Authors: Claudy Conn
She turned to the young woman, who looked ashen, and felt a moment’s sympathy. “Oh, I am sorry. I know you must be loath to lose my brother, but I feel I must steal him from you for a moment or two.”
* * *
Felicia was at first amused at Ashton’s sister’s arrival. She immediately supposed that he had been on his way to meet her somewhere and that the lady was outraged at being kept waiting.
Understandable.
But she had called him a duke
? Not understandable
.
And then, the world collapsed around her ears.
She was stunned into immobility. She felt sick to her stomach. She thought the air from her lungs had been sucked out and dispersed, as she could not retrieve it and could not breathe.
She watched Ashton take his sister’s arm and hurry her out of the parlor in stunned silence before she was able to recoup, pick up her skirts, and hurry up the stairs, wishing she could take them two by two.
Her life was over. He was a liar … a supreme liar. Had he known all along who she was? How could he be the duke? He wasn’t an old fidget. He couldn’t have known her father … gone to school with him?
He had not told her he was a duke. She had not told him who she really was. Their entire relationship to this point had been filtered through a lie.
Did the lie matter? Did it matter to her that he was a duke? He was a duke, but not just a duke; he was the duke who was also her guardian.
She had been the one that instigated their night of passion. It was on her.
She had been a wanton woman in his arms. How, now, could she be his ward?
All the dreams she had enjoyed—dreams where he truly loved her and needed only a push to declare himself—were now thoroughly shattered.
He was her guardian …?
What was she to do now?
Scott!
She ran to Scott’s room, her mind in confusion, her heart truly aching, her self-assurance and trust that all things would turn out well,
gone.
“SCOTT!” FELICIA WAILED after she had finished repeating what she had just witnessed below. “Lady Daphne is here … she knows that you and I have run away. He is my guardian, she is his sister … she knows your father. We are done.”
“But … but …
he is not old
,” Scott, all at sea, objected.
“Wait,” Becky said, putting up a hand. “I do not understand any of this. What do you mean, you and Scott ran away from your guardian? I knew that business about Mr. Ashton being your uncle was a hum because … well, I knew that. And of course, you and Scott are not brother and sister, but … what is this about a duke and a guardian?”
Hurriedly, Felicia entrusted her new friend with all the facts that had led them to that moment in time. When she was done, she saw that Becky was unable to close her mouth and reached over and did it for her, saying, “There, there, I know it is a great deal to take in, but you must. I don’t have the time to go into it any further. Take it in stride, Becky. Had we not been unfortunate enough to come across a stupid highwayman … had Scott not been shot, we would now be in London at his aunt’s, and all would be well. I have but now six weeks left before I shall attain my majority.”
“Yes, but …” Scott said. “Ashton is a right ’un. He can’t be your odious guardian. He can’t have meant to take you to Swindon to marry you off?”
“Swindon?” Becky asked.
Felicia waved this off. “It doesn’t signify now. You don’t know the whole …” She couldn’t tell them that she and the duke had spent a night in his bed, could she? She tried to convey something though by confessing, “You see, I have kissed Ashton, full on the mouth …
passionately
.”
“FLIP!” Scott exclaimed, shocked beyond immediate measure.
“Yes, more than once,” Felicia added.
Becky laughed. “I am certain from what I have witnessed that he kissed you back, and I am also certain he wants to go on kissing you.”
“Becky!” again Scott found he could utter no more than a name.
“Really?” Felicia asked as Becky and she exchanged glances and took one another’s hands. “Do you think so? I had dared to hope, but now …”
“Now, matters are a bit more complicated, but only for a little over a month,” Becky said.
“Yes, but he doesn’t know … about me being his ward.”
“
Didn’t know
,” Scott said reasonably. “Brilliant fellow, bound to put it all together soon.”
“Yes, that is true,” Becky said.
“What is to be done?” Felicia cried.
“Come clean,” Scott answered at once. “Naught else we can do. Not so very bad, after all. I like Ashton, couldn’t have a better guardian, and what’s more, you like him … kissed him.”
