The Care and Feeding of Your Captive Earl (What Happens In Scotland Book 3) (24 page)

“Miss Welby’s priorities are perfectly understandable,” he said lazily, as though her blunt dismissal hadn’t offended him in the least. He flicked his gaze in her father’s direction. “Leave us, Welby. I’d like to speak with your daughter alone.”

Her father didn’t hesitate to do as bidden, coming around his massive mahogany desk to lay a kiss on her cheek. Then he was out the door, leaving her completely, helplessly alone with the duke.

She glared as she lowered herself into a nearby chair, perching on the edge, poised to escape at the first opportunity. The way he ordered her father around like a servant in his own home was positively reprehensible. He might intimidate all of London, but Pippa refused to yield to such arrogance. He had no right to barge into her home and start making demands.

“Well, since I have breakfast waiting and you have”—whatever scoundrels do first thing in the morning— “whatever it is you have to do, why don’t we cut straight to the matter, Your Grace? What is your purpose in coming here?”

His lips twisted into a faint smile. “Playing games, are we, Miss Welby? You must know why I’m here.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she said. “Nor do I care, particularly.”

That nonchalant comment nettled him, as she had suspected it would. She could see it in the way he glared as he moved to the sideboard and poured himself a generous helping of her father’s finest brandy. His posture was rigid, every move stiff and deliberate. Women didn’t speak to men of his ilk with such indifference, especially women of her “tainted” breeding.

“You haven’t the slightest idea why a man might prevail upon you and your father at this early hour?” He took a healthy sip of brandy, then set his glass on the small, circular table beside her.

“Perhaps I misjudged you, Miss Welby. What I perceived as intelligence is clearly no more than artfully concealed ignorance.”

She narrowed her eyes at the insult. “You slighted me at the Tisdale ball last year. Why would I have any reason to believe you would call upon me, of all people?”

He raised one elegant brow. “Slighted you, did I?”

Now that nettled her. Good heavens, she wasn’t even worth remembering! To this day, she relived that horrid moment, agonizing over every humiliating detail. His blank, slightly horrified expression as Mr. Tisdale had introduced them. His subsequent silence. Then finally, his curt dismissal as he turned and walked away, in front of everyone.

Word of her humiliation had spread rapidly, of course. They’d called her presumptuous for wrangling an introduction to a duke, and though it was Mr. Tisdale’s oh-so-brilliant idea, not hers, she was still somehow at fault. She was arrogant, pompous, assuming, pretentious—the list of vicious names multiplied for weeks until the story grew tiresome and the gossips found another poor soul to torment.

“What would a duke want with a tradesman’s daughter?”

He chuckled then, a dangerously seductive tone that Pippa struggled—unsuccessfully—to ignore. His voice was deep, masculine, and it rumbled through her like a gathering winter storm.

“You astonish me, Miss Welby. I would have thought the reason was quite clear.” He leaned down and placed a hand on each armrest, caging her in. For a brief moment, it felt as though all the air had been sucked from the room. She could scarcely draw in a breath. Her heart fluttered at his nearness, but she didn’t lean back. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I want you in my bed, of course.”

Bewilderment struck her first, followed swiftly by disbelief, then pure, unfettered outrage. He wanted her for his mistress! Perhaps she hadn’t been born a true lady, but she was certainly a lady now, in spirit if not by blood, and she would not be used for the singular purpose of warming a man’s bed, duke or not.

With one hard shove, she pushed him out of the way, stood, and snatched a carved ivory letter opener off her father’s desk. The ivory was a beautiful piece, made by the master carvers in the seaport village in Dieppe, France, where her father had often traveled before the war. It’d be a pity to get blood on it. She wondered briefly if it’d stain. The surface of the ivory blade was smooth, unblemished. She was fairly certain Arlington’s blood would just wipe off with nary a sign she’d plunged it into his cold, unfeeling heart.

“Just six months ago you gave me the cut direct.” Pippa leveled the blunt letter opener at Arlington’s chest. “Now, you dare saunter into my house and propose I be your mistress?”

