Duke of Thunder (Regency Gods #1)

Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

T o date, the most dreadful experience Helen had ever had while in a drawing room was the day that George had shown up at Northton. He’d summoned Patricia and Helen to sit before him and proceeded to tell them, not even bothering to feign sympathy, that their father was dead and he was the new viscount, as well as their guardian.

And then, as they’d gaped at him, shocked by this news, he’d peevishly asked, “Well? Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

That had been a very bad day. This one was threatening to be worse.

When the duke had arrived, George had been thrilled. He’d stuck his head into Helen’s bedchamber without even knocking, with no concern for the impropriety of such an act.

Fortunately, she had been brooding, not, say, getting undressed. Still, it had felt quite violating to have her cousin allow himself into a space that was meant to be hers and hers alone.

“Christ, you look a disaster,” he’d said, his lip curling back in disgust. “Well, I suppose it hardly matters now. He has to marry you either way. Come downstairs.”

“I—what?” Helen had asked.

George’s look became disgusted and condescending. He could really be impressively expressive when he wanted to be cruel to someone.

“The Duke of Godwin is here,” he said, slow and clipped, as if he thought she was simple. “Come downstairs.”

For once, Helen had been all too happy to comply with her cousin’s commands. Surely Xander couldn’t have actually come?

But there was Xander, standing stiffly in the parlor. Or, no—this wasn’t Xander, she decided on a double take. Not the Xander that she knew, anyway.

This man was the Duke of Godwin, his ancient lineage written in every inch of him.

Someone who knew him less well might have mistakenly believed that they were one and the same, Xander and the duke, but this…

This was not the man who’d laughed and teased and brought her to the heights of pleasure. This man might wear Xander’s face and bear his name…but they were different.

Hell, she’d scarcely ever seen him like this. Even when she’d thought he’d gone stiff and serious on her—at his cousin’s dinner party, for example—it was nothing compared to how he was now.

Any questions or protests she had— Why are you here? You don’t need to do this! —died on her lips.

She sank into the space her cousin indicated on a settee. Patricia, already seated, reached over and clasped her hand. Helen’s sister’s fingers were very warm—or perhaps her own were just uncommonly cold.

“I trust you’re here to put right what you wronged,” George said, dropping into his own seat with poorly disguised glee. “You thought you could sample the goods for free. But now you must purchase the cow, eh?”

Helen sucked in a breath at the crude analogy. Patricia clutched her hand all the tighter.

The duke didn’t move, not in any perceptible way. But the room suddenly felt distinctly frostier, as if his displeasure could affect the weather itself.

“If what you are asking is whether I am here to ask for Miss Fletcher’s hand, you would be correct,” he said, each syllable clipped and precise. “But I do not appreciate insults—neither to me, nor to my bride. You will not speak of her thusly again.”

Someone a bit more self-aware than George would have likely trembled under that icy glare. George, never one to think poorly of himself even when presented with abundant evidence, waved an unconcerned hand.

“Fine, fine, I won’t insult the chit—I mean the young lady ,” he amended, tone dripping with sarcasm. For a moment, Helen thought Xander might hit him, but sadly, he did not. “And obviously she’ll marry you. You’ve ruined her completely.”

At some point in the wee hours of the morning, Helen had come to resent the word ruined , which her cousin had been shouting for ages while pacing up and down the halls like a man possessed. She hadn’t felt ruined when Xander’s hands had been upon her; she’d felt reforged, reformed, remade.

What had ruined things, she thought, were the people who wanted to take that blissful, beautiful moment and turn it ugly.

But Xander didn’t protest this, either, for all that his loathing was written upon his face.

"Very good," he said. “My solicitor will send over the marriage contract. I will procure a special license. I will send word of the date.”

He made these proclamations in such a brisk, businesslike manner that, for a moment, even George had no response. Xander—or, rather, the automaton who had taken his place—took advantage of his pause to cross to Helen. He did not look at her properly even as he bent and kissed the back of her hand, the gesture so perfunctory that she wasn’t positive his lips had made contact with her glove.

“I’m sure my sister will be in touch about the details,” he said, still not quite looking her in the eye. “Good day, Miss Fletcher.” He glanced at Patricia. “Miss Patricia.”

He did not offer George a farewell as he breezed out the door, gone as quickly as he’d come.

