The Duke Read online

  Chapter 13

  Luck & Strategy

  To: Lady Emily Vale

  London, England

  My lady,

  Your sister is in Scotland and in need of your help. At dawn on the morning of All Saints’ Day, come to the south gate of Castle Kallin and you will be reunited with her.

  —A Friend

  1 November 1822

  The Solstice Inn

  Glen Village, Scotland

  Emmie,

  How good you are to have come for me!! How wonderful to embrace you yesterday!! I am sorry that my silence since sailing from Jamaica caused you distress! And I am deeply curious to know who sent to you that anonymous note, for I have told no one here my real name. That mystery, however, must wait. I must depart this place at once—before even you wake. I have more than a passing interest in the mystery of the Devil’s Duke, and I have just learned that he rode from Kallin last evening to Edinburgh. Beloved sister, trust that I will be well, and that this time I will write to you!

  —A.

  10 November 1822

  Allaway Farm

  My lady,

  The boy is healthy, happy, and growing. This is a fine family. They treat Luke as one of their own. They say the supplies you sent will make the winter like a festival. I will remain here with the infant. As promised, I will write to you regularly. I will know that you have held to your promise to me and have received this letter at the home of Lady Constance if you address your reply to me as: Dear Patient and Wise Nathaniel.

  Your servant,

  Nathaniel Hay

  16 November 1822

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  Dear Patient, Wise (and Clever) Nathaniel,

  Luck brought you and me to that posting house in Callander in the same hour on the same day. How grateful I am that you never ceased searching for me! Here is proof that I have fulfilled the promise I made to you: a letter from the home of Lady Constance and her husband in Edinburgh, where I am staying in great comfort. Now, I beg of you: more news of Luke!

  With gratitude,

  A. Garland

  17 November 1822

  Willows Hall

  Shropshire, England

  My Precious Child!

  How overjoyed I am to know finally that you are safe and well!! Emily told us everything—how you sailed to Scotland—to the Duke of Loch Irvine’s estate!—without a word to anyone—and we are astonished!! (Your father, who is reading over my shoulder, insists that he is not astonished, rather positively delighted by your intrepidity.)

  Now do come home. You have had your adventure in America, and in Scotland as well, and I am certain that Lady Constance’s cook does not make pork medallions with gooseberries as well as Monsieur Ripon does at Willows Hall, although I have no doubt her drawing room is luxurious.

  Your return is expected daily by the suitors you tossed aside when you preferred That Man. Mr. Holt is the latest to profess himself smitten. His fortune is grand, but your father has no need of grand fortunes, of course, and Mr. Holt is a mere Mister, which you have already tried, to no good end. I prefer Lord Mason and Lord Witherspoon, for they are most handsome.

  It is past time you remarry and provide your father with a grandson, whom he will take upon his knee and teach the method for tying a perfect Mathematical. Men do well with freckles, and your sisters have as yet produced only girls. For my part, I should like at least one granddaughter with your beautiful hair. How pretty your children will be! Hurry home, darling daughter.

  Kisses,

  Your Mother

  PART IV

  1823

  The Seduction

  Chapter 14

  A New Plan (This Time Better)

  18 January 1823

  Port of Leith, Scotland

  Dear Emmie,

  I continue to await the Duke of Loch Irvine’s arrival in Edinburgh. Some claim he has gone abroad, others that he hides at Haiknayes. My friend Sophie at Glen Village insists that he has not returned to Kallin since his abrupt departure the day you came for me. So I remain here. He cannot disappear forever.

  Also, I cannot return home—possibly ever. Since you told Mama that I had gone to a duke’s domain, her imagination has run away with her. She writes twice weekly extolling the virtues of this lord’s new phaeton and that baronet’s gold buttons. She never approved of my first marriage, and I think she means to correct that history by throwing me at any lord who will accept me for my dowry. (I have long since suspected Paul married me to fund his mission, for he certainly did not choose me for my character.) I have written to Papa to tell him in no uncertain terms that the last thing I want is another husband (and that, since living in a society in which human beings are regularly traded for gold, I have no desire whatsoever for another dowry).

