Read How to Deceive a Duke Online
Authors: Lecia Cornwall
“W
hat will you wear for dinner tonight, Your Grace?” Anna asked, and Meg realized that the magnificent wardrobe that had been purchased for Rose was now hers. She hoped again that Rose was safe. If her sister was here, preparing for her wedding night, would she be as afraid as Meg was?
Her stomach quivered again. “I’ll wear the gray silk.” It was demure and unassuming, and even if she was the bride, she hoped the other guests would outshine her, draw attention away from her.
“How many people are coming for dinner?” she asked.
“There will be six, I believe, or possibly seven. Her Grace—the dowager duchess, that is—thought your sister might attend.”
Meg looked up in surprise, then realized that Anna meant her, Meg, not Rose.
“No. She is—out of Town.”
“There are some lovely diamond earrings and a matching necklace that would go with this gown if you’d like to wear them tonight,” Anna suggested, fastening the buttons.
Rose would leap at the chance to wear diamonds. They’d have difficulty getting her to take them off again at the end of the evening. But Meg was an imposter, the paste jewel and not the priceless gem. She imagined the duchess tearing the diamonds from her neck in a rage when she realized, and she most certainly would without the veil. Meg sat at the dressing table. “No jewels tonight. Since there was no breakfast, I shall wear my wedding veil to dinner. Tuck my hair up under it.”
If Anna was surprised she didn’t let it show. Meg picked up a red silk fan and unfolded it. It was the kind of toy Rose would have loved, if she didn’t have diamonds to hold her attention. In low light, with the veil hiding her hair, and the fan hiding everything but her eyes, Meg hoped the duchess wouldn’t recognize her.
She descended the stairs slowly, half expecting Temberlay to be waiting for her at the bottom, but he wasn’t. Gardiner glided out of the shadows instead.
“The Countess of Wycliffe, Viscount St. James, and Lord Bryant have arrived, Your Grace.”
They were in the salon. Viscount St. James was pressed to the wall, and Flora was holding him there with her own fan, which was pointed at his throat like a weapon.
“ ’Pon my honor, I vow I was not with him this afternoon!” St. James pleaded. “I have every confidence that he will be here. He must have been del—”
He caught sight of Meg in the doorway and fell into guilty silence. “Good evening, Your Grace. Forgive me for not bowing.”
Flora released him and rushed at her. “
He
isn’t here!”
There was no need to ask whom she meant. Temberlay was quite obviously, dramatically absent. The room seemed bare without him. Meg felt her heart skip. Had he found out somehow that she was an imposter? She glanced at Gardiner, but his bland face gave nothing away. “Is His Grace at home?” she asked.
“No, Your Grace, he is not.”
Meg’s hand tightened on the fan. “And Her Grace?”
“Her Grace sends her regrets,” Gardiner said. “She is still suffering from headache.”
“A dozen Your Graces in this place and none of them here for supper!” Flora hissed. “This is an insult!”
“Not at all,” Meg said, feeling relief flow through her. It was a reprieve, not an insult. She snapped the fan shut and set it on a table. She wouldn’t need it now. “Perhaps it is as the viscount said, and he is only delayed,” she soothed her mother, though St. James’s smirk told her Temberlay had no intention of attending his wedding supper. Another lesson, no doubt. Well, she would teach him one of her own.
“We are ready to dine now, Gardiner.” Sebastian St. James’s grin faltered. “Viscount, since you likely know the way to the dining room and I do not, perhaps I may prevail upon you to escort me to dinner?”
He looked uneasy, trapped, but unless he had even fewer manners than Temberlay, there was little he could do but bow and offer his arm.
She laid her hand on his sleeve, winced at the hard glitter of the diamond and sapphire ring Temberlay had placed on her finger that morning. St. James stared at it as well.