“Many times, I’d warrant.” Becky giggled.
Scott’s brows went up, but he shrugged. “Well, then, there you are.”
Felicia’s shoulders drooped. “No, you just don’t see. How could you?” Her voice trailed off. They didn’t know that she had spent a night in her guardian’s bed. Oh, that sounded so very dreadful.
Becky glared at Scott. “It doesn’t matter, because, Felicia, how you feel about one another is a fact that has nothing to do with his guardianship over you.”
“My life is ruined,” Felicia said and then sniffed.
“She says that whenever she can’t get her own way,” Scott said pugnaciously.
Felicia’s look was dagger-dangerous. He saw it but laughed at her, and she snapped, “Oh, that is so not true.”
“
It is too
,” he countered.
“Oh, stop, you two,” Becky said, laughing. “This is not the time. We must find a way to sort this out.”
“There isn’t any possible way of doing that. He will hate me when he finds out I have led him false, for I never told him who I was … and he has been so kind.”
“Well, as to that, he never said he was a duke … not even to my father.”
“No doubt traveling incognito. Royals often do,” Scott offered reasonably.
The two women ignored him, and Becky asked, “Do you hate him?”
“Hate him? No, how could I, when I adore him?” Felicia said. She blew her nose with Scott’s handkerchief and plopped it on his nightstand.
He eyed her and grimaced but said nothing.
“Precisely,” Becky answered and smiled. “
Precisely, madcap.
”
* * *
Belowstairs, the duke attempted to calm his sister’s tirade with a series of ‘buts’ and ‘do but listens’. However, she had built up a flurry of criticisms that she needed to level at his head, and he apparently decided after a time to allow her to do just that.
When she was done describing the ordeal she had been put to over the last few days, she sank, exhausted, into a chair while he served her the tea and sweets he had apparently and she thought dearly, in his way, managed to order quietly even as she had paced, raged, and lectured him.
She sipped her tea and took stock. Her immediate thought was that her brother looked too white-faced and stricken. That was not how he usually took one of her diatribes. He always laughed off everything she had to tell him. It was most vexing, but now … now he looked absolutely sick.
She found this concerned her even more than his usual cavalier attitude with her. She studied him, wondering why this particular tirade of hers had so dampened his indomitable spirits.
Why, he looked horror-struck. She softened at once and said, “Well, after all, one cannot set all the blame at your door, Glen. It seems there is some explanation for the girl’s queer behavior. From what I was able to glean from the servants … well, I had it through my Sally, who is very good at ferreting out all the gossip—our uncle is responsible for this mess.”
“How so?” he asked, frowning.
“The old fellow wrote to her telling her he was coming to fetch her and take her off to Swindon. Of course, then he became too ill to do so, but he never wrote back, and then your letter arrived saying the duke was on its way. The child went into a veritable panic.” She sighed heavily. “Pity that. Poor young thing has been quite on her own and evidently well pleased about it. Couldn’t stomach the notion of some old duke taking her off somewhere horrible … and why the deuce would he want to take her to Swindon? She believed he was going to marry her off to a son or other, didn’t know that he lost his sons to Waterloo … didn’t know he had passed on two months ago. The whole thing has been muddled.”
“Damned if I know how this all came about, but Swindon is the name of an estate he has, nothing to do with the godforsaken village.” The duke pulled at his lower lip.
“Now tell me, Glen, you look positively ill. Why is that?”
“Because, and, Daffy, don’t ask me for details, I am the lowest of cads,” he said and hung his head.
* * *
How could he possibly tell his sister that he was the worst scoundrel that ever walked the great land of Albion? He couldn’t. It had been bad enough that he had given in to his lust and allowed himself to take a young and innocent, vulnerable young woman into his bed. He should have made her return to her room. He should not have allowed himself to sweep her away into a passion he had never known before. He wanted her for all time, but how could he take her like that? She was no doubt only infatuated with him, and that would pass with time.
What now was he to do?
