Bringing Down the Duke
“Is that your castle?”
“Yes. Castle Montgomery.” His voice was thick, and the tension returned to his body.
She leaned into him, and he locked his forearms beneath her breasts and pulled her snug against him.
“Managing nearly a dozen estates presents little challenge compared to the proper management of one brother,” he said. He gave her a light squeeze. “What do you make of that with your fine mind, Miss Archer?”
She smiled wryly. “I suppose human relationships require a different approach. A brother is not so easily put into a ledger.”
“Ah, but he is,” he said. “I know exactly how much he costs me.”
“In coin, yes. But when do emotions ever add up neatly?”
He paused. “Emotions,” he said. He released her and stepped away, the sudden absence of his warm body leaving her disoriented.
“I must go.” He started for the desk. “I must find him as soon as possible.”
“Is there a chance that he will come back on his own?”
He shot her a sardonic glance. “Of course not.” He began sliding the train schedules the protection officer had left into a satchel. “He knows he is in for it if he were to show his face here now.”
The threat thrumming in his calm voice was unmistakable, and she knew instinctively that speaking up for Peregrin now would push him too far. He believed that competent men had their orders followed, and here his own brother had gone into hiding rather than obey. What a terrible blow to his pride. Most other men would have struck the protection officer, or at least shifted the blame.
“You will find him,” she said quietly.
Many messages could be transported with this.
I trust in you.
I’m on your side.
I hate that you are upset.
And all the implications that came with that.
He seemed to hear them all, for he stopped packing and looked up. Their gazes locked across the Persian rug, and his expression softened, perhaps because her face showed everything, that she felt him hurting, that her chest was aching in a strange way because she wasn’t sure when she would see him next.
With two long strides, he closed the distance between them. His hand curled around her nape, its grip both gentle and possessive, and for one brief moment, his attention was on her as if she were the one and only thing on his mind.
“I will come back to you,” he said. He kissed her hard on the mouth, then more softly on the forehead, and all but bundled her out the door.
* * *
The logs in the fireplace popped and released a burst of sparks before collapsing on the grate with a hiss. Indeed. She had retreated to the blue parlor with Hattie and Catriona for an evening of reading and sketching, but the book in her hands was hardly more than camouflage. In the lazy silence, her mind strayed back to Montgomery’s kisses again and again, as if the coaxing pressure of his mouth against her own had become her new center of gravity that compelled all her thoughts to revolve around him.
She shuddered. It was precariously close to her feelings of that fateful summer years ago, that breathless, reckless, dizzying yearning for the whirl of passion itself, the desire to pit herself with all she had against a masculine force and to surrender in a glorious blaze . . . Of course, she knew better now than the girl she once was. Yes, she could take a few sips of pleasure instead of headlong drowning in it.
He hadn’t returned today. Tomorrow was her last day at Claremont. Would he find his brother?
“Who is in line for the dukedom after Peregrin Devereux?” she asked.
Hattie slowly looked up from her sketch pad. “What makes you ask such a thing?”
“Well, we have been here for weeks,” she said, “and the duke’s profile is still incomplete. We’re behind with the entire campaign.”
“I’m not sure about the line of inheritance, nor how we could exploit it for our cause,” Hattie said. “Catriona?”
For once, Catriona had to give a clueless shrug. “He will get his direct heir soon enough,” she said. “Everyone says he will remarry next year.”
An ugly emotion twisted in Annabelle’s belly. Jealousy.
How juvenile. Of course he would marry. One of the pretty debutantes who had drifted through his wintery ballroom, white and silent like snowflakes.
She came to her feet and paced toward the dying fire.
“I confess I’m glad that he would never contemplate a bride from a merchant family,” Hattie said, “else Mama would try to arrange a match with one of my pretty sisters.” She shuddered visibly. “I pity the future duchess. Do you think she will be a tragic figure, a Georgiana of Devonshire? What if she only produces girls? Imagine, to be the first Montgomery duchess in eight hundred years to not produce a son. Will he divorce her, too, I wonder?”
