The Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order (28 page)

For a heartbeat, everything was exactly as it ought to be in his world, excepting her nose and eyes.

Odd, that.

He let himself be momentarily distracted.

In a blink, she flew out the opposite doorway and up the path toward the cottage. He gave chase but she had too great a head start. Having reached the cottage first, she raced through the door and slammed it shut in his face. The bolt shot. She locked herself in; or rather, she locked him out.

“Prudence,” he panted, “come out here.”

“Go away,” she replied from the other side of the door.

“I most certainly will not go away. Open this door!”

“I most certainly will not. Go away!”

He disliked both her mimicry of his strict Major Maubrey voice and her impudent change of emphasis. That tone generally worked wonders on the disobedient. Still, despite his sternest commanding tone, she remained on the wrong side of a securely locked door.

“Let me in so we may talk like civilized people,” he demanded. Silence. “Don’t make me break this door down.”

From a second storey window, she called down: “And don’t come to me when you ruin your shoulder, Your Grace.” He took a few steps away from the door to glare up at her.

“My name is Jem, blast it all. Jem!”

Her head ducked inside. Growing more exasperated, Ainsworth tore through the rose bushes — and the roses tore through his clothes — to scale the ivy in good boots. He had dressed in splendor for this occasion. Fortunately, Smeeth was not a sensitive soul on the subject of scraped-to-ruin boots or shredded cravats and shirts. He heard seams pop and tear at the shoulders of his superbly fitted coat of midnight blue superfine. A brass button pinged off the brick wall and disappeared in the undergrowth as he heaved himself upward. He reached her window only to find it securely locked. Locked! He leaned close to the glass pane, shaded his eyes with a hand and saw Prudence hugging herself, sable hair tumbling down, glaring at him with rheumy eyes.

What the devil was wrong with her?

He rapped on a pane until she drew near. “Please, Prudence, open the window.”

She turned and walked away — raising his blood to its boiling point — but returned a moment later with a heavy book. This she wedged on top of the lower sash to prevent him from opening it more than a few inches above the sill. Only then did she unlatch the lock and lift the sash.

He braced himself with an arm on the outside sill and gritted out, “Don’t be so disobliging. Speak to me.”

“There’s nothing more to say, Your Grace.”

“Jem, damn it! How many times…”

She ignored his outburst and continued, “Say what you will and be gone. I cannot have you roaring at me for anyone passing to overhear.”

“I would prefer to say what I have to say in your sitting room.”

“Alas, I prefer you keep your speech brief. Like this, you’ll be succinct or fall to the ground while prosing on.” She smiled at him but really it was more a baring of teeth. There was no warmth. None at all. Redness aside, her eyes looked distinctly flinty, too.

So, the Duke of Ainsworth found himself trying to think of a debonair way to propose to his beloved for a third time while clinging to an ivy vine outside her window.

She was right. His hand grasping the vine grew numb and his feet were not as secure as they had been in rougher boots. His perch was ever more precarious. So His Grace repeated his desire to marry her tersely. After which, his beloved refused him just as tersely, closed the window and locked it again.

In frustration, he flung himself down the vine backwards, losing his grip and tumbling hindmost going foremost into the roses. Fortunately for him, nothing but his pride suffered injury but it must be said that his pride was grievously wounded.

Ainsworth stormed off feeling as ill used as an early Christian martyr. Like those unfortunate worthies, he was a man convinced of the righteousness of his cause, stoic in the face of scourging (damned vicious roses) and determined to persist whatever the cost to his personal wellbeing. Perhaps, he mused, the intercession of a saint would be useful. His mind wandered unbidden to St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes and desperate situations. While he still refused to believe marrying Prudence Haversham was a lost cause, he knew his situation was approaching desperate.

• • •

Prudence realized too late that she should’ve watched the duke leave. After their angry, hissed exchange concluded, she heard him plummet, land with a snapping crunch and swear fluently in what sounded like Portuguese. But she didn’t dare peek at him out the window as he stormed off. If he stormed off, that is.

It was possible he still lurked about the grounds, waiting for her to emerge like a mouse from its hole, her reddened, running nose quivering. Or worse, he lay in wait by the distiller. She had to see to the distilling soon. There wasn’t a moment to waste, or the distillate might overheat in the tubing and scorch the entire batch.

