Carla Kelly (16 page)

He leaned forward and possessed himself of one of her hands. “Libby, you will have to forgive me. I did come to Kent with the intent of reconnoitering the terrain for Eustace.” His face reddened right down to his collar. “I suppose I will not surprise you when I admit that it was something I agreed to when I was cross-eyed and feeling no pain.”

She nodded. “I suspected as much. Was that why you mixed up our names?”

He chuckled, obviously feeling himself on higher ground. “You will have to agree that ‘Lydia’ and ‘Libby’ sound somewhat alike. Imagine how they sounded to someone half gone.” He took her hand to his lips. “And Eustace never mentioned a beautiful cousin.”

Flattery, flattery, she thought. “Why on earth did your friend think he needed to resort to such a stratagem? Surely the agreement between the fathers had no actual binding force.”

The duke released her hand and restored himself with another sip of tea. “Although he is a friend of mine, and has been since Eton, I do not equivocate to state that Eustace Wiltmore is a frivolous, flighty fellow, somewhat suspicious of the married state. He just wanted to make sure the Lydia Ames didn’t have spots or gap teeth or a squint-eyed stare.” He leaned back in his chair, not taking his eyes from her face, as if gauging her reaction to his words. “Even with his pockets empty and the creditors scratching at his door, Eustace is fastidious about appearances.”

Libby rose and went to the window seat. How odd men are, she thought. Eustace is no beauty, and besides, it sounds as though he has not a feather to fly with and needs a wealthy connection. And he was concerned that Lydia would not suit? She turned to regard the duke, who was watching her carefully. How mercenary men are, and how vain. She felt a cool breeze cross her face and she shivered.

“I trust that he is agreeably surprised at his good fortune?” she asked, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Does Lydia Ames suit? Should he open her mouth and count her teeth? Perhaps when they hurry to London he can duck away long enough to audit Uncle Ames’ worth on the Exchange? Does no one marry for love?”

“I do,” said the duke impulsively, as though her own angry tirade had jolted the words from his brain. “Libby, when does your uncle return?”

“I . . . I have no idea,” she stammered, caught off-guard and vastly mistrusting the sudden light that had come into his eyes. “I believe he plans to continue in Brighton, at least until the hops harvest.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to commit the ultimate folly and inquire why, but she knew she did not need to ask. She could see the reason in his eyes. He loves me, she thought suddenly. He knows that I am not the heiress and he loves me anyway. Without another thought in her head, she held out her arms to him and found herself tight in his embrace.

“Libby, Libby,” he murmured, “you cannot imagine how I have wanted to do this.”

She kissed him and rested her cheek against his chest. “I seem to recall that you already did this in the orchard yesterday.”

He took a firmer stance and wrapped his arms around her, enfolding her in a possessive embrace. “That was only practice. This is for real. I cannot imagine returning to London—and I must, my dear!—without some sort of sign from you that my suit will not be entirely unwelcome.”

He kissed her. His fingers traced the outline of her jaw and then found themselves caught in her unbound hair. He kissed her neck and throat, and with only the deepest strength of will, Libby put her hands against his chest and pushed him gently away.

“That will do for now, my lord,” she said breathlessly. “I am still somewhat out of charity with you for the joke you have pulled on me, and I may remain this way for some considerable time.”

He kissed her solemnly on the nose. “At least until I have the opportunity to speak to your uncle, eh?”

“Probably until then, sir.”

“Brighton, you say? I can be there tomorrow.”

“So you can,” she said, and turned her cheek toward him for one last chaste peck. “Sir, what
is
your name?”

“It is Benedict Nesbitt, so I was not far wrong, and my friends do call me Nez.”

“And what should I call you?” she teased.

“Oh, I am partial to ‘my lord,’ or perhaps ‘your grace,’” he said. “We have time to decide on a name, dear Libby, something suitably grand to puff up my pretensions.”

“And you have no connections with Copley Chocolatier?”

“None beyond the fact that I am one of their more ardent customers.” He kissed her hand then and looked up into her laughing eyes. “Will you see me off in the morning, my dear? I go on an errand of considerable importance to both of us.”

