Chapter Five
For the second morning in a row, James woke with a pounding ache in his head from over-imbibing in brandy from the night before.
This time, though, it wasn’t to chase away the nightmares.
Instead, it had been to banish the memories of what he’d done to Miss March—Eloise—and with her being basically a stranger besides.
With a groan, he rolled over onto his back and contemplated the canopy of his four-poster bed. The dark wine-red draperies muffled much of the ambient sound, but he suspected Littleton was already puttering about the suite.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“Ah, good morning, Your Grace.” His valet yanked open the drapes shrouding the bed. When he met James’ gaze, he lifted an eyebrow. “According to household gossip, it seems you’ve decided to play the part of the beast this week, hmm?”
“Fuck, the staff is gossiping about me?” The thought made his head pound harder. “I thought they respected me?”
“They do.” Littleton snorted with laughter. “However, they are also a touch afraid of you, so when you fail to behave in a manner they think a duke should, there’s talk.”
“God. How do they expect me to act?” He rubbed his closed eyes with his fingers. Life was simply exhausting. “And why the devil am I expected to behave a certain way through all rungs of society?”
“Well, for one, the servants think you should hold yourself to an impossibly high standard, since you are a duke.” As he spoke, Littleton bustled about the room, pulling back the matching draperies at the windows and then picking up the abandoned bits of clothing James had shed the night before.
“No doubt everyone else in society expects you to have at least rudimentary manners.”
“I did, once.”
“I don’t believe it.”
James glared at him. “Before life jaded me, before the military opened my eyes to how the government doesn’t care about its people, before I realized society is shallow and false or cares only about wealth and position and connections.
” Truth be told, he should have known about society through his parents and grandparents, but he’d never put much stock into any of that and cared even less about what people were doing in society.
“If that wasn’t enough, then came the knowledge while I was a spy that the English people hated men who put their lives in danger to keep them safe, and I hated that those efforts meant nothing to the men in charge.
” He closed his eyes. “Living a life of secrets and shadows changed me, hurt me, blackened my soul, I think, even without the injuries.”
“I know.” Littleton paused at the end of the bed. His expression was far too serious and not usual for him. “I was there for some of those years, but I also know you weren’t the same man who came home as the one who left the military.”
“Regardless, I’m glad you are here, Adam,” James said in a quiet voice. He continued to lie in bed and stare at one of the windows.
When he’d left London the day before, he’d stopped by his townhouse while Eloise slept on the bench beside him.
Quickly, he’d demanded that a few essential members of his staff make the trip with him.
Yes, he kept the hunting box fully staffed, but he was a creature of habit and wanted the temporary move to be as stress-free as possible.
The valet was one of them he’d brought, along with a couple of footmen and a chambermaid that he promoted to lady’s maid for Eloise.
Once they’d arrived at the hunting box—he in the carriage and the staff in the traveling coach—Littleton had been the one to carry Eloise inside because James had been far too drunk to manage it.
“So am I, for then, at least, there is someone here with commonsense who can prevent you from making new mistakes.”
“Fuck off, Littleton.” He threw back the counterpane then rose from his bed. “Mistakes are merely decisions that have gone awry.” As he spoke, James padded to the privacy screen and ducked behind it, while the valet went into the adjoining dressing room.
“What I don’t understand is what the devil you’re doing by essentially kidnapping a woman—a stranger, an unmarried, unaccompanied woman a good ten to fifteen years your junior—and bringing her to your hunting lodge.”
“Valid question.” There was much he didn’t know about Eloise, which meant he would need to speak candidly with her at some point. “I don’t have more of an answer than certain circumstances forced me to spirit her off.”
By the time James finished doing the needful and was splashing cold water onto his face and chest, Littleton peeked his head into the bedchamber. “Forced you to kidnap someone? Drug them?” He snorted. “Hell, do you even know who her people are?”
“No, I do not.” Heat went up the back of his neck as he dried off his face and chest. He didn’t feel like shaving this morning. “I… had to do something with Miss March because she accused me of killing her fiancé.”
“So instead of talking with her, you decided to lose your damned mind?” No hint of amusement lingered in Littleton’s voice this time.
“Well, I… She made me so angry, and it crossed the line into lust.”
