Devlin could perhaps thank the icy water for dissuading her from jumping in, if she’d been of that mind, but now that he saw her, he knew how ridiculous that notion of his had been. Megan wasn’t the type to hurt herself when she was upset. She was spoiled enough to prefer making her antagonists suffer right along with her. No, maybe not spoiled in that. It was human nature to retaliate. He’d caught himself doing it lately. She just did it with such a flair.
He approached her cautiously. She heard him and stiffened, but didn’t turn around to see who was disturbing her peace. Was she still crying? God, he hoped not. He’d prefer her volatile temper anytime to her tears, for, like most men, he became a blithering idiot when faced with them.
With that in mind, he said the one thing guaranteed to provoke her. “Stubbed your foot, did you?”
Devlin groaned inwardly when all she said was a quiet “Yes.”
He dropped down to his knees behind her in the soft mulch of the bank. His hands rose to draw her back against him, but he stopped himself, afraid she might tumble into the water in an effort to get away from him.
“I’m sorry, Megan.”
“For what?”
“For putting my leg in the way of your foot.”
She made him wait for a reply while she put her stocking and shoe back on, but finally she encouraged him with a surly tone. “You won’t be forgiven for that.”
“For my thoughtless words?”
“Nor for that.”
“For being so surprised at your impeccable behavior?” he tried.
“Possibly for that.”
Even though she couldn’t see it, he kept his relieved grin to himself. “You were doing splendidly, by the by, and no one faults you for—for stubbing your foot. All censure has been directed where it belongs. In fact, my butler has assured me that I’ve never behaved so stupidly.”
“I disagree. I can recall any number of—”
“One apology at a time, brat.”
At that she stood up abruptly, so abruptly her derriere bumped into his chin. She swung around with a startled “Oh,” but then remarked with what he could swear was a touch of humor, “Daring, weren’t you, getting so close to me?”
“Not at all. Cold water isn’t just good for cooling off lust. It also cools off tempers.”
She amazed him by actually laughing. “You wouldn’t throw me in.”
“Possibly not. With that cumbersome train on your skirt, I’d probably have to jump in to save you, and I’d rather not, since I can assure you that my lake is much colder than your pond.”
“I don’t recall your even having a lake.”
“Undoubtedly you couldn’t tear yourself away from my stable to explore further.”
She detected the ill humor in that statement, but chose to ignore it. “Actually, I saw a great deal of your house. One of your maids was having a fine time impressing Tiffany and me. Even showed us your private suite—well, only a peek.”
“Were you impressed?”
“Oh, absolutely. Why do you think I wanted to marry the Duke of Wrothston?”
The taunt cut him to the quick. He should have realized she wouldn’t let the matter of his embarrassing her go so easily, that she’d be getting even in some other way. And she’d chosen a truly sore spot to strike at.
“I recall your saying it was because of my stables,” he replied with deceptive mildness.
“That, too,” she said with a smile, then sauntered away, unaware of the black mood she was leaving him with.
He didn’t attempt to follow her, too angry to trust what he might say. For a good hour he sat there brooding over his misfortune. And not once in that time did it occur to him that Megan might have been teasing him. The subject was too touchy for him, too painful, so he naturally assumed she must know that.
“I hear you made an ass of yourself upon your arrival,” the Dowager Duchess of Wrothston said without preamble as she entered Devlin’s office—also without knocking. “Sorry I missed it, but—good God, Devlin, what have you done to yourself? You look positively disgraceful—and have your valet cut that hair immediately.”
Devlin leaned back in the chair behind his desk and twisted an overgrown lock around his finger. “You don’t like it? This is what happens when one rusticates. Would you like to hear a few other things that can happen?”
“Am I getting the impression that you’re annoyed with me, dear boy?”
“Quite possibly.”
“Very well, we’ll do this your way.” And she sat down across from him to visibly brace herself. “Tell me what other things can happen.”
