“I do not believe the worst of you.”
She met his gaze squarely and her chin tilted up in that manner that caught at his chest.
“I will be a good and dutiful wife. I will go with you to England and give you what you wish when you wish it. Upon my word your heir will be yours in truth.”
“I never imagined it would not be,” he managed to utter.
“Then why did you come here to stop me from going to Paris?”
Because he needed her. Because he could not allow her to come to harm. Because he felt insane—not with her but without her. Because for the first time in his life he felt truly unbalanced and that, perhaps, his brother’s madness was not unique, that he would succumb to it as well.
The delicate sinews in her neck constricted. She came forward, moved around him and out the door, leaving him with only the scent of roses and the hated, familiar biting pinch of helplessness.
I
N THE MOST
unremarkable manner, as though informing her of the weather, at the inn en route to the port Luc told her he would not share her bed. His wound, he said, troubled him greatly. It required more time to heal.
On the road to Saint-Malo he rode alongside the carriage she occupied with Mr. Miles and a maid. They dined alone at the inn, and he spoke to her with civility about the villages they had passed through and the port city to which they were traveling and at which they would await Captain Masinter’s ship to convey them to Portsmouth. After dinner he saw her to her bedchamber, bowed, and with a simple “Good night,” left her.
In much the same manner, they traveled the remainder of the journey to Saint-Malo. In the walled port city they awaited the
Victory
’s arrival before Luc’s impatience seemed to get the best of him. Mr. Miles informed Arabella that they would not wait for Captain Masinter’s ship, but that the
comte
had hired passage on a ferry. They would continue on their way to England in the morning.
They embarked early. By noon the sky had grown gray and by mid-afternoon the rain began. By dusk the ocean swells were lapping at the windows of the cabins belowdeck.
The captain of the little ship assured her it was a mild storm and that since the winds were holding steady they were making excellent time. Mr. Miles offered her tea that sloshed in the cup and ran over the table. He mopped up the spill, all the while telling her tales of gales of a much worse caliber that the
comte
had mastered easily.
“Of course, his lordship is not captaining this ship, if a sloop can rightfully be called such,” the little man said with a persnickety shake of his head. “So who is to say, my lady, how well we will fare in this squall?”
The night came and she lay on her side in bed, curled around her clasped arms, her hands cold and damp and her breaths fast. The ship creaked madly and the wind howled, buffeting the sides of the vessel until she could not hear even her thoughts. Exhausted, she sank into nightmares of violence and suffocation.
She awoke to the dark and the warmth of Luc’s hand curving around her cheek. She reached for him and held onto his fingers like a buoy.
He sat on the edge of the bed and drew her into his arms.
“Do not be afraid, little governess,” he said beneath the groaning of the ship and the lash of rain. “I am here. You are safe.” He held her securely. She burrowed her face against his shirt and clung to him. He kissed the top of her head and smoothed his hand over her hair and down her back. “You have survived much worse.”
The beat of his heart, strong and steady, played against her cheek.
“You know about the shipwreck?” she whispered.
“I know,” he said against her hair. “A man in my position must know something of the woman he weds.”
She lifted her head and in the darkness saw only the shadow of his features. “It matters nothing to you? That I know nothing of my real family? That my mother sent three tiny daughters off to an uncertain fate? That she might have been a—”
He captured her lips.
He kissed her softly, tenderly, then deeply until she wrapped her arms around his neck. With great gentleness he bore her down to the mattress. Her fingers tangled in his hair and he drew her close with his hands around her waist and she pressed against him. Strong and solid and warm, he held her to him and kissed her so that she knew only his mouth and her need for him and the safety to be had in his embrace.
“Thank you,” she whispered, because she had never said it to him.
He kissed the corner of her lips, then beneath her ear, then her neck. Then he shifted his arm to pillow her head.
“Sleep now.” He stroked a single fingertip across her cheek. “I promise, when you wake the sky will be clear and you can again practice standing atop with all the advantages of gravity on your side.”
She curled into the shelter of his body, the rolling of the ship only a distant threat.
