The Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order (31 page)

Ainsworth paused in the foyer to leave a brief message with the butler before continuing his search. “Skeaping, I would like to speak with Lady Abingdon when she returns.” He hesitated in the foyer to add, “It is a matter of great urgency. Time is of the essence. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly, Your Grace.”

“Please ask her ladyship to send word at her earliest convenience, will you? Does she have my direction?”

“I believe so, Your Grace.”

“Very well, as soon as she returns, Skeaping.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” The butler’s face looked carved from stone when the duke finally left the townhouse. Attila followed, ignoring both butler and footman plastered up against the wall to allow the animal to pass outside.

• • •

Prudence felt more than heard the duke’s deep voice two floors below and panicked. She snuck to the top of the stairway to overhear him talk to Skeaping. When she heard the duke bounding up the stairs just below, she turned and scampered down the second floor hallway to descend the servants’ stairway as quietly as she could. Fortunately, the duke made no effort to muffle his stomping back and forth so she escaped undetected.

Down she raced to the kitchen, moving briskly past a gawping French chef, his cowed minions, a few scullery maids at work and footmen at ease, to the end of the kitchen. She exited through the service door, which was a full storey below street level. She hurried up the stairs, which let out on the pavement through a wrought iron gate beside the front stairs.

The creak of the front door opening gave her just enough time to retreat and crouch out of sight. Her heart pounded. No one appeared. She heard his voice and decided to make a dash for it. For the moments she needed, the doorway remained open and empty. She darted out, leapt off the curb into the street.

Lady Abingdon’s townhouse stood at the apex of the Royal Crescent. Prudence looked up and down the semi-circular street only to realize he would see her if she attempted to flee. The view was unobstructed for hundreds of yards in either direction. In front of her on the vast green meadow of Barton Field sat a group of lady artists, sketching the bucolic scene of sheep grazing in the pasture. She scurried over and plunked herself down among them with her plain bonnet bowed.

“Attila, come!” she heard the duke bark across the street.

She peeked over her shoulder to watch Ainsworth take his leave followed by Attila. He hurtled down the stone stairs, head swiveling side to side. She ducked away to stay concealed but clearly heard his heavy footfalls recede on the pavement on the opposite side of the street. He moved toward the heart of town with Attila at heel.

She peeked again. As the duke stalked down the broad walkway, Attila ambled with him at first. But the dog stopped and cocked his ears. Attila crossed the street and doubled back, picking his way daintily among startled nannies, past a young buck trying not to show fear and through the artists. There were a few cries of alarm but Attila ignored them. When he reached Prudence, his tail batted at the bonnet of her neighbor, who wisely yielded her place to the animal.

“Bad dog,” Prudence gritted out. “Bad Attila. Very bad dog.”

The monster wagged harder at her acknowledgement. She pushed at him, which he took for encouragement to lean into her hand. She prodded. He sat. His haunches pinned the skirt of her muslin gown beneath him. He nuzzled her hand with a cold, wet nose as she shoved him hard with both hands. His eyes closed as he slowly collapsed to recline fully. His great blocky head and shoulders soon rested squarely across her lap.

“Go away, drat you!” His paws folded and he turned belly up for a rub, insensible to her sharp tone. Prudence hissed and huffed but she could not remove the recumbent dog off her person.

From a distance, she heard the duke’s sharp call. Attila closed his eyes and played deaf. Again, Ainsworth commanded the dog to come. Attila preferred to stay and play dead.

• • •

His Grace made a furious detour to collect his wayward mongrel, an apology on the tip of his tongue as he approached.

He froze.

His brilliant dog had pinned his prey in place. At last! He was sober. She was trapped. Perfect. Or as perfect as he would ever manage. Certainly he preferred not to meet with another of her tart rejections before a gawping gaggle of females but nothing would turn him from his purpose.

Prudence looked so adorably discomposed. Her bonnet sat askew on her head. Her hair escaped, trailing silken tendrils. Her eyes snapped and sparked cool gray but all for naught. His dog remained oblivious, happy to be within easy reach of her magic hands, even if those hands were only trying to fend him off.