“One could go insane.”
“That hadn’t occurred to me, but I suppose it’s possible. What else?”
“One could get married.”
“So John wasn’t ribbing me? You actually came home with a bride?”
“There are a number of things I’d call her, but bride isn’t necessarily one of them.”
Lucinda St. James cocked a silver-white brow at him. “Trouble already?”
Devlin snorted. “Already? Never anything but.”
“I believe I’ll form my own opinion, since you’re in such a tetchy mood. Where is the gel?”
Devlin shrugged. “The stable would be as good a guess as any.”
Duchy’s brow shot a little higher, since it was after ten o’clock at night. “This late?”
“The time of day or night is never an issue when she wants in a stable.”
She started to say something, then changed her mind. “I’m not going to touch that one.”
“Don’t blame you a’tall,” Devlin retorted dryly.
“Very well, you’ve kept me dangling long enough. Who is she?”
“Squire Penworthy’s daughter.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Duchy said with a grin that told Devlin what he’d suspected.
“You ought to be. What maggoty reasoning gave you the notion that I would take to that redhead?”
“Now how could I possibly know that?” she asked with perfect innocence.
“But you hoped.”
“I suppose I did.”
“Care to tell me why?”
“I met her a number of years ago.”
“So I’ve learned to my regret.”
She gave him an annoyed look for that cryptic interruption. “Then you know her father brought her here to purchase one of our Thoroughbreds.”
“And guess what she named that mare?”
“Something silly, no doubt. She was only a child, after all.”
“I’ve always thought the name was ridiculously silly myself, which is why I never use it.”
Both of Duchy’s brows shot up. “You don’t mean—not Ambrose?”
“Sir Ambrose, actually,” he replied, at which point his grandmother burst into laughter. “I fail to see the humor in that.”
“You wouldn’t, dear boy, but then you’re as stuffy as your grandfather was at seventy. Comes from too much work and little time for anything else, which I have been trying to break you of. You were under his wing too long, that’s your problem. But I’m here to tell you he wasn’t like that when I married him, and you’re too damn young to be taking after him.”
“I do not consider myself stuffy—nor does Megan, for that matter.”
“Delighted to hear it, but then that’s one of the reasons I’d ‘hoped.’ The gel makes a lasting impression—at least she did on me. I’ve found myself thinking about her quite often over the years.”
“What’d the minx do, set fire to the furniture with her temper?”
Duchy chuckled. “Didn’t notice any temper. But I did notice a great deal of enthusiasm and precocious charm. She was a delightful little chit, with an outspokenness that was quite amusing. It was also vividly apparent that she was going to be a great beauty. Is she?”
“Without equal,” Devlin allowed grudgingly.
“Then where’s the harm done? I certainly saw none in putting you where you
could meet her and might be influenced by her vivaciousness.”
“Playing Cupid doesn’t become you, Duchy,” he said disagreeably. “You’d met Megan Penworthy only once, six years ago when she was no more than a child, and on that one meeting you throw your only grandson to the wolves. I’m disappointed in you.”
“So I gather. Wolves, Devlin?”
“Vixens, then.”
“I take it you’re trying in your ambiguous way to tell me she’s not the girl I thought she was.”
“Not at all. I’m sure that girl is still there and a great many people get to meet her quite frequently. I’m just not one of them.”
Duchy sighed in exasperation. “Kindly remember that I didn’t create the necessity for you to disappear for a while. I merely took advantage of it. The fact remains that you’ve gone through most of your adult life expecting to marry Marianne, so, quite correctly, you weren’t looking around for anyone else. But that marriage did not take place as planned, and when it didn’t, you should have immediately started a search for another bride. Did you? No, you did not. You were too set in your ways already, and too immersed in your work, even though you know full well that you have a responsibility to marry and produce a son for Wrothston.”
“Why does this sound all too familiar to me?” he asked dryly.
