Romancing the Duke (25 page)

“No.” He recognized Wendell Butterfield’s voice. “That was pathetic.”

“He’s just using us,” the first knight said again. “Once he gets what he wants, he’ll forget us. Cut us in the street. Make sport of our rituals at his fancy gentlemen’s clubs. He doesn’t understand how we are.”

Ransom shook his head. “No, no. No one likes
me
at those clubs, either. Believe me, I know what it’s like to be reviled. I was gravely injured seven months ago, and guess how many visitors and well-wishers I’ve had? Exactly none. I’m an outcast, too.”

“A wealthy, highly ranked outcast with a half dozen estates,” Wendell pointed out.

“At the moment, yes. But if my solicitors and heir have their way, I could lose everything. Make no mistake, I’m not asking your help for me. I need to protect Miss Goodnight. If this hearing doesn’t go well, she will be forced to sell the home of her dreams. Allow me to join your ranks, and I swear to you: We
will
be united in a higher purpose. Her.”

There was a prolonged silence.

Ransom didn’t know what more he could say.

“I’ll take that as your solemn oath.” Sir Wendell laid a blunted sword to his shoulder. “I dub thee Sir Ransom, a brother in the Order of the Poppy and a true knight of Moranglia.”

Thank God.

“Order of the Poppy,” Ransom mused, as his hands were cut loose. He rubbed his chafed wrists. “Does this mean we get to smoke opium now?”

“No,” Wendell said. But to his compatriot, he added, “Pass him the mead.”

A flask of sweet, sticky wine was offered to him. Ransom drank from it. “Not bad. You have my thanks, Sir Wendell.”

“Brother Wendell,” he corrected. “You’re one of us now.”

Really. He was one of them now.

How unexpected. There, kneeling in the forest, surrounded by men who represented the odd pegs and loose ends of English public schools, Ransom was seized by the strangest, most unfamiliar sensation.

Acceptance.

“And when we’re not on guard,” Wendell went on, “it’s Mr. Wendell Butterfield, Esquire.”

“Esquire?” Ransom repeated. “But . . . you can’t mean you’re a barrister?”

“Oh, yes. I am.”

“I didn’t know they allowed barristers to spend their free time tromping the forest in makeshift armor.”

Wendell answered, “Why not? We spend our work days wearing long black robes and powdered wigs.”

Ransom supposed that was true.

“And I may be useless when it comes to performing a footman’s table service, but I can get your legal matters sorted. If you’ll accept the help, that is.”

Wendell stuck something blurry and flesh-colored in Ransom’s face.

His hand.

A last pang of bruised pride knocked about his chest, heaving in its death throes. He didn’t need help rising to his feet, that pride insisted. He wasn’t an invalid or a child.

But he was human. Hopelessly in love, for the first time in his life. And in danger of losing everything. As Duncan had said, he needed all the friendly help he could get.

He swallowed back his instinctive refusal and accepted the man’s hand.

Once Ransom had gained his feet, Wendell called for the knights to circle close. Their hands clapped on his shoulders and back.

“All knights salute!”

Fists thumped armor. “For my lady, and for Moranglia!”

Chapter Twenty-five

I
zzy, you’re not going to believe this.” Abigail pulled her toward the turret window.

“What is it? Oh, please tell me it’s not the solicitors. We’re not ready at all. I’m not dressed. Ransom isn’t even here.”

“It’s not the solicitors. Look.”

Izzy poked her head out the narrow window. There in the distance, winding down the road to the castle’s barbican, was the familiar, gaily colored sight of the West Yorkshire Riding Knights of Moranglia. Accompanied by their sister chapter of Cressida’s Handmaidens. Their banners waved briskly in the breeze, and sunlight glinted off armor.

“The duke did it,” Abigail said, clutching Izzy’s arm. “He convinced them to come back.”

“I suspect you had something to do with it, too,” Izzy said. “Sir Wendell obviously has his own reasons for returning. But it doesn’t matter why they came. It just matters that they’re here.”

A silly tear came to her eye. Even after everything yesterday, they hadn’t abandoned her. They were still here, still her friends. They still believed.

Doubt not.

T
he next few hours were a flurry of activity. Cook and the handmaidens were busy in the kitchen. The knights had another course in table service. Duncan whisked Ransom off for a bath, shave, fitted coat, and gleaming boots. Abigail expended nearly three-quarters of an hour and a great deal of patience on a quest to tame Izzy’s hair.