  To be closer to the docks where the duke berths his ships, I have moved from Constance and Saint’s home in Edinburgh (where the newlyweds are deliriously happy) to the home of their dear friends Dr. Shaw and Libby in Leith. Here, as I await the duke, I have begun a modest writing project with a friend who has recently arrived from Jamaica. It is a memoir, but like few others . . .

  March 1823

  The Assembly Rooms

  Port of Leith, Scotland

  Amarantha was not hiding.

  Not any longer.

  Not at least monumentally as Anne Foster, tea shop girl.

  And not precisely hiding.

  She just happened to be passing behind a potted palm when, from its other side, she heard her quarry’s name uttered in an agitated hush. Not his actual name, the name that never failed to create a tickle of guilty pleasure in her stomach: Gabriel. Nor his family’s name: Hume. Nor his title: Loch Irvine. Rather, the name everybody still seemed to prefer for him, despite the lack of disappearing maidens since the previous spring.

  The assembly rooms were aglitter, chandeliers bathing all in a golden glow. Jewels twinkled, coy glances sparkled, and music spun temptingly through the night. She longed to dance; dancing had been one of her many joys that Paul had quashed.

  But she had no time for frivolities now. Tonight she had come for gossip.

  “The Devil’s Duke, you say?” exclaimed the matron whose headdress sported a peacock feather that danced above the tips of the palm.

  “The very one!” replied her companion, whose gown of pineapple pin-striped taffeta glared visibly through the fronds. “He has returned to Edinburgh, I tell you! I myself had a glimpse of him the other day on High Street. He rode a wild black stallion, huge and haughty for everybody to see.”

  “The man has no shame.” The peacock feather quivered. “And with those two poor lasses still missing!”

  “No doubt he’s still got them chained up in his dungeons.”

  “And never saying a word to defend himself, as though he’d not a care that everybody thinks the worst of him!”

  “They say he is still in need of a fortune to restore Haiknayes,” Pineapple whispered ominously. “He will be looking for a bride again, mark my words.”

  This was news to Amarantha. She had thought Haiknayes was still locked up tight, as though the present duke cared nothing for his estate so close to Edinburgh.

  “He’ll not get his hands on my daughter!” Peacock said, aghast. “I shall lock her away myself before I will allow her within a mile of that devil.”

  For a moment Amarantha’s thoughts were taken up with the memory of a young naval officer’s hand, large and strong, on her.

  “And that isn’t all,” said Pineapple in horrified accents. “They say he has hired a house here in Leith!”

  Amarantha’s heart did a turnabout. This was excellent news. If he were here, Dr. Shaw would certainly call on him.

  While living with Constance and Saint in Edinburgh, at whose home Dr. John Shaw and his daughter, Elizabeth, were regular visitors, Amarantha had learned that during the previous spring the Duke of Loch Irvine had in fact spent more time in the company of young Libby and the doctor than he
had courting Constance. It seemed he was as unusual as ever.

  Now he was in Leith. The end of her long quest was in sight. She felt downright giddy.

  “Don’t tell me you are hiding, Mrs. Garland,” came a pleasant voice at her shoulder. “I refuse to believe that you are shy.”

  She swiveled to meet the familiar crisp blue gaze of Thomas Bellarmine. Cousin to Amarantha and Libby’s fondest acquaintances in Leith, he called regularly at the Shaw’s house.

  “Oh, I am not hiding, Mr. Bellarmine. I am eavesdropping.” Honesty was her new life’s plan: no more false identities, no more subterfuge, and no lies—not even little lies—not since she discovered Emily had been so desperately worried that she had traveled the length of England and half of Scotland to find her. That she had distressed Emily as thoroughly as Penny’s disappearance had distressed her made her the worst sort of hypocrite.

  Henceforth, even though the object of her pursuit lived in shadowy mystery, she would go forward openly and honestly.

