Taming the Wild Duke

Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

A fter pacing about the parlor and sitting for a while on the sofa with clasped hands, Lilian finally turned to her harp to help the waiting pass. Settling on the chair, she put her fingers to the strings, running them gently up and down. Then, she began to play a tune. It was a winsome, lilting melody—one of the first her mother had taught her on the instrument.

“I thought you said you weren’t any good at music.”

She looked up. Priscilla stood in the doorway. The other woman’s face was a mixture of smugness and hesitation. Lilian supposed her note inviting Priscilla to come over had been just vague enough that Priscilla still wasn’t exactly sure she was welcome. At least she had come.

“Priscilla, come in.” Lilian stood up, a trained smile turning her lips upward as if by magic. “Sit down, please.”

“Your note said—I’m sorry to hear about what happened between you and the Duke of Thorne,” Priscilla said, squirming slightly in her seat. “I may have gotten carried away last night, my dear Lilian. I was just so upset, you see…”

“Oh, so he’s not a rake and a scoundrel?” Lilian arched her eyebrows, fighting to keep her emotions under control. “I invited you here today to thank you for helping me to see exactly what kind of man he was… before it was too late.”

“Oh! Oh, I see.” Priscilla’s face was suddenly animated as she leaned forward. “I thought perhaps that was it. Oh, yes, indeed. The Wild Duke is all of that and more,” she exclaimed, warming to her subject. “I didn’t want to bring up our personal history in so public a setting,” she said, her voice dropping conspiratorially, “but he’s even worse than you’ve probably heard. I didn’t used to believe it either, mind you. But then, he started approaching me, you see. And he strung me along, just as he’s done with you. And then, once I’d fallen hopelessly in love, he dropped me. Sent me a note, just as he did with you.”

Her face took on an expression of both pity and loathing. “I didn’t want the same thing to happen to you,” she said. “But it seems I was too late.”

“I don’t recall mentioning when I invited you that he dropped me via a note,” Lilian said. She watched as the color drained out of Priscilla’s face.

“Well…word gets around, you know.” The other woman was suddenly stammering. “The servants talk. They can’t be trusted. Neither servants nor men. That’s why we women have to look out for each other.”

“Even those of us who are ‘unwanted spinsters’?” She couldn’t resist getting in that dig. Before Priscilla could do more than sputter, she went on. “Actually, as it turns out, my dear Priscilla , some men can be trusted. And some women cannot. Thank you, by the way, for replying to my note with confirmation that you would come by this afternoon.” She reached for the bit of stationery on the table beside her before glancing toward the curtain leading into the dining room. “Perhaps we should compare it to the note you have in your pocket—Your Grace.”

Right on cue, the Duke stepped from behind the curtain. His green eyes flashed fire at Priscilla as he strode into the room. Lilian could barely constrain her smile as Priscilla shrank back into the cushions of the sofa, her eyes widening to the size of saucers.

“How…what…but you said it was over between the two of you!”

“It was for about three hours this morning,” Lilian said. She felt a twinge at the memory of those bleak, revelatory hours. “Until I showed the Duke your note.”

“ My note?” Priscilla gasped. “I didn’t…I would never…”

“And yet you did .” The Duke’s voice was as cold and cutting as Lilian had ever heard it as he held up the two notes side by side: the one Lilian had received at breakfast and the one Priscilla had sent in response to her invitation. The handwriting was identical—right down to the flourish on the “Dear Lady Lilian.”

“I don’t suppose you would care to tell us more about how this note came to be written by you from me?” the Duke continued. “I’d also be so interested to hear more about this relationship you and I had without my knowledge.”

“I…you…” Priscilla had risen from the sofa now and was backing toward the door like a cornered animal. Lilian and the Duke stood side by side and watched her. At the last minute, as Priscilla spun to flee, John stepped in front of her, blocking her path. She whirled around, her face twisted into a snarl.

“Ah, it seems some servants can be trusted as well,” Lilian said. Beside her, the Duke chuckled. It was the final straw for Priscilla. The thin veneer of her control broke right in front of them.

“Are you just going to stand there and hurl my words back in my face?” she shrieked. “This is not fair! It’s not fair! You were meant to be mine ,” she screamed at the Duke. “Mending your reputation through marriage was my idea! How dare you take it and use it! How dare you…!”

As Lilian blinked, mild shock jolting through her, the Duke stepped forward. She realized he was blocking her slightly with his body, as if to protect her from Priscilla’s vitriol.

“That will be quite enough.” It was a command, and somehow it cut through even Priscilla’s madness. She snapped her mouth closed, glaring at him with wild eyes. “After everything you have done, you have no right to speak to either of us this way,” he said firmly. “After all the lies you have told, you’re fortunate we’re unwilling to stoop so low.” He took a step forward. “We wouldn’t even have to tell lies to change the ton’s entire perception of you, Priscilla Talbot. All we would have to do is tell the truth. And that’s exactly what we will do if you so much as whisper another word to another soul about either one of us. Or if you try to speak to either one of us again.”

Priscilla’s face had become a mask of horror as the Duke spoke his threats, all in the same calm, measured tone. If it wasn’t for the fact that the woman had very nearly ruined Lilian’s happiness, she almost could have brought herself to feel sorry for her.

