Taming the Wild Duke

Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

I rritation surged through Simon’s body in a hot wave as he mounted Belshazzar and turned him away from Lord Fiording’s big house. Once again, the blathering old fool had refused to discuss his stables or be prevailed upon for advice.

“Well, so be it,” Simon muttered. “Fiording isn’t the only one with horse sense in these parts.”

“Everything all right, Sir?”

He looked over at Randolph, who had ridden over with him in case the Lord had been interested in hearing further details about the horses Simon already had in his stable. Simon was well informed of what went on, but Randolph had every horse in the stable, their schedules, strengths, and special needs memorized. The stable master’s brain was a treasure.

“As right as it can be,” Simon sighed. “It’s just that this problem of people thinking I’m always bluffing about anything of import is growing old.” He shrugged a shoulder, as if shaking off a bee. “I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I’ve done everything I can think of—right up to the point of proposing marriage and undertaking to woo a woman.”

“I take it your courtship with Lady Lilian is not yet widely known.”

“Just another rumor so far as the Lord Fiording is concerned,” Simon grumbled. “Surely, if he knew Lady Lilian, he wouldn’t think she would allow herself to be caught up in something like that,” he added. “That rubs me the wrong way as much as anything—her good name getting dragged down with mine.”

“I’m sure it won’t last, Your Grace,” Randolph said evenly. Simon looked at him sharply.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, as you said, Sir. You and Lady Lilian are both serious about your direction in life. Sooner or later, people are going to have to start accepting that.”

Simon raised his brows. “I wish I could share your optimism.”

Now that they were speaking of her, his thoughts turned to Lilian. Although he had just made it sound as if his courtship of her was a burden, he had to admit that it was actually the brightest spot in his life these days. He was surprised by how much he had enjoyed the time they had spent together so far. She was always interested, always kind, always beautiful.

He looked forward to visiting her as he planned to that afternoon. He found her in his thoughts at least as often as his plans for the estate and stud farm. Very often, images of her and wonderings about what she would think of this or say to that were woven right into those plans.

“If you don’t mind me inquiring, have you told your mother and sister of your courtship yet, Your Grace?”

Simon shook his head. “Their minds are so full of this coming baby. It’s Harriet’s and her child’s moment, and I want them to be able to enjoy it to the full without intruding with my own plans.”

“I hardly think your family would consider you sharing the news of your own courtship as an intrusion,” Randolph ventured. “If you’ll pardon me for saying it.”

Simon grinned. “You’re a careful man, Rand,” he commented, “but I appreciate you sharing your opinion on this matter. Don’t worry, I’ll tell them soon.”

“I’m sure they will be delighted to hear it,” Randolph said. He sounded satisfied. As if he had done his duty.

Simon chewed his lip as they continued on in silence. He didn’t share the second reason he had yet to inform his mother and sister that he was pursuing marriage with one of the most upstanding women in the ton.

The truth was, no matter how much enjoyment he had begun to receive from spending time with Lilian, their connection still felt tenuous. He still knew so little of her innermost thoughts, and she did not yet know the secrets of his past. If things did not work out between them, perhaps it would be all for the best if society chose to believe that their relationship had been nothing more than a rumor. Perhaps there would be less hurt for both of them that way.

Sighing, Simon ran his hand through his hair. Perhaps that’s not even the real truth, he found himself thinking. Perhaps the real truth was what he could still hardly even admit to himself—that he was afraid. Afraid that it was going to hurt if things didn’t work out. Afraid of the feelings he couldn’t seem to control.

Feelings frightened him. They always had. Ever since he was a boy, and his father had taken into mind to beat them out of him.

“His Grace, the Duke of Thorne, Madam.”

Lilian turned from the window as John made the announcement. Her heart thumped slightly as she caught sight of the Wild Duke. He had been appearing as very much the charming gentleman ever since he had started to call on her, but today, he looked more like the man who had strode into Lord Munro’s parlor and interrupted their tea two weeks before.

His hat was clutched in his hand, and his thick, tawny hair was mussed, as if he’d just run a reckless hand through its waves. He dropped a shallow bow, already shifting from one foot to the other. Lilian recognized the signs of restlessness. Occasionally, the Duke reminded her of a small boy forced to put on his company manners when he’d rather be running wild outside.

“I’m sorry,” she said before she could stop herself, “am I keeping you from something you’d rather be doing?”

The Duke blinked. “No. I mean…what do you mean? I’ve come to call on you. Isn’t that what we agreed on?” Even this blunt statement reminded her of the young boy she sometimes glimpsed inside of him. Rather than getting offended, she found herself smiling gently.