  “How shocking, madam.” Mr. Bellarmine’s conspiratorial grin made him handsome. “Have you heard anything of particular interest?”

  “They,” she said, gesturing toward the plant, “are discussing the return to town of the Duke of Loch Irvine.”

  “The Devil’s Duke? Aha. Excellent fodder for gossip, of course.”

  “Do you believe the gossip?”

  “It is a curious conundrum, in truth. One cannot deny that he is a mysterious character. But I once did business for my uncle with Loch Irvine’s agent in Portsmouth, a Mr. Du Lac. Most unassuming fellow you would ever meet. French West Indian, I believe, which was a curiosity, to be sure. An honest man, though. I cannot imagine him working for a villain. Have the rumors intrigued you?”

  “No.” They made her more eager than ever to discover if anything remained in him of the young man she had known.

  “I have heard ladies admire darkly dangerous men,” Mr. Bellarmine said.

  “I suppose some ladies might.” If they were young, naïve, and impetuous. “The music is delightful tonight, isn’t it?”

  “Aha: a swift change in subject. I will gallantly reply, yes, positively delightful. It makes a man want to ask the loveliest woman in the place to dance. Will you do me the honor?”

  “Thank you, sir. But I cannot—”

  “I shan’t take no for an answer, especially since as I approached you I noticed that your toe was tapping.”

  “Was it? How unguarded I am! I do want to dance—it’s true.” The good news was cause for celebration.

  “Then dance you must, madam.” He extended his arm.

  She accepted it.

  As the patterns began, she looked over the ballgoers. To find an heiress bride, the duke might attend parties. High society in Leith was modest. But he must have reason to have hired a house here instead of in nearby Edinburgh. Invitations to parties arrived for her regularly now. She would meet him again, if not in Dr. Shaw’s home then in some society matron’s drawing room. It was as simple as that.

  Her stomach spun with nerves. She wanted to laugh.

  “—heard a word I’ve said just now,” Mr. Bellarmine said as the musicians played the final chords of the set. “How dispiriting to compose compliments and have them fall on deaf ears.”

  “Forgive me, sir. I am lost in thought tonight.”

  “I wonder what can you be thinking of. A gentleman, no doubt. Lucky bloke.”

  She blinked. “A gentleman?”

  “I am not the only man here tonight to rejoice that you have put off your mourning black, Mrs. Garland. Who, I wonder, will have the honor of winning the fair lady’s admiration?” His smile was friendly as he looked about the ballroom as though searching for the gentleman in question. “For correct me if I am mistaken, but you have come out this evening with suitors in mind, haven’t you?”

  “I have not.”

  His sandy brows rose.

  “I am sorry to be obliged to correct you after all,” she said. “Widowhood suits me.”

  “Madam, I admit myself astonished! You are—well, that is—you are so young. And lovely.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She dipped a curtsy. “But I am happy in my present situation. I do not wish to change it.” Ever. “Now, I have left Miss Shaw alone too long. Good evening,” she said, probably too cheerfully, and made her way through ballgoers to the stairs.

  Libby had retreated to the reading room upstairs almost as soon as they arrived. And Amarantha had learned what she had come to this ball to discover. They needn’t remain longer, especially if nice young men would take from it the false idea that she wished to be courted.

  She opened the reading room door into near darkness. It smelled of wood polish and the deep musty sweetness of books: the scent of her father’s library at Willows Hall, and comforting.

  A lamp on a table near the far end of the room lit the side of a tall wingback chair and, in that chair, a gentleman’s shoulder, arm, and crossed legs. A book rested upon his knee, open. His hand glittered with a jewel as he turned the page.

  In the rest of the dim room, no Libby stirred. But Amarantha had occasionally found the crowd-wary girl in unlit corners, on rooftops, and once hiding in a cabinet. She went forward.

  “Libby? Are you here?”

  The gentleman’s hand paused with the page half turned.

