Forbidden to Love the Duke (10 page)

“Come to my desk, dear, and read aloud this passage pertaining to the Reformation.” She cast a pained look at the row of mounted plaster busts representing the English monarchy that sat in the front of the casement windows. “Master Walker, please don't dance around those busts with that letter opener. You're liable to scratch one of our monarchs with your reckless play or, worse, knock a king or queen out the window.”

“I'll do more than that. I'll—” He paused before the bust of an austere-faced Queen Anne. “She's ugly. I'll execute her first.”

Ivy swallowed a gasp. “You shall do no such thing in my presence.”

“He will, Lady Ivy,” Mary said with certainty. “That's why our father won't allow him near a foil yet.”

Walker leveled the letter opener to his chest and wheeled on Mary. “On your knees, Mary, Queen of Scots. Your head will roll like a turnip when I'm done!”

Mary hopped up onto her chair, clenched her hands to her chest, and bellowed at the top of her voice. “I am betrayed by the fickle Elizabeth, blackhearted witch of England!”

“Good gracious,” Ivy muttered. “You'll have everyone thinking there's a murder being committed up here.” She sprang from her chair and strode forward to take possession of Walker's weapon, Mary shrieking the entire while.

“Give me that opener right now,” she said, sprinting around the globe after Walker. “You'll kill one of the
gardeners if a bust goes out the window and lands on his head.”

“Catch me!” Walker taunted.

Mary jumped off her chair. “I'll catch the traitor for you, Lady Ivy.”

“Master Walker, sit down this minute!” Ivy shouted.

And to her amazement he did.

Mary pursed her lips. “He won't stay.”

“He will.”

Mary stared at her. “Uncle James told us that you lived in a house as old as the king who chopped off heads.”

“I still live there,” Ivy replied, feeling a prickle of apprehension. Were Mary's words a foreboding that the house would be sold off, after all? “The king your uncle was speaking of wasn't the only monarch to order a beheading. My house was built during the reign of King Henry VIII.”

“
That
king!” Mary said, snatching the heavy ruler from Ivy's desk. “He's the one who lopped off his wives' heads.”

“He didn't do the lopping—the chopping—an executioner did.” She went down on her knees to gather the papers Mary had sent flying from the desk. When she stood up, the girl was charging across the room toward the bust of Henry VIII. The schoolroom ruler rose in the air like an executioner's ax and then descended to take a sudden swing like a golf club.

“
No.
Stop right now. Stop her,” she said in panic to Walker.

Walker set aside the pile of threads he'd begun to pull from the carpet and lumbered to his feet. Ivy realized the burden fell on her to take action. She set forth
across the room as if the future of the English monarchy hung in the balance.

“Mary, don't,” she said, dodging the globe.

But Mary did.

And Ivy extended her arm from its socket as far as it could reach, her fingers glancing Henry's plaster beard, her hand shattering glass and making history as it did. She felt a stinging pain in her wrist and found herself curiously detached from the events that followed. Rivulets of blood the color of poppies flowed to her fingertips. A distressing sight, really.

The plaster bust crashed down to the garden below and by great fortune did not take another victim in its descent. She rested against the windowsill and wondered absently why she felt giddy and why the duke was standing in the doorway, his face frightening to behold. She felt Mary tugging at her skirts before she closed her eyes and sighed, floating into darkness.

*   *   *

James was passing through the hall when he heard the commotion from the upstairs drawing room where Ivy was giving the children their lessons. His pride urged him not to interfere. He believed enough in her abilities to handle his niece and nephew without his interference. She hadn't hesitated to put him in his place. She could take care of Walker and Mary. Besides, if he did interfere, she would only accuse him of seeking an excuse to see her again.

But the sound of glass shattering could not be ignored. And when one of the gardeners came running into the house with a decapitated bust under his arm, James didn't wait for an explanation.