Not that George seemed to mind. He nearly bounced off his seat in his pleasure.

“A duchess,” he beamed. “You’re going to be a duchess, Helen. Finally, you’re good for something.”

She was going to be a duchess.

It was all Helen could do not to cry.

When Xander called upon the Fletchers’ rented residence (a rental, truly, what a disgrace for a man with a title; Xander’s opinion of George Fletcher sunk lower, something he hadn’t thought possible), it was with extreme reluctance.

He might not have done it at all if Catherine hadn’t kept commenting to ceilings and empty rooms that “it does seem as though some of the gossip around a suddenly affianced couple might be quelled if the said couple was seen together acting agreeable.”

“I can hear you, Kitty,” he’d said peevishly the first few times.

“Hm?” She’d blinked at him innocently. “Oh, Xander, I didn’t see you there.”

Given that this, in the end, was far more irksome than actually going for a promenade with his future bride, Xander swallowed his distaste at being ordered about, summoned his carriage, and went to visit Helen.

Miss Fletcher. He had to remember to call her Miss Fletcher.

At least for the few remaining days that she’d bear the name.

Christ, the whole situation was such a mess.

Still, he shoved all his feelings aside as he went through the painful motions: inquiring after the elder Miss Fletcher, greeting Viscount Northton, listening to the man’s sycophantic simpering while he waited for Miss Fletcher to fetch her spencer.

When he finally stepped back out onto the London streets, he felt like he hadn’t taken a breath the entire time he was inside. The city air felt like the crispest country breeze as he inhaled.

Helen—Miss Fletcher, damn him—was quiet on the short ride to the park. As they rode up and down Rotten Row, however, genteel passersby poorly hiding their whispers behind cupped hands, he could feel her winding tighter and tighter.

Maybe Catherine had been on to something, he decided as Miss Fletcher began to practically vibrate with tension beside him. After all, if this conversation had to happen—and it seemed impossible to avoid—best that it happens between the two of them alone.

And before the wedding, for Christ’s sake.

Even so, in the spirit of beginning as he intended to go on, he waited for her to break the silence between them.

He didn’t have to wait long.

They’d only just made their first turn down the row, Xander easily handling his well-trained pair of matched bays when she spoke.

“What is going on here?”

She wasn’t looking at him; her eyes were fixed on the bustling horizon of the park. It was sunny, which meant that anyone who could be out had taken advantage. It was, in short, the perfect day to be seen.

“I beg your pardon?” he said. “Can you be more specific?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he cursed himself for them. That was the instinct that had gotten him into this mess in the first place—that twisted urge to tease and prod and play with Miss Fletcher until that fetching pink blush spread over her cheeks.

That game was over. It had to be.

And maybe she knew it, too, because instead of rising to his bait, she sighed, shoulders slumping ever so slightly.

“I suppose I can’t make you tell me,” she said, and the defeated note to her words felt like a slap across the face. “I merely wondered why things have been different with you, between us. But I suppose I already know.”

This surprised him, though he had too many years of training to let it show.

“You do?”

She glanced at him then, very briefly, and she looked…sad. Remorseful.

He refused to have any feelings about that expression.

“I know it wasn’t what you wanted—that I wasn’t what you wanted,” she said. “You weren’t seeking marriage, you were seeking…satisfaction. And I can’t say that I blame you for holding me accountable for my cousin barging in and forcing your hand. I’m sure I would blame me, if I were you.”

He thought of her hasty words as her cousin had dragged her from the room that fateful night.

I didn’t mean for any of this to happen .

Ah. Blast.

She thought that he thought that she’d arranged all of this.

Xander knew that their marriage would be, by necessity, an uncomfortable arrangement between them. It had to be. She was a country girl from the North, not the kind of woman who had been bred and raised all her life to be the most powerful duchess in England. She was the absolutely wrong woman for him to marry, but he was marrying her anyway, so he had no choice but to put safeguards in place.

But he didn’t want those safeguards to be bolstered by lies. It might be easier for him to let her go on believing he was angry with her for a deception she’d never wrought, but it wouldn’t be honorable or honest or fair.

He could offer her those things—honor, honesty, fairness—even if he could not offer other things. Affection. Partnership.

“I don’t blame you, Miss Fletcher,” he said, letting the tiniest hint of feeling slip into his polite, formal tone. Even if I thought you sufficiently duplicitous to do such a thing—which I do not—” He didn’t; she seemed like she’d be an absolutely shite liar, which was part of the problem, honestly. “—then I would not credit you as being sufficiently stupid to do such a thing. If I hadn’t agreed to marry you, your reputation would have been in tatters, not to mention that of your sister.”

She flinched slightly at the mention of the risk to Miss Patricia. He had found her open heart charming before all this. Now, it was a risk.

“My reputation,” he went on, fighting down the urge to soothe her, “would have been bruised. Perhaps a bit battered. But it would have recovered. In short, you had no way of knowing I would behave honorably. So, no. I do not think you schemed to make this happen. You’re cleverer than that, not to mention more decent.”

He could practically hear the gears in her mind grinding as she worked over his words. When she spoke again, he knew what was coming next.

“I do appreciate that,” she began, hesitation in every syllable. “But I suppose that I then don’t understand… Well, you seem rather put out. Is it just the situation? Because I do understand that. The gossip has been terrible. But I had thought that perhaps we might weather it together. We do get along fairly well…when we aren’t driving one another to distraction.”

Xander paused to give a polite nod of greeting to the Marquess of Iverhower, who was riding with his wife, his heir, and all seven of his daughters. The poor sod had never gotten his spare, just a passel of girls. The marquess, a longtime parliamentary ally, gave a slightly weary nod in return. Poor sod.

It was as good a reminder as any that a man like Xander was always in the public image. Someone was always, always watching.

“I understand that the…abrupt change in my behavior may have startled you,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “And I do apologize for that, Miss Fletcher.”

She sucked in the tiniest breath at his formal naming, but he ignored it.

“But you must understand,” he went on, tone not harsh but not gentle, either. He pictured his father in his mind’s eye as he spoke, recalled the way the previous duke had been implacable but not unsympathetic when giving unwanted news. “Things have changed between us.”

“Because we are to be married?”

“Indeed. This is how it must be.”

“Until the wedding?”

He almost wished that she would sound angrier. If she were cross with him, he could get irritated in return, could blame her for being difficult. But she just seemed confused.

“From now on,” he amended. “Going forward, we will have to have the kind of relationship that befits the ducal name.”

“I don’t understand.” She sounded the slightest bit peevish now, and he seized on that, trying to get it to rouse his temper or even just a spark of annoyance. But it didn’t. It just…didn’t.

Instead, he just felt this sort of hollow space. He’d been feeling it a lot of late.

Again, he thought of his father, thought of the lessons that had been instilled in him since birth.

“The Lightholder name holds certain influence,” he began, just as his father had begun all those years ago. “And while that influence affords those who bear it privileges—I’d never deny it—it also comes with a significant burden. We are obligated, particularly as the head of the family and his wife, to model the family’s image. We must show that the Lightholders are steady. That we will remain as we were for years to come.

“This obligation,” he continued, feeling as though only half of him were in this London carriage. The other half was in his father’s study, twenty or more years prior, in a building that had long since burned. “It’s more than just image. It isn’t vanity. It’s stability. The Lightholder estates have thousands of tenants. We hold influence in Parliament. We can change things, make things better. But, to do that, we need to be reliable. Steady. Cool.”

When he finally, finally turned to look at her, she was staring back at him. He’d never spent time with her in open daylight, he realized with a shock. It had been all nighttime assignations and candlelit rooms. The freckles on her face were more obvious in the sun, he noted, even with the shade of her bonnet protecting her skin. And the amber of her eyes was more liquid, like molten copper.

He turned back to the path before he crashed the bloody carriage—or worse, before he let his resolve weaken.

He could still feel her looking at him.

“We must be the duke and duchess,” he said. “That is our role—that is the burden of power. We cannot forget that. Not ever.”

She didn’t look away, and, for all his good breeding and education, he had to fight not to squirm beneath her gaze.

“But you were the duke before,” she said quietly. “And you were not like this.”

And that almost broke him. Because he hadn’t been the duke during those stolen moments. He’d been Xander. Just the man. And that meant he’d broken his own rule, the cardinal rule, the one he’d been raised to obey at all costs.

He could not stifle the bitter little laugh that came from him.

“Not with you,” he muttered.

Neither of them spoke again for the remainder of their miserable, interminable ride.