Lilian took a step forward, gesturing toward his fidgeting position. “You seem as if you’d rather not be here. Your Grace, you know you can be honest with me,” she added quietly.

“No,” the Duke said again. Then, his shoulders relaxed. He reached up with one hand, mussing his hair just as she’d expected. “I just…I’ve been in meetings all morning,” he explained. “Do you think we could go for a walk today? Or perhaps for a ride?” He looked as if the inspiration had just struck him. “You said you enjoyed riding, did you not?”

“You’re sure you don’t want to just sit here and sip tea and chat?” Lilian asked, tilting her head to one side.

“I’d rather…Oh, you’re teasing, aren’t you?” The Duke’s posture softened even more as his green eyes searched her face. Lilian felt a tingle of pleasure at his curious attention. She also found him extraordinarily attractive when he was slightly confused or surprised. It was as if he let down his guard. Who would have thought teasing the Wild Duke would be the key to finding the real man hidden beneath all the masks he seemed to wear?

“I actually have a plan for this morning,” she said, excitement simmering within her. “What would you say to a picnic? We have a hill out back—it’s a decent climb. By the time we reach the top, you may have gotten your jitters out.”

“Jitters? What jitters?” For a moment, the Duke attempted to look offended, but she could see relief in the way his shoulders loosened. “Will Lady Jane be coming with us?” he asked, glancing toward the hallway.

“No, it will be Annie today,” Lilian said. “And I’ve asked one of the stablemen to carry up our baskets.” She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “I believe he may be courting Annie as they were both quite eager to accompany us.”

The Duke raised his eyebrows slightly and nodded. “So, in actuality, we are the chaperones today.”

“If you wish to see it that way,” Lilian said lightly. “If you’re willing, we can go out the back way. That way, we won’t have to walk all the way around the house.”

“I’m willing,” the Duke said. He took a deep breath and offered his elbow. “Your willing servant, my lady.”

Lilian blushed, accepting his proffered arm. Although she had accused the Duke of having jitters, she had to admit, she actually had them herself. Her stomach felt strangely aflutter as she guided him through the house and out into the garden. Going off like this with only the servants to chaperone—it almost felt as if they were getting away with something.

He looked around with curiosity, and she realized she had never shown him much of their home or grounds before. Today would be the first time. Perhaps she was being overdramatic about it, but there was something intimate about it, she thought.

Annie and the stableman, David, were already waiting for them just outside the kitchen door. They drew apart quickly when Lilian and the Duke appeared, and Lilian couldn’t resist casting a mischievous glance up at the Duke. He crooked an eyebrow and lifted a finger to point at themselves, mouthing, “chaperones.”

The four of them walked through the back gardens, toward the path that led up to the picnic spot.

“My sisters and I used to go up to the spot where we’re going all the time,” Lilian reminisced, noting that the Duke had slowed his stride to match hers. “There’s a lovely climbing tree there.”

The Duke looked down. The breeze tugged at his already unruly hair, blowing it across his green eyes. “You climbed trees as a girl? I can’t quite imagine.”

“Oh, yes. Climbed trees, ran footraces, rode bareback…” Lilian trailed off, flushing slightly as she caught herself. “I don’t usually tell people about it nowadays. It makes them look askance.”

“Like I’m doing now?” the Duke chuckled, giving her an exaggerated expression of alarm. Then, he sobered. “Don’t mind me. I actually believe it’s quite normal and beneficial for girls to run and play just as much as boys do. We all have to grow up and behave properly at some point. Might as well get as much joy as possible from the carefree years before that.”

The path had grown slightly steeper and stonier as they climbed. Large, old trees sprawled both over and under, their branches offering sweet shade even as their roots made perilous lumps across the path. Lilian stumbled over one of them, and the Duke quickly steadied her with a hand on her elbow.

“Thank you,” she murmured. She grabbed a handful of her skirt, lifting the hem slightly to clear the ground. “I should probably have worn a simpler gown. This one makes it hard to see where one is stepping.”

She felt the Duke’s eyes on her, and he kept his hand on her elbow.

“This one is very becoming though,” he said at length.

“Thank you,” she said again. She couldn’t explain why the simple compliment should bring heat to her cheeks. She was just so unused to receiving direct compliments—of being the sole object of a man’s attention. It took her mind back to that moment at the opera when he had noticed her emotion and comforted her. That moment had shifted something inside of her…though she hadn’t yet been brave enough to explore exactly what that shift had entailed.

“The gown you wore to the Bennington ball,” the Duke said. “You looked very well in that one as well.”

“Ah, Jane had that one made for me,” Lilian said with a slight smile. “Just before she and my father revealed their machinations to find me a husband.”