He raced upstairs and took one look at the scene in
the drawing room before he went into action. Ivy sat upon the windowsill like a picture in a broken frame. Everything about the moment seemed distorted. She was sickly white, and there was enough blood trickling from her wrist that he might have feared her dead had she not turned her head toward him. Mary had a tight grip on her other hand.

“Ivy,” he said, approaching her as calmly as he could.

“I broke the window,” she said, turning her head away. “Did you know you can tell the age of a house by the depth of its windowsills?”

He rushed forward and gathered her up in his arms. He would deal with her complaints at a later time. He knew the children were watching. Their attention did not deter his instincts in the least.

He bore Ivy through the door to his bedchamber with a humanitarian purpose he convinced himself elevated him above his earlier earthly desires. He might even have believed his good intentions had a sweetly mocking voice not spoken over his shoulder as he laid the slowly reviving governess on his bed: “Ivy?”

A disbelieving silence, then the same voice continued with, “Ivy Fenwick? One of my oldest friends?”

Ivy sat up from the bed as if reanimated. James was so relieved to see her return to her former self that he finally turned to acknowledge the woman who had shadowed him into his suite. He hadn't been paying attention to her or the children at all. But the rubies around her neck blazed so brilliantly that even if James had managed to disregard her dramatic entrance, he couldn't ignore her presence entirely, much as he would have liked to.

He took her by the arm. “Elora, I sent you a letter asking you not to come,” he said in a low voice.

“I didn't receive it,” she said, pulling her arm free. “Why is Ivy Fenwick bleeding in your bed?”

“She's the governess,” he said, wondering which of his servants had given her Ivy's name. “And she needs a physician. She's had an accident, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“How could I fail to notice? There is a trail of blood from the drawing room to your door. Do you like my necklace?”

“Does the Tower of London know the Crown Jewels are missing yet?”

“That would be quite the theft, wouldn't it?” she asked with a grin.

James did his best to politely pretend she didn't exist, but when she started to help settle Ivy into the bed, he realized that erasing Elora from the scene was an impossibility. Ivy was the only one who mattered right now. He had bound her wrist with a bed tassel to stop her flow of blood. If he could, he'd lie down next to her to rest his throbbing head.

“I feel better,” Ivy murmured, her head bobbing back against the pillow. “I left the drawing room in a mess. Your Grace, please forgive me. Are the children safe?”

He nodded at her from the foot of the bed. “We rang Carstairs for the physician. Never mind the mess.”
Or the mistress,
he thought.
Talk about bad timing.
The situation appeared too suspicious to explain it as anything but the truth.

Elora moved to the other side of the bed. “You don't remember me, do you? It's been a long time, and we didn't part during what one would call an enchanted evening.”

James felt as if he should do something to interrupt the conversation, but what? “Despite what it looks like, this isn't what either of you are thinking.”

*   *   *

Elora's red hair had darkened over the years, but she had retained the slender figure and verve that Ivy had admired during their boarding school years. Unfortunately it appeared that she had also remained true to her penchant for misadventure—and it had brought them together in the duke's bedroom.

That was a sobering thought.

“What it looks like, James,” Elora said, “is precisely what the servants told me to expect—that the governess cut her hand on a broken window and that you brought her here to await the doctor's arrival.” She smiled down at Ivy in sympathy. “He did a decent job of bandaging it, but then James is good with his hands. How did it happen? Are you in pain?”

Ivy scooted over to make room for Elora on the bed. “The children misbehaved during a history lesson. It was an accident. Your Grace, I hope that nothing in the garden was damaged. I feel fine now, but I am embarrassed for putting you to all this trouble.”

Elora laughed. “We've had our share of troubles, haven't we? I suppose you know that James and I were on the brink of an arrangement, unless he was hoping to be discreet—in which case I have ruined any chance of that.”

The duke shook his head, seemingly perplexed, and slid his hand in his pocket. If Ivy's wrist weren't stinging like mad, she might have started to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. But she could see blotches of her blood on his pristine white shirt and bedcovers, and she felt responsible for losing control of the children's lesson.

