Daisy, on the other side of Mrs. Fulgens, pinched her mother rather sharply, which Mrs. Fulgens rightly took to mean that Daisy wholeheartedly agreed with the idea of marrying the duke.
A thrum of excitement careened through the room. For onto the stage strolled a man who must be the duke’s illegitimate brother—the man who had been one of the foremost subjects of conversation amongst the ton for the past months. There was no mistaking the resemblance between the brothers: they had the same shadowed eyes and the same cheekbones.
“His brother is the very image of him,” Lady Blechschmidt said with some delight. “Shocking, isn’t it?”
“He actually looks like a professor, doesn’t he? It’s a pity he’s ineligible.”
A gentleman in front of them turned about and raised a sardonic eyebrow.
“Who’s that?” Lady Blechschmidt said loudly.
“Lord Kerr. He’s a shareholder in the Hyde Park Theater,” Mrs. Fulgens murmured. “Cruikshank did a wicked drawing of those gypsy eyes. Hatchard’s had it in their window for a month.”
They watched the play in silence for some time. Lady Blechschmidt was rather appalled by the loose principles being demonstrated by all the characters. Really, Griselda was showing an altogether different side of her character in accepting the role of a would-be mistress to Dorimant.
“The duke is quite good, isn’t he?” Mrs. Fulgens whispered, after a time.
The duke wasn’t nearly as good as Miss Loretta Hawes. They could both see that, and presumably Lord Kerr felt the same, because he leaned forward each time the girl came on the stage.
Finally, Mrs. Fulgens had to ask. “Do you think she is the duke’s chère amie?”
Lady Blechschmidt had been watching the foibles of men and women for longer than she cared to admit, and she saw nothing loverlike in Dorimant’s brisk exchanges with Mrs. Loveit. In fact, the duke cast off Mrs. Loveit with a thoroughly convincing lack of interest. “Absolutely not,” she told Mrs. Fulgens.
That worthy matron lapsed into her chair and ceased to pay any attention to the play, lost in a happy dream in which her daughter, Daisy the Duchess, figured prominently.
But Lady Blechschmidt was caught up in the play, frivolous though the characters were. It was Dorimant’s exchanges with Harriet, the country girl, that made her eyes narrow. In fact, she was so struck by them that by Act Four, she called Mrs. Fulgens’s attention back to the stage.
Mrs. Fulgens watched the duke flirting with Imogen Maitland for five minutes and then discarded her dreams for Daisy.
34
Temptation Takes Many, and Varied, Forms
The evening after the play, Rafe leaned against the orchard wall with a pleasurable sense of exhilaration. He was thinking of the carriage. Perhaps they wouldn’t even make it as far as Silchester. Then he heard the whisper of skirts coming through the fallen leaves. He straightened and wondered, just for a second, whether he would always greet Imogen with this blistering sense of anticipation.
But it wasn’t Imogen; it was unmistakably Josie coming down the path. He drew farther back into the shadow of the old apple tree. It still flummoxed him that Imogen hadn’t recognized him, even with the mustache, but Josie was sharp as a tack.
She stopped before him. “I’m to tell you that my sister is not coming,” she said without preamble. “She’s very grateful for the adventure, sir, and thanks you for your company.” She held out a note.
Rafe took it, feeling a creeping unease. “Is she feeling well?”
“Of course. She does not wish to go to Silchester. I believe she explained everything in her note.”
Rafe shut his mouth. He could hardly ask Josie for the reasoning. A girl as young as Josie should have nothing to do with the “adventures” of a young widow. So he bowed, and watched Josie trot back up the path to Holbrook Court.
It was times like these that a brandy-soaked evening sounded appealing. Instead, he read Imogen’s brief note (which said nothing), made his way back to his own bedchamber, and waited until the middle of the night, for the hours when the dark is as thick as velvet, and dawn seems an impossibility. Even the birds had stopped twittering, when he finally walked, mustache-clad, down the corridor.
