The Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order (30 page)

Not the duke, Prudence prayed in earnest. She could bear him marrying Lady Jane as he ought. She could even tolerate seeing them stroll down Milsom Street (though she hoped to be gone by the time they wed). What Prudence could not endure was the slimmest possibility of losing him to eternity. Her chest constricted as if bound tight in iron straps. Breathing pained her. It felt as if her own heart were seizing in her chest as they neared the entrance to his address.

When Murphy guided the cart to the duke’s front door and pulled it to halt, her heart shattered to pieces, her worst fears realized. She couldn’t move. Murphy bodily lifted her from the cart and led her up the stairs to the door. He let the brass knocker fall.

Thatcher answered, looking grave. “This way, please.”

“Thatcher, what happened?” She cried.

“Miss H., I didn’t know what else to do,” he said solemnly.

The butler led her to a door off the main hall. The study was dim. Light coming through the doorway dimly illuminated the duke’s body sprawled over a settee, arms and legs spilling over its edges. His head lay at an unnatural angle.

“No!” She choked and rushed to his side. He looked pale despite the stubble darkening his jaw. She knelt by him, tore loose his disheveled cravat and felt his neck for a pulse. It was slow and steady. Strong. She pressed her ear to his chest to hear his heart. The steady ‘tha-dum, tha-dum’ sounded in her ear. Stirred by her examination, Ainsworth heaved a sigh. His breath sent her reeling. He was not dying, merely dead drunk.

She glared over her shoulder at Murphy and Thatcher. “What is the meaning of this?”

Murphy backed through the door where Thatcher waited. Before she could react, they closed it. The room plunged into darkness. A key grated in the lock on the other side.

“Thatcher! Murphy! How dare you! It’s pitch black in here. Open the door!”

No one answered; no one opened the door. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust.

The inebriate roused, moaned and grabbed the hand she rested on his chest. He slurred, “Cruel li’l nymph t’ plague m’ dreams.”

Her braid tumbled off her shoulder as she leaned over him. With his other hand, he captured her soft plait and tickled his lips with the end of it.

“Even dreamin’ your scent, devil take it,” he murmured to himself. “M’ thorny rose. Prickly, prickly l’il rose.”

She gripped her braid and tried to pull it from his grasp, “Give it back, please.”

“Give it back yourself!” In the dark, he glared at her and huffed, “If you’ve no damn use for it, gimme back m’ heart, if you please.” He tried to sit upright but fell back, mumbling, “Spinning. Room’s tilting, God help me.” He let his head fall back on the settee. “Oof!”

“You’re drunk, Your Grace.”

“Not drunk ‘nough,” he muttered. “Too li’l port in th’ brandy.” He blinked his eyes owlishly. “Or not ‘nough brandy in th’ port.” He blinked again. “Damn. Still there.”

“There’s nothing I can do for you.”

“C’ bloody well marry me.”

“Yes, I imagine that would sober you — to wake up after a thorough pickling and find yourself attached to a social misfit,” she murmured. “But I’ll spare you the bracing surprise.”

“Not nice t’ taunt,” he grumbled. She tried to stand but he held on. “No, nymph.” He stroked her hand on his chest with his much larger one. “Don’ disappear. Don’ go. Stay, won’t you?”

“I’ll stay, Your Grace, but just for a moment longer.”

He patted her hand, “Good girl. Never go.” He closed his eyes and his grip loosened. She tried to pull away but again he roused.

“
Nescit cedere
,” he slurred with a crooked smile.

“Pardon?” She asked, though she knew enough Latin to grasp its meaning.

“You left off th’ motto,” he smiled, “in m’ tattoo.” He pressed her palm to his lips. “Small li’l hands. Tee-ny ti-ny but sooo strong! Love your hands.”

“Try to sleep, Your Grace.”

“
Am
sleepin’ silly goose!” He snorted a laugh then confided, “Had a bit t’ drink. Ol’ Blood and Thunder’s no damn good. Y’ haven’t stopped hauntin’ me since tha’ bloody night.” He pointed the tassel of her braid in her face to reproach her. “Mustn’t haunt me, naugh-ty, naugh-ty li’l nymph. I shou’ give y’ bottom a good spank.”

“You are extremely intoxicated, Your Grace.”

“Yes, I am!” He agreed with gusto. “Dipped too deep an’ I’m fully fuddled. Blaaaddered,” he belched. “But
in vino veritas
.”

He quieted and she thought perhaps he’d fallen asleep.