“So,” Elora continued, “I became a fallen woman because of that one wretched night at the masquerade ball, and you, who should have been the toast of London, are now a governess.”

James exhaled. “Would you like me to leave? There is an adjoining chamber through that door where I can wait. I could have tea sent up for you so that you can reminisce until the physician arrives.”

“I don't need a doctor, Your Grace,” Ivy said, slipping from the bed onto a chair. It was true that she felt a little faint, but who wouldn't after a beheading and then being carried off in those strong arms? Ivy doubted there existed a medical remedy for her attraction to the duke. Undoubtedly her hand would heal. Her heart would only break little by little until she accepted the fact that he wasn't meant for her.

“You need stitches,” he said unequivocally. He leaned down to move aside the chair he had kicked over during his heroic effort to bear Ivy to the four-poster. “Don't argue, Elora.”

Elora shook her head. “I agree. I told you I followed a path of blood to the door. Ivy, please get back into bed.”

“But I'm ruining the bedding.”

“The damage is already done,” Elora said. “All the way around, by the look of things. James, may I speak with you alone in the other room while we wait for your physician?”

He seemed to hesitate before he acquiesced to Elora's request and followed her from the room.

It wasn't only the loss of blood that depleted Ivy. It was the indignity, her inability to manage the children, and the reminder that once upon a time, she and Elora had sparkled in the same elegant society. Ivy had an indistinct memory about the act that had precipitated Elora's exclusion from the
ton
, from grace, but she hadn't heard the entire story.

She would like to think that the duke had been at war most of the time in the intervening years and that Elora had traveled after trouble alone. But, really, how could it be so?

*   *   *

Elora joined James in the other room only a minute or so later. “She ought to rest,” she whispered so that Ivy couldn't overhear. “I think losing all that blood gave her quite a shock.”

“Not to mention your sudden appearance.” James craned his neck to see past her lithe figure. “Leave the door open. I want to keep an eye on her.”

He had known Elora practically all his adult life and wondered now how he could have considered her a potential bedmate. She felt like a cousin or sister to him. She
acted
like a sister, pushing his coat and newspapers off his chaise to make herself comfortable.

“Elora,” he began, taking a tactical position by the door to his bedchamber, “I think an explanation is necessary.”

“It's all right.” She untied her bonnet and reclined on the cushions. “I thought at first that you'd found another woman, and I was insulted, but then I heard about Curtis. I realized that you had to think of the children. I never liked his worthless excuse of a wife. I'll tell Cassandra so if I see her again.”

James glanced toward his bedchamber. Was Ivy trying to tidy the bed? Why couldn't she stay where he'd left her? And why had Elora arrived here, now, of all times? He had enjoyed playing Ivy's hero. It was the first gentlemanly excuse he'd had to settle her in his bed. He doubted another situation like this would arise in the near future. Not that he wished any harm to befall
Ivy. His heart still felt like it was somewhere in the vicinity of his knees.

“Why did you come to Ellsworth, Elora?” he asked, scowling at her. “Didn't you get the letter I sent you?”

She waved the glove she had removed in his direction. “Yes, I did. I'm not here as a potential mistress, James. I came to stand for your family.”

He stared blankly at her. “What do you mean?”

“Isn't it obvious? Curtis has been dealt a severe injustice.”

“Excuse me a moment.” He walked across the room to his bedchamber door. “What are you doing, Ivy? Leave the pillows alone. Can't you hold still for a moment?”

“I don't wish the physician to see these stains, Your Grace,” came the faint reply.

He
tsk
ed. “Do you think he has never seen blood before?”

“Not mine, Your Grace.”

Was it a particular shade of blue? he felt like asking. Instead, he turned back to Elora, who had interrupted her explanation to look at him in surprise. “I've never seen you behave this way,” she said, removing her other glove. “You've become a stranger, but then I suppose that's the children's influence. I could strangle Curtis's worthless baggage of a wife.”