“A beef bone for you, Attila. Good boy!” The duke smiled, full of mischief. “You have no one to blame but yourself, Miss Haversham. Attila was an immediate conquest.” She tried to squirm away. “Have you been injured by his attentions?”

“I cannot feel my legs at the moment. If you would be so kind…”

“Of course. First, if I may, I’d like to discuss something with you.”

She said nothing but looked wary. Their transfixed audience said not a syllable.

Looking at the lady artists, Ainsworth began mildly, “What I must say is of a private nature, if you will excuse us.” It was not a request. The duke’s imposing demeanor spoke for itself. The artists collected their sketch paper, sorted their charcoals and hurried off with many a backward glance. Attila sprawled over Prudence’s lap, eyes closed, forepaws tucked to his chest, belly warming in the sun.

“God help me, I envy a dog,” Ainsworth muttered.

Prudence watched him as he sat down facing her on her dog-less side. He stretched his long legs parallel hers in the opposite direction. He stroked Attila’s head on her lap and prayed for coherence. He sat so close, practically hip-to-hip, he could feel her warmth through the doeskin of his breeches.

“I haven’t done any of this properly, nymph. I promise I meant to. Well, not at first. I meant to intimidate you and worse but things changed.”

“Did they?” She didn’t bother to conceal her skepticism. “When?”

“I don’t know. You ambushed me. Wasn’t pleased about that either. Not at first.” He ran a hand through his windblown hair to brush it out of his eyes. “I am not referring,” he dropped his voice to a whisper and leaned closer, “to your infernal prank.”

She waited silently.

“I should’ve courted you properly, not like a sneak thief. Problem was, is, I want to be with you. No, I must. Must. It’s a necessity. Not something I can ignore. The pangs of it worsen the longer I’m without you. And the prospect of my entire life without you...It’s uncomfortable.”

She still said nothing, her eyes averted. He growled in frustration, “I’m no good at this. Forgive me.”

Finally, she looked up at him, “Go on.”

He took heart. “You deserve a pretty speech — and I’ve tried — but I muddled it and yelled because I’m afraid…”

“Afraid?” Her brow creased but her lashes swept down to hide her eyes.

“Mmm.” He fell silent, heart pounding. She waited. He looked away and said, “The prospect of failing…I don’t respond well to fear.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t know how to tell you properly how I love you,’ he said in despair, “but I do. I simply do. That’s all.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll marry me!” He blurted out in frustration.

She sat silent. He glanced at her, waiting, fidgeting. She studied her dog-filled lap. She stroked Attila’s neck.

He covered her hand. “If you intend to refuse me again, Miss Haversham, I’d rather have a quick cut than a slow slicing.”

“And if I do refuse you?”

He let out a sigh, “I suppose another man would take you at your word and stop plaguing you. But…” he muttered without finishing his sentence.

“But?”

“I won’t. Turn me down and I’ll have to follow you wherever you go till I convince you of my sincerity. I warn you, I am relentless. It’s a published fact,” he said with a wry smile. “I vow to pursue you till you accept me out of sheer exhaustion. An ignominious victory but I’ll do what I must. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Why?”

“Haven’t I just told you?” He harrumphed then caught himself. He looked at her and forced himself to remain calm. Her eyes glowed up at him.

In the silence, with her so close, the words rang clear through him. “I won’t let you go. I will not live without you. I cannot abide the idea. You’re my heart’s desire and comfort. If you’ll allow me, nymph, I will love you,” he concluded in a hoarse whisper, “more than words can express.”

Both sat silent, eyes downcast, petting Attila (much to the dog’s satisfaction). She shook her head slowly, her face hidden by her bonnet’s rim.

His heart sank. When she looked up at him, her eyes were turbulent seas spilling onto her cheeks.

“Blast it, why are you crying?” She shook her head again. At this, he didn’t hesitate. He took her head between his hands and tilted her dear face up to his.

“Prudence Haversham, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” He hovered over her lips, awaiting her answer. It took rather longer for her to answer than he would’ve hoped. The timpanist in his chest beat a drum roll until she did.

“I will, Your Grace,” she whispered sweetly.