“I wonder what it can be?” she said, her dimple showing. “While you are there, I suggest that you get acquainted with my mother, too. Her word has considerable weight in our household. Oh, I love you, Nez.”

***

The duke left the room with such a surfeit of exhilaration that if he had put his mind to it, he surely could have walked upon water. He rubbed his hands together, relishing the moment when he would present Elizabeth Ames to his mother and sister, who had schemed so long and hard to find him a wife suitable for a duke. He would present his dear Libby with a flourish—if she would let him—and just for once, perhaps Gussie would tell him what a capital fellow he was and applaud his judgment.

He went slowly down the stairs, noting how soft the lamplight was in early evening, how rosy the sunset through the wavy glass of the stairwell landing. Everything about him looked more vivid because he loved and was loved.

True, the bulk of the legendary Ames fortune would reside in Eustace Wiltmore’s pocket; the Earl of Devere was marrying the heiress. But surely any brother of Sir William Ames would have been sufficiently juicy to settle an ample cushion on such a daughter. Not that the duke required a transfusion; revenue from the Knaresborough estate alone would have maintained them in elegant comfort, and that was not his only investment. It was just the idea that pleased him and made him break into song as he descended the stairs and threw open the library door.

Eustace and his ladylove were sitting close together, ignoring the books that lined the walls. The earl had removed his elegant coat so that Lydia would not wrinkle it as she nestled in his arms. Eustace stared in surprise at the duke’s peremptory entrance and took immediate exception to it.

“Dear boy, must you burst into a room as though it were a new discovery? Lud, I could easily be frightened out of the rest of my hair.”

“Egad, I am all atwitter,” replied the duke, flopping himself down across from them. He clapped his hands together and leapt to his feet again, leaning against the fireplace mantel in what he hoped was a studied, casual manner, no matter how fast his heart raced.

“Wish me happy, Eustace,” he said simply, and waited for the congratulations to lave over him.

He was met with silence. His friend stared at him, his pop eyes more pronounced than usual. Lydia Ames sat bolt upright, a look of real bewilderment on her face. “Beg pardon?” she asked when Eustace seemed unable to supply the text.

“I am going to Brighton tomorrow to ask your father’s permission to marry Libby,” he told Lydia.

Lydia stared at him and then burst into laughter. As he watched in amazement and growing irritation, she threw back her head and roared, clutching her sides and drumming her feet on the floor.

“So glad you are amused,” he said finally, and looked to Eustace for help.

After a moment, Lydia regained her control over herself. She wiped her streaming eyes and fought down the laughter that continued to bubble to the surface.

“I had no idea my marrying Libby would bring you such amusement,” the duke said.

Lydia shook her head, waved her arms helplessly, and sailed off again in another gust of glee, while Eustace rose to his feet and carefully straightened his neckcloth, examining the damage in the fireplace mirror.

“Nez, dear boy, have you seriously got something against your mother, sister, and six generations of dukes?” he asked, his voice casual.

“What can you possibly mean?” snapped the duke, his patience gone. “I only want to marry Libby Ames. Surely that won’t cause any heartburn.”

His angry words hung in the air. Eustace turned around slowly to face him.

“Can it be that she has not told you?” he asked.

“Told me what?” said the duke, biting off his words and resisting the urge to grab his friend by the neckcloth he was so carefully adjusting.

“Libby doesn’t possess a single penny, and her mother’s father sold chewing tobacco to sailors in Portsmouth,” Lydia said, her eyes merry. “She will be a duchess that no one in London ever forgets.”

The silence that settled over the library was so heavy with tension that it seemed to suck the air from the room. Lydia sidled toward the door while Eustace ran his finger around his collar. The duke felt the blood drain from his face.

“How can this be?” he asked finally when the quiet in the room threatened to settle all around them like Holland cloths. He looked at Lydia, who stopped moving toward the door and stood still as if nailed there. “The Ames fortune is about as well-known as your father’s charming eccentricities.”

Lydia had nothing to say. She stared at him out of frightened eyes as Eustace scuttled to her side and took her hand.

“Really, dear boy,” the earl murmured. “One mustn’t shoot the messenger, must one?”

Nez shook his head, made a futile motion with his hand, and sank into the chair again. When Lydia, watching him carefully, remained rooted to the spot, he motioned her closer. “Forgive me, Miss Ames, but please tell me what is going on. I am obviously in the dark here.”

Lydia tiptoed to the sofa she had deserted and perched herself gingerly upon it. “Libby’s father met her mother in Portsmouth before he shipped out to Spain for the first time. He eloped with her, and his father disowned him. The title was to have been his. My father is the younger son. Papa only gave them a place to live last year because they were destitute and had nowhere to go. Libby told you none of this?”

The duke made another impotent gesture and then rested his head in his hands. “I never asked. Why should I have done so? I assumed from the first that she was you, and even after I found out differently this afternoon, I assumed that because she was an Ames, there was still the family fortune to spread about, and a good name in the bargain. A tobacco merchant’s granddaughter, eh? Good God.”

“Hmmmm, yes, dear boy,” Eustace said. “Rather less distinguished than a purveyor of chocolates, I suppose.” His feeble joke passed unnoticed by the duke, but the earl did not let that stop him. “And when word gets about, as these things do, I doubt that anyone will give you the time of day, at least not without a giggle.” He patted his friend on the knee. “Better give it a miss, my boy.”

Without a word, the duke jumped up and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

He didn’t know how far he walked that night. The country was dark and still unfamiliar to him. He recognized Holyoke when he strolled through after midnight, hands deep in his pockets, head down. The lamps were lit, the few streets deserted. His knee began to pain him, but he walked on, passing the Cook estate. There was a light on, and he nearly turned in, wanting a word with the doctor but not sure what to say.

He walked until his body was exhausted and his mind equally tired. Still he walked, his stride automatic and well-remembered from days of soldiering through Belgium. He walked to a cadence of “You fool, you fool, you fool,” that repeated endlessly through his whole body and made him sob out loud.

There had been no deception on Libby’s part, of this he was sure. Like a dunce he had assumed too much, and now he would have to go to her in the morning, look into her loving face, and take it all back. He would have to find the words to tell her that he had been an idiot and they would not suit and would she please forgive him, et cetera. There wouldn’t be any visit to Brighton, and no trip to London with Libby Ames at his side. He would never have the contentment of seeing her face first thing each morning for the rest of his life. As much as he loved her, there wasn’t any way he could ever marry her, no way on earth. Such things happened only in vulgar novels, and he knew it.

When the sun rose, he found his way back to Holyoke Green. He sat quietly on the lawn, watching the smoke begin to rise from the chimneys as the house came to life again. He startled the goose girl when she tiptoed barefoot across the lawn to turn loose her charges. She eyed him suspiciously and made a wide detour around him, her switch clutched tight.

Are you a tobacconist’s daughter? he thought as he watched her hurry through the wet grass. Oh, God, what was I thinking?

That he loved Libby Ames, he had no doubt. That he owed her his life, and more, of this also he had no doubt. He also knew that she would never be the Duchess of Knaresborough. That title would have to go now by default to one or another of the bloodless little bits of blancmange that Gussie found for him, with titles to match his own. It scarcely mattered which woman he chose. He would marry well and do his duty and grit his teeth and raise his family and wish himself to hell every day of his life.

He heard a window open and looked up, his heart in his throat. Libby stood framed in the sill, leaning out as she had done every morning she came into his room, looking with appreciation on another June day in Kent. She rested her elbows on the sill, her long brown hair a glory around her face.

Instinctively, he moved farther back into the shadow of the trees so she could not see him, and cursed himself for cowardice. How could he possibly look into those blue eyes and tell her that he had made a dreadful mistake? He knew that he could not.

An idea drifted into his skull. It buzzed about inside his head like a fly intent on a midden, and then settled quietly somewhere while he considered its merits.

That Libby Ames loved him, he knew as surely as he knew his own name. And more than that, she had loved him when there was no more promise than that he would be selling chocolate for the rest of his life. There was nothing in her of the well-turned-out beauties he was used to, the young ladies trained since babyhood to flirt and tease, always with an eye to titles and investments. He could have been doddering, bald, and without a tooth in his head, and those paragons would not have looked upon him with any less affection. Or any more.