“Never good at sayin’ things,” he slurred more to himself than to his beloved. “Gets twisted inside out an’ I lose m’ temper. An’ friends…” he made a rude sound between his lips. “No bloody help t’all. Think it’s hil-ar-ious. Hope i’ happens to them, smug bastards,” he growled before subsiding into barely decipherable mutterings, “So hard t’ say it. Can’t find th’ blasted words.”

She tugged her braid from his relaxed grip but still he held her hand tight.

“What would you say if it weren’t so hard?” She asked softly.

“Obvious things. Get tha’ right off m’ chest.”

“Such as…?”

“
You
know,” he huffed as if she were intentionally obtuse. He drifted to sleep, holding her hand against his chest, where his heart beat slow and steady.

She bent close to touch his face with her free hand while he slumbered. Her fingers mapped his features. Hesitating only a moment, she pressed her lips lightly to his eyelids one at a time, then to his blood-and-thunder-marinated lips. His eyes snapped open and she felt his other arm clamp her against him.

She let him kiss her back as he wished. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. The alcohol on his breath nearly intoxicated her. The stubble on his chin rasped her skin as he kissed her harder and deeper. He pulled her body down over him so she lay atop the warm, hard expanse of him. His legs bracketed her own. His arousal pressed against her belly. He growled as he held her squirming body tight against his. She tried to extricate herself from his embrace but he kept her in place.

“Let me up, please.” She arched her back to pull away. “Your Grace!”

With her free hand she slapped his face. Hard.

He released her. She scrambled off him, lips swollen, braid loose and eyes wild. He sat up slowly, rubbing his cheek. He shook his shaggy head several times. He blinked and tried to focus bloodshot eyes.

After feeling her way through the dark, she stood pressed against the locked door. She waited for him to come to his senses.

“Are y’ there?” He blinked and squinted trying to find her in the dim shadows. “Where’d y’ go? What’d I do?”

“Nothing, nothing at all, Your Grace. It was my fault. I started it,” Prudence babbled. “I’m going now.”

“Don’t go,” came his whisper. He flopped back against the settee, an arm slung over his face and groaned, “Oh nymph, what’m I t’ do with you?”

She pounded on the door until Thatcher reopened it. Out she flew. “His Grace is seriously jug-bitten. I shall send an analgesic powder in the morning for his head, Thatcher.” She glared at him and Murphy, narrowed her eyes and said through gritted teeth, “Never do that again. Understand?”

Both men ducked their heads. Thatcher murmured something about trying to help but she had already opened the door and let herself out. Murphy shrugged and hurried after her.

• • •

Returning to Trim Street late the next morning, Prudence was infuriated to find Murphy unpacking what she had spent the last two days packing — on her own. Chastising him about the previous night’s escapade flew from her thoughts.

“What on earth are you doing, Murphy? Stop this immediately!” Murphy calmly returned more pouches of herbs to their drawers in the tall cabinets. “Are you deaf now?”

“The building’s new owner wants the shop to remain here, Miss H.”

“You work for him now, do you?”

“Way I see it, the missus and I could try to carry on somewhere else but there’s no guarantee folks’d bother to find us in a new place with you gone so long. Here, they’ll come as usual and I’ll have a chance to prove myself.”

Much as Prudence hated to admit it, Murphy made sense. Still she resisted, “I won’t be the duke’s tenant, Murphy, I’m sorry.”

“You won’t have to be, Miss H.
We
will. And we can stay on at the cottage, too. The duke’s Mr. Sterling offered us excellent terms.” It stung how readily Murphy left her employ to accept the duke’s easy terms.

“But I’ll help you till you get on your feet elsewhere!”

“When you’re gone to Italy?” Murphy asked.

“You can rely on me! I’ll do what I must.”

Murphy put down the box he emptied and took his mistress’ small hands between his, “There’s no need to worry over us, Miss H. No more taking care of us either. This way, you can do for yourself as you see fit. We’re staying here to manage things. We’ll be fine, you’ll see. Everything’ll be fine.”

To this, Prudence had no response.

She’d thought she’d already lost everything that mattered. She was mistaken. She hadn’t lost it all until now. Henceforth, she was truly on her own. But Murphy was right in a way. If she didn’t have to support them, she shouldered one less burden. She was free to do as she wished, or must.

She would move to Lady Abingdon’s house that very day. Nothing more kept her. She was ready to leave for Tuscany, eat ham with her godmother and come to terms with motherhood.

Though many questions about her future remained unanswerable, she felt calmer seeing her way forward for a time.

