The Wild Duchess/The Willful Duchess (The Duchess Club Book 1) (19 page)

“Don’t say it!” Scarlett pressed her hands against her cheeks to cool them. “I don’t want to say what I hope and then face disappointment.”

“Of course. Go. But what will I do to keep them from noticing your absence?”

Scarlett put her hands at her hips, a sure sign that she was about to dig in with a brilliant plan. “I’ll go let Mrs. Clark know that we’re lying down to rest, that it’s been such a whirlwind lately that Mother would want us to guard our health. I’ll ask her to be sure to have Molly wake us when the gong sounds to change for dinner. That gives me at least three hours.”

“That’s plenty of time, right?” Starr asked. “But what should I say if you aren’t back before Molly comes to wake us?” The pretense of needing to rest would be easy for the household to believe but Starr’s anxiety was palpable. “Promise me you’ll be back in time!”

“I promise I’ll be back in time,” Scarlett repeated the oath dutifully. “I have to speak to him. I have to know—where we stand. I feel as if my entire life hangs in the balance of what he has to say.”

“It may if he intends what we think he intends and asks you, Scarlett. What else could it be?”

Scarlett’s hands were trembling with nerves as she reached out to hold Starr’s hands to steady herself. “We had such a rough start but—when he looks at me, when he touches me…I cannot help but hope for a fairytale ending and imagine that I might find it with him.”

“God, it all seems so dire and thrilling! You poor thing!”

“I’m going. This is my chance!”

“Good luck, Lettie. I shall be praying for a good outcome every minute that you’re gone!”

Starr kissed her on the cheek and with that, Scarlett slipped out of the room, down the quiet halls to speak to Mrs. Clark and then with great caution, left the house to hire a hackney to take her to Hyde Park. Her heart was pounding at the audacity of her escape, but it seemed clear to her that great happiness could not be won without great risk.

H
e was waiting
for her at Apsley Gate and Scarlett had to force herself not to run to him like an overexcited child. “Your Grace. I hope I have not kept you waiting long?”

“No. Not at all. Shall we take a walk, Miss Blackwell?”

“Yes, please.” They walked together, carefully maintaining a polite and acceptable distance between them, though Scarlett suspected that no one observing them would be fooled in the slightest. “This seems a conspicuous place to request to meet me in private.” Scarlett looked about at the park’s green spaces and the many people enjoying its beauty, strolling the paths and riding in carriages. “It is well attended, Your Grace.”

“I don’t care who sees us. I just wanted to meet you to talk alone, away from the icy disapproval of chaperones.” He smiled. “We are not children, Scarlett, to worry what the nanny thinks.”

“No, we are not children,” she said. “And I did need to see you. I have thought of little else but the need to see you, to speak to you again, to make sure that I didn’t somehow you offend you at the derby the other day.”

“No, not at all. I feared I would say too much, Miss Blackwell. God, there is so much to say, isn’t there?”

She could only manage a nod, her heart in her throat.

“Elgin said you were elusive, Miss Blackwell, but I never realized just how truthful he was being when he said it.”

“If I am, it is not by design. Events have conspired against us since…since the theatre.”

“A cruel conspiracy,” he said softly.

Scarlett smiled. “Have you suffered then, Your Grace?”

“Have you not?”

Her breath snagged in her chest and she marveled that the world did not come to a glorious halt. “It isn’t proper to ask a lady to confess how your kisses have unraveled her senses, robbed her of sleep and sanity and made her wonder how any person appears normal after discovering such things about themselves. But yes, Your Grace, there you have it. I have suffered.” She nervously touched her throat. “Just a little.”

“God, how do you do that? Speak of such things to make me want to sweep you off your feet and haul you into the trees like a caveman and then…you make me laugh.”

“I do pride myself on being unpredictable,” she said with a blush.

“As well you should! Your unpredictability is one of your most endearing qualities.”

They continued to walk together, a new delicious tension building between them as the memories of stolen kisses in theatres and in gardens warmed them both into silence. At last, he slowed his steps and guided her to a pretty gazebo set off for the view.

“Miss Blackwell,” he began. “I have never dallied with women and always prided myself on avoiding foolish entanglements, but after meeting you—after coming to know you as I have, I wonder if I was waiting for you all along.”

“Oh!” Scarlett pressed her fingertips against her lips, happily anxious to stay quiet and allow her beloved Talon to speak. “Do go on.”