“I’m going to ask you if you understand, and you are going to say that you do,” the Duke continued. “Then, you are going to turn around and leave this house, never to bother either of us or our families ever again. Do you understand?”

For a moment, Lilian thought Priscilla wasn’t going to say it. The tiny woman glanced wildly at John, still stolidly blocking the door, then back at the Duke, and finally at Lilian. She looked nothing like the perfectly coiffed little woman who had waltzed up to Lilian at the Bennington’s ball to insult her. Instead, she looked properly terrified. Finally, she licked her lips.

“I understand,” she croaked. John stepped away from the door, and she turned and fled. He followed. A moment later, there was the sound of the front door closing behind her.

Lilian had managed to keep her composure the entire time. But now that it was over, she nearly sagged with relief and weariness.

“Whoa, are you all right? Lilian?” The Duke quickly caught her, gently assisting her to the sofa. As she sank down on the cushion, he perched beside her. His brow was puckered with worry, his green eyes warm and gentle and full of…

She smiled. “I love it when you say my name.”

Slowly, the concern melted away. “I would love to hear you say mine,” he said quietly. Lilian’s heart fluttered in her chest.

“I would love to hear you say again what you said earlier,” she whispered.

“At the stables?” he asked, quirking a teasing eyebrow. “Which part of what I said do you need to hear again? I’ll gladly repeat it all.”

“You know which part,” Lilian said.

She had been almost back to her horse when she heard him running after her.

“Lady Lilian!”

At first, she ignored him. She lifted her skirts and moved faster. But he was long and tall, and he outraced her. He reached her horse first and threw himself in front of her. She skidded to a stop as he held up the note she had just thrown at his feet.

“I didn’t write this note.”

“What?” Lilian said.

“It’s not even my handwriting.” The Duke’s green eyes were wide and clear as he pinned her with an earnest gaze. “Here, look.” He suddenly fumbled in his pocket, pulling out another crumpled sheet. “It’s a list I’m keeping. Of books I hear of that I want to read.”

Lilian stared at him. Then, slowly, she let her eyes drift to the paper he was thrusting toward her. She took it and gazed down at the messy scrawl.

“I can’t even read this,” she murmured.

“Exactly,” the Duke said. “No one ever can. Ask anyone. My handwriting is notoriously bad.”

There was a lump in her throat. And her heart was beginning to beat very, very hard. She felt light-headed, as if she might faint. Her eyes drifted back to the other note he held in front of her. The neat script, the devastating message.

“Then who…?”

“I don’t know!” The Duke raked a hand through his hair. “Someone who doesn’t want us together, but…”

“Wait. So, none of what was in the note was true?” Lilian tried to focus on breathing in and out, staying upright as her mind and emotions raced to catch up with the Duke’s claims.

“I do have some men interested in partnering with me on the stud farm,” the Duke said. “I don’t know how whoever wrote this note would know that. But nothing else was true. Lilian, I swear it.”

When she didn’t immediately respond, he stepped toward her, taking her shoulders gently in her hands. She gazed up at him, her whole world spinning. His eyes were so green. They were honest eyes. She had seen that from the beginning.

“I want us to be together, Lilian,” he said emphatically. “I want it more every moment I’m with you.” She could barely hear the words over the roaring in her ears, but she saw the truth of them in his eyes. “I want it more than I want the stud farm,” he continued, “and more than I want to mend my reputation.”

“But that’s the whole reason we were getting married,” Lilian heard herself say faintly.

The Duke shook his head. “Only at first,” he said. “Or maybe not even then. I proposed to you, Lilian, because you fascinated me. And that fascination only grew over the course of our courtship. And it…It’s long past fascination at this point.” He paused, swallowed, looked almost nervous for a moment—like the young Lord Byron he’d once compared himself to. “You said back there…” He nodded toward the stables behind them. “…that you almost loved me. Well, here’s the whole truth, Lilian Weston. I love you . With all my heart.”

It was a good thing he was holding onto her arms, Lilian thought, or she might just sink down onto the ground right there. She felt at once both light as air and hollow and fragile as a husk. Happiness and disbelief warred for the top space in her trembling heart.

“I tried not to at first,” the Duke continued. The words poured out of him as if he’d been keeping them inside for too long. “I didn’t think you cared about me that way, and I was afraid,” he admitted, “of being vulnerable. Of seeming weak. But it’s like you said. Love is beautiful and raw and painful and deep. It’s not weak. It’s strong. And I can’t keep it hidden anymore. I love you, Lilian Weston.”

“And you still want to marry me?”

He laughed, a shaky, endearing laugh that made Lilian want to put her arms around him and pull him close.

“More than anything in the world. If you would do me the honor.”

Lilian opened her mouth to answer. Then, she closed it as it struck her. Who had shown time and time again that she didn’t want them to be married? There was only one person. “I think I know who sent that note,” she said.

“I love you, Lilian Weston,” the Duke said in a low, velvet voice, kneeling beside her on the sofa. Lilian took a deep breath. Then she reached out to take his hand in hers.

“I love you too, Simon Russell, Duke of Thorne.”