Imogen slept on her stomach. He put his candle down on the bedside table and looked for a moment at her cheekbones. Her face looked different when her eyes were closed: as if it belonged to a more docile woman. He sat down next to her, and the bed tilted a bit, just enough so that she opened her eyes blearily.
“Hello there,” he said.
“It’s you,” she replied, rather ungraciously. Then she rolled over and yawned.
Rafe watched her nightrail catch against her breasts and beat down a fiery impulse to drop on her like a stone from a great height.
“Why didn’t you wish to go to Silchester?” he asked, his voice taking on Gabe’s cadence as if it was his own. “I read your note, but it was hardly informative.”
She leaned forward and patted him on the arm, for all the world as if he were a pensioner who’d asked for bread. “I am so grateful to you for your companionship, which I tremendously enjoyed, but I have decided to live a more celibate existence.”
Rafe leaned forward to kiss her. She put a hand out to stop him, but he brushed his lips across hers. “Come, Imogen,” he said. “You’re too passionate to live a celibate existence. You can hardly join a convent. You are a widow, and there’s nothing to stop you having a dalliance.”
But she didn’t melt into his arms; instead she pulled back and looked at him steadily. “It’s true that I do not betray Draven by spending time with you…but I think that in some way, I betray myself.”
Rafe opened his mouth, blinked, and shut his mouth again.
Imogen looked at the dim face of the man sitting on her bed and bit back a smile. Griselda had been absolutely right. The line about betraying oneself had silenced him.
He cleared his throat. “You’re saying that you truly wish to stop our meetings?” He sounded stunned.
She nodded. “As I said, I’m grateful. It was—” she hesitated—“remarkably pleasurable. But I do not care to think of myself as someone who makes love in broom closets and carriages. This has been a valuable lesson.”
“We don’t have to make love in carriages!” he said, a note of hope entering his voice.
“I do not wish to continue having a surreptitious affair.”
Silence. Then: “You appear to find it remarkably easy to forgo the pleasures we have shared.”
“I enjoyed them,” she said. “But if I were ever to embark on another affair, Gabriel, I shall not be the one to chase my partner.”
“My feelings—” He said it through clenched teeth.
But she was smiling at him. “I can tell that your desire is genuine, and I am grateful for it.” It was a dismissal.
“I see.” He rose to his feet, thinking desperately that he ought to rip off the mustache. And yet…he was terrified. He was a paltry man to offer marriage to Imogen. Not much more than her benighted, foolish husband, if it came to that. Draven Maitland hadn’t been a drinker, after all. She deserved better.
“Good-bye,” she said.
“Imogen.” He turned to go and then paused, back to her. “What will you do now? Do you plan to marry?”
“Not in the immediate future.”
Rafe walked into the corridor feeling as if he had been struck about the head. Apparently his plan to prove himself an irresistible lover while pretending to be Gabe so that Imogen would have no recourse but to accept his hand was a failure.
He didn’t feel heartbroken. What he felt was a tremendous, burning wish to take a drink. To retreat into the soft golden hue of forgetfulness that came along with whiskey. In the days when he was drinking, he didn’t care that he wasn’t a fit consort for a woman such as Imogen.
He found himself walking down the stairs. Moonlight filtered dimly into the great stairway that led to the floor below. The great stairs trod by so man
y dukes who actually—
But he stopped, hand on the door to his study. Like any drunk, he had whiskey hidden there, liquor from the days when he used to have a quiet nightcap, or two or three.
But were all those dukes so worthy of the great stairs? His father, with his second family and his coldness toward his legitimate sons? Peter, who though Rafe loved him dearly, was so hidebound that he didn’t even bother to share the news that Rafe had a half brother? What he remembered of his grandfather was a cold, thin man with a cane and a permanent sneer. It was his grandfather who had arranged his father’s marriage, when his son was a mere lad. Perhaps his father would have been a different man had he been allowed to marry as he wished.
Finally, Rafe did open the door.
He walked into the study, the inner sanctum of dukes, where Peter, and his father, and his grandfather had sat.
