Duke Ever After (Dukes' Club Book 5) (4 page)

But in truth, Rosamund was fairly certain that Maeve loved the scandalous life as much as her former mistress had done.

And while the maid had truly wished to return to Scotland, it was clear she missed the old days of London Town.

Rosamund plunked herself down in the silk-cushioned chair and stared at her maid’s face reflected near her own in the mirror.

“Well,” she explained, “I was swimming and I quite literally bumped into him!”

Maeve stared for a moment then guffawed. “Were you nude?”

Rosamund gave a daring smile. “Aren’t I always when swimming?”

Maeve hid a cheeky smile of her own and began stroking the brush down Rosamund’s long locks. Then she gave a knowing glance. “Was
he
?”

“Oh my!” A sigh of appreciate escaped her lips. Just the very thought caused her cheeks to burn. “Yes!”

“From what I know, the Duke of Aston is a young gentleman. A handsome gentleman. A scandalous gentleman.”

Rosamund clapped her hands together, trying to put the thought of a naked Duke of Aston from her thoughts. Such contemplations would make her flustered and incapable of continuing this important conversation. “I was hoping you would know something.”

“Not much mind you,” Maeve warned. “He was abroad much of the time I was in London. But there was a great scandal about him and his father. The two hated each other and refused to be in the same room together. Apparently, because the young heir had gotten a girl pregnant on one of his early trips to Africa.”

That gave her pause. “A pregnancy?”

Maeve nodded as she continued to brush Rosamund’s hair. “Yes. No one talks of it openly, but there are whispers that he has a bastard child somewhere and that he goes to visit often.”

Well, it shouldn’t shock her she supposed. When one was as worldly as a man like Aston then there were bound to be children out of wedlock. . . Her own notorious grandmother had two children born on the wrong side of the blanket so to speak. Everyone knew and yet they’d been accepted into the family as cousins.

“What else?” she asked, feeling the more information she armed herself with, the better.

“He engaged in piracy, so they say.”

Rosamund twisted in her chair. “What?”

Maeve held the brush to the side and remained quite calm. “Oh, yes. He sailed under the pirate flag in the Caribbean and he’s acted as a privateer boarding French merchant ships during the war.”

“But. . . But he’s a duke,” Rosamund protested.

“A bored duke apparently who will seek adventure wherever he may.”

How could he then, a man so engaged in notorious exploits, be bothered by her station? Why had he run off so quickly and so determinedly?

And why was she thinking of even seeing him again? A pirate? Och. She was mad herself to consider tracking him down and insisting he, at least, be her friend. A rake was one thing, but if he’d been a pirate? My, he must have been absolutely brutal. A cutlass-wielding fellow who made people walk the plank!

“My lady?”

“Hmmm?”

“You’ve gone dreamy eyed.”

“I was distracted.”

If truth be known, she was dangerously close to fantasizing about a sea journey and a pirate boarding her own ship. Clearly, she’d been reading too many silly novels.

“Has he ever married or has there been an engagement?” she asked, trying to pull herself up out of the immorality into which she was so clearly eager to sink.

“No marriage and I’ve heard of no engagement.” Maeve leaned forward and said with a conspiratorial though unnecessary whisper, “One of the rumors is that he will never wed and the title will pass to a distant cousin. But this is just idle speculation. He’s a young man and has decades to marry and sire an heir.”

“Never wed?” she scoffed. “How preposterous. As a duke, that’s his first expected thing. . . To get another duke.”

“He seems to dislike the expectations put upon him. He meets none of them as far as I’m aware.”

Rosamund looked to the window, gazing out to the towering snow-touched bens. “I wonder what happened to make him so.”

“Don’t you think he might just be a bit of a bad one?”

She thought on that for a moment. She couldn’t believe it. People weren’t inherently bad.

“Well, Duncan used to be a world of fun,” she pointed out. “And now he’s completely the opposite because of specific events. Don’t you think it might be the same?”

“It might, but just you be careful, my lady,” Maeve said gesturing with the silver-backed brush. “Knowing
why
a man is bad doesn’t change the fact that he
is
.”

“That is exceptionally wise and very serious.”

“Well, I must be sometimes, mustn’t I?”