  Amarantha raised her voice. “I beg pardon for disturbing you, sir. I am searching for a friend. Have you seen a young lady in this room tonight?”

  With hands that seemed incongruously strong around a mere book, he closed the volume and laid it on the table. Unfolding himself, he arose from the chair and faced her.

  Amarantha’s lungs seized up then plunged into her toes.

  Across the shadows, the Duke of Loch Irvine rested his dark gaze upon her.

  “Aye,” he said. “I have now.”

  Chapter 15

  Black Magic

  He was taller, perhaps, and thicker in the shoulders: the lean angles of youth had given way to the solid, muscular frame of a grown man. His black hair was shorter but still too long, and the strong features that had once almost startled a person with their intensity, now lit from below, seemed remote and fearsome. His coat was gorgeously tailored, his cravat elegantly tied, and the signet ring gleamed—a talisman of nobility. Yet he had the air of a great beast barely contained by the affectations of civilization.

  “You,” popped through her lips. As a finale to months of searching for him across the breadth of Scotland, the single syllable lacked all drama.

  “Aye.”

  Practiced words, questioning words, and words of condemnation got stuck in her throat.

  He walked toward her.

  She commanded her feet to remain in place.

  Then he was before her and she was looking up through shadows into the shadows of his eyes she had once found so enthralling. They were the richest brown—like chocolate truffles—and shone as though lit from a mysterious well of simmering desire and gentle amusement.

  Still enthralling.

  “You are seeking a friend, yet you have found me instead.” His voice was low. “How whimsical o’ fate to throw two strangers together in an isolated place . . . twice in a lifetime.”

  A blanket of heat was engulfing her body, a strange, wonderful familiarity woven with danger, as the darkness seemed to wrap around them. She had forgotten nothing about him—not his voice, deep and rough with brogue, nor the hollows of his cheeks, nor the ebony sheen of his hair—nothing except how the power of his presence had made her limbs weak.

  Inconvenient lapse of memory, that.

  At her sides, her hands made their way into fists. The strength in her fingers felt good.

  “Fate has nothing to do with it, Urisk,” she said.

  “Urisk?”

  “Solitary. Lives on a hill. Frightens away travelers.”

  “I know what an urisk is.” A crease appeared at one side of his mouth.

  Too fa
miliar.

  “I have been searching for you.”

  “You have,” he said, not in surprise. “Because you imagine I have hidden the young lady you seek somewhere in this room. Or perhaps I have already secreted her away to my dungeons.”

  “Then you do have maidens locked in your dungeons?”

  “’Tis what they say.” A smile glimmered in his beautiful eyes. She wanted it to be a trick of her memory. She had fallen under the spell of that smile at one time.

  Never again.

  Pivoting, she strode to the door, seized the handle, and pushed it shut. Swiveling around, she put her back against it.

  “I have been searching for you for months, in fact,” she said. “At first indirectly and then with single purpose. But you are elusive. You know that, of course. You are intentionally elusive, I think. That ends now. For you see, Urisk, I shan’t open this door until you have answered my questions. All of them.”

  He came toward her.

  She had not anticipated quite such a speedy response, nor that he would not halt until he stood within a foot of her.

  He reached around her hip for the door handle.

  She turned the key in the lock and tossed it into her other palm a fraction of a moment before his hand encompassed hers about the handle. She gasped, jerked her other arm up, and dropped the key into her bodice.

  “You’re cold as ice.” He sounded surprised. His hand was big and warm and firmly gripping hers, just as the first time he had touched her in that cellar years ago, and he was a wall of man, all broad chest and wide shoulders and height, and he smelled delicious—like sandalwood and sun and the wind and the sea. She breathed him into her nostrils and lungs. Glorious. It was the height of folly to touch him and smell him and have her eyes full of him all at once.

  She had forgotten that a man could smell this good.

  “Release my hand,” she said a bit unsteadily.

  He did, instantly, his heat and strength disappearing and leaving only the chilly door handle in her grasp. But he did not move away. And he did not speak. So she did.