“Truly, Your Grace, I have no idea where Nick is tonight,” he murmured. She glanced at him, read the lie in his eyes. He knew exactly where her husband was, or at the very least, he suspected. She tossed her head as if it didn’t matter. “He could not be anywhere more important, or in lovelier company than yours—” he said, but she cut him off with a cold glare. He swallowed, and tried to smile reassuringly.
Lovelier company
. She felt her stomach contract. Would he be here if she were Rose? She took her place at the head of the table, and nodded to Gardiner to begin.
The food was lavish, even if the conversation was sparse. Meg barely tasted what she ate. Gardiner introduced each dish with a flourish as a parade of footmen entered, far outnumbering the guests. The salmon had been brought specially from His Grace’s Scottish estates. The hip of beef had come from Temberlay’s farm, while the strawberries were from his manor in Kent. The pheasant and grouse had come from yet another property, this one in Cumbria, and the vegetables were grown in the glasshouses at Temberlay Castle.
“Please give my compliments to Cook, Gardiner. Everything is delicious,” Meg said graciously.
“Tell me where he is!” Flora hissed at Sebastian again when the servants departed.
“Don’t badger the poor viscount, Mama. Apparently Temberlay has secrets even Viscount St. James doesn’t know, and I would prefer he be allowed to keep the details to himself. I don’t wish to hear them. In fact, if there is somewhere
you’d
rather be this evening, my lord, then please don’t let us keep you.”
St. James blinked in surprise at his dismissal. His jaw dropped, and he shut it again with a snap. He rose, and bowed stiffly. “I shall bid you good night, then, Duchess. No doubt you’ll sleep well tonight.”
Meg felt the barb hit home, felt her skin heat as he turned on his heel and left. His meaning couldn’t have been plainer.
N
icholas spent the afternoon with Mr. Dodd, David’s man of affairs, going over his brother’s finances. There were still a number of vowels and bills unpaid, signed for by David, yet not brought to Mr. Dodd’s attention until Nicholas had returned to assume the title.
His brother had invested heavily in a private shipping venture, the voyage of a vessel called
Orion
, which promised rich dividends that never appeared. David had lost a fortune. The contracts did not name the other investors, and their identities were buried in layers of secrecy and complications that had proven impossible to decipher thus far.
“I would have advised him it was a poor investment, had he brought it to me, Your Grace, but he did not,” Dodd said.
Once the
Orion
venture had failed, David had turned to gambling to win back his losses, hoping to avoid ruin, but he had failed there as well, and lost almost everything that wasn’t entailed.
Dodd pleaded for Nicholas’s understanding as he laid the account books before him. It wasn’t until the bills could no longer be paid that Dodd had realized the extent of the disaster, and that was after David’s death when the creditors closed in. “Temberlay credit was always good before then. No one
ever
demanded payment.”
With Nicholas out of the country, there was little Dodd could do but see the duchess. She had provided the necessary moneys to keep the various Temberlay properties functioning, but she hadn’t wanted to know the details. In fact, she refused to hear them.
She had instead let David’s final words convince her that the ruin of the dukedom was Nicholas’s fault, although he’d been in Spain for three years, at war.
Nicholas barely looked at the contract his grandmother had ordered drawn up, before he signed it. In return for marrying her choice of bride, she would continue to support Temberlay properties. All past bills, however, including David’s gambling debts, would fall to Nicholas to settle however he could. He wondered how much his grandmother had paid his bride to marry him.
Granddame’s money came from rum and sugar, a fortune made by her French grandfather before the Revolution. When power shifted, he’d wisely married his children into noble English families, and ensured his Caribbean plantations supported British interests. He dowered his only granddaughter generously, and left her a vast fortune under the stipulation that it be held in her own name.
Upon his return to England, Nicholas had used the money from the sale of his commission to support Julia, and to make several small investments in secure bonds that were beginning to show a profit. He gambled as well, usually successfully, since he knew when to quit, unlike David.