Not only had she been an innocent, she was his ward, dependent on him for protection, and he was a cad. He, of course, from this moment on, would never touch her again. That was done. He would get those feelings under control. No kissing … no touching … none!
The Duke of Somerset ran his hands through his black silk waves of hair and groaned. His sister said, “What, what is wrong, Glen?”
“Scott Hanover and my ward are …”
“Are what?” his sister asked warily.
“Upstairs.”
“What? What nonsense are you at now?”
The duke’s heart and mind were at war. The battle raged silently in his brain, making all logical thought a difficult matter. What had he done? It had been bad enough of him to have taken her, an innocent, to his bed … and now, now she was his ward. Even if he thought that perhaps she could love him, how could he now ask her to be his wife when it was his duty to present her in London for a season that would allow her to meet other eligible young men?
Ask her to be his wife?
Had he intended to do that? Had his heart been so captivated? It didn’t bear thinking of.
Pounding in his head was the fact that Felicia, the light in his life, was his ward. He owed it to his name to do the right thing by her and present her to the world, and what then? If he lost her to another, he would shrivel inside.
“Glen! What do you mean upstairs?” his sister persisted.
“My ward evidently is upstairs with her friend Scott.”
“How?” Daffy was flabbergasted.
“Never mind how, how shall we right this?”
His sister took to pacing, and he could see her formulating a plan. “How else. She and young Scott were with me the entire time. We came here, and now all of us shall travel to London together.”
“Nonsense,” he snapped.
“Why? There is nothing toward in that. No one is to know otherwise, and scandal is averted.” She plopped into a chair and said, “Now, you shall tell me how those two wayward youths happen to be here!”
He did this, interrupted by her questions, but at length she had the entire tale and sat back with a heavy sigh. “Oh my, honestly … I suppose you are not as evil as I thought. You had to see to the lad, didn’t you … and then, you couldn’t leave them in the lurch. I quite see that.”
He frowned. “I am a devil, and this is a bloody mess.”
“A devil? Ah, you began a flirtation with the child? Well, she is a beauty, so that, too, is understandable. Never mind that now. We are all here together, and we shall travel together, and scandal will be very neatly averted for us and your ward. Thank goodness, I had the foresight to track down your direction. I have arrived just in the nick of time.”
He eyed her doubtfully and then turned away. His life had suddenly gone to hell. He heard his sister rise, felt her hand on his back as she asked, “Glen … what is it? What is wrong?”
“Daffy, you don’t understand. I have been … well, as you said, she is beautiful, and I didn’t know she was my ward … and I have, well … I kissed her … many times and …”
“Ah, yes,” she said, her eyes narrowing as she looked into his. “Tell me, though, did you not find it all a coincidence?”
“What?”
“A young woman and this young man traveling about the countryside unattended? After all, Felicia is not a common name. How odd that you did not immediately realize she was your ward.”
Astonishment crept through his body, and he slapped his head. “I did not know my ward’s name. Oh, I knew she was Easton, but she never gave me her last name, and of course, I knew nothing of a Scott Hanover. It is all clear now, after the fact, but … how could I know?”
“Have you seduced the child beyond kisses?” she asked pointedly, for Daffy was well acquainted with his style.
“I was most taken with her, if that is what you mean,” was all he answered.
“Of course you were, but she is not in your usual style, is she?” his sister mused as she gave him an intense scrutiny.
He snorted. “And what is my usual style?”
“Well, certainly not an innocent,” offered his sister, scoffing at his reply. “Right then, so you have unashamedly been trying to make love to this girl, who has no doubt fallen for your insidious charms,” she said and then clucked her tongue.
“She is an innocent, and I am a blackguard,” he answered remorsefully.
“Well, no more. You will not think of her or flirt with her or be anything but her guardian. You will present her to the world in an effort to attain the best marriage prize out there for her. Are we clear?”
“We are clear,” he said darkly.
“Now, the time for formal introductions has come,” his sister pronounced as she walked towards the doorway. “
Glen?
”
“Yes, yes, I am coming,” he said, sick at heart.