As she stared out at the towering bens that were a beautiful boundary she’d only escaped through books, she couldn’t help wishing she could step foot over them once. Just once. “Don’t you long for a bit of adventure?”

“I had a great deal of it as you know.”

“How could you give it up?”

Maeve grew serious. “Because sometimes the danger outweighs the enjoyment.”

Rosamund nibbled her lip. “I don’t understand. Oh, I understand that there are consequences for women who don’t do as they should but. . . Danger?”

Maeve smiled softly and twisted Rosamund’s hair into soft curls upon her head. “I pray you never need understand.”

“You wouldn’t condemn me to a life unlived though, would you?”

“Of course not,” Maeve tsked. “I will be by your side whatever path you choose, dear girl.”

Rosamund leaned forward and braced her elbows on her dressing table. “And If I choose to dance wildly by the light of the moon?”

“I’ll be waiting with a blanket when you come in from the cold.”

Rosamund drew in a fortifying breath, wondering if she was about to leap into some unknown chasm with her desire for adventure. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Good thing that you’ll never need be without me then.”

Rosamund nodded, her throat tightening. Losing her mother had been brutal. And without the closeness of her family, Maeve was the only person she felt she could be herself with.

“Now, when are you seeing the Duke of Aston again?” Maeve asked.

Ah. There it was. She frowned. “He doesn’t wish to see me again, I don’t think.”

Maeve chortled. “You know why don’t you?”

“No.”

“You’re a bonnie thing. A lass no man can resist.”

“I thank you for the compliment, but how can
that
be the problem?”

“You’re a duke’s sister.”

“And?”

“One doesn’t dally with a duke’s unmarried sister and expect to come out unshackled.”

“Oh! I see. It’s because I’m an innocent. He’s worried about being trapped into marriage.”

“Yes, dear girl.”

“If I was married, he’d have no concerns?”

“Likely no.”

Rosamund eyed herself in the mirror. How the devil had he known she was a virgin? It wasn’t as if it were marked on her forehead. She’d always thought of herself as rather mature and not even particularly shielded by the world given her close interactions with the villagers and crofters.

She pursed her lips. “Being an innocent is highly overrated.”

Maeve groaned. “It’s not so very terrible.”

“It gets in the way of a good many happy pursuits. Perhaps I should rid myself of mine.”

“With who? The miller’s son?”

“George?” she asked, never having once given the idea any thought at all. “I’ve known George since we were both in nappies.”

“You didn’t know George when he wore nappies. By rights, you shouldn’t even know him now.”

“I don’t wish to pursue George,” she replied simply. “He’s a nice young man but there’s nothing there that inspires one and I would like to be just a trifle inspired when I lose my innocence.”

“The Duke of Aston inspires you, I take it? You’d like to pursue him? Despite the fact that he likely will run miles from you lest he be forced to the altar?”

It was an incredible thing to realize given she’d met him just hours ago, but yes. My goodness, yes. The man spoke to her in a way she’d never imagined. That voice seemed to say, “Come with me, lass, and I’ll ruin you forever and you’ll not regret it for a moment.”

In fact, it had been all she could do when they spoke to appear entirely unimpressed by his imposing and delicious person.

“He is remarkable,” she said at last.

“He will lead you into scandal if you let him.”

“When have you been overly concerned with scandal?”

“Lady Rosamund, I have become increasingly thoughtful on it since your brother’s entrenchment into propriety. If he even knew we were discussing such a thing, he’d toss me out on my ear.”

“But you don’t mean to go entirely proper, do you?”

“Lady Rosamund, I could never,” the maid teased. “Still, you must be careful. You don’t want your brother sending you to a nunnery school in France.”

“I am far too old for that.”

Maeve gave a sad shake of her silvering head. “With strong-willed men like your brother, I have found that ladies are never too old for that kind of censuring.”

That gave her pause. She knew Duncan wouldn’t do that to her. She was too independent by far but it would change their relationship. Then again, their relationship had already changed. She loved her brother but he was burying himself alive. It was a fate she couldn’t allow for herself.

“I desire to know this duke better,” she said firmly. So firmly, she was half certain it was to convince herself. “I don’t need to sin with him per se but I cannot simply leave our acquaintance at this one meeting. Maeve, I am certain fate sent him to me.”