He authorized Dodd to make several payments and more investments now, including necessary improvements at Temberlay. He gripped the pen with crushing force as he signed as Duke of Temberlay. Would he ever get used to the title? At least his investments were earning, and the harvest at the various Temberlay estates promised to be good. He looked at the balance sheet, and realized if he’d been able to delay his grandmother for another few months, he would not have had to marry Rose Lynton at all. Her incredible hazel eyes flashed in his mind, the taste of her lips. He pushed the erotic thoughts away, concentrated on what Dodd was saying.
It wasn’t until the clock in Dodd’s office struck ten that Nicholas realized he was late for his wedding supper. He pictured his bride sobbing while her mother lay prostrate in a nervous fit. Granddame was probably threatening to have him publicly horsewhipped.
He climbed into his coach, tempted to order the driver to take him to White’s for the evening. He raised his hand to knock on the roof of the coach, and hesitated.
He thought of that tempting, teasing, delectable little mouth.
He could go to the theater, wait for Angelique.
But the memory of his bride’s perfume lingered, the way she’d melted in his arms.
He knocked. “Take me to the—”
The way she blushed . . .
“Home,” he ordered the coachman and sat back. The possibilities intrigued him. Would she ambush him with angry accusations, or dissolve in a flood of tears like sugar in the rain? Tears were more likely, he decided.
He hated women who cried. He raised his hand to knock again.
She had wrapped her arms around his neck, tangled her fingers in his hair, and sighed when he kissed her.
His hand fell to his lap.
If she failed to please him, and even if she did, getting the bedding over and done with would give him a reason to send her off to Temberlay Castle in the morning. He wouldn’t have to look at her again, or be tempted by that mouth, those eyes.
He stared out the window at the lights of Mayfair. He raised his hand yet again to tell the coachman to hurry, and stopped himself.
There was no point in being too eager. More likely than not, his bride would still turn out to be a disappointment.
Strangely, he was nervous—he, the man who could charm any woman alive.
But he had never been able to
reason
with one.
He considered telling the coachman to take the long way through the park. He tried to replace his trepidation with anger at finding himself in the position of having to bed a sobbing virgin. At last he ran a hand through his hair, and tried to think of anything but his bride, and bed.
He braced himself as Gardiner opened the front door.
The house was quiet. There was no crying, or screaming. He released the breath he was holding.
“Is my wife at home?” he asked the butler, then wondered if she’d fled home to her mama. “Here, I mean, at Hartley Place?”
“Of course, sir. Her Grace has retired,” Gardiner replied. The butler was calm, obviously unscathed by any unpleasantness that had taken place this evening. Gardiner would have made a steady soldier under fire.
“And my grandmother?”
“She is also abed,” Gardiner replied pleasantly. “Can I bring you anything, Your Grace?”
He considered asking for a meal, but he had no appetite. Was she sleeping? Would she pretend to be asleep while he—
He ran a finger under his cravat.
“No. I think I shall retire as well.” Gardiner would probably think that odd, given the fact that it was only ten-thirty and Nicholas usually did not go to bed until well after dawn. He watched the butler cast a subtle glance at the clock.
He could still go out, still go to the club. He hesitated at the foot of the stairs, and the butler waited too. Nicholas squared his shoulders.
“Good night, Gardiner.”
He marched up the stairs, hearing the cadence of battle drums in his mind, seeing her eyes before him, wishing for the hundredth time that day that he was safely back at war.
N
icholas went through the dressing room. Her door would be locked, of course, and she would be sobbing into her pillow. He paused in the dark like a spy on a mission, and listened.
He heard laughter in her room, and the soft murmur of voices raised in pleasant conversation.
Was her mother here with her? He’d rather face Napoleon’s Imperial Guards than an angry mama. Perhaps it was his grandmother.
But that was impossible. Granddame never laughed.
He didn’t bother to knock. He opened the door. It was his house, and she was his wife.
And it was his wedding night.
