The Duchess Deal

  He crossed the room, advancing toward her in unhurried strides. She stood in place, unwilling to shrink from him. The more nonchalant his demeanor, the more her pulse pounded.

  His face might be striking, but the rest of him . . . ?

  Rather splendid.

  To distract herself, Emma focused on her own realm of expertise: attire. The tailoring of his coat was immaculate, skimming the breadth of his shoulders and hugging the contours of his arms. The wool was of the finest quality, tightly woven and richly dyed. However, the style was two years behind the current fashion, and the cuffs were a touch frayed at the--

  "I know what you're thinking, Miss Gladstone."

  She doubted it.

  "You're incredulous. How could a woman of your standing possibly ascend to such a rank? I can't deny you'll find yourself outclassed and un-befriended among the ladies of the peerage, but you will no doubt be consoled with the material advantages. A lavish home, generous lines of credit at all the best shops, a large settlement in the event of my death. You may pay calls, go shopping. Engage in some charitable work, if you must. Your days will be yours to do whatever you wish." His voice darkened. "Your nights, however, will belong to me."

  Any response to that was beyond her. An indignant warmth hummed over every surface of her body, seeping into the spaces between her toes.

  "You should expect me to visit your bed every evening, unless you are ill or having your courses, until conception is confirmed."

  Emma tried, one more time, to understand this conversation. After running through all the possibilities, one alternative seemed the most likely.

  The duke was not merely scarred on his face. He was sick in the head.

  "Your Grace, do you feel feverish?"

  "Not at all."

  "Perhaps you ought to have a lie-down. I could send your butler for a physician."

  He gave her a quizzical look. "Do you need a doctor?"

  "Maybe I do." Emma touched one hand to her brow. Her brain was spinning.

  If he wasn't ill . . . Could this be some sort of ploy to make her his mistress? Oh, Lord. Perhaps she'd given him the wrong impression with her willingness to disrobe.

  "Are you--" There seemed no way to say it but to say it. "Your Grace, are you trying to get me into your bed?"

  "Yes. Nightly. I said as much, not a minute ago. Are you listening at all?"

  "Listening, yes," she muttered to herself. "Comprehending, no."

  "I'll have my solicitor draw up the papers." He returned to his place behind the desk. "We can do it on Monday."

  "Your Grace, I don't--"

  "Tuesday, then."

  "Your Grace, I cannot--"

  "Well, I'm afraid my schedule is quite booked for the rest of the week." He flipped through the pages of an agenda. "Brooding, drinking, indoor badminton tournament . . ."

  "No."

  "No," he echoed.

  "Yes."

  "Yes, no. Make up your mind, Miss Gladstone."

  She turned in a slow circle, looking about the room. What on earth was happening here? She felt like a Bow Street runner trying to solve a mystery: Emma Gladstone and the Case of the Missing Dignity.

  Her gaze fell on the clock. Already past four. After leaving here, she must return the gown, pay her landlord, and then visit the market.

  Having come this far, there was no way she could back down now.

  She stiffened her posture. "Your Grace, you called my work 'unicorn vomit.' You asked me to disrobe for money. Then you made the absurd declaration that you would make me a duchess, and that I should visit your bed on Monday. This entire interview is nonsensical and humiliating. I can only conclude that you are making sport of me."

  He lifted one shoulder in an unapologetic shrug. "A scarred recluse must have some amusement."

  "What about your full schedule of drinking and indoor badminton? Isn't that enough?" She had lost all patience now. She enjoyed a bit of teasing, and she could laugh at herself--but she had no desire to be the object of cruel jokes. "I'm beginning to suspect Miss Worthing's reason for jilting you. You are exceedingly--"

  "Hideous," he supplied. "Repulsive. Monstrous."

  "Exasperating."

  He made a sound of bemusement. "So I'm being reviled for my personality? How refreshing."

  Emma lifted her hands in a nonthreatening gesture. "Your Grace, I shall impose on you no further. I am going to approach the desk, pick up the coins, and then back away. Slowly."