She opened the back door cautiously. She held her breath to listen for footfalls or muttered Portuguese profanity. Nothing. She stepped outside, leaving the door open behind her, just in case. Bending at the waist, she peered around the cottage corner toward the dairy shed. No one. She crept down the path scanning all around her. All clear but it would be like him to skulk in the shed and pounce on her. He was, after all, the proverbially implacable Horseman of the Apocalypse. And she had provoked him, she knew.

She hurried the rest of the way to the shed. As she neared its open doorway, she slowed, her heart pounding in her chest.

“If you’re hiding in there, come out, Your Grace. I’m in no mood for another of your ambushes.”

She craned her neck to peek inside the shed. The copper distiller bubbled merrily but no one hid within. Her heart slowly resumed its normal pace. She tried to ignore her disappointment. She was alone and it was no relief whatsoever. To her disgust, her eyes and nose began to malfunction again.

What was she to do? Time was short. Murphy and Mrs. Mason were absent. The Duke of Ainsworth kept popping up to scare her senseless when she least expected it.

It must stop. She must put a stop to it.

A
fter picking himself up and brushing himself off, Ainsworth stormed across Pulteney Bridge and thence to Morford Street. The footman opened the door and Thatcher appeared but said nothing as he brushed thorny, leafy debris from the back of the duke’s ruined frock coat.

“Where are they?”

“The front salon, Your Grace. Waiting for you, I should think,” Thatcher answered.

Ainsworth strode into the cheery room and took in the scene: his oversized friends lounged on delicate, undersized chaises and a settee, with long legs sprawled forward and arms draped sideways over slim, ebonized chair arms, looking bored. Attila lolled equally bored on the rug in the midst of the men, one large forepaw crossed over the other.

“There you are!” Seelye exclaimed jumping to his feet. He surveyed his friend’s tattered coat through his quizzing glass with disapproval. “Change. Then we’ll go for a jaunt, shall we? Or a ride?”

The duke flung himself down beside Clun on the settee and grumbled something profane. Seelye sat down with a sigh.

“Beg pardon?” Percy asked.

“Bloody vexing female,” His Grace replied elliptically. Attila rose and sauntered to his master to offer his ears up for scratching. The duke obliged. In the silence, they heard the duke’s valet step-thunk, step-thunk, step-thunk down the staircase and through the hall. Without a word, Smeeth entered the room with another coat over an arm. Ainsworth stood to allow his man to strip away the damaged coat.

Clun eyed the shredded garment. “Miss Haversham?”

“Rejected me. Again.”

“I’d take her word for it this time if I were you, Jem. Little dervish’s got claws,” Clun chuckled.

“Don’t be stupid, I did this to myself climbing,” Ainsworth bit out as he examined the coat’s popped and fraying shoulder seams.

“Don’t see how climbing persuades a female of anything,” Clun mumbled.

“Test of fitness?” Seelye suggested with a snort. Clun sputtered.

Percy ignored the two chortling miscreants, “I cannot imagine how you could’ve bollixed it up.”

“I am mystified,” Ainsworth replied acidly. Smeeth helped His Grace into the second coat and wordlessly retired to dispose the remains of the first. The duke tugged apart his coattails and plopped down.

“You look the chit in the eye…” Percy lectured as if an expert on marriage proposals.

“She ran off and locked herself in the cottage,” Ainsworth interrupted. “And screeched down at me from a blasted window upstairs, if you can believe it.”

Clun and Seelye choked and sniggered. Percy remained sympathetic.

“Fine. Right. Romeo and Juliet. You stand below, tell her she is your sun, moon, and sparkly stars, what have you…” Percy extemporized.

“She interrupted me constantly.”

“Did she?” Percy said sharply. “Well, I can see how that would be irritating.”

“Right. I’m listening.”

“Where was I? Sun, moon…Ah yes, go down on one knee, tell her you love her…”

Ainsworth interrupted Percy’s lecture with a low groan and rested his elbows on his knees and his pounding head in his hands.

“You must let me finish if I’m to help,” Percy scolded.

In a moment of clarity, Ainsworth realized he never admitted his feelings to her. Not in so many words. Not in any words. The prospect of charging a line of French lancers daunted him less than facing the petite apothecary with only his heart in hand. So he had not conveyed to her the depth of his feelings.