His brows shot up. There were two women in the room. He recognized the shorter of the two as one of the maids. The other, the beauty, must be his bride. He drew a sharp breath. She was tall and graceful, clad in a gown of gray silk. The heavy veil was gone, and her hair cascaded down her back in a shimmering curtain of silk.
Red.
He hadn’t imagined her hair would be red. He preferred blondes. Or at least he thought he had.
Both women had books balanced on their heads, and were walking around the rug.
“That’s better, Anna. Don’t let the book fall. Keep your back straight and your knees bent a little.”
The maid took three tottering steps and whooped with laughter, catching the book as it slid off her head.
His bride laughed. She hadn’t noticed him, and didn’t appear to be missing him in the least.
“Try again—watch me.” She placed the book on her head. Her hair shone in the candlelight. His hand curled on the door latch. Was it as soft as it looked? He supposed he’d find out when it brushed his naked skin in bed. He swallowed a groan.
Her gown rustled as she walked gracefully forward.
She curtsied to her maid, and rose to spin in place, the book never moving. “My father insisted that perfect posture was the hallmark of a la—”
She came to a stop in a swirl of silk and hair as her eyes met his. She let out a cry of surprise and the book tumbled. He stepped forward and caught it.
He stared at it in surprise.
He knew by his bride’s deep blush that she’d already seen what lay between the covers. It had been a wedding gift from Sebastian, a book from the erotic collection of a famous traitor who had a penchant for such things. The man’s widow had sold his collection to men like Sebastian for a fortune to rival Granddame’s own.
Anna set the other book on the table and curtsied. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I didn’t see you there. I meant no disrespect. Were we too loud? Did we disturb you?” She blushed, and put a hand to her mouth, suddenly realizing why he was there. His bride was staring at him, apparently tongue-tied.
Anna bobbed another curtsy. “Um, if it would please you to wait in your own rooms, I’ll advise Mr. Partridge when Her Grace is ready—” Anna bobbed another curtsy, reddening further.
The blushing bride looked every inch the frightened virgin now.
A gentleman would leave the room, apologize for intruding.
His feet were rooted to the floor. Something about this woman brought out the devil in him indeed. Perhaps it was her beauty, perhaps her boldness. Perhaps it was the fact that she was his wife, and he didn’t want a wife.
He pulled up a chair instead. “I think I’ll wait right here.”
Both lady and maid regarded him with identical expressions of horror. “You may proceed,” he ordered Anna, but she remained frozen to the spot.
It was so quiet he could hear the clock in the sitting room ticking.
“We could dismiss Anna altogether and I could assist you out of your gown, Duchess,” he said at last. “I daresay I am as proficient with tiny buttons as any lady’s maid in London.”
Her eyes narrowed as she assessed whether he meant it or not. He rose to the challenge and crossed the room. She held his gaze fiercely, and he stepped behind her, lifted her hair over her shoulder—it
was
as soft as it looked— and reached for the first button.
She shot forward out of reach. “Anna, you can go!” she said in a breathless rush, and the maid ran for the door.
She turned on him. “Anna didn’t deserve to be treated like that, Your Grace. She’s a respectable girl,” she rebuked him.
He gave her a guileless look. “I said nothing inappropriate. I simply offered to help you out of your gown. I am your husband, am I not? And you are my wife, bought and paid for. That gives me certain privileges. Wherever are you getting your ideas?” He picked up the wicked blue book. “Here, perhaps?”
She colored, and her throat bobbed as she swallowed, but she held his gaze. “Tell me, did you see anything you liked? Anything titillating?”
She made a small, strangled sound and shut her eyes. He tossed the book on the bed and prowled toward her like a wolf. Her hands were white knots, and he wondered if she intended to fight him. She was trembling.
“Were you taught that bedding is shameful? Did your mama tell you what would happen when I came to your bed tonight?”
The delicate scent of her perfume drew him closer, like a moth to a flame. “She told you I would hurt you, didn’t she?”