“Luckily, we have progressed since Georgian times,” Annabelle said irritably, “and if a woman must serve as a man’s broodmare, I imagine there are men much worse than the duke.”
“Broodmare?” Hattie clicked her tongue. “Methinks you have been spending too much time with dear Lucie. Speaking of which, what do you think of her idea to join forces with Millicent Fawcett for a demonstration on Parliament Square?”
“Hush,” Catriona said, “someone might hear.”
“But what do you think?” Hattie whispered loudly.
“It will be trouble,” Catriona replied.
“Indeed,” Hattie agreed gleefully, “so much trouble.”
Chapter 18
The next morning, the noise of trumpets and kettledrums blasted the breakfast room, infusing everyone with patriotic enthusiasm except, it seemed, the small group of suffragists and Aunty Greenfield.
“What is this dreadful noise, dear?” the elderly lady bellowed at Catriona.
“The music for tonight,” Catriona replied at the same penetrating volume. “They are setting up the orchestra below the terrace.”
“I see,” Aunty said, unimpressed. “I daresay they don’t play like they used to play.” She cast a disapproving glance around the table and it promptly snagged on Annabelle. “You are pale, child. Goodness, are you feeling unwell again?”
Annabelle gave her an unconvincing smile. “No, ma’am, I’m fine.”
“Good,” Aunty Greenfield said, “you should be. At your age, your health should still be quite robust.”
At her age, she should be wiser than to moon over a duke who hadn’t returned.
Catriona folded up her napkin. “I’m going to watch the experts prepare the fireworks.”
Annabelle was on her feet. “I’ll come with you.” Fresh air was exactly what she needed.
The fireworks were being set up on the other end of the French garden. The thin layer of snow had receded overnight, revealing the smooth white gravel covering the paths and the intricate stone carvings on the dry fountains and weathering Greek marbles. It would be so lovely to see the gardens in summer, with the trees in all their lush green glory and a warm breeze rustling through.
“This is such a beautiful place,” she murmured.
“It is,” Catriona said, her eyes on the wooden structure ahead that was growing steadily under the workmen’s hands. “But have you seen those snow globes with tiny castles inside?”
“Eh. Yes?”
“That’s Claremont.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“It is in a bubble. It isn’t real. Not for us.”
“And Oxford is? The town is unchanged since the crusades.” She found herself strangely aggravated by the discussion.
Catriona looped an arm through hers. “Never mind. I just mean to say that Oxford is a good place for us.”
“Of course it is,” she murmured.
* * *
An hour before midnight, a rumor circulated that the lord of the manor had returned, and yet he still shone with his absence. The house party guests gathered in the reception room for drinks and snacks and gossip.
“. . . rockets were imported directly from China . . .” someone said.
“. . . the last duke had hired a contortionist, not sure whether it was male or female . . .”
“. . . and then Lady Swindon’s hat went up in flames.”
When the large pendulum clock struck eleven thirty, Lady Lingham, who seemed to stand in as hostess, ordered everyone to move to the terrace. Annabelle drifted along, the stream of people carrying her to the ballroom where the doors to the terrace were flung open wide. There should have been a dark, forbidding figure on the upper balconies.
But there wasn’t.
How could he not attend his own New Year’s Eve party?
“Annabelle!” Hattie was weaving her way toward her. “Come! I have reserved you a seat with us.”
She was tugged along onto the terrace.
The chatter and laughter of a few hundred inebriated aristocrats engulfed her, leaving her briefly disoriented. The terrace and the French garden had turned into a fairground. Rows of floating red paper lanterns threw flickering shadows; fragments of music drifted up from the depths of the garden.
He was not here, she felt it in her bones.
It was for the best. It was madness, this urge to be near him.
A group of children flitted between her and Hattie, and her hand slipped from her friend’s grasp.