  In a series of cautious steps, she approached the desk and stopped within a yard of where he stood on the opposite side. Without breaking eye contact, she gathered the two pounds, three shillings from the desktop. Then, with the briefest of curtsies, she turned to leave.

  He caught her by the wrist. "Don't go."

  She turned and looked up at him, astonished.

  The contact was electric. Like the jolt one received when grabbing a doorknob on a dry, cold day. Clashing and sparking with a force that belonged to neither of them, but existed only in the space between. The shock buzzed up the bones in her arm. Her breathing and pulse were suspended. She felt stripped down--not to her skin, but to the raw elements that composed her being.

  The duke seemed stunned by it, too. His piercing blue eyes interrogated hers. Then he cast a confused look at his hand, as though he weren't certain how it had come to be gripping her arm.

  For a moment, Emma's heart invented the wildest fancies. That he was someone other than the cynical, embittered man he seemed. That beneath the Before and After sketched on his face, there was a man--a hurting and lonely man--who remained unchanged in essentials.

  Don't believe it, Emma. You know your heart is a fool.

  He released her, and the side of his mouth pulled into a wry smile. "You can't leave now, Miss Gladstone. We're just starting to have fun."

  "I don't care to play this game."

  She gathered as much composure as she could locate. Clutching the coins in one hand, she picked up her skirts with the other and made haste in the direction of the door.

  "Don't trouble to bid me farewell," he called.

  I won't.

  "I shan't bother, either. We both know you'll be back."

  She paused--briefly--midstep. The duke believed they would see one another again?

  Dear God. Not if Emma could help it.

  Not in a thousand years.

  "Isn't it silly of me?" Miss Palmer stood in a draped corner of Madame Bissette's shop, holding still as Emma measured her waistline. "More and more plump by the day. I suppose I've been eating too many teacakes."

  Emma doubted it. This was the second time in a month Davina Palmer had visited the shop to have a dress let out, and Emma had been stitching her wardrobe since her first Season. She'd never known the young woman to gain weight, and certainly not this rapidly.

  Teacakes were not to blame.

  Strictly speaking, it wasn't Emma's place to say anything. But she'd taken a liking to Miss Palmer. She was the only daughter of a shipping magnate, and heiress to his fortune. A bit spoiled and sheltered, but she had a sparkle to her. She was a customer who always made Emma's day better rather than worse, and that said something. Most of the ladies who came into the shop looked right through her.

  Today, when she met Miss Palmer's gaze, there was no sparkle. Only terror. The poor girl so clearly needed a confidante.

  "How many months along?" Emma asked softly.

  Miss Palmer dissolved into tears. "Almost four, I think."

  "Does the gentleman know?"

  "I can't tell him. He's a painter. I met him when he came to paint the portrait of our dogs, and I . . . It doesn't matter. He's gone. Went to Albania in search of 'romantic inspiration,' whatever that means."

  It means he's a scoundrel, Emma thought. "What of your family? Do they know?"

  "No." She shook her head with vigor. "There's only Papa. He has such high expectations for me. If he knew I'd been so careless, he . . . he'd never look at me the sam
e." She buried her face in her hands and broke into quiet sobs. "I couldn't bear it."

  Emma drew the girl into a hug, rubbing her back in a soothing rhythm. "Oh, you poor dear. I'm so sorry."

  "I don't know what to do. I'm so frightened." She pulled away from the hug. "I can't raise a child on my own. I've been thinking, if only I could place the babe with a family in the country. Then I could visit from time to time. I know it's done." Miss Palmer placed a hand on her belly and looked down at it. "But I'm growing larger every day. I won't be able to hide it much longer."

  Emma offered the girl a handkerchief. "Is there anywhere you can go? A friend or cousin, perhaps. In the country, or on the Continent . . . Anyone who might take you in until you give birth?"

  "There's no one. No one who would keep the secret, at any rate." She clutched the handkerchief in her fist. "Oh, if only I hadn't been so stupid. I knew it was wrong, but he was ever so romantic. He called me his muse. He made me feel . . ."

  Treasured. Wanted. Loved.

  Miss Palmer didn't have to explain it. Emma knew exactly how the girl felt.

  "You mustn't be hard on yourself. You aren't the first young woman to trust the wrong man, and you won't be the last."