He stepped behind her, and continued to open the buttons on her gown. She drew a ragged breath as he traced his fingertip down the vee of exposed flesh between her shoulders. “Did she tell you about the pleasure I can give you?”
He swept the silk off her shoulders, and the gown billowed around her ankles, leaving her in her chemise and stays, Venus on a cloud.
He had seen beautiful women before, wearing far less than the prim undergarments his bride had on, but there was something infinitely enticing about this woman. Was it her innocence? He stepped back, frowning. This was supposed to be duty. He hadn’t expected to feel desire.
Her breasts were pressed upward by her stays, and the silk revealed the shadow of her nipples. She folded her arms over her body and studied his boots.
“Look at me,” he commanded softly.
She raised her eyes to his. He expected fear, hoped for nascent desire, but he met fierce determination instead.
She lowered her arms to her sides and let him look, color rising in her cheeks.
He reached to undo the ribbon ties that held her stays closed, but she put her hand over his, stopping him.
“The light, Your Grace. Please blow out the candles,” she said, her voice husky.
“I prefer them lit.” He stroked the petal-soft skin of her arms, felt goose bumps rise.
“Why?” she demanded. “What difference can it make to you? Surely you’ve seen—”
He laid a finger on her lips. “I told you you’re not what I expected. Perhaps if you had been, then I’d want it dark. But I want to see you, learn what you like, teach you—”
She frowned, oblivious that the slippery ties of her bodice were loosening every second, revealing tantalizing flesh. “I am not a toy! Nor am I one of your women,” she snapped.
He leaned on the bedpost, drank in the sight of her. “Ah, but you are my woman. You’re my wife. I’ve never had a wife before. Well, not my own, at least. You will share my bed, bear my children . . .” He stepped closer, holding her gaze with his. He let his fingers glide over her shoulders, down her arms. Her eyes glazed at his touch. He grasped the ends of the ribbons between thumb and fingers. “And you’re beautiful.”
He saw disbelief in her eyes, and she pulled away from him. The ribbons unfurled, and the garment parted, revealing her breasts to his hungry eyes.
Her gasp of dismay and his groan of desire came out at the same moment.
S
he was naked—well, as naked as she’d ever been outside the privacy of the bath. Meg felt her body heat, but it wasn’t just mortification. It was the look in Temberlay’s eyes. She didn’t understand it, but it started a tingle low in her belly, made her naked breasts swell under his gaze as if he’d touched her. She tugged the edges of the bodice together, but her fingers had forgotten how to tie a knot. She held the garment closed. He was still fully clothed. It made her feel all the more exposed.
“Can we please get this over with?” she demanded, but he seemed to be having trouble lifting his gaze from her breasts. His eyes were heavy-lidded and shiny. The gray was gone, faded into black as dark as the sea at night. Her mouth went dry.
“No, we’ll do this properly,” he muttered. “I want—” He stopped and grinned foolishly at her.
“What does that mean? It is impossible for me to ‘do this properly.’ I will require instructions!”
“Instructions,” he murmured, his voice husky, but he didn’t move.
“Tell me how to proceed,” she insisted.
He gave her another foolish grin. He looked younger, sweeter, and infinitely more dangerous when he smiled like that. The tingle in her belly intensified.
“It would be much easier, and much more pleasurable, to show you.” He loosened his cravat and tossed it aside, opened the buttons of his shirt with one hand without taking his eyes off her.
His naked chest was broad and muscular. She curled her hands more tightly around the edges of her stays, her armor. His body carried a dozen small silver scars, but they didn’t detract from his masculine beauty. She wanted to push the shirt off his shoulders, see them all, touch them, explore each little mark. She could see his heart beating under his skin.
She waited for him to come to her, but he didn’t move. He just stood by the bed with one hand on his hip, staring at her every bit as intently as she was staring at him. He looked like he was pondering a question.
“Please get on with it!”
“I was considering where to begin. This could take all night.”
