Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Before heading down, Cedric went to Emily’s schoolroom to make sure her governess would keep his daughter occupied for the day.
The schoolroom was a long room looking out over the grounds, filled with bookcases and cupboards of writing materials, detailed maps of England and Europe, and a globe that stood on a brass stand.
Mrs. Grimes, an older woman in her fifties, nodded agreeably. “I will make sure of it, Your Grace.”
Emily looked immediately curious, which made Cedric make a mental note to explain things to her later that day when all the smoke had cleared from his implosion.
“Emily,” he gave his child the look. “Do not try any of your usual shenanigans to weasel out of your studies.”
She gave him the picture of innocence. “I never do such things, Father.”
“You have,” he said. “And the staff is aware of your antics. Do not pull any of them today. Be a good girl, and I will buy twice the books you want this weekend at Hatchards. If you do not, you will be rereading those books to the end of the year. Understood?”
As unethical as it was to bribe her, Cedric knew Emily would be daydreaming about those books for hours.
Her shoulders slumped. “Yes, Father.”
Nodding, he headed down the corridor, heading down to the dining room. He rounded a corner and came across Lady Ariadne staring out one of the big bay windows. The girl looked utterly defeated.
For the first time, Cedric considered her clearly.
She still was not that ravishing beauty in the arresting, demanding sense. The first word that came to his mind was quiet.
She was quiet.
Her dark brown hair was simply arranged in a chignon, no jewelry beyond a pair of modest earrings, her blue eyes were delicate, her face was oval, and her mouth looked soft. There were faint shadows under her eyes, the kind that came from too little sleep, and her skin had a slight pallor.
There was a small line between her brows, as if she frowned or concentrated often.
“Considering running away, Lady Ariadne?” he asked.
She turned and curtsied. “No, Your Grace. I am not one whose life has drastic turns, so you must understand how shocked I am with this sudden twist in my life.”
If twists of life were paid in coin, I won the windfall.
His snort was utterly derisive, “Is marrying my brother that much of a hardship?”
Her lips thinned. “I mean no offense, Your Grace, but your brother is a rake. It is no stretch of the imagination to think I would not be delighted to marry one who will have a horde of mistresses in his bed every night.”
His brows shot up. Never in his life would he have expected her to speak so frankly with him. Most women either turned mute or babbling ninnies when they met him, but hearing her speak so plainly and frankly struck a part of him.
“You surprise me, Lady Ariadne,” he said, “You’re not the wilting wallflower I took you for earlier today. Very, very few people are so frank with me.”
Her eyes were transfixed on his face and, inwardly, he writhed uncomfortably under the scrutiny of her gaze.
He saw her gaze flit over his scars, and he braced himself for the moment she would turn away in disgust. It always happened, even if she could hide it behind a mask of well-bred manners.
The look of horror never came. Her gaze flicked back to his eyes, seeming to have quickly disregarded his scars as unimportant.
“You’re not running the opposite way,” he said. “Ladies usually do when they see my scars.”
“I won't say it’s not…jarring.” She admitted. “But it won't make me turn tail and run. How did you get those scars?” she asked then, “From war?”
“No.”
“But they aren’t recent,” she said.
“No.”
The silence was so thick that it was deafening to his ears. He was standing close enough that, if she raised her arm, she could touch his face.
Did he want to feel her touch? Her smooth skin on his torn face?
He stepped back.
Oddly, she looked hurt, “I am not repulsed by your face, Your Grace.”
“You will be,” he said matter-of-factly. “They always are.”
“I—”
The echoing sound of heels and chatter had him snapping to the sound moments before he was on the move, grabbing her by the arm just as her head swung towards it.
He looked around for another moment before dragging the door to a broom closet open and pulling them both inside it and quietly closing it behind them. The space was so small that the duke had to double up on himself to fit while pulling her into his chest.
I cannot afford to be caught with an unwed woman already promised to my brother. They already have assumptions about my honor; no need to give them more cause
Her chest heaved with growing panic as footsteps and voices approached. “Crumpets,” she breathed.
The closet was made for two-inch sticks and foot-wide buckets, but now there were two bodies in the tight space—and one of them had the height and bulk of a giant.
He had one hand braced on the wall and the other wrapped around her waist, his hold as fast as an iron band. Heat radiated from his hard body, and when his mouth met her ear, it felt as if she were in a furnace. His musky-citrus scent pervaded her nostrils, affecting her... strangely.
“Be still, little mouse,” he ordered.
His quiet words brushed hotly against her ear, and her nipples went turgid under her stays. It felt impossible to be still trapped in his arms—the first time she had ever been held by a man.
“For God’s sake, stop wriggling.” His commanding voice was husky. “Do you want us to be found?”
“I’m not… comfortable,” she whispered back.
The footsteps and chattering and giggling neared, but the very near danger they were in faded; everything but him faded; his heat, his bulk, his scent.
The party trod past their hiding place, the men and women none the wiser to the near scandal they had nearly put themselves in. Any lady caught being in the presence of a lord for more than ten minutes unchaperoned was instantly labelled a lightskirt.
“God’s bones, you are a lodestone for trouble.” He grumbled.
She bristled. “This is not my fault—” she hissed while reaching for the knob, desperate to get away from him, but he stopped her. By covering her hand with his.
“Wait a few more minutes.”
I am not sure I can stomach a few more minutes.
“Why did you force your brother and I to marry?” She asked lowly. “With no one being any the wiser, you could have dismissed the situation.”