  And yet somehow, the woman always paid the price.

  Emma hadn't landed in Miss Palmer's delicate situation, but she, too, had been punished for the simple crime of following her heart. The memories still pained her--and the thought of watching the same cruel fate befall another young woman? It made her quake with anger at the injustice of it all.

  "Emma," Madame Bissette chided from the other side of the curtain. "Lady Edwina's hem won't sew itself."

  "One moment, Madame," she called back. To Miss Palmer, she whispered, "Return next week to retrieve your altered frock, and we'll speak further. If there's any way at all I can help you, I will."

  "I can't ask that of you."

  "You don't need to ask." Emma was determined. Her conscience would allow no less. She took Miss Palmer's hands and squeezed them. "Whatever may happen, you will not be alone. I swear it."

  That afternoon, Emma's concentration was so splintered, nothing went right. Twice, she had to rip out uneven stitches in Lady Edwina's hem and rework them.

  At last, it was closing hour.

  "Are you coming out tonight?" her fellow seamstress asked after Madame had withdrawn to her apartment upstairs. "There's to be dancing at the assembly rooms."

  "Not tonight, Fanny. You go on ahead."

  Emma didn't have to offer twice. Fanny was out the door as soon as she could blow a kiss.

  Another time, she might have enjoyed a rare evening of dancing, but not tonight. Not only was she worried sick for Miss Palmer, she was still reeling from her own encounter at Ashbury House.

  The duke was probably laughing at his own cleverness even now. Marry a seamstress? Ha-ha-ha. What a joke.

  How dare the man? Really.

  Emma shook off the memory, telling herself not spare the duke another thought. She had more important things to do.

  She took a stub of a candle from Madame Bissette's drawer, placed it on the counter, and struck the flint as quietly as possible. After rummaging for a discarded scrap of brown paper, she ironed it flat with her hands and chewed on a stub of pencil, thinking. Waistlines had started to drop this season, moving away from Empire silhouettes. Concealing an expanding belly would be more difficult, but Emma would do her best.

  She placed pencil to paper and began to sketch. Miss Palmer would need a corset with extra give toward the bottom . . . perhaps a frock with small buttons inside the waistline, to gather or let out the skirts. A fetching pelisse was a must--the right embellishments would draw the eye upward.

  The task absorbed her attention so fully, she didn't notice how much time had passed until someone knocked at the door.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  Emma jumped in her skin and crumpled the sketches into her pocket. "We're closed."

  The rapping only grew louder. More insistent.

  Thump-thump-thump-thump.

  With a sigh, Emma went to the front of the shop. She turned the key in the lock and opened the door just an inch.

  "I'm sorry, I'm afraid we're shut for the eveni--"

  "You're not shut for me."

  She found herself pushed aside as a man bulled his way through the door. He wore a dark cape and a tall hat with its brim pulled low, concealing most of his face--but she knew him at once. Only one man would have behaved in such a presumptuous manner.

  The Duke of Ashbury.

  "Miss Gladstone." He inclined his head in the slightest possible nod. "I told you we'd meet again."

  Oh, Lord.

  Emma closed the door and turned the key. There was nothing else to do for the moment. She couldn't leave it ajar and risk being seen alone with a gentleman.

  "Your Grace, I can't admit visitors after hours."

  "I'm not a visitor. I'm a customer." He strolled around the darkened shop, prodding a headless dressmaking form with his walking stick. "I need a new waistcoat."

  "It's a dressmaking shop. We don't offer gentlemen's attire."

  "Very well, I'm here to order a gown."

  "A gown for whom?"

  "What does it matter?" He made an annoyed gesture. "For a particularly ugly woman, approximately my size."

  Good heavens, what could this man be after? Was his mockery yesterday not enough to satisfy him? He couldn't actually want to retrieve Miss Worthing's gown.

  Whatever his aim, Emma meant to exact a price in return. Today, he was welcome to share in the humiliation.

  She drew a box to the center of the floor--the one ladies stood upon to have their hems pinned--and waved him toward it. "Up you go, then."

  He stared at her.