She gaped at him. “All night? Why? It is a simple act. It doesn’t take that long from what I’ve seen. A few minutes at most—”
His brows shot up, and she could have bitten her tongue.
“And just what did you see?” he asked, grinning. “Who have you been watching? A stable lad with one of your maids, perhaps?” his tone was teasing.
She didn’t reply.
“Tell me,” he coaxed.
She swallowed the knot in her throat. “Horses!” she managed at last. “My father bred horses at Wycliffe!” His jaw dropped, and she knew at once she’d said the wrong thing.
A
ll hints of amusement fell away as Nicholas stared at his bride. “You think that this is like—that I, um—” he spluttered. He found the chair and sat down. “I think we’d better go more slowly.”
She picked up the discarded gown at her ankles, and clutched it to her chest. “Why?”
“Because I am not a stallion, and you are not a mare, for one thing.”
She strode past him and snatched up the blue book. She opened it and flipped through the pages with one hand until she found what she was looking for. Still holding her gown with one hand, she thrust the book under his nose. “There!” she said.
He stared at the drawing for a moment, a painting of an exotic Eastern couple lying together on a patterned rug under the stars. Although the man was several feet from his partner, he was buried within her.
He swallowed, and took the book from her. “As difficult as it is for any man to admit, I am not built like that. This drawing is not anatomically correct. Look, he’s bigger than the tree next to him!”
She took the book back and studied the painting again, ignoring him. “Is this what I’m supposed to do, lie on my back? Or should I lie on my side like this?” she asked, choosing another illustration.
He grabbed the book and snapped it shut. “Do you learn a lot of things from books?”
She frowned. “Of course. Wycliffe had an excellent library. There were books on every topic.” She bit her lower lip. “But not this. Nothing like this.”
He rose to his feet, untangled her grip on the gown, and took it from her, dropping it on the floor with his shirt. “There are some things you can’t learn by reading, Duchess. This is one of them.”
“Then how am I to begin?”
There was fire in her eyes, but the wrong kind entirely. He was also wondering where to begin to turn her determination to passion. She was still clutching the fastenings of her stays in her fist. He cupped her shoulders, stroking her skin with his thumbs.
“Did you like it when I kissed you?”
She held his gaze. “Yes.”
He picked up a long lock of her hair and ran it through his fingers. He used it like a paintbrush, drawing it over her throat, across the slope of her breasts. Her eyes drifted shut, and her lips parted. How could a woman be so damned arousing just standing still, letting him play with her hair? He wondered what she was thinking,
if
she was thinking.
He lowered his head until his mouth was an inch from hers. “Kiss me.”
She raised her face to his, tilted her head, and met his lips. Her mouth was soft and warm. He sipped at her lips, letting her get used to the intimacy, the feel of him.
The tentative touch of her tongue surprised him. She was testing him, trying what he’d taught her in that single, ravishing kiss he’d given her in the salon.
She learned fast.
Desire surged like wild horses.
He pulled away and looked at her. Her eyes were glazed, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted. She ran her tongue over them, an invitation for more that he couldn’t resist.
This time her lips parted as their mouths met, and he pressed his tongue inside. She sighed, and the sound shot straight to his groin. He groaned, and pulled her closer. She didn’t resist, but her hands still clutched her bodice between their bodies. He ignored that little impediment and tangled his hands in her glorious hair, angled his mouth over hers. He trailed his mouth over her cheek, her jaw, the hollows at the base of her throat. She tipped her head back and allowed it all. If he spoke now, he’d break the spell, so he kissed her again. Her tongue found his immediately, hungry.
He wanted her naked, writhing under him. He wanted to plunge inside her. The need to go slowly was making him sweat.
He stroked her back through her stays, and she arched closer, her hips against his, sweet pressure that drove him wild. He concentrated on learning the delicate curve of her shoulder blades, the hollow of her waist, the swell of her hips. She made soft, sweet sounds that told him she liked his hands on her.