The valet shook his head. “Did she pull a knife on you?”
“No.”
“A pistol, then?”
“No, but she threatened to kill me with both.” Though he wasn’t thrilled with this line of questioning by the valet, he couldn’t blame the other man. It did seem rather farfetched.
Even for me.
“Right, and that threat made you kiss her in Regent Park? Kidnap her?”
“Not exactly. She told me that yesterday. The debacle in Regent Park was due to…” He blew out a breath. “Suffice it to say, I can’t explain it. There was an energy there…”
“Ah, then it’s understandable why you violated her yesterday when she woke.” Littleton’s words were muffled, no doubt from the clothes press, but there was no mistaking the shock and irritation as well as heavy sarcasm in his voice.
“Do shut up, Littleton. I have no explanation.” Finished with the abbreviated ablutions, he came out from around the privacy screen and padded into the dressing room.
Since he slept in the nude, the coolness in the room was rather bracing against his skin.
Which only made him recall how sweet, how glorious Miss March had tasted, how her body had felt while she struggled against him, how she looked when he’d tied her wrists to the bed.
Yet that fear in her eyes gave him pause. It had stemmed from more than just him treating her with high-handed arrogance and disregard for her sensibilities.
What had occurred in her life to make her feel such?
As he joined his valet and accepted a fine lawn shirt from him, James said, “To be fair, she fought me, slapped me, bit me, then put a knee in my groin. That takes spirit and determination, but deep down she’s fearful and hurting and…
desolate.” Yes, that seemed the correct way to describe her.
“That struck a chord with me as if my soul was somehow stirred because hers is also riled and torn.”
“You’re an idiot,” Littleton responded with a shake of his head.
“Perhaps.” As he donned the shirt, he rested his gaze on his friend. “It’s deuced annoying.”
The valet gave him a pair of breeches in a fawn color. “What now? Will you let her leave?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you truly plan to go through with an engagement?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, it’s not fair to her to leave her in a purgatory of sorts.” When James didn’t answer, Littleton huffed. “Will you marry her? I’ll wager you plan to ruin the hell out of her…”
Interest shivered down his shaft as he donned the breeches. “Indeed, I do plan to bed her. She needs taken in hand, but to marry her? I don’t know about that either.” The thought of fucking her had had the power to make him semi-hard. “Yet I don’t want to break that spirit.”
Which led him to think, again, what the hell was wrong with him.
Littleton grunted. “I assume Miss March is still in the room I put her into last night?”
“Yes.”
“And the door remains locked?”
“I can’t trust her.”
“Ah, but she can’t trust you either.”
James shot him a look. “I’ll bring her a breakfast tray.”
“Oh, because that will erase your horrid behavior.”
“I refuse to debate you anymore about this. What happened has happened. No going back.”
The valet brought out a light green satin waistcoat with vines embroidered in white thread. “To what purpose, though?”
He shrugged. “That remains to be seen.”
An hour later, James brought the promised breakfast tray up to her room. When he unlocked then pushed the door open, he said, “I have brought you sustenance.”
“Buggar off, Your Grace.” Then she promptly threw one of her half-boots at his head.
With a soft curse, he dodged the would-be weapon. It fell with a dull thud as he came further into the room, slamming the door behind him with a foot. “You need to eat.” Then he truly looked at her, and he nearly forgot how to breathe while juggling the tray and his cane.
Clad only in her shift with a soft gray blanket wrapped around her shoulders, it appeared she’d just been roused from bed.
Her dark hair was tousled and tangled about her shoulders, and damn if he knew a distinct urge to bury his fingers in those tresses.
His gaze slid down her body to her knees just beneath the hem.
Dear God, she had such small feet; they were quite adorable.
A bit at sixes and sevens, he cleared his throat. “You need to eat,” he repeated.
She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “I’m not hungry.”
Well, I am, and for another taste of those breasts. “It wasn’t a suggestion.” Annoyed at her continued defiance, James dropped the tray onto the top of the bureau.
A snort escaped her. “You have no right to order me about nor keep me here.”
That tart mouth and spirit fired his own resolve to do exactly that. Awareness rushed over his skin. “I do because we are engaged.” Damn, he hadn’t meant to use that as leverage but here they were.