Prudence left the shop to call on Lady Abingdon in her Royal Crescent townhouse. After a restorative cup of tea, she returned to her — or rather, the duke’s — cottage in the Abingdon carriage. Mrs. Mason was nowhere to be found naturally.

Prudence quickly packed her clothing and personal effects in a bag and a trunk. With the coachman’s help, she removed them from the cottage and walked away on leaden feet. There was time enough to return for her few remaining boxes and crates of family memorabilia before she left Bath for sunnier climes. Her prized distiller could stay in place for Mrs. Mason’s use.

Given Murphy’s abandonment and Mrs. Mason’s absence, she left no note or forwarding information. She’d write to them from Florence eventually.

Days passed and Prudence Haversham succeeded in dropping off the face of the earth. From Lady Abingdon, she learned that the duke and his friends searched the town thoroughly but found no trace of her. To Mrs. Mason, Murphy, Mr. Smithson and any of the others who inquired, her ladyship disavowed any knowledge of Prudence’s whereabouts, as she promised she would.

Meanwhile, Prudence lived hidden away in Lady Abingdon’s townhouse on the Royal Crescent where she woke up nauseous each morning and had nothing to do but ruminate about her predicament and read travel guides on Renaissance art and the machinations of the Medici.

“I don’t know what to do,” Prudence said after a week of seclusion, not realizing she was exhausting her godmother’s modest reserve of patience.

“I’ve no notion, my dear. But I know better than to offer any guidance on love or marriage for it’s no use urging any action on the young. They are willfully perverse and without fail do the opposite,” Lady Abingdon said with asperity. “In fact, I have put this immutable law of human nature to good use upon occasion.”

“I won’t do the opposite to be perverse,” Prudence said peevishly.

“No, of course not. You’ll find numerous sound reasons to reject what I suggest but the outcome will be the same. It’s all too tiresome,” her ladyship huffed. “Decide for yourself, my girl. I find it hard to credit you would prefer to be a widow’s companion than a duchess. Still, if that’s what you desire, so be it. I’ll welcome your company in Tuscany but you’d be a ninny to disappear when so much is in the offing.”

“There is nothing in the offing,” Prudence contradicted gloomily.

“Again the perversity of youth! They needs must argue with the obvious. Why ever do I try?” The dowager countess addressed herself to the heavens. To Prudence, she said, “I shall say no more. Apparently you won’t be satisfied until you’ve made yourself thoroughly miserable. I’m tempted not to help either of you.” She leaned on her cane to rise to her feet and adjusted her shawl over her walking dress. “I’m going out, my dear.”

“Will you be all right?” Prudence asked with concern. “I wish I could go with you. Promise me you won’t overexert yourself, I pray you!”

“Have no fear, dear child, I’m feeling quite toddlesome today,” she said and left Prudence to ruminate.

Much as Lady Abingdon wanted to see the scandalous Michelangelo marbles in Florence, she anticipated better entertainment at home than abroad for months to come. Her travels would have to wait.

Despite what she might say in frustration, Lady Abingdon could not resist interfering in Prudence’s life. For as any honest society matron must admit, interfering was prime sport among her cohort. Therefore, if Prudence refused to step out of the townhouse, the dowager countess would see to it His Grace the lovesick swain could corner the silly chit in her self-imposed prison.

Lady Abingdon took a sedan chair directly to Morford Street.

T
he next morning, Lady Abingdon’s footman opened the door to the Duke of Ainsworth and his monstrous large dog. They filled her ladyship’s front hall.

“Stay!” the duke barked. Attila sat and looked blasé.

The butler arrived.

“Is Lady Abingdon or Miss Haversham at home, Skeaping?” The duke asked after both ladies for propriety’s sake, though he knew her ladyship would be absent. She’d mentioned this yesterday while expressly forbidding him to importune Prudence in her ladyship’s absence, as Miss Haversham ‘had no desire’ to see him ever again.

“Lady Abingdon is not. I shall inquire whether Miss Haversham is at home, Your Grace.”

The butler’s answer told the duke all he needed to know. He vaulted up the stairs, leaving footman and butler below with mouths agape.

Ainsworth’s long legs carried him quickly up to the first floor, then up and down the hall looking in the salons, from there, up the stairs to the second floor where the last bedroom door stood open. Entering the room, he found no one but detected the scent of thorny roses in the air. He plunged back down the stairs to where the butler stood with what poise he could muster after such an indecorous display. The footman opened the front door for the duke’s exit.