He bore down and kissed her lips hard. “Jem,” he corrected.

“As you wish,” she replied with a soggy chuckle, “Your Grace.”

“Jem, Prudence. Jem,” he repeated, “Jem.” With each repetition, he kissed the tip of her nose, her eyelids, her forehead, her chin, her throat, her cheek, and just below her ear. “Jem.”

• • •

Finally, Prudence had to concede the duke was not behaving like a dutiful gentleman or a vengeful, inbred lunatic, but like a man in love. This proved completely reassuring.

“I love you, Jem,” she whispered just before he kissed her on the lips shamelessly before man and beast.

Everyone who lingered nearby, including the lady artists, witnessed the scandalous display of affection that concluded the duke’s successful proposal to Bath’s only female apothecary. Nannies carefully shielded their charges’ eyes from the debauchery while dragging them away. The lady artists, being freer thinkers, cooed and hummed.

Thus, on the rolling green pasture of Barton Field on a surprisingly mild late-summer day in Bath, the Duke of Ainsworth made one last illustration-worthy, public spectacle of himself and his new fiancée, Miss Prudence Haversham.

I
n Bath, the duke and his new duchess sat side by side at an escritoire preparing personal notes to friends and relations before the official announcement of their nuptials appeared in the
Times
. (At his insistence, Prudence composed the notes and Ainsworth signed, sealed and franked them.) When she handed him her brief letter to Sir Oswald and Lady Dabney, the duke read it and leaned back. He scritch-scritched the quill’s barbs along his jaw while he thought. When Prudence became engrossed in the next, he cupped a hand over the page and wrote with quill flying. Satisfied, he snatched up the sander, dusted it and flicked it clean with a flourish. After folding it, he impressed the blue wax wafer with his signet ring to seal it and scrawled his signature in the corner in place of postage.

Prudence peeked at him for a moment and smiled, unaware that this was the famously implacable Horseman’s first act as her champion for life.

Days later at Treadwater in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, Lady Dabney broke the blue wax seal on the letter. She read it and blanched.

“What is it, my dear? Who’s written? What’s wrong?” Sir Oswald asked, growing alarmed.

She passed the letter to her husband with an unsteady hand.

The baronet read:

Dear Oswald and Margot,

Jem Maubrey and I have wed in Bath. I hope you wish us happy.

Prudence

Below this, His Grace, the Duke of Ainsworth scrawled:

We will be At Home in Grosvenor Square the second week of October. You may call on my duchess to beg her forgiveness or you may enjoy life in Town ever after without our acknowledgement. Ainsworth.

• • •

Lord Seelye and Lord Percy rode up to London shortly after Ainsworth married Miss Haversham in Bath. On a rare, almost clear, late September day, they decided to take a turn or two on Bond Street.

“Percy, why didn’t Clun come with us?”

“Had to go to Shropshire.”

“Did he say why?” Seelye asked, mystified. “Surely, Town when half empty is still more amusing than Shropshire when full!”

“Something about preparing The Graces for its new mistress.”

“Expect me to swallow that plumper?” Seelye chortled. “What’s he up to?”

“God’s truth, I vow.”

“Don’t say!” Seelye blinked in disbelief.

“S’pose it means he’s marrying the chit he haggled for last year,” Percy said.

“Which chit? Didn’t know he had one.” Seelye struggled manfully to assimilate the news that Lord Clun would be leg-shackled. Voluntarily.

“Earl of Morefield’s daughter. Full of juice, the earl, rich as Croesus.”

“Clun detests the Marriage Mart and vice versa,” Seelye cried. “However’d she meet him?”

“Didn’t.”

“Probably best to marry him without benefit of prior acquaintance,” Seelye joked.

“Mmm,” Percy hummed in agreement.

O
ne soporific summer morning, when the Maubrey twins were six years old, they eluded their nanny and snuck into the ducal bedchamber to bedevil their father and mother. The duke and duchess never closed the windows or the curtains around their massive bed, preferring to wake up seeing each other in the early morning light. The duke continued to flout established custom and slept with his wife every night, a scandalous habit the duchess endorsed despite mutterings in their wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the
ton
.