Maeve clucked. “I have a terrible feeling, my lady, that you’re the sort that should be married straight away.”

“Oh, indeed?”

“Yes. Then, at least, you’d be a good deal freer to make a bit of scandal.”

Rosamund winked. “And if I want scandal before the wedding?”

“Then you will be choosing a most challenging life.”

She considered that. She liked facts. She liked to know the possible outcomes of her actions. If she were to throw her life away for a fling with the Duke of Aston, who didn’t seem inclined, would it be worth it?

She took in a deep breath. “And if I could keep it a secret?”

“It would have to be very secret.”

“If I could?”

“Then, my lady, as they’d say in the
ton
, anything goes.”

Chapter 4

Derek charged into Lady Cavendish’s lavish hunting lodge, a feeling so unfamiliar dogging his steps he almost didn’t notice Cordelia, the Duchess of Hunt, standing in the library doorway.

“Lose your clothes did you?” she drawled.

Derek stopped, prepared to snarl but then he recalled himself. The Duke of Aston didn’t snarl. He was a font of naughtiness and goodwill.

“They wandered off,” he sallied. He was still clenching the tartan blanket about his waist and he hadn’t even realized, so distracted was he. Which boded very ill, indeed.

Cordelia, whom he had been acquainted with now for a few months, eyed him. “I say, you weren’t rogering some Highland lass? I mean, all well and good for a bit of pleasure. . . but it’s a terrible cliché.”

“No,” he replied. “No rogering the local ladies at present, if you must know.”

He did have a reputation for loving the ladies but, in all actuality in the last years, he had slowed dramatically in his pursuit of pure pleasure. He certainly didn’t stoop to young women in fields. . . Though apparently fiery maids in lochs were a dangerous temptation.

“She must have been quite something,” Cordelia insisted, bracing her small hands on her rounded middle. “To leave you naked.”

“I’m not naked. I’m—“ He looked down at himself. He was, indeed, nearly naked and a slight shade of blue. “It’s a kilt.”

“It is not a kilt,” she countered with an arch of her brow. “A kilt is a specific piece of tartan worn in a specific way by the people indigenous to the Highlands of—“

“Cordelia, a history lesson in clan life is not necessary at present.”

“Come have a brandy then and tell me about her.”

“There is no
her,
” he insisted.

Cordelia laughed, a knowing tone enriching it. She shook her blonde hair, not dissuaded. “Of course there is a her.”

With that, she turned on him, red skirts swishing and headed into the library.

There was nothing for it.

Out of all the dukes and their wives he’d become closely acquainted with in the last year, Cordelia was the only one he felt genuine affinity to.

Oh, he liked the dukes. But he didn’t have friends. He’d been careful about that since childhood. After all, one was supposed to confide in friends. And confidence was a slippery slope. He was not about to ever let it slip that he was a bastard. He owed his mother, who’d died to bring a duke into the world, more than that. 

But Cordelia, like himself, was a born adventurer.

He often wondered if his real father had been a seafarer or military man. Because there was wanderlust in his veins that controlled him the same way that drink, opium or dice swayed other men.

Unlike himself, who’d grown up in the bastions of English wealth, Cordelia’d grown up in Italy, Greece and both the Near and Far East. He often envied her that.

Still, he felt no attraction to her except the attraction of recognizing another restless soul.

They had met, bandied words, but immediately shared an understanding that very few others could. It was the compulsion to always have a trunk packed. To always be on the lookout for the next great discovery.

For Cordelia, it was the ancient past. And as of late, she’d contented herself with local history. The Celts and Picts and Vikings kept her entertained.

For him? Well, he’d been growing more restless by the day because the only thing that had kept him in the country of his birth was something very strange.

The lure of company equal to his own in the other fellows of the Dukes’ Club. It was why he’d been contemplating heading for the Americas right after the Scotland trip was done.

“Are you joining me?” Cordelia called.

“I’m naked, as you so clearly pointed it out.” He stood in the center of the foyer, feeling rather at a loss in the present moment. He felt as if someone had cut his anchor and sent him to sea without a compass.