He stood for a long time, looking at the two crystal decanters, concealed behind paneling that swung open at his touch. Then somehow a decanter was in his hand, open. The sharp scent of the whiskey lured like a siren’s smile. It was oblivion, that extra cape and mustache that he could wear from keeping the world from judging his impoverishment. His inability to be a proper duke. The whiskey seemed to call to him, promise him relief from the press of failure, from the sense that Imogen didn’t need him.
Or perhaps it was the other way around, he suddenly thought. He didn’t need Imogen, not for this. And perhaps she had need of him.
God knows, he needed her more than he needed a glass of whiskey.
A moment later he emptied the two decanters onto the courtyard stones, far below the window.
Then he sat down. He knew precisely what to do. He started to make a list. His solicitor, at the man’s earliest convenience. Gabriel.
And Imogen.
35
Raphael Jourdain, Duke of Holbrook, Comes into His Title
Gabriel Spenser was clearly in love with Miss Pythian-Adams, and when and how that had happened, Imogen didn’t know. It was all one with the lump of dull misery that seemed to have permanently lodged itself behind her breastbone.
She hadn’t even seen Rafe in days because he’d left for London without saying good-bye. Her maid told her that his valet was greatly excited because the duke had visited a tailor and had ordered a wardrobe “fit for a duke.” Even presentation breeches, Daisy said, the morning Rafe was back at Holbrook Court. “And he saw his solicitor in London. Mr. Brinkley says it likely indicates that His Grace means to marry, once the season starts.”
“I’m sure he does,” Imogen said. Her smile felt strange on her face, like a wrinkle before its time.
“We all thought he was to marry Miss Pythian-Adams,” Daisy continued. “But there, she’s made her choice. Mr. Brinkley says that the duke only came back to Holbrook Court for a day or so. He’s off to London again tomorrow perhaps, so Mr. Brinkley thinks he might be courting a young lady even now, before the season begins.”
Imogen blinked away a dimness in her eyes. So Rafe meant to marry. And Gabriel meant to marry. Why, so did she. As soon as she found a man who wanted her for more than a casual kiss and a casual tumble at an inn.
And as soon as she could overcome a growing, desperate sense of grief and loss that threatened to match what she had felt when Draven died. It was a blasphemous thought, and had Imogen’s throat close with tears at the shame of it.
Josie met her at the bottom of the stairs, glowing with excitement. “Rafe has seen Mayne in London, and you won’t believe this, Imogen, but Mayne is getting married!”
Imogen took a deep breath. “Who is he marrying?”
“A Frenchwoman,” Josie said, “with a delicious name that I forgot. She sounds like a heroine in one of my novels. Rafe has met her; he says that she’s exquisite and will keep Mayne in line. Oh, you’re wearing a riding habit. Are you taking Posy out before breakfast?”
In fact, Imogen had thought to ask if Rafe wished to accompany her, but she abruptly changed her mind. “Yes,” she said. “I’m going to the stables now. I’m not hungry.”
She didn’t return until an hour later. She and Posy had galloped along country lanes, ducked under the willows between her land and Rafe’s, ambled through the field where Rafe had asked her to marry him, even if it was only in jest. The mist was gone from her eyes, and her chin was up again.
She would go to London and find a husband who treasured her. Who thought she was interesting and funny, even in the daylight. Who didn’t need to be seduced, but would want to seduce her. Who didn’t need to sneak into her bedchamber, but would ask for her hand in marriage before she even thought he was interested. Who would say that he loved her.
Imogen strode into the entryway and handed her hat and crop to Brinkley. “His Grace would like to see you at your convenience in his study,” Brinkley said. “Shall I inform him that you will join him in, perhaps, an hour?”
Imogen ran a hand over her hair. At one point her hat had almost blown free again, but she had snatched it just in time. Still, her hair was doubtless tangled. She probably smelled like leather and yellow parsley, because she’d lain down in the field for a moment and looked at the sky. “I’ll stop in to see him now,” she said, making up her mind. “I intend to take my sister to London tomorrow morning, Brinkley. We both are in desperate need of a new wardrobe.”