“No, I could not,” his chest vibrated with his words. “I could not risk the chance of Leander spinning the story about you being in his bed as some conquest and not the accident it truly was.”
Ariadne tensed. It was not an accident.
She worried her lip—should she say something about that? It would only be right…but then, her mother, her sisters, and the homestead situation. Was it right to tell the truth—yes, but was leaving her family out in the cold any better?
Crumpets. Why did you put me in this position, mother?
As she mulled over the impossible situation, she felt something thick and rather forthright poking her in her lower back. Before she could ask what that was, the duke reached around her and pushed the door out. “Go downstairs to your engagement party. Now.”
She stumbled into the bright empty hallway, blinking the darkness away. The door closed behind her, and sucking in a deep breath, while fighting the shivers wracking through her body. She brushed her dress down and headed downstairs.
Sagging back on the wall, Cedric rubbed his face before fixing his trousers. Had the innocent miss felt his reaction to her rounded backside squirming on his lap?
“I doubt the innocent miss knows the difference between an unfortunate erection and an encyclopedia,” he muttered.
Before he stepped into the room, he spotted Ariadne across the room speaking to her family, three other girls who had various resemblances to their mother.
“I suspected I’d find you skulking in the shadows,” Silas Crane, Marquess of Edmonton, teased him. “You already look like a ghoul, Greymont; no need to act like one as well.”
With striking Danish blood, Silas had dusky blond hair, his nose was bold and arrogant, slashing cheekbones, and icy blue eyes. His cravat was elegantly knotted, his wool overcoat lavishly embroidered, but Silas would swear to Judgment Day that he was not a dandy.
That very jacket denied that claim.
As a friend who had gone way back, from Eton to Oxford, Silas had been his best man at his wedding to Helena and was one of the few who had stayed by Cedric’s side after the calamitous fire.
He’d often come over, unannounced, to drag Cedric out into the sun for a day on his grounds, share a meal, and go on a monologue about the shenanigans going on in London.
“I thought you were somewhere in the West Indies,” Cedric replied with a cocked brow, teasing, remembering full well the letter from earlier
Even with his title as a Marquess, Silas was a merchant to the ton, his warehouses stocked with Grecian marble, Chinese silk, Egyptian sandstone, French wine, and Caribbean rum.
“Jamaica, yes, I was,” Silas replied with a grin. “My ships are doing well, but I had to make sure they were armed. Pirates, you know.”
“You dock at Port Royal,” Cedric replied flatly. “Your men are mingling with Pirates.”
Snorting, Silas nodded to the gathering, “Did I miss you last night at the ball?”
“No,” Cedric replied. “You know I do not do balls.”
“And what is the reason for this decadent breakfast?” Silas asked.
Tugging his jacket down, Cedric replied, “You will see in a moment. I am surprised you were here and did not barge your way in to see me.”
“And risk being thrown out at this historical event?” Silas snorted, “No chance. I thought it prudent to wait until morning.”
Stepping into the room, Cedric swiped a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and cleared his throat. With practiced disregard, he ignored the way the women flinched, and the men shifted uncomfortably at the sight of his face.
“Welcome to my home, my lords and ladies. I assume many of you are questioning why I have asked you to stay behind—”
His eyes met Leander as he stood beside Ariadne, his body as rigid as a block of stone. “—and that is because, I am happy to announce, my brother is about to marry.”
Various versions of gasps ran through the room. “
“I would like to invite you to wish my brother and his lovely fiancée, Lady Ariadne, all the best and a very long and fortuitous marriage,” Cedric lifted his glass. “Let's all toast to them.”
It was painful to watch Ariadne force a smile on her face while Leander dropped a kiss on her gloved hand. Maybe this was not the best decision, but he would not— could not— risk making the girl an unmarriageable pariah if Leander did get foxed and run his mouth.
His eyes landed on the mother, and she did not look as happy as she looked relieved.
“Leander—” Silas echoed. “—is marrying?”
“Yes,” Cedric replied.
Shaking his head as if to dispel a drug-induced illusion, Silas asked, “Pardon me for being brash—” he dropped his voice to sotto. “—but is she expanding?”
“No,” Cedric pulled him away from anyone who might overhear them. “I’ll tell you what happened when we are in private.”
Silas snorted, “If you say it that way, I already feel like I know what happened.”
The guests took their places at the table, and reluctantly, Cedric took his place at the head of the table, directing Silas to sit to his right.
By practice, Cedric avoided the inquisitive looks piercing into his skin.
It was expected when one was not only a recluse, but a disfigured recluse at that.
His eyes watched keenly as Leander and Lady Ariadne exchanged a few tense words before going back to their meals. Reaching for his coffee, he frowned when Leander’s head turned, and his eyes landed on someone across the room.
As he followed his brother’s gaze, his eyes landed on—god damn it— a sober Lady Porter, dressed down in placid green, and had her hair down.
Cedric’s hands clenched around the cup. For the first time, he feared Lady Ariadne would be right. Leander would have a horse of mistresses in his marriage bed.
Silas seemed to have followed his gaze and sighed, “Do you think that is a good idea?”
He clenched his jaw so tightly, another headache began to bloom at his temples.
Now, his gaze flew to Ariadne. She, too, had picked on her future husband’s attention as well, and that was above all, the one thing that convinced him of the marriage's inevitable demise before it could even truly begin.
Damn it, Leander. Can you do one thing right for once in your life?