“Because I have a duty to harp on it, and at least I know my duty.”
“Haven’t I seen to mine?”
Duchy lost patience with him. “You’re pulling teeth, is what you’re doing. If you don’t like the gel, what’d you marry her for?”
“Who says I don’t like her? No, actually, just now I don’t like her, but what the hell’s that got to do with it? It certainly doesn’t stop me from lusting after her every time she comes near me, even when she’s not near—bloody hell, any damn time of the day, for that matter!”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Beg pardon.”
“As well you ought to,” she retorted indignantly. “Now, before I expire of exasperation, what, exactly, is the problem, Devlin?”
“She doesn’t love me.”
Chapter 37
“He doesn’t love me.”
Lucinda St. James sat back, amazed to hear those familiar words in answer to her question. She had been expecting something else entirely, the hot temper Devlin had spoken of, possibly some haughty indifference. After all, the chit had far surpassed Lucinda’s predictions in the way of beauty. She certainly hadn’t expected to find the same dejection that her grandson had displayed—to the same question.
She had called on the new Duchess of Wrothston early this morning, and was received in the formal sitting room, a grand chamber where Devlin usually conducted his less official business. It divided his suite of rooms from his wife’s, a division that apparently was much wider than the thirty-foot length of the room.
Megan had been reserved at first, understandably, but after they’d reminisced about their first meeting, she’d relaxed enough to show Lucinda glimpses of the vivacious child the elderly woman remembered from six years ago. But she could also see the unhappiness Megan was trying to hide, which was what had prompted her to ask the same question she had put to Devlin last night. Getting the exact same answer was a revelation.
Carefully, because the situation called for delicacy—matters of the heart were so damned touchy—Lucinda asked, “What makes you think so?”
“If a man loves you, he’d tell you so, wouldn’t he?” Megan replied.
“He ought to do that, yes.”
“Well, Devlin’s told me that I’ve ruined his life. He didn’t want to marry me, you see. He went to a great deal of trouble to put me off the idea.”
“The idea?” Lucinda said. “Then you’d already decided to marry him?”
“The duke, not him.”
“But, my dear, he is a duke.”
“I know that now, but I didn’t know it before I married him.”
“Then who did you think you were marrying?”
“A horse breeder. Didn’t you know he’d been masquerading as one?”
“He was supposed to be a stableboy, but that’s neither here nor there. So weren’t you the least bit pleased to end up with a duke instead of a horse breeder?”
“Pleased?” Megan exclaimed. “He deceived me. I was bloody well furious—oh! I beg your pardon, Your Grace.”
“My dear, we’re family now. I’ll expect you to call me Duchy, and to feel free to speak your mind to me, good or bad.” And then she leaned forward to confide in a whisper, “I’ve been known to swear a little myself on occasion. Not in public, mind you, nor where that stick-in-the-mud grandson of mine might hear me. He thinks I can do no wrong, which is as it should be. Can’t very well chastise him for his swearing if he knows I do, now can I?”
Megan shook her head in agreement, grinning, and in that moment they became fast friends. “Wish I’d thought of that. But then Devlin takes such delight in complaining about my bad habits, it’d be selfish of me to mend my ways.”
Lucinda burst out laughing. “You’re just what that boy needs,” she stated positively. “Someone to shake him out of his stuffed shirt.”
“He doesn’t think so,” Megan replied with a return of her dejection.
“Are you still angry that he’s a duke instead of a horse breeder?”
“Yes—no—I don’t know,” Megan ended with a sigh.
“He happens to think you’re delighted with the title—and his stables.”
Megan made a face. “Shows what a dense man he is. I’d told him I was going to marry Ambrose St. James merely to impress him into ending his antagonism and insults, which is all I’d been getting from him since he showed up. ’Course, he couldn’t leave it at that and be impressed. He had to know why I’d decided on Wrothston. But I wasn’t about to tell him the real reason. It was none of his business. So I mentioned that I liked the duke’s stable, just to put him off the subject.” Megan’s eyes widened with the realization. “I can see now how that might have annoyed him, him being the duke in question.”