“Will you control the weather now as you control everything else?” she murmured, sleep catching her eyelids and dragging at her limbs.
“Not everything,” he whispered, and touched his lips to her brow. “Not my duchess,” she thought she heard. “Not my heart.” But she knew she was already dreaming.
T
HE DAY BROKE
splendidly clear and blue, as he had prophesied. Arabella awoke alone. She climbed from the cot, dressed, and made her way to the top deck. He was there and greeted her as he had since their journey began: pleasantly, lightly, impersonally.
He did not come to her at night again. When they set out on the road to Shropshire, he once more rode alongside the coach. It was a magnificent carriage, lined in the softest fabrics and leather, with gold tasseled curtains on the windows and the ducal crest on the door. Four gorgeous black horses drew it, their harnesses gleaming, and the coachman and postilion both in crisp blue livery. The innkeeper at the posting house at which they stopped along the road fell over himself backward to make the
comtesse
happy after the
comte
made it clear that was his only wish. Her husband immersed her in luxury and comfort and showed her no more intimacy than he did the servants.
She did not fight it. He had thwarted her plan to visit his brother in Paris. In some manner she would manage to discover the truth behind their rushed wedding, even if he remained distant from her.
By Jacqueline’s account, Christos Westfall was an entertaining companion when he lived at the chateau during her time there. An artist, he kept mostly to himself in the studio he had in a cottage at the far end of the gardens tucked just inside the woods, and the princess had seen him little. She said he was mercurial of spirit and devoted to his brother, who adored him equally. He seemed unexceptionable.
But because of his unsuitability to inherit, Arabella had married his brother. She hoped the Duke of Lycombe’s ancestral estate would offer her answers. The Duke of Lycombe’s heir clearly would not.
A
RABELLA HAD PASSED
the residences of dukes in London many times, but she had never seen a duke’s country house. The first glimpse of Combe dropped the bottom out of her stomach.
Presiding over emerald fields dotted with sheep and here and there a solitary grand old oak, it sprawled atop the crest of a hill in a majestic expanse of turreted limestone tempered with windows that caught the rays of the waning sun and set the house afire. Below in the valley, a curving river reflected the house’s brilliance like a protective band.
She dragged her gaze away and to the man astride his horse nearby. He had halted and sat very still with his face to the house.
The drive wended its way around the north side of the hill until it came level with the house. Passing between rows of ancient firs, abruptly it burst into the open and Combe was right before them, towering and broad and indisputably ducal.
Two dozen servants stood in perfect lines from the colonnaded front door along either railing of the front stairs. On the bottom step stood Arabella’s sisters and a huge black dog.
Ravenna ran to the coach, Beast loping in her wake. Eleanor followed. The moment the footman lowered the step, Arabella burst from the carriage door and fell into her younger sister’s arms. Eleanor grasped her hand and they embraced without speaking. There was too much to say. It had been too long.
Arabella pulled back.
“Welcome home,
duchess
,” Ravenna exclaimed, her dark eyes laughing.
“I told her that she must call you ‘my lady,’ ” Eleanor said, squeezing Arabella’s hand tightly, “but the servants are all insisting you will be a duchess soon anyway, and in any case our sister will do whatever she wishes no matter what I say.” She smiled sweetly.
Arabella kissed her on the cheek. “How I have missed you both.” Her voice broke.
“But you have been busy, it seems,” Eleanor said with another smile, and glanced over her shoulder.
Luc was dismounting. He gave the reins to a servant and came forward.
“Good Lord, Bella,” Ravenna whispered, “he is smashingly handsome. I thought you were determined to marry some scabby old hoary-headed prince, but this is—
Ouch
.”
Eleanor’s hand slipped away from Ravenna’s elbow. She dipped her golden head and curtsied deeply as Luc came to them. “My lord,” she said.
“Miss Caulfield.” With great elegance he bowed.
Ravenna offered a quick dip of her knees. “Hello, Duke. It’s lovely to have you in the family. Who had the mending of that wound across your eye? Whoever he was, he made a wretched hash of it.”