Arlington curled his long fingers around her wrist and pulled it aside, effectively thwarting any attempt on his life. “Much as you’d like to stab me, that wouldn’t be wise, Miss Welby. People will ask questions, and I’m not entirely sure you are ready to hang for a simple misunderstanding. I don’t want you for my mistress,” he said. “I want you for my wife.”

All of her anger drained away instantly. She blinked several times; certain she’d heard him wrong. “Your wife?”

With his free hand, he plucked the letter opener from her grasp and let it fall with a heavy thud on the desk.

He was too close, hand still curled around her wrist, his tall, powerful body just inches away. The heat of his skin, the smell of brandy on his breath, coiled around her senses. If she were any other woman, she might tilt her head up and taste those wicked, wicked lips, perhaps trace their outline with the tip of her tongue. For the flicker of a second, she wondered if he would taste as delicious as she imagined. But the moment the thought formed, she pushed it away. She would not be seduced, and certainly not by him. A woman had her dignity, after all.

More than that, he couldn’t possibly be in earnest. He was a duke of the realm, and would naturally be expected to marry high. What in heaven’s name did he want with her?

She pushed at Arlington’s chest. He released her wrist, but he didn’t retreat. Her heart skipped, then galloped. “What game is this, Your Grace? Tell me, so that I may at least know the rules.”

“No game, Miss Welby.” He straightened and took a step back. “I’m a practical man. I see something I want and I take it. It’s quite simple.”

“I’m a woman, not property. I will not be taken, as you so eloquently put it.”

“You have a duty to accept me.”

Yes, society would see it that way, and her father certainly would as well. But none of that really mattered—she would never marry him. Her mother had been a member of the aristocracy—the granddaughter of a baron—and when she’d married Pippa’s father, society had treated her with such contempt, she’d refused to venture out of the house for fear of the scorn and ridicule she would have inevitably faced—if only in her own head. During the last years of her life, she only left the house to attend church on Sundays, or to visit very close friends—but even that was a rarity.

Pippa had sworn to herself, long ago, that she would never run in such circles. Never in a million lifetimes.

“Be that as it may, I’m afraid I cannot accept you.”

There was a fierce, slightly dangerous look in his eyes. “Yes, you can,” he said. “And you will, or it shall be my singular purpose to convince you otherwise.”

The rough, erotic way he said the last sent tingles sweeping through her body. She had little doubt how he intended to convince her, and despite herself, she wondered just how far he would take his threat.

She lifted a brow. “I should like to see you try.”

As soon as the words slipped past her lips, she wished she could call them back. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to challenge a well-seasoned rake on his ability to seduce, especially considering the disturbing swiftness with which her body responded to his nearness.

He lowered his head until his lips hovered dangerously close to hers. Just an inch or two more, and they would be touching. A thrill of anticipation skipped up her spine and spread through her limbs. Her heart thudded frantically against her ribs.

His eyes darkened, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her. Instead, he stepped back. “I accept your challenge.” His smile was slow, wicked. “Good day, Miss Welby.”

With that, he was gone.

For one wild, impossible moment, she thought she might have dreamed the whole dreadful conversation. Had she really just refused a duke of the realm? Now, in the cold aftermath, it

hardly seemed possible.

Moments later, her father rushed back into the room, his features drawn tight. He held a folded piece of sealed parchment in his hand, and Pippa wondered idly what it was. An order of execution? Death by hanging might be preferable to her father’s anger once he discovered she’d thrown the duke’s proposal back in his face.

Her father handed her the parchment. With numb fingers, she unsealed it and read the contents. “It’s an invitation to an engagement ball,” she said.

“Whose engagement?”

“Mine.” She swallowed. “And it’s in ten days.”

Chapter Two

Uncertainty was an abhorrent thing and he didn’t like it, not a damn bit. Lucas prided himself on cold, rational thinking. He was calculated, confident and never asked a question he didn’t already have the answer to. And if no answer was forthcoming, then he created one.

Miss Welby was his answer.

Until this morning when she’d refused him.

Like any rational gentleman with his wealth and position, he’d naturally assumed she would accept his proposal. With her unfortunate connection to trade, she wouldn’t make a better match. Still, she’d refused him, and that rankled more than he was willing to admit.