“It was a good idea,” the Duke said, and she flashed a look up at him, narrowing her eyes.

“Are you saying it was the gown that caused you to become interested in courting me?” she asked, half jestingly.

“Not at all,” the Duke said quickly. His green eyes studied her face with an intensity that caused her breath to hitch slightly. She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. A twinge of embarrassment struck her as she recalled the reasons he had given for wanting to court—or rather, marry—her when he proposed.

This is purely a business arrangement, she reminded herself. He gives me a home and husband with the independence I crave, and I help him mend his reputation by being his respectable wife. I must avoid romantic notions at all costs.

As they reached the top of the hill, she drew away from him slightly, intent on regaining her composure. She pointed to a great, craggy tree with several large, tumbled rocks underneath. The Duke shaded his eyes to follow the direction of her finger.

“Right there,” she said. “We can spread a blanket over that big, flat rock, and it will act as a table.”

“Is that by any chance your climbing tree?” the Duke asked, peering up into the ancient branches of the big oak.

“That’s the one,” Lilian said. “Thank you,” she added as David set their basket on the rock for them. “I can take care of the rest. You two feel free to enjoy your picnic wherever you like.” She and Annie exchanged a smile. As the maid and stableman headed for another rock a few yards away, she perched on the edge of the rock table and began to unpack the picnic basket.

The Duke settled on the blanket next to her, watching as she put sandwiches and cookies and fruit salad on dishes. His posture suggested that he was already feeling much more relaxed than when he’d arrived at the house. Still, the silence felt heavy with her embarrassment still fresh on her mind. Lilian spoke to fill it. “This tree was my hiding place when things weren’t going well at home,” she said. “When the house felt too chaotic or I was feeling upset or lonely about something.”

“It surprises me that a girl with two sisters could get lonely,” he commented.

“Twin sisters, remember, and they are five years younger than me,” Lilian said. “We didn’t have all that much in common until we were all adults.” She handed him a plate, careful that their fingers should not brush. “What about your sister?” she asked. She finally risked meeting his eyes again. “Were you very good friends?”

“I…well, yes, I suppose you could say that.” The Duke frowned slightly and looked down at his food, a subtle darkness seeping into his mood. “I’m not sure ‘friends’ is the right word,” he said softly after a moment. “Sometimes it felt more like fellow pri…” He stopped. Staring at the top of his head, the gloriously rumpled brown hair—once again free of any kind of hat—Lilian waited. A strange tightness crept into her chest as she watched his shoulders rise and fall in a deep, hesitant breath.

He looked up, and Lilian nearly winced at the expression in his eyes. It was one of intense vulnerability. She found herself holding her own breath, waiting tensely for whatever he was about to say.

“My father…” he began cautiously, “I don’t know how he was seen by the ton. ” Bitterness crept into his tone as he absently stabbed a fork into a piece of apple. “I suspect he was careful to always put his best foot forward with them, but at home… he was a harsh man.”

Lilian’s fingers felt stiff around her own fork as she waited for him to continue, her heart cringing away from what she feared he was about to disclose.

“He looked down on everyone around him but especially on my mother and sister. He mistreated them,” the Duke said quietly. Lilian could almost feel the pain in his voice. “He took out his anger on them for the slightest inconvenience. I grew up wanting more than anything to protect them—from him.”

“He treated you differently?” Lilian asked, her voice low. The Duke’s green eyes flashed up to hers, sharp and wild, and he let out a bitter laugh.

“Yes and no.” He shrugged, a hard, tense shrug. “I got my fair share of beatings, but it was for a different reason. My father had a very specific idea of what he wanted his ‘heir’ to be like. He wanted me to be perfect. He wanted me to be…hard. I think he wanted me to turn out exactly like him. But I hated who he was.” The words were spoken with a low undercurrent of fury.

Tears prickled Lilian’s eyes as she sat on the other side of the blanket from a man and saw yet again the boy he had once been. But this time, she saw him as he had really been. Angry, hurt, desperate for love and respect from a parent who meted out only pain and pride. The words pouring from between his tight lips made so many things about who the Duke of Thorne had become make so much more sense. She wanted to reach out and take his hand, to give him comfort as he had given her comfort at the opera. But he was too far away, and…she sensed he might not appreciate it as she had.

“When I was twelve or maybe thirteen,” he said slowly, “I decided I’d had enough. I was never good enough for my father anyway. I decided to go out of my way to be the opposite of everything he wanted me to be.”

He looked up, his eyes shadowed. His gaze as he searched Lilian’s face was careful, as if he was trying to ascertain how she had taken what he had revealed so far and decide if he should risk revealing anything further. Lilian had no idea what her expression conveyed, but she made no attempt to change it. Her breath was hard and uneven, pushing her chest up and down. She could feel the furrow between her brows, and she realized she was biting her lip hard. She did stop doing that.