Luc’s beautiful mouth slipped into a one-sided grin. He bent to give her old dog’s furry brow a rub. “I thought the same thing, Miss Ravenna, so I had him dispatched. Easy to do aboard ship, you know. One just pushes a fellow over then sails away very quickly.”
Ravenna’s mouth split into a sparkling smile. “I approve, Bella. You may keep him.”
Eleanor smothered her chuckle.
“Now, ladies,” he said, “if you will allow me to make your sister acquainted with the household, I will then give her fully into your keeping.”
He did not look at Arabella as he took her hand upon his arm and introduced her to the butler and the housekeeper.
The housekeeper looked fondly at Luc. “May I say, we are all happy you’ve come home to stay . . . your grace.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Pickett. I am happy to be home.” He looked it. He looked like a man at perfect ease. “But you mustn’t put the cart before the horse. ‘My lord’ will do.”
“Mr. Parsons is eager to speak with you, your grace,” the butler said with perfect sobriety. “He awaits you in the study.”
None of the other servants arrayed on the drive batted a lash.
“See? I told you,” Ravenna whispered to Eleanor.
Luc shook his head, then led Arabella up the steps and through the front door. Inside the majestic limestone mountain all was color and elegance and glittering light, from carved wooden stair rails and gilded furniture, to portraits of gaily gowned ladies and richly robbed gentlemen, to harlequin tiled floors and beeswax candles burning in bronze sconces and crystal chandeliers.
“What do you think, little governess?” he said quietly. “Does this offer you sufficient material to command, or should I build an additional wing and hire a dozen more servants?”
She looked up at him. His eyes shone not with teasing or censure, but pride and guarded hope. Her heart ached—the heart that he owned despite her efforts.
“This should do,” she managed.
He smiled slightly and withdrew from her. “Miss Caulfield, Miss Ravenna: she is all yours.”
The housekeeper gave Arabella a tour of the house, her sisters and Beast in tow.
“And you thought you could only have a palace if you married a prince,” Ravenna whispered as they passed through a library lined with books up to the ceiling.
“She never wanted a palace,” Eleanor said. “Only the prince.”
“This is not my house,” Arabella said quietly. “We are only here to see to matters until the duchess’s baby is born.”
“This is Ellie’s favorite room in the whole pile.” Ravenna gestured around them at the bookshelves. “Of course.”
“Dinner is served at five o’clock, your grace,” Mrs. Pickett said when she finally brought them to the door of her bedchamber. “If that suits you?”
“It does. Thank you, Mrs. Pickett. But you mustn’t call me your grace,” she said gently. “It is disrespectful to my husband’s aunt.”
“Yes, your grace.” The housekeeper curtsied and left. Arabella turned to Eleanor, seeing again her sister’s thinning gown, which she herself had sewed for her five years ago. Ravenna’s gown was newer; her employers paid her a decent wage. But it was serviceable for the work she did with animals and not at all elegant.
“You are biting the inside of your lip, Bella,” Eleanor said with a dip of her brow. “What troubles you?”
“Do the servants behave well with you?”
“Of course they do. We are your sisters.”
But she had worked in too many aristocrats’ houses not to know the truth of it, and she did not speak her thoughts: that the people of Combe must have anticipated another sort of woman to be their new mistress. An actual lady.
“Clearly they do not have trouble imagining you as the duchess,” Eleanor said. “Indeed, they seem eager to do so.”
Arabella straightened her shoulders. She would fulfill their expectations. Dreaming of a prince, she had trained herself to this life for a decade. She would be a duchess, or least a
comtesse
living in a duchess’s house. He would not have cause to be ashamed of her.
“Come now. Let us see your bedchamber.” Eleanor took her hand and opened the door. “We haven’t been allowed a peek since it was being redecor . . .”
Her words died. They all halted in the doorway. The bedchamber was spectacular, elegant and understated and utterly feminine with ivory and pale pink silk damasks, subtle gilding on the dressing table and chairs, sparkling mirrors, and draperies of the thinnest rose-colored gauze embroidered with gold on the four-poster bed and windows.
“It’s . . .” Ravenna’s mouth opened and closed.
“Fit for a princess,” Eleanor said.