The Dissolute Duke

Chapter Five

God, she knew. Lucinda Alice Ellesmere was guessing his secrets as easily as if he had written them down for her, one after the other of sordid truth.

He should have remained silent, but the old man and his useless dreams had rattled him, made him remember his own hopes as his mother and father had spat and hissed each and every word to the other, unmindful of a small child who heard the endless malice and rancour. He had promised himself he would never marry and yet here he was, chained to a family who would like nothing better than to see him dead and buried.

‘If you slope off now you won’t get a penny, Alderworth.’ Cristo Wellingham came to his side, the room they were in empty. Unexpectedly Lucinda’s youngest brother produced a cheroot. ‘You have the look of a man who might need one,’ he said, offering a light and waiting as Tay took the first few puffs. Smoke curled towards the ceiling, a screen of white and then gone. Tay wished he could have disappeared as easily as it did and, closing his eyes for a second, he leaned back against the wall, enjoying the first rush of its effects.

‘I look forward to the day when the guilt of your sister’s lies finally brings her to her senses.’ The exhaustion in his voice was disconcerting, but the day had taken its toll and he was tired of the pretence.

‘When you will likely be squandering what is left of your blood money in some poverty-stricken dive, remembering the ill that you did to a blameless innocent and wondering how you came to such a pass.’

He laughed at that. ‘You did not enjoy a few of your wife’s charms before marrying her?’ A shadow rewarded the query and so he continued. ‘I kissed your sister and brought her home. That was all. If she insists otherwise, then I say she lies.’

‘With a reputation as disreputable as your own, a lack of belief in anything you say cannot be surprising.’

‘Then allow me one boon, Lord Cristo. Allow me the small privilege of some knowledge of how your sister fares once I have gone.’

‘Why would you want that? You have made it plain enough that a substantial payment constitutes the sum total of your care.’ He stepped back. ‘There won’t be more from where that came from, no matter what you might say.’

‘You will always hold her safe, then?’ Tay had not meant to ask the question, but it slipped from him like a living thing, important and urgent, the last promise he might extract before he was gone.

‘Safer than you damn well did,’ came the reply, but in Cristo Wellingham’s dark eyes puzzlement flickered. Using it to his advantage, Taylen pressed on.

‘If I wrote, would you give her my letters?’

‘Yes.’ Ground out, but honest. When Lucinda’s brother turned and left he was glad he had been given even that slight hope of contact.

Lucinda felt exhausted by all the smiles and good wishes given with such genuine congeniality that the scandal disappeared into a God-ordained union that restored the balance of chaos in a highly regulated world. A violation covered up. A wrong righted. A happy ending to a less-than-salubrious beginning.

She had been surprised at the way the Duke of Alderworth had stood next to her for the past twenty minutes, his manner with the guests at odds with his self-proclaimed lack of interest in polite society. Perhaps he, too, had finally seen that in a good show of pretence there lay freedom. When his arm touched hers the full length of warmth seared in, the shock of contact electric, her breath held still by an awareness that she had felt with no other before him.

If only she might remember what a night in his bed felt like. The very idea made her frown, because in it she sensed she was missing something important.

‘You look concerned.’ Alderworth used a gap in the line of well-wishers to address her directly.

‘It seems for all your reputation, people here are inclined to give you a second chance. I was wondering why.’

‘Perhaps it’s because you stand up as my bride, a Wellingham daughter who might deign to lend her name to my sullied one.’

‘No. It is more than that. They accord you a certain begrudging respect, which is interesting.’

‘Vigilance might be a more apt word!’ Unexpectedly he smiled at her, the green in his eyes relaxing into gold, and with the colour of his skin burnished into bronze by the outdoors and his dark hair so shortened, he looked … unmatched. Her brothers were handsome, but the Duke had some spark of incomparable beauty that set him apart from everyone else Lucinda had ever seen.

The vapidity of her thoughts held her mute.

‘Frowning does not suit you as much as laughter does,’ he remarked.

‘Of late there has not been too much to be delighted by.’

‘I am sorry for that.’

‘Are you?’ Even amidst a crowd of family friends she could not leave the question unvoiced.

She saw him glance around to check the nearness of those in his vicinity before he gave a reply.

‘I lived with lies all of my childhood, Duchess, and do not wish to encourage them. If you insist on such deception then that is your prerogative, but I will never understand it.’

Both her new title and his unwarranted anger made Lucinda step back, the same scene she had remembered at the breakfast table a week ago replaying over and over in her head.

His nakedness, the red wine, the feel of his warm skin against her own. The door locked and the key hidden. No opportunity to simply leave.

‘London is a haven for gossip, Duke, and because of your actions my name has been slandered from one edge of it to the other.’

‘A reputation lost for nothing, then.’

Lucinda paled. Did he speak of her virginity in such scathing terms? She was glad her brothers were nowhere nearby to hear such an accusation.

‘For nothing?’ She could barely voice the question. ‘You are a reprobate, your Grace, of the highest order and the fate that flung us together at Alderworth will be regretted by me for the rest of my life. Bitterly.’ There was no longer any conciliation in her tone.

He had the temerity to smile. ‘Then it is a shame you did not make full use of our evening together and understand the true benefits that uninhibited sensuality can bring. Better to have enjoyed a night in my bed learning all you needed to know about the art of love and regretted it, than repenting the “nothing” you have been crucified for.’

Shocked, she turned on her heels and left him, not caring who saw her flee. He would castigate her for her poor performance in bed when she could recall none of it. Her blood rose to boiling and she hated her pronounced limp.

‘Are you feeling well, Lucinda?’ Emerald waylaid her before she had reached the door.

‘Very.’ Even to a beloved sister-in-law she couldn’t betray him entirely, a trait she did not understand at all.

‘Alderworth will be gone before the end of this week and you will never need to see him again.’

The absurdity of such a statement suddenly hit her, the first glimpse of her life after today. Was she destined then to always be alone, marriage-less and childless? Would she now linger in the corner of society with those hapless spinsters who spoke of unrequited love or of no love at all? Not ruined, but blighted by her lack of adherence to the normal conventions and suffering because of it.

The headache she had been cursed with all day bloomed with a fierce pain, blurring her vision. A migraine. She had had them badly ever since the accident.

Understanding her malady, Emerald took her hand and led her from the room, the familiar flight of stairs to her childhood bedroom welcomed. A refuge. A place to hide.

With care Emerald helped her undress and pulled down her hair till it fell about her waist, the heaviness of it causing her temples to throb harder.

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