Lucas glanced down at the legal documents strewn across the surface of his desk when voices echoed in the corridor, just outside his study. Seconds later, the door burst open to reveal a very angry Miss Welby as she stormed into the room with several females in tow. Judging by their simple attire and the slightly frightened look in their eyes, he deduced they were servants of some variety.

He counted them quickly. Eight women. Good God, was she planning a full-scale attack?

Benson rushed in behind the legion of women. “Apologies, Your Grace, I—”

“Tried to stop them,” Lucas finished for the butler. “Yes, I can see that. Excellent work. You may leave us.”

As Benson slinked from the room, Lucas rose to his feet and moved around to the front of the desk, leaning against it casually.

His gaze swept over the female servants as they huddled behind their mistress. “Eight chaperones is a bit excessive, wouldn’t you say?”

She lifted her chin. “One can never be too cautious.”

There was caution and then there was pure lunacy. Women in general had a tendency to go mad from time to time. The madness was cyclical and yet still somehow dangerously unpredictable.

From the first moment he’d glimpsed Miss Welby at Tisdale’s ball, he’d been intrigued by her subtle, enticing beauty. Even now, he remembered the pale pink gown she wore that night. It clung to her every curve perfectly, accentuating her lush, ripe breasts. Instantly, he’d been entranced.

Tisdale had introduced them, or had attempted to, in any event. When she’d curtsied, then lifted her vibrant green eyes to meet his, Lucas had been rendered utterly speechless.

There, in the middle of the ballroom, his mind groped blindly for words. Any words. “My uncle is an ape,” would have sufficed, if only to fill the long, uncomfortable silence that had stretched between them. In the end, rather than look the fool, he’d turned and walked away.

It was that night he’d decided he wanted her.

Months later, he’d discovered she stood to inherit her father’s coal mine, and all the pieces had begun falling into place.

She stepped forward and held out a piece of parchment. “What is this?”

He didn’t need to look at it; he knew precisely what it was. “I should think it would be obvious,” he said. “It’s an invitation.”

She let her hand drop. “Yes, clearly. What I would like to know is why it has my name on it?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “You are my intended. Whose name should be on it?”

“Oh, I don’t know; someone who wants to marry you, perhaps?”

He laughed, amused by her annoyance. “Oh, you want to marry me, love, you just don’t know it yet.”

“No,” she cried. “I don’t! And I certainly do not approve of you inviting guests to a ball that will not, under any pretense, take place.”

Lucas swept his gaze over the gaggle of maids once more. “Let’s discuss this in a more private setting.” In his bed, their naked bodies tangled in the sheets, perhaps.

“This setting is perfectly agreeable.”

“Perhaps I should make myself clear—I will not discuss my private affairs in front of an audience. Your flock of hens must leave.”

She narrowed her eyes. “They stay.”

Good God, the woman was impossible, and he found himself wondering why on earth he’d deliberately set upon this aggravating path toward matrimony. For twenty-seven years, he’d managed to avoid entanglements altogether, and it looked as though that bit of fortune was finally catching up to him. It was unavoidable, he supposed. One must settle down eventually.

And marrying Miss Welby had strategic advantages–control of the largest coal mines in

England, for one.

“I will allow one maid to remain with you. Just one.”

She let out an exasperated breath and turned to one of the younger maids. “Rose, you may stay. The rest of you, please wait just outside the door. I’ll be along in a moment. This won’t take long.”

Oh, it would take plenty long if he had anything to say about it. And if she thought a young, simpering maid would preserve her cherished virtue, then she had no idea what she was up against.

Once the door clicked shut, Miss Welby whirled around to face him. “Now, what was I saying? Oh, yes, call off the engagement ball or I will be forced to strangle the life from your”—she dragged her gaze up the length of him and swallowed—“pathetic body.”

His bride-to-be wasn’t much for subtlety, he was learning.

The room was large and there was a fair amount of distance between them. He rectified that by taking several steps toward her, stopping just inches away. She eyed him suspiciously but made no move to retreat. He liked that about her—she was passionate, determined to hold her ground.