Chapter Seven

 

 

Molly

 

After the school visit, Molly climbed back into the black sedan. Her hand accidentally bumped the Duke’s, resting on the seat. He pulled his hand away as if severely burned and apologized, diverting his eyes from her face. She’d bumped into strangers in intimate subway scenarios who showed her more of a reaction than the Duke.

She laughed curiously, then leaned her head against the window to admire the beautiful countryside scrolling by beneath the gathering afternoon clouds.

Did she scare him? Was it improper to touch a duke’s hand? Had she transgressed some unspoken international treaty, throwing Scotland and the United States into the early stages of World War III?

But earlier, in the gymnasium, she’d grabbed his hand and he hadn’t pulled away. Of course, she hadn’t allowed him to. She’d just grabbed him and not let go. Maybe he wasn’t used to that.

“Um, Miss Rose?” Callum asked.

Molly turned in the leather seat as Mack drove. “You call me that again, Your Grace, and I’m going to call you Cal for the remainder of our time together.”

He frowned. “What would you prefer me to call you?”

She was about to respond with her real name, but the Duke nodded toward Mack in the driver’s seat. She tapped her hands on her knees and sighed.

“Priscilla,” she said with little enthusiasm. “I guess you can call me Priscilla.”

“Priscilla, may I ask you something?”

“Certainly, Your Grace.”

“How did you engage so quickly with the children back there at the school?” he asked.

“Don’t you remember, Your Grace?” she winked. “I have extensive volunteer experience with the Boys and Girls Club.”

He rolled his eyes dramatically to admit his amusement, but Molly could tell that he truly wanted an honest answer. Slightly surprised that he wanted to have such an open, personal discussion, she decided to give him her full attention. She wiggled in her seatbelt until she was fully facing him.

“I think I just have my heart in it,” she explained. “I love art. Above all else I love art and everything it represents, everything it can be, everything it can do. And, well, I love to see young kids get involved with it. I love seeing what their young, unfiltered, unbiased minds can create. I love seeing that same love I have grow in them.”

Molly half expected him to ask her to stop so that he could pull a notepad and pencil from his lapel to take notes. He seemed to nod at the right moments and say, “Emhmm” and “yes, yes, all right”. But when she searched his eyes, she sensed he really had no idea what she was talking about.

“It’s cheesy and all,” she added. “But I think it might be as simple as doing it from here,” —pointing to her heart—“instead of from here.” She pointed to her head.

“I see,” he said, hesitantly.

Molly was quite certain he didn’t, but she realized that she wanted him to. He was a stranger to her and she’d soon be leaving him. She shouldn’t have cared one way or the other. She should have been thinking about returning to the castle, grabbing her bag, and finding the cheapest flight back to the States. She should have been thinking about her new job. About her father.

But seated next to him, in the tight confines of the car, she found herself caring. She wanted him to understand what it meant to act from the heart, to love doing something for the sake of the thing itself. She smiled. “Or you know, you could just have a drink every once in a while,” she said with a laugh. “That always helps loosen things up.”

When this brought a knowing grin to the Duke’s face, Molly felt like she’d won a small victory. But then he sighed and shook his head.

“As of last month, since taking on the title of Duke from my father, I’ve committed to not having a lick of alcohol.”

If Molly had been the one driving instead of Mack she would have slammed on the brakes right then and there. So she wasn’t the only vice he was abstaining from, she thought. This was a new piece of the puzzle for Molly, but the full picture was still far from clear. The most obvious question was still far from being answered. Why?

“Not a drop?” she asked.

“None.”

“Just the hard stuff, you mean?”

“The whole kit and caboodle.”

“Wine?”

He laughed.

“No tequila?”

He stuck out his tongue, playful in a way she hadn’t seen before and that she liked a whole lot. “I can’t say that I miss the unique charms of tequila, Miss Rose.”

“Priscilla,” Molly insisted, still gawking at the Duke. “Surely not whiskey?”

“No whiskey.”

“Beer?”

“No beer.”

She clapped her hands together and exclaimed, “Well, Your Grace, we have solved your dilemma, now haven’t we?” Without giving him time to answer, she leaned forward and grabbed the driver’s seat. “Mack, to a bar, any bar, ASAP,” she said.

“Miss Ro— Priscilla, I don’t think that will do anyone any good.” The Duke shook his head when Mack looked back at him in the rearview mirror.

“Mack,” Molly implored the burly Scottish man, “you know he needs it. I know you do. First round’s on me.”

She’d just have to find some cheap flight back home, a flight which was feeling further and further away as she bounced in her seat.

“Come on, Mack.”

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and checked back again with the Duke.

“A pint wouldn’t hurt, Your Grace. And we havena’ been very hospitable hosts, now have we, sir? We’ve nae shown Miss Rose anything of our great Kelso.”

The Duke crossed his arms. “And you suggest of all the fine cultural sites, exquisