A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle

by Christi Caldwell

  “It was Lionel’s idea to visit that hell.”

  Did those words belong to Wessex? Or were they his own. He spun to face the other man. “It was Lionel’s decision to go there.”

  Wessex stared into the contents of his glass, swirling the amber drops in a slow circle. “You wanted no part of the filthy underbelly of London.”

  Auric dragged trembling fingers through his hair and closed his eyes once again, as he tried to pull together the rest of the pieces of that night. He’d wanted to visit one of the upscale brothels…Then he let his hand fall back to his side. “The woman.”

  His friend’s silence stood as confirmation of the niggling memory.

  The lithe creature with midnight black curls falling about her shoulders, and a promise in her eyes. They’d both wanted a place in the lady’s bed that evening. Ultimately, Lionel had ceded the opportunity, going with another, and ultimately meeting his death.

  It would have been me. Oh, God. The room dipped and swayed, and he shot a hand out, grasping for the wall to keep his legs from crumpling under him. Nausea churned in his belly as at last the curtain lifted and the past was revealed. “It should have been me,” his voice emerged in a hoarse croak.

  Wessex cursed. The floorboards creaked, indicating the other man moved. “You would still take on the guilt of that night? Even knowing—”

  “If I’d gone to her rooms instead—”

  “Then you’d be dead,” his friend said bluntly.

  And Lionel would be alive.

  He thought of Daisy, his wife, and the secrets he’d withheld from her. In truth, there was no greater crime than this. Emotion cloyed at his insides, clutched at his mind and drove back logic and reason. If he did not leave, he’d descend into madness. He stalked across the floor.

  “Where are you going?” Wessex called out.

  Auric ignored him, needing to be free of the memories that now surged through him with a staggering clarity, more horrific and nauseating for the realness of them. He yanked the door open and collided with Daisy.

  Auric shot his hands out and steadied her shoulders. He released her suddenly, taking in her wan complexion. Her freckles stood out in stark contrast to her pale white cheeks. She opened and closed her mouth several times.

  He swallowed hard and without another word, stepped around her and fled—from the truths, his wife’s agonized eyes, and a guilt he’d never be free of.

  Daisy stared after her husband’s swiftly retreating figure as he disappeared down the corridor. Her heart thundered, pounding painfully on the walls of her chest. She leaned against the doorframe, borrowing support from the wood, as everything she’d heard played out in her mind.

  All these years Auric had taken on the guilt as his own. He’d dwelt in a hell crafted in his mind, where, of some misguided guilt at surviving, he’d taken ownership of his, Lionel’s, and Marcus’ actions that night. It had been Lionel’s decision and but for some slight and significant twist of fate, Auric had went abovestairs with a different woman, and in doing so now lived. It could have been him.

  It should have been me.

  She pressed her fingers to her mouth, as pain rolled through her in slow waves. That is what he believed? That a world in which he was not in it was the preferable one? Loving Lionel as she did, and always would, God forgive her, she would never have sacrificed Auric, so that her brother could live. She needed him. In every way and any way she might have him. Now. She made to leave.

  “Daisy,” Marcus’ low, baritone froze her. She whirled around to face him. He stared back at her with concern and something indefinable in his blue eyes. “You heard.” A dull flush stained his cheeks.

  His was no statement and yet incapable of words or any sufficient response, she nodded. She cast another glance over her shoulder, wanting to set out after her husband. Daisy closed the door behind her and leaned against the hard, solid wood panel.

  “You were angry,” he said without preamble.

  Those words would have been insolent had they come from anyone else. For his annoyance with her when she’d been a child however, Marcus had still been more brother than anything else to her. “I was shocked,” she said, a trace of defensiveness in her tone.

  He steeled his jaw. “It was not his fault.” He stooped down and retrieved a now blackened journal. The same article that not even one day ago had upended her world. “For your presence and mine, and his visible role in polite Society, he has been alone these years now.”

  Her heart tightened at the truth of that. With the jealousy and regret she’d carried over his courtship of Lady Anne, Daisy would have traded her own happiness, her very own heart, if it could mean Auric had that which he deserved—the peace he craved, love with Lady Anne.

  “Here, take this.” Marcus held the book aloft.

  She shook her head jerkily, thinking of the reconciliation she’d made with his, theirs, and Lionel’s past. “I do not need to read his words.” She’d read enough, heard enough to know that they were his words and belonged to him. They’d all managed through their grief, in their own ways, or in her parents’ case, not at all. She would not rob him of his privacy to bring herself empty solace. Daisy folded her arms about her chest. She only needed him.

  “He loves you, Daisy.” It took a moment to register those words belonged to Marcus and were not merely the yearnings she’d carried so long in her heart.

  She picked her head up, her heart racing. “Did he say as much?” The question emerged hesitantly.

  A pained laugh escaped Marcus and he swiped a hand over his face. “Oh, Daisy, this is rich.”

  She cocked her head.

  He slashed the air with his hand, motioning in her direction, noisily rustling the pages of Auric’s book. “He’s always loved you. Just as you’ve always loved him. You two have both been blind to the truth seen by everyone who has ever known you.”

  Daisy fisted the daisy pendant in her hand so tightly, the metal bit into her palm. “I was an obligation,” she whispered to herself.

  “If you believe you were an obligation, then you are as big of a fool as he was with his damned insistence on finding you a husband, other than himself,” he said.

  She started unaware she’d spoken aloud. “Where has he gone, Marcus?” There was a faintly pleading note to those words. “I need to see him.” Needed to tell him she loved him, and there was no blame, so that perhaps he could begin to heal.

  Marcus lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know.” A pensive expression settled over his face.

  She rushed over in a whirl of skirts and took his hands. “Find him, Marcus. Bring him home.” To her. Where he’d always belonged.

  He searched her face a moment and then gave a brusque nod. With a short bow, he turned over Auric’s journal and took his leave.

  Daisy turned her attention to the badly burned leather volume, heavy in her hands. She fanned the pages and bits of black ash flaked off. Where would he go…where would he go…? Daisy’s fingers froze mid-movement. The steady tick-tock-tick-tock of the long-case clock grated in the stillness of the empty room. Guiltily, she dropped her gaze to the book in her hands. She’d vowed to not read Auric’s words.

  She wet her lips and guilt snaked through her. Except, this was no longer about the past. This was about the future. Daisy opened the book and turned the pages, skimming dates, and turning pages.

  And paused.

  22 April 1816

  Her heart started. The day he’d reentered her life. She scanned the sentences, feeling like the worst sort of interloper in his private thoughts, a thief, stealing words she had no right to.

  Saw the world in shades of russet…Her heart thumped a funny rhythm. At Gipsy Hill…

  Daisy’s heart kicked up a beat. Of course. She snapped the book shut and started for the door.

  Chapter 23

  Auric stood on the edge of the cobbled street. The calls of gypsies hawking their wares blurred in his mind in a cacophony. He glanced down
at the quizzing glass in his hand, turning it over in his palm. The morning sun’s rays played off the smooth lens, glinted off the metal, and momentarily blinded him.

  It is a quizzing glass. It helps you to see…

  Only, how little he’d truly seen these many years. Everything he’d ever wanted, everything he’d never known he needed had always been there, right before him. She had been there. And yet, he’d lost her. Lost her, long, long ago.

  “Can I help you find something, good sir?” The woman’s voice, aged and quiet cut across his silent musings.

  Auric stuffed the quizzing glass back into the front pocket of his jacket. “No,” he murmured. He wasn’t even sure what had called him here to this precise place. No, that was just another lie. He knew what had brought him here. This had been the place when he’d ceased to see Daisy as a small girl in need of protection and discovered Lady Daisy Laurel Meadows, the woman who’d cracked open his heart and reminded him of what it felt to…feel again.

