Duke of Lust (Sinful Dukes #3)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

“ I shall take Lady Annabelle straight up to bed,” Myrtle clucked as they walked into the hallway at Heartwick Hall. “I told her it was a most upsetting subject for an opera but she would not listen. Now look at the poor child. Thank God you visited the opera house and brought her home, Your Grace.”

“I must speak to Annabelle first,” Frederick said in a voice that brooked no dissent. “In the drawing room, please.”

Annabelle’s heart fell and she looked down miserably at the floor. She could see the scarcely restrained exasperation and ill-temper on his face as well as hearing them in his tone.

In the carriage, Frederick had been curt and quiet but solicitous, explaining Annabelle’s emotional state to Myrtle as upset from the performance and leaving the old woman to fuss over her like a mother hen, settling her with cloaks and cushions like an invalid or child. Despite the silence, Annabelle had known that there would be consequences for her actions that evening. Now it was time to face them.

“Would it not be better to speak in the morning, Your Grace?” pleaded Myrtle. “My Lady is so very tired.”

“All is well, Myrtle,” Annabelle assured her quietly, going to the drawing room door. “I will speak to Duke Frederick now. Please wait for me upstairs.”

Once the door had closed and Myrtle’s footsteps died away, Frederick turned to Annabelle.

“Take a seat,” he told her and paced over to the window, gathering his thoughts as an unhappy Annabelle waited to hear them.

“I did not know you were so untrustworthy,” Frederick said finally, the bald accusation and icy tone coming as a shock to her.

“Untrustworthy?” she said blankly, shaking her head.

“You deceived me. I expect you deceived Victoria Crawford and her cousins too. What else would you call your behavior tonight if not untrustworthy?”

Annabelle stood up and faced him across the room.

“How dare stand there and lecture me about deception the very day after bringing that woman into the house and then encouraging me to deceive my brother and Duchess Sarah about the circumstances in which I find myself at Heartwick Hall?”

“You do not understand what you’re talking about,” Frederick shot back. “It is entirely different. Neither myself nor anyone else has been placed in jeopardy through my actions. As for my stepmother or Stephen, you may tell them what you like if you are willing to cause them unnecessary distress and handle the fallout. Tonight, in contrast, you placed yourself in very real danger.”

“You’re twisting everything!” Annabelle shouted at him, confused and angry.

“Do you not see how helpless you were tonight, Annabelle? What would have happened if I hadn’t sent a messenger to check whether your family’s coach was at the opera house? What would have happened if I had not been there to intervene?”

She shook her head stubbornly, unwilling to admit Frederick was making a good point until he conceded his own faults.

“You had me followed? I can’t believe you did that, Frederick. Am I to be followed about the entire time I stay at Heartwick Hall?”

“Yes, damn it all, if you prove yourself so untrustworthy. If I have to follow you all over London to keep my promise to your brother, I will.”

“I’m not a child who needs a nursemaid!” Annabelle shouted at him furiously. “I’m one-and-twenty!”

“When you behave like a sensible adult woman, I shall treat you like one!” he shouted back. “You’re just a damned, helpless…innocent!”

“And you Frederick Hayward are nothing but a…a…a…”

“Enough!” Frederick blazed, holding up a hand to silence her before she could think of an insult. “You are under my roof, Annabelle. Until Stephen returns, you must listen to my guidance, act as I tell you to act and follow my command.”

Annabelle began to cry with both rage and frustration now. She knew she was helpless and she hated it but there seemed nothing to be done. She was hardly going to grow any bigger now, and developing a more forceful personality seemed almost equally unlikely. Everyone seemed to see her as a child.

“I’m just a burden, aren’t I?” she sobbed. “To my family and to you. I have to find a husband this season, Frederick. I have to if I don’t want to be a burden forever. Can you even begin to understand? That’s why I must go out and about and meet people, like tonight, and try… I don’t know how to do it, but I must marry…”

“Marry?!” he repeated with what sounded like complete consternation.

“I know I’m not wise in such matters. I thought Victoria might advise me since she knows so many men, but it turns out they may not be the right sort of men to marry.”

“You never thought to ask me about this?” Frederick asked, to Annabelle’s surprise.

“Well, no,” she admitted, staring at him with consternation even greater than his own.

The fact was that such an idea would never have occurred to her, even if yesterday’s unfortunate bedroom incident had never happened. Frederick was a man, and Frederick was a rake. On both counts, he was not the first person she would have thought to consult on her own marital ambitions.

Still, for some reason, her definite answer seemed to irk Frederick.

“So, rather than consulting someone who has your best interests at heart and would have ensured your personal safety, you chose to deceive everyone and venture out to try your fortune with insufficient protection.”

“I was with Victoria!” she pointed out.

“Until you weren’t! Do you have any idea what that man could have done to you, Annabelle, if I hadn’t been there to stop him?”

The feeling on Frederick’s handsome face appeared to be genuine as he spoke and Annabelle felt a flash of insight and then a pang of compassion.

“Is this about me, or Penelope, Frederick?” she said quietly now. “Penelope is well. Maxwell saved her from Lord Silverbrook, didn’t he?”

“Yes, and I am grateful to him. I always will be. But she never asked me for help…”

His voice trailed off as he frowned and wrestled with some internal puzzle. Evidently, regardless of the happy ending to the matter, Frederick had not forgiven himself for ever allowing Lord Silverbrook to get so close to Penelope.

“I shall help you to find a husband, Annabelle,” he stated unexpectedly, his blue eyes focusing again and looking straight into hers with great determination.

The fierceness and flush of his face recalled again the sight of him yesterday, half-naked and rising from the floor to meet Penelope’s gaze. Her stomach flipped and clenched as the image passed in front of her mind’s eye, her heart beating faster and heat rising in her face.

Involuntarily, she looked away from Frederick’s handsome face and cast down her eyes, afraid of the powerful stream of sensations he was inadvertently provoking. Annabelle almost wished she could faint at will, as some young ladies claimed to be able to do, in order to escape this experience.

She gasped aloud as Frederick reached out a hand and gently tilted up her chin to meet his gaze again. Her face was burning. At her yelp, he drew back his arm immediately as though he had not realized what he was doing.

“You seem to doubt me,” he said, evidently misunderstanding her reaction to his offer. “I can help you and I will.”

“How could a man like you help me marry? You are a rake!” Annabelle blurted, wondering what kind of game he was playing.

His expression hardened again at these words. Was he actually speaking in earnest?

“In which case, you must concede that I’m in a better position than Victoria Crawford to advise you on what men find desirable in a woman. With my guidance, you could have every eligible man of the ton eating from your palm.”

“What do you mean?” Annabelle breathed, now unable to break her eyes from his.

“To begin with, from now on, you must spend your nights with me…”