“That wouldn’t be the half of it, my dear,” Lucinda said with a chuckle. “The boy’s had women making fools of themselves over him for as long as I can remember. Same thing went on with his father, and my husband, for that matter. Damned St. James looks are extraordinary. It must have been a shock to the dear boy to find a woman who wasn’t instantly enamored of him, and who might even prefer his stable to him. Good God, I wish I could have seen his expression when he heard that. ’Course, you weren’t even aware that you were bending his nose out of joint.”
“A shame, since that is one of my little pleasures,” Megan said, straight-faced.
“Thought it might be.” Lucinda grinned. “But what was the real reason you were after a duke, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Megan shrugged. “It was a good reason, an excellent reason, though it would probably seem quite silly to you. I was snubbed, you see, cut to the quick, actually, by our reigning hostess, Lady Ophelia Thackeray. For two years I’d been waiting and hoping for one of her coveted invitations, but she finally made it quite clear that I’d never get one. Tiffany is sure that it was because of this damn face of mine—you remember Tiffany, don’t you? My dearest friend, who was with me the day we bought Sir Ambrose?”
“Yes, but—”
“Now there’s another thing Devlin got all huffy about, what I named my horse. I’d been paying the duke a compliment, because I thought there was no horse finer than mine, but Devlin didn’t see it that way.”
“He wouldn’t,” Lucinda said dryly.
“But anyway, Tiffany is sure that Lady O wouldn’t have me at one of her parties because she’s got three daughters she’s trying to marry off. That’s well and fine, but to never get one of her invitations, when the whole parish has got one at least once, implies there’s something wrong with me. That’s when I decided to marry a title more lofty than hers—she’s Countess of W
edgwood—and bend her nose out of joint with it. That might sound petty and vengeful to you—it really does, doesn’t it?—but I was angry and hurt at the time.”
“But why Devlin?”
“He was the grandest lord I could think of, and I do happen to like his stable. But he was only a goal to work toward. I’d have to meet him first, and fall in love with him—that was a priority that Tiffany and my conscience weren’t going to let me overlook, because I wasn’t planning on ruining my life just to set Lady O on her ear. I wouldn’t marry a man I didn’t love, or wasn’t sure that I could love, no matter how lofty his title. ’Course, I saw no reason to tell Devlin that. And he was determined to put me off the idea of him as my choice.”
“How exactly did he do that without revealing to you who he was?”
“He told me the duke was a bounder, a cad, a seducer of innocents.”
“He most certainly is not,” Lucinda said with a good deal of huffiness.
“That’s what I said. ’Course, I hadn’t met the duke yet, so I was defending a man I didn’t know. Well, Devlin then arranged to prove it to me. He showed up at a masked ball I attended as himself, the duke, and promptly propositioned me to be his mistress.”
“He didn’t!”
“He did.”
“But that’s so unlike him.”
“I’m afraid I have to disagree. That was just one of many insults I’ve had from that man. At any rate, he then had the gall to be surprised when I returned and told him—the horse breeder—that I hoped I’d never see the duke again.”
Lucinda sat back, nearly speechless. “How, might I ask, did you two ever manage to get through all that muck to an altar?”
“I’m entirely to blame for that, though I’m not about to admit it to him. But the truth is, I unknowingly and unintentionally instigated my own seduction. Damned curiosity of mine did it. And it was so nice, the kissing part, but I didn’t care for what came after. He didn’t either. He said so. In fact, he so disliked it, he said we’d have a marriage in name only.”
Lucinda got over her embarrassment with this subject quickly enough upon hearing that last. “The devil he did,” she said angrily. “He can’t do that. He’s got a responsibility to produce the next duke. He can’t very well do that if he doesn’t—well, if he doesn’t.”