  And damn if he did not detest all that went with living again.

  “Perhaps a gift for yer lady?”

  He stiffened, returning his attention to the insistent woman with her straggling, gray-black hair. He opened his mouth, but she brandished a long, yellow ribbon, ending the words on his lips. “Perhaps a ribbon for the lady’s hair?”

  He shook his head. “I—”

  She held up a small, ivory-plated, hand mirror. “A mirror then to capture her beauty?” She didn’t allow him to speak but continued on. “Or a pair of hair combs.”

  An image she’d been on their wedding day, glowing and grinning with the butterfly combs tucked in her dark brown curls flitted through his mind and a pressure settled in his chest. He managed to shake his head and she returned her attention to her colorful collection of goods.

  Auric reached into his coat and withdrew a small bag of coins. “Here,” he said gruffly, staying the old woman’s movements.

  She looked up expectantly and then eyed the purse for a long while.

  “Take it,” he said quietly, and pressed the bag into her gnarled fingers.

  The old gypsy hesitated and then tucked the bag into the pocket of her colorful, purple gown. He started down the cobbled street.

  “My lord.”

  He ignored the woman and took one step, another, and then stopped. Auric closed his eyes a moment and wheeled around to face her.

  She smiled at him, displaying a row of crooked, yellow teeth. “Perhaps a necklace for yer lady?” The chain twisted back and forth in her bent fingers, the sun reflecting off the gold piece.

  It is a heart pendant… About this big, and gold with slight etchings upon it…

  He sucked in a breath and of their own volition, his legs carried him forward.

  Wordlessly, she held the necklace out and Auric automatically accepted the small bauble. The muscles of his throat moved painfully. A heart. It was a heart. The very talisman his wife had tried to capture upon her embroidery frame. “It is perfect,” he said quietly. He fished around the front of his jacket for additional coins for the woman, but she held up both palms.

  “No, no. There will be no further coin for that.” She lowered her voice and spoke in such hushed tones he strained to hear. “There is a legend behind that necklace.” A slow, mysterious smile turned her lips up. “Some even say magic, that portends the wearer of it will—”

  “Auric!”

  He spun around and searched the clogged streets for the woman who that husky contralto belonged to.

  Daisy stood several carts away, hesitancy in her proud, narrow shoulders. She drew her reticule close to her person and took a tentative step toward him. Their gazes caught and a painful longing for a life with her besieged him. She wet her lips and continued walking toward him. “You left.” There was a faintly breathless quality to her words, an accusation, heated by the intensity in her eyes.

  There had been no reason to stay. His fingers curled reflexively about the gold pendant in his hand.

  Daisy held her palms up in supplication. “There was every reason to stay, Auric.” The reticule twisted and twirled in the faint spring breeze.

  His throat closed with emotion. They’d always shared a connection in which they could complete the other’s thoughts. “Was there, Daisy?” His voice emerged, hoarse and unrecognizable to his own ears. How could she forgive everything he’d cost her?

  Daisy let her reticule slip to the ground where it landed with a thump at her feet. She reached on tiptoe and captured his face between her hands. “Do you believe I could live in a world in which you were not in it? Do you believe I could or ever would have sacrificed you for Lionel?”

  Agony knifed through him. She tightened her grip upon his face. “I loved my brother, Auric,” she said quietly. “I always will and the pain of his loss will always, always be with me.”

  The muscles of his stomach tensed. “I’m s—”

  She gave her head a brusque shake, staying that useless apology.

  Yes, at some point, he too had reconciled that one was never truly free of such a loss. The jagged, empty hole left in Lionel’s absence would never be fully healed. “That pain will always be with us,” she softly amended. Daisy looked at him squarely. “But I don’t want to imagine a world without you in it.” She let her hands fall to her side and he mourned the loss of her touch.

  Ah, God he did not deserve her.