  "If you want a gown--"

  "It's not that I want a gown."

  "If your very ugly, duke-sized friend wants a gown, I will need measurements. Sleeve, torso, hem." She arched an eyebrow. "Bosom."

  There. Surely he would retreat from that.

  Instead, the unscarred corner of his mouth tipped with amusement. He set his walking stick aside. He removed his hat. Then his cloak. Next his gloves. And, finally, his topcoat. Without breaking her gaze, he stepped onto the box and lifted his arms to either side, palms up. Like an actor on a stage, expecting applause.

  "Well?" he prompted. "I'm waiting."

  Emma retrieved her measuring tape. She'd begun this little farce, and she couldn't back down from it.

  "How did you know where to find this shop?" she asked, suspicious. "Did you follow me?"

  "I am a duke. Of course I didn't follow you. I had you followed. It's an entirely different thing."

  She shook her head, unfurling the measuring tape. "And yet no less disturbing."

  "Disturbing? Yesterday you turned down a lifetime of wealth in favor of two pounds, three shillings in ready coin, and then fled from my house as though it were afire. Has it not occurred to you that I might have pursued you out of some genuine concern for your well-being?"

  She gave him a doubtful look.

  "I'm not saying I did. Only that it should have occurred to you."

  Emma moved behind him and stretched her measuring tape from his left shoulder to his wrist, ostensibly taking the length of his sleeve. In actuality, most of her concentration was consumed with ignoring his closeness. Only a single layer of fine, crisp linen separated her touch from his body, and she had no desire to relive that buzzing shock of connection they'd shared in his library.

  You can't leave now. We're just starting to have fun.

  She took the measurement from one shoulder to the other. When she inhaled, she drew in the masculine scents of shaving soap and rich cologne.

  None of this was helping with her focus problem.

  "You're not writing these measurements down," he said.

  "I don't need to. I'll remember."

  Unfortunately. Whether she wished it or not, Emma knew this encounte
r would be burned into her memory forever. Or if not forever, at least until she was sufficiently old and feebleminded to hold conversations with a squash.

  She turned the tape vertically and put one end to the nape of his neck. A mistake. Now, atop all these unwanted memories, she'd added the feel of his shorn hair. It had the texture of expensive velvet, with a dense, luxurious pile.

  Velvet, Emma? Really?

  "Almost finished. I'll just measure your chest now." She held the end of the tape on one side of his rib cage, and then turned to circle him in the opposite direction, drawing the tape across the satin backing of his waistcoat and all the way around, meeting both ends at his breastbone.

  She cinched the tape. He winced.

  Good.

  There, now. She had the beast on a leash.

  So why did she feel like his captive?

  It wasn't his scars that intimidated her. Quite the reverse. When she stood this close, her gaze couldn't take in both halves of him at the same time. She had to choose a side.

  Emma knew with a sinking heart which one would capture her. There were two approaches to successful dressmaking--to find flaws and conceal them, or to bring out the hidden beauty. She'd always believed in the latter method, and oh, it came back to bite her today.

  Don't do it, Emma. Don't give your foolish heart an inch of rope, or it will have you tied in knots.

  But it was too late. Now, as she looked up at him, all she could see was a man. One with searching blue eyes and a hidden heart beating in a strong, defiant rhythm.

  A man with wants, needs. Desires.

  A man who'd reached out for her yesterday, and now . . .

  And now gave every indication of leaning in for a kiss.

  Chapter Three

  Ash had never wanted to kiss a woman more.

  He wanted to kiss her so badly, he could taste it. He'd devour the pink sweetness in those lips, stroke all the tart words from the tip of her tongue. Teach her a lesson or two. Leave her breathless. Rattle her to her bones.

  He wanted to do far more than kiss her, of course. As he leaned forward, he could peer through the gap of her fichu and catch a glimpse of the valley between her breasts--that dark, fragrant rift that held so many promises of pleasure.

  By Venus's hand.

  A few years ago, he would have kissed her, and more. He would have seduced her with a campaign of little trinkets and witty teasing. She would have come willingly, even eagerly, to his bed, where they would have enjoyed one another. Thoroughly.