When the carriage wheels sounded in the drive, Izzy couldn’t even bring herself to look. Abigail had to do it.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s them. Now they’re here.”

“How many?”

“Two coaches. Three . . . No, four men in all.”

Four of them? Oh, dear. Only two would be the solicitors. The others must be . . . doctors, witnesses, assistants to the Lord Chancellor, perhaps?

She paced back and forth, just hoping everything was going well downstairs. Duncan would be greeting them, seeing them into the hall, and then it would be time for . . .

A knock sounded at the door.

Ransom.

“Are you ready?” He offered her his arm, and together they made their way down the corridor. “Don’t worry about anything. Just stay close to me.”

“Won’t they find it strange if I’m plastered to your side the whole time?”

His mouth tugged to one side. “Believe me. None of my solicitors will be surprised to find a beautiful woman plastered to my side. It will only bolster the impression that I’m my old self.”

His
reputation wasn’t the source of her concern. She strongly doubted his solicitors were used to seeing him with women like her.

“Wait.” Izzy held him back.

“What is it?”

“I . . . I have to tell you something.”

“Hm. Right. That would be lovely, but perhaps it can wait until after this crucial meeting we’ve been preparing for all week?”

“It can’t wait,” she said, pulling on his sleeve. “There’s something you need to know. Urgently.”

Now that she had his attention, she almost lost her nerve. She forced herself to blurt it out. “I’m not beautiful. At all.”

His brow furrowed, and lips pursed as if he would ask a question, but the question seemed to just . . . get stuck there.

“I should have told you ages ago. You can’t know how it’s been weighing on me. It’s just . . . No one’s ever called me beautiful. No one’s ever made me
feel
beautiful. And I couldn’t resist enjoying it, even though it was all a misunderstanding. But you need to know it now. If we go into that room together, me draped on your arm . . . There will be no clearer evidence that you’ve gone blind. They won’t know what in the world you’re doing with me.”

“Izzy.” His hand swept up her arm.

She pulled away. “I’m not fishing for compliments. Truly. It’s important that you believe and understand this. I’m not beautiful, Ransom. Not pretty. Not comely. Not even passably fair. I’m exceedingly plain. I always have been. No man has ever paid me the slightest attention.”

“All right, then. So you’re not beautiful.”

“No.”

“Of all your layers and revelations . . .” His hands settled on her shoulders. “
This
is the deepest secret you’ve been keeping from me.”

“Yes.” She tried to reach for him.

His grip firmed, forbidding her to move. “Don’t.”

As he backed her up against the wall, words just kept spilling out of her. Useless, foolish words.

“It seemed harmless enough at the start. I never dreamed it would cause any trouble, and I told myself there wasn’t any reason you needed to know the truth. Except now . . . now there are other people here. And you want to pass me off as your lover, and—”

“I’m not passing you off,” he said. “You
are
my lover.”

She pressed her hands to her face. Curse her ridiculous vanity. Now his whole future was at risk.

He said, “I can’t believe this is happening. This . . .
this
. . . is your great, shameful confession. You tell me you’re not beautiful.” He laughed. “It’s just absurd.”

“It is?”

“Yes. That’s nothing. Do you want to hear a truly ugly secret, Izzy? Here’s mine. I killed my mother.”

R
ansom could feel her recoil at his words, palpably shocked.

He didn’t blame her. They were ugly words. Never, ever pleasant to hear. They’d taken a toll on him, too.

“My mother labored for thirty-odd hours to bring me into the world, and died less than one hour afterward,” he said. “I killed her. That’s precisely what my father told me, in those exact words, from the time I was old enough to understand them.”

The memories were still so clear. Every time he’d cried, every time he’d shivered, every time he’d stumbled and wanted a bit of cosseting. His father would haul him by the collar, heels dragging along the marble floors, and push him to the floor before the floor-length portrait of his mother.

Stop that sniveling, boy. She can’t wipe your tears now, can she? You killed her.

God, she was beautiful in that portrait. Golden hair, blue eyes, pale blue gown. An angel. He used to pray to her. Little blasphemous petitions for miracles, forgiveness, playthings . . . any signs that she could hear.

But she didn’t hear. She was gone.

He’d never prayed to anything since.

“All the servants,” he said, “nursemaids, housekeeper, tutors . . . they were sternly instructed to show me no affection. No hugs, no kisses, no nurturing or comfort. Because those were things my mother would have given me, and I didn’t deserve them. He blamed me for her death.”