  Daisy’s chest rose up and down with the force of her emotion. She took a step closer so only a hairsbreadth of space separated them. “Perhaps you only wed me of obligation,” she began.

  “No.” The denial burst from his lips. Auric could not live knowing she believed herself a responsibility and nothing more. How could she not know how much she meant to him? Because you never let her in the way she deserved… He drew in a breath. “I convinced myself that was all it was, Daisy.” He dragged a quaking hand through his hair. “What was the alternative? Loving you, the woman who—”

  She pressed her fingertips to his lips, stopping the flow of those words. “I know you love me, Auric.” A tremulous smile hovered on her lips. “And I’ll have you any way I can have you. If yours is just the love of a friend—”

  He took her lips under his in a slow, silencing kiss. The noisy call of vendors hawking their wares and the rattle of carriages along the cobbled roads faded and he, who’d spent years valuing and honoring propriety and respectability because he couldn’t face the truth, kissed his wife, uncaring of anyone and everyone around them. Daisy leaned into his touch and met his kiss. He drew back and ran his gaze over her precious, heart-shaped face. Her lashes fluttered wildly, and when she opened her eyes, they were glazed with passion. He caressed her lower lip. “I love you, Daisy Laurel Meadows.”

  She said nothing for a long while, studying him with an assessing silence, and then that slow, mischievous, patently Daisy smile turned her lips up at the corners. “And I love you, husband.”

  Auric dropped the inexpensive bauble given him by the gypsy woman into his pocket. She narrowed her old, knowing eyes now intently studying them, but then a young woman stepped up to the wagon and called her attention away and she rushed to assist the young woman. He rescued Daisy’s reticule and handed it over to her. “Shall we go home?” He held out his hand.

  Daisy looked at his fingers a moment and then placed her fingertips in his. “Haven’t you realized, Auric?” she whispered.

  He furrowed his brow.

  “We already are,” she said softly.

  Her words washed over him, and a lightness he’d never thought to again feel filled his chest, freeing, and at last he knew peace.

  Epilogue

  17 January, 1817

  “It is time we say goodbye,” Auric murmured. His voice carried off the walls of his office. “I will forever appreciate everything you have done, the friend you’ve been to me.” He drew in a slow, steadying breath. “I will no longer require your assistance, however,” he said quietly. Even as the words lef
t his mouth, he recognized how ungrateful they seemed, how formal, and very aloof. “You see, I’ve another who listens and I will give myself wholly to her.” He paused. “And I know you would approve.”

  Auric sat back in his chair and studied the slightly charred, black leather book atop the mahogany surface of his desk. He ran his palm over the front of this piece that had been with him for eight years. Odd how an inanimate object had pulled him from the edge of despair and provided him some sliver of solace. He stood. However, he no longer required a mere sliver of solace. Daisy had filled his life with the peace and happiness he’d thought forever beyond his grasp. With purpose in his movements, he stood and carried the book across the room to the blazing hearth.

  He touched his lips to the cover of the volume and tossed it into the fire. The crimson red flames licked at the edges of the book, swiftly devouring the pages, until it burned bright in an orange-red blaze. “Goodbye,” he whispered.

  A sense of peace filled him. With that, he turned and started for the door. He pulled it open and made his way through the empty, quiet corridors of his London townhouse, passing portraits of his stern, frowning, ducal ancestors and their prim, unsmiling, and very un-Daisy-like duchesses. Auric climbed the stairs and made his way to a set of chamber doors.

  Mindful of the late hour, he pressed the handle and quietly stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to make order of the darkened chamber. He located Daisy propped amongst a cluster of pillows with a precious bundle in her arms. “Hullo,” she whispered softly, a smile wreathed her plump, freckled cheeks. He returned her smile. She returned her attention to the tiny babe cradled against her heart. Joy swelled in his chest, powerful and all-consuming. He swallowed back a wave of emotion. The roaring fire snapped and hissed angrily, thoroughly warming the room.