“How did you do that?” she asked. The Duke shrugged again. This time, it was less angry…more resigned.

“However I could. I rebelled. I’d take a horse and go off riding without asking, especially when I knew he expected me to be present for something else. I broke laws.” His mouth twisted into a wry smile. “I was caught by the constable getting into mischief more than once with my friends.”

“Lord Munro?” Lilian asked.

“Occasionally,” the Duke said carefully. The glance he gave her told her he was being careful not to soil the good name of her sister’s betrothed. Lilian felt a surge of appreciation for his effort, even as he shared something so vulnerable about himself. “Mostly Aaron knew to keep out of the serious pranks, though.”

He picked up one of the biscuits Lilian had arranged on a glass dish and began to absent-mindedly break it into smaller pieces. “My father always bought off the constable, but then he would punish me himself. Severely.”

He looked up, his eyes clear for the first time since he’d begun his story. “It was worth it, though. I started to notice that when he was taking out his anger on me, he left my mother and Harriet alone. Finally, it was a way I could protect them. I started getting into trouble even more, just to keep his focus on me. As I got older, scrapes weren’t enough, so I started gambling, running with the worst crowds I could find.”

He winced, regret flickering across his expression. “I told tales of my exploits with women…Things that never actually happened. I wanted my father to hate me as much as I hated him, and the best way to do that was to be as far from perfect as possible. Eventually, I didn’t even have to spread the rumors.”

“The ton did it for you,” Lilian supplied.

“Right.”

Lilian watched as he picked up a grape, rolling it between his fingers before popping it into his mouth—the first of the food she’d brought that he’d actually eaten. Talking it all out seemed to have refreshed him more than the food ever could have, though. He leaned against the tree trunk, his long legs stretched in front of him, and studied her. Lilian looked back at him, her thoughts and heart full.

“I’ve wanted to tell you all of this for a while now,” he said quietly after a moment. “I suppose you might think I’m saying all of this just to make you think I’m a better person than I am. But it’s true. My bad reputation is basically founded on falsehoods that I started myself. Something I obviously regret now.”

“I believe you.”

The Duke blinked, pausing with another grape halfway to his mouth. “You do?”

“Yes.” Lilian leaned back on her hand. “All this time I’ve been trying to reconcile the gentleman you are with all of the rumors that had made me think you were something else entirely.” She shrugged. “If all of those stories were false, it makes sense.”

The Duke’s jaw tightened slightly. “They’re not all false,” he admitted reluctantly. “Just all the ones about the women. I’m not a…rake.” He seemed to cringe from even saying the word. “But I have been a gambler, and I’ve broken laws. No matter my motivation, those aren’t things I’m proud of.”

Lilian shook her head. There were so many things she wanted to say. So many things she wanted to do. One of them was to just give the big, sad, handsome duke sitting across from her a long- overdue hug. The thought made her blush. Instead, she said simply, “We’ve all made mistakes in the past. It’s part of being human and just… muddling our way through this life. And the ones that we made trying to do something good—those are the most forgivable of all.”

The Duke was watching her again in a way that sent flutters up her spine. Reaching for one of her own grapes, Lilian popped it into her mouth. Then she gestured toward the nearly untouched picnic before them. “What will be unforgiveable is if we let this entire lunch go to waste.”

“You’re right,” the Duke said. He reached for a sandwich and picked it up, taking a huge bite. Then he pointed to his mouth. “This will keep me from talking anymore,” he said, his voice muffled by the bread. Lilian smiled. Her heart ached to share some of the softness she felt toward him, but at the same time, she was afraid of sharing too much.

“I’m really glad you told me all of that,” she said. “I promise, that won’t be something you regret.”

The Duke chewed slowly, his eyes never leaving her face.

“I know,” he said when he had swallowed. Then he added, “I’m glad I told you too.” Leaning back against the trunk of the tree again, he looked up into the branches. “I guess this place still works just like it used to,” he said.

Lilian nodded. “It seems so.”

“Thank you for bringing me up here.”

Once more, she nodded. “Next time, it will be your turn to pick the place—and the activity.”

“Really?” he asked. He returned his gaze to her, narrowing his eyes teasingly. “You’ll do anything I want?” The way he was looking at her made heat rise into Lilian’s cheeks.

“Within reason,” she said, a trifle breathlessly.

“Very well, then,” he said. “And next time, it will be your turn to reveal a secret. Do we have a deal?”

Lilian slowly nodded once more. Her heart was beating a bit harder than it should have been. “We have a deal.”