He felt the breath sigh out of her. “Ransom, that’s just terrible.”

“It is,” he agreed.

“It was so wrong of him to treat you that way.”

“It was. He was a cruel, disgusting bastard. Let’s just say, there weren’t many bedtime stories.”

“I . . . It’s meaningless to say it, but I’m so very sorry.”

He pressed his brow to hers. “It’s not meaningless at all. It means everything. And if later, you want to take me to bed and stroke my hair for days, I’ll take it gladly.” He pulled back, putting distance between them. “But that’s later. Right now, we’re discussing you. Not-beautiful you.

“I know women, Izzy. I’ve known far too many women.” He’d spent years searching for that physical comfort he’d been denied, always shying away from any deeper connection. “And I’ve known, ever since that first afternoon, that you were unlike anyone who’d come before. I’m glad of it. And if men never paid you attention, I’m glad of that, too, selfish cad that I am. Otherwise, you’d be with some other man instead of here with me.

“But no matter how tightly I hold you, no matter how deeply I sink inside you—I’ve felt there’s always some small part of you I can’t reach. Something you’ve been holding back. Your heart, I assumed. Oh, I wanted it. I want all of you. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask for something I so clearly didn’t deserve.”

He felt her draw breath to object, but he cut her off before she could try.

“And it’s nothing to do with my birth or my childhood. I’m old enough now to recognize my father’s treatment for the senseless cruelty it was. But it’s everything since. You think a few features scattered on your face make you plain? I am ugly to the core. All England knows it. And after reading through my papers, you must know it. You sifted through a mountain of my misdeeds. Of course you’d build a wall around your heart. You’re a clever girl. How could you love this? How could anyone?”

“Ransom.” Her voice wavered.

“And now I learn that this . . .
this
. . . is what you’ve been guarding. This is the reason for that reluctance. You don’t feel pretty enough. For a blind man. Christ, Izzy. And I thought
I
was shallow.”

The words came out more harshly than he intended. So he followed them with kisses. Tender, soothing kisses to her cheek, her neck, the pale, arousing curve of her shoulder . . .

Bless this woman and her silly, all-too-human vanity. He might never know how to be the man she deserved, but this?

This, he knew how to remedy.

“Izzy,” he moaned, pressing his body to hers, “you make me wild with wanting you. You can’t imagine.” He started pulling up her skirts.

She gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Just what it seems like.”

“We can’t. The solicitors. They’re just downstairs, waiting.”

“This is more important.”

“Tupping me in the corridor is more important than saving your title?”

He held very still. Then he kissed her lips. “Yes.”

He said the word simply, solemnly. Because he meant it, with everything he had left to him. Body and soul. The solicitors and dukedom could go hang. There was nothing worth defending in his life if he couldn’t make her see this.

“I can’t judge how beauty looks anymore,” he said. “But I know the sound of it. It sounds like a flowing river of wild, sweet honey. Beauty smells like rosemary, and it tastes of nectar. Beauty sneezes like a flea.”

She smiled. That beautiful smile. How could she ever doubt her effect on him?

“This is how plain you are.” He caressed her breast with one hand, while with the other he undid the closures of his breeches placket. “This is how unattractive I find you.”

There wasn’t time for foreplay or finesse. Only joining.

He fought his way through the petticoats, found her to be every bit as ready as he was—and put both hands on her backside, lifting her off the ground and against the wall. She clung tight to his neck, wrapping her legs about his waist.

And then he thrust.

“I love you.”

Saying those words—the words he’d been denied so long, until he denied that they meant anything—damn, it felt good. And saying the words while sliding deep inside her? It felt amazing.

“I love you, Izzy.” He thrust deep and true, sliding further home with every dig of his hips. “I love you.
You
. Beautiful . . . tempting . . . clever . . . lovely . . . you.”

He paused inside her, sheathed to the hilt. Holding her pinned to the wall, the both of them fighting for breath. Her thighs quivered against his. There wasn’t any way to get closer. He’d pushed into her just as far as he possibly could, thrust as deeply as he could ever reach.

But was it enough? Could he manage to touch her heart?

He had to know.

He closed his eyes and pressed his brow to her sweet, powdered skin. That old, insidious voice thundered in his blood.
You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve her.

But he had to ask anyway.

He spoke the words that were most difficult of all.

“Love me.”