“You are so independent and such a forward-thinking woman, Miss Blackwell.”

“Modern times call for modern sensibilities, Your Grace.”

“Yes, but sometimes a man simply wishes to care and provide for the woman he desires above all others.” Talon took a deep breath. “I wish to care and provide for you, Miss Blackwell. I know it is an irrevocable step to take, but you will never want for anything. A house of your own or even two houses if you wish something nearer my estates to enjoy the countryside, carriages, more gowns than you can wear in a hundred Seasons, jewels, whatever your heart desires—
anything
your heart desires! We can travel abroad or—”

Scarlett wiped her eyes, the sentimental tears that had started when he’d first begun to speak now felt like acid on her cheeks. “I…what are you saying, Your Grace? You…what exactly are you proposing?”

“I am proposing to worship you and spoil you beyond your wildest dreams! I have
never
kept a mistress and would see that you never felt ignored or unattended in any way. I love you, Scarlett, and I want us to be together.”

“Together,” she repeated the word, so tantalizingly sweet in her mouth but now strangely bitter. “Not as your wife.”

“Dearest Scarlett.” He stepped closer, his hands cupping her elbows to draw her near. “I am trapped by my responsibilities and the expectations of the world. If I were some lowly baronet, it would be less confining but I am a prisoner of birth. I was doomed to a colorless existence until I met you—and you have become everything to me, Scarlett. You are my one chance at happiness and I cannot let it slip away. I know this is not precisely what your family had hoped for you but in many ways, is it not an improvement over settling for a dull marriage to some man who invests in railroads or owns a mill somewhere up north? I love you, Scarlett. You will live better than most members of the royal household and never know a moment of sorrow.”

Never know a moment of sorrow? I am drowning in sorrow! My God…I can’t breathe.

“You are asking me to be your mistress,” she said the words aloud, shocked that she didn’t shatter with the effort.

He nodded, his eyes alight with joy and anticipation of her acceptance. “There’ll be a bit of a fuss from your family initially but I think even they will see the advantages of the position when your house makes theirs look like a country shed and my solicitor outlines the financial arrangements. You will have all the wealth of a duchess, but outpace one for independence and freedom! I think it’s the perfect solution, don’t you?”

“The perfect solution to—what problem?”

“The—obvious challenges of our…unequal stations, of course.” For the first time, his enthusiasm dimmed and Talon looked at her as if he had only now spotted the vipers and cobras covering their feet. “Scarlett, this is not a trivial offer or an unfeeling one. I adore you and I want to make you happy for the rest of our lives. Do you understand that?”

She nodded slowly. “I wish Ivy were here.”

“What? Who?”

“My friend, Ivy Hastings, has such a gift for language and I never knew it. I never knew how fearless she was—and being with her made me feel fearless.” She let out a slow shuddering sigh. “I need to feel fearless right now. I need to be able to say what I want to say.”

“Of course you can speak freely with me. Are you afraid to say yes? Are you afraid of your parents’ reactions?” He took her numb hands into his. “I know this is a bit shocking to someone so young but I will protect you. When you kissed me behind that curtain at the theatre, you revealed your true nature—and taught me that you are my match in every way. You are free, Scarlett, free to follow your heart
and
your desires.”

“Yes, I am free.” She kicked him in the shin so hard she feared she’d broken her own toes, but it was the most satisfying moment of her life. Talon cried out in pain and stepped back defensively, the surprise on his face rivaled by the agony below his knee.

“Damn it! What was that for?”

“All this time! You
never
changed! You were always that same arrogant, smug and superior idiot who’d come to call on me after Aldridge’s, who’d sniffed the air of our sitting room and found it wanting and who looked at the house’s improvements and decided that the stench of new money was not to your liking.” Scarlett’s voice rose with her fury. “It was my blindness, wasn’t it? My affection that painted you as a charming thing, as a man with potential and…I filled in all the blank spaces with my own wants and dreams. But you—you
never
were anything more than a stodgy and stupid duke all along!”

“I did change! You changed me! I fell in love with you!” He sat down on the gazebo’s railing to grip his leg. “My God, I think you broke my leg!”

“Stop telling me that you love me. Stop using that word.” She ignored his complaints, her gaze narrowing. “A mistress? For a man who avoids scandal, you certainly embraced it today.”

He shook his head. “There has been no scandal nor would there be.”

“No?”

