Silly name. From across the table, the cluster of three girls looked over at Daisy, giggling behind their hands. She picked up the buttered roll from her plate and tore it with her teeth.
Of course, her mother chose that precise moment to glance up. She gave Daisy a pointed look. Daisy chewed the warm, flaky bread then swallowed. She dropped the remainder of the roll onto her plate.
Someone set hands upon her shoulders and she jumped. A smile split her lips as she stared up at her older brother. “Lionel!”
He whispered close to her ear. “They’re just jealous, Daisy.”
“You came.” She wrinkled her nose. “And no, they’re not.” They had golden curls and perfect porcelain white skin while she had plain, brown hair and too many freckles.
“Do you imagine Mother and Father would have allowed me not to come to their annual summer party?”
She snorted. “Certainly not.”
He tweaked her nose. “And yes, Daisy. Those young ladies are indeed green with envy. Someday you’re going to realize just how lovely you are.” He glanced over at his two friends, Marcus, Lord Wessex, and Auric, Lord Ashburn, future Duke of Crawford. “Isn’t that right, gentlemen? She’s perfectly lovely, isn’t she?”
Lord Marcus yawned and wandered over to the sideboard. His answer was quite clear.
Lord Auric winked at her. “Perfectly lovely.” He leaned down. “In fact, when you have your Come Out, I’ll gladly make you my future duchess.”
Her heart tripped a little beat.
“See that, Daisy?” She whipped her head around to look back at her brother. “You’ll become a duchess someday when all those other, unkind, girls find themselves with mere future marquesses such as myself.”
She swatted his arm. “Don’t be silly. I’ll not let you wed a single one of those nasty creatures.”
Lionel cuffed her on the chin. “Well, you will be a duchess, so you’ll be able to command even me with a single look.” He knocked his friend on the arm. “Granted, when you make your Come Out, Auric will be one of those old dukes with a quizzing glass to his eye.”
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