How could he? What he felt was unfathomable at this point. How could he explain his need for her when she had become as essential as air, or water, or peaceful sleep? His attachment to her was much too complicated for simple, subject-verb-object sentences. Such turbulent emotions tied his tongue in knots.

The duke never once expressed his admiration for her gallantry, her kindness, her competence or her self-sufficiency. Never told her how beautiful she was. Or how he delighted in her sense of humor, even when at his expense. He certainly never mentioned that he loved her. In his soul, he simply knew Prudence Haversham was his true north, his safe harbor, his best and only hope for happiness. So he spoke without any sensibility, focusing instead on achieving the practical outcome essential to his future.

On the other hand, he was doing all he could to
show
her all of those inexpressible feelings by his actions, blast it all. Yet, she stymied him at every pass. The injustice of it all was not to be borne; he started to simmer.

“In my own defense,” the duke burst out in argument, “would a man keep pursuing her despite insults and discouragement if he didn’t love her? Would he chase her ‘round a dairy shed or climb ivy if he weren’t utterly besotted? Would he
ruin
a new Weston?”

“That rag on your back was a Weston?” Seelye said in strangled distress. “No!”

“Yes, damn it! I’ve made my feelings painfully, embarrassingly obvious. Actions, gentlemen, not mere words! Any saphead with a book of sonnets can crib enough romantic fustian to sound convincing. Whereas I may not say much but I mean what I
do
, damn it,” Ainsworth concluded, vindicated in his own mind. “Over and over, I’ve bared my soul to her.”

“You told her you loved her?” Percy persisted.

“Not precisely in those words, Percy,” the duke snapped. “Why must you harp on that!” The duke first announced they would marry, wrote her much the same and then demanded she marry him. (Not well done.) Most recently, he’d hissed that she ‘had bloody well better marry’ him while he clung to a vine like a demented orangutan. (Also not well done.)

“Perhaps I’ve been…” Ainsworth began.

“A dunce?” “A numbskull?” “An imbecile?” His friends suggested helpfully.

The duke glared. “Stupid.”

“Practice makes perfect,” Seelye noted with a smirk.

“
Nescit cedere
, isn’t that the Maubrey motto? He never concedes, or something like,” Percy encouraged.

“At some point, I’ll take her refusal to heart and be done with the whole business,” Ainsworth muttered darkly, stroking Attila’s big head. “I’ll cultivate eccentricities of personal hygiene and commune exclusively with my dogs like the Earl of Bridgewater. The man dines formally with his hounds at the table, seated in the chairs. Footman for each, so I hear.” Ainsworth fell silent.

Clun merely rolled his eyes. “Have Percy talk to her, Jem.”

“My luck, she’ll end up infatuated with him!” The duke huffed.

“Can’t say I’d blame her. You’re a mess,” Clun needled. Ainsworth gave him a filthy look. Clun grinned back.

“At least she wouldn’t be in love with ‘Captain bloody Dorset’ any longer,” Seelye pointed out.

“She does like me, I believe,” Clun added.

“What does that mean, she ‘likes’ you?” Ainsworth growled.

“I’ve charmed her.”

“You better not have, you great ape,” Ainsworth grunted and massaged his temples between thumb and forefinger. “I have a thundering headache. I need some air.”

Seelye and Clun stood. Clun fished a small tin from a pocket of his waistcoat, tossed it in the air and caught it. “I have something for tension headaches,” Clun said flourishing the tin of salve. “Lovely Miss Haversham gave this to me. She’s quite enchanting. Not just clever. An Original. She’ll take London by storm.”

“Not until she’s Duchess of Ainsworth, you hear?” Ainsworth growled and reached for the little salve tin but Clun snatched it away just to irritate him.

“She won’t have you so why not step aside…” Clun teased.

In reply, Ainsworth punched his friend in the face and snatched the tin from his grasp.

“Ow!” It was a glancing blow that barely knocked Clun’s head back.

“Shouldn’t taunt a man in love,” Percy opined from where he lounged. “Bound to get a poke for it.”

“Duly noted.” Clun tested the pulped flesh of his cheek with fingertips and reproached his unhinged friend, “Ainsworth, this is going to bruise!”