“What scandal in pursuing the most beautiful girl to ever grace London? What scandal in falling in love and doing everything in my power to win her?” He smiled at her and Scarlett’s heart lurched at the sight of it. It felt unfair that with a simple smile he could silently command her body’s attention and rattle her composure with a warm weak avalanche of tenderness.

She wheeled without warning, her skirts rustling in the quick turn as they swept behind her. “
Everything
in your power?” Scarlett stared at him as if he had transformed into something else, someone else, before her very eyes. “Your powers are very limited, Your Grace, if the height of them is to ask the woman you say you love to be your whore. Is there not scandal in that? Or is the proposition a fragile and weightless thing until a wicked answer is provided to give it life? Oh, wait! Never mind. The scandal would be for
me
to bear! It would be
my
downfall,
my
destruction,
my
end—how delightfully convenient! No one blames you for pursuing a girl but I can assure you that they very much blame that same girl when she is caught! You insult me.”

“Damn it. That’s not—I would protect you. No one would dare publicly cross you, Scarlett. There is no insult in—”

“No insult? You believe that? If we were honest, if I had said yes then the gain was all yours and the damage and consequences all mine. What loving question bears such poisonous fruit? If you
loved
me…”

“Scarlett, look at me. I have never had a mistress! I have never asked another woman to—I am not a collector of women to make them whores! I didn’t ask you to follow a train of women into my bed! I want only you, Scarlett. All that I am and all that I have would be yours.”

“Except your name. How flattering. I should kiss your hand then?”

“Scarlett, even you must see the logic in this. I am not free to make any other offer of—”

“Yes, I understand. Without a title, I am beneath you. You like me enough to make me your mistress. You wish to generously compensate me for the forfeit of my reputation, my social standing and my self-worth. Do instruct me, Stafford, what is the courteous reply to all of that?” She took a firm step back, her voice infused with revulsion. “Oh, Your Grace! I’m so grateful that you would deign to bend down and extend an offer for me to perchance bear your bastards and live or die at your whim but I
respectfully
decline.”

“Scarlett, duty compels me to marry one day but it does not compel me to love. I would give you what a wife cannot demand. You have my heart—please don’t…make this so ugly and….I never meant for you to….”

She began to cry as the last vestige of her self-control gave way. “Don’t! Don’t ever tell your future wife—she will not thank you for being such a heartless ass. Do your wife a courtesy by not pretending that you are doing her a favor when you save your true affections for harlots and courtesans. It will destroy her—it would have destroyed me if I was…in her place. Thank God, Talon. Thank God you revealed your true nature before I…before I was…”

Completely in love with you?

Too late. Oh, God, too late!

She ran. She ran from him without any attempt to be graceful, without a single thought to how it all would look—one of the Blackwell Beauties bolting clumsily through Hyde Park crying ugly tears and leaving the handsome Duke of Stafford clutching his shins. She looked like a jilted woman in a bad melodrama…

Except she no longer cared.

Scarlett’s heart was thoroughly broken as only a Blackwell’s heart could be.

I will take this hatred and hurt to my grave...

But oh, God, I will love him to the end of my days, too, won’t I?

“
H
ow did it
…go?” Starr asked as she finally achieved the sanctuary of their bedroom again.

“Did anyone notice my absence?” Scarlett asked quietly and took off her bonnet to drop it on the bed.

“No. You’re back far swifter than we’d hoped and there’s still nearly an hour before they ring the gong to change for dinner.” Starr drew closer. “Lettie? Was he not there?”

Scarlett shook her head. “No. He wasn’t. He must have been detained. I suppose it was foolish to…hope for some silly romantic…” Her voice broke over the lies she’d rehearsed all the way home and the tears came again.

Starr pulled her into her arms. “There, there, dearest! It’s not silly to hope. It is never silly to expect good things to happen. I’m sure he’s terribly distressed to have missed you and will make such a pretty apology that you’ll be glad that today went a bit wrong. What do you say to that?”

Scarlett gently pushed away, grateful for her sister. “There is nothing else to say.”

She left the bedroom to head into the adjoining washroom to splash cold water on her face and recover before facing her family across a dinner table. She waited for the next wave of agony or despair to strike but a new horrible calm came instead.

There really is nothing left to say.

I fell in love with the wrong man. If there is comfort in learning the lesson before I was ruined…I’m sure I’ll feel it soon. But I cannot spoil Tara’s Season, or upset Father and Mother—not when Mother is ill and we are all on edge.