“But—”
She pushed open the door to the study. It was a dim room, with large, comfortingly male, furniture. The walls were lined with books, and one had the odd feeling that they were leaning in at the top, as if the walls were bowed under their weight.
“Rafe?” she called. “Where are you?”
“We are here.” She walked forward and then saw Rafe’s hand go out in the dim light and turn up the Argand lamp.
She stopped short.
Rafe was wearing court dress. His suit was of red velvet, a suit created for an encounter with the king. Or the queen. He wore formal breeches, and a square vest of embroidered satin. He was magnificent. Every inch of him was ducal, from the beautiful fit of the velvet on his shoulders to the braided trim on his vest. His hair no longer fell around his shoulders but was tied back. The shoulders of his coat looked slightly strained, and yet he wore the elegant, tight-fitting garment with the ease of someone who pulls on a waistcoat embroidered with pearls every day.
“Rafe?” she gasped.
He bowed. It was the bow of a duke to a young widow, a bow that combined to a calculated degree a sense of both their positions—her beauty, his wealth.
Her eyes slid to the side, and there was Mr. Spenser, smiling with his customary scholarly gravitude. “Lady Maitland,” he said, bowing.
Griselda stepped forward. She too was dressed as magnificently as if royalty were expected. “Darling,” she said, kissing Imogen on the cheek.
“How extremely formal you are,” Imogen said. “All of you.”
“Gabriel will act as your guardian in this discussion,” Rafe said.
“He will?”
“Under the circumstances,” Mr. Spenser said. “Your guardian has received a request for your hand in marriage, Lady Maitland.”
“But Rafe is my guardian.”
“I hereby disavow the position,” Rafe said. “I’ve asked Gabriel to help me with a great many of the ducal responsibilities. In fact, he is thinking of giving up his post at the university.”
“Oh,” Imogen said flatly. “I shall not accept that offer of marriage.”
“Wouldn’t you like to hear who offered it?” Mr. Spenser had both her hands, somehow, and he was smiling down at her with that gentle, lopsided smile that was somehow both his and Rafe’s.
She didn’t dare to answer, just looked at him.
“His Grace, the Duke of Holbrook, has requested the honor of your hand in marriage. As your guardian, I have advised him that since you are a widow, and not a dependent in anyone’s household, you are free to make your own choice.” Gabriel’s face creased into a swift smile, and he pick
ed up her right hand and kissed it. “I shall leave you to contemplate your decision.”
Griselda took his arm. “I believe that widows may accept proposals without chaperonage, my dear.” She smiled, and then the door closed quietly behind them.
Imogen turned slowly to Rafe. She felt as if she were in a dream: that it wasn’t Rafe at all, but some glittering, aristocratic creature who stood before her.
And then, as she watched him, he sank onto his knee before her. He took her hands, and those were his hands, so large. They weren’t a pampered duke’s hands, but the calloused hands of a man who held the reins every day. He brought her palm to his lips, and her heart leaped.
“Lady Maitland, will you do me the honor of giving me your hand in marriage?”
The words hung in the air of the study.
She pulled at his hands, trying to raise him to his feet. But he stayed there, looking up at her. “I love you. If you don’t marry me, Imogen, I shall never marry. There is no other woman for me in this world. I did not know it was possible to feel such emotion as I feel for you.”
She sank onto her knees and held out her arms. “Oh, Rafe!”
“I am a slow man, and a careless one. There is, I suppose, a chance that at some point I will take up whiskey again. I can perhaps never be the man you would wish—”
She cried out, involuntarily, but he continued. “But I love you, Imogen.” He had both her hands to his lips now. “I want you with a passion that will never leave me, not even when one of us sees the other into a grave, and by God, I hope it’s at the same moment.”
She was blinking away tears, but he wasn’t done.
“I think I’ve loved you from the moment you walked into this house. God knows, I’ve never hated a man as much as I hated Draven Maitland, from the moment you mentioned his name, and your eyes shone. I know you likely will never feel the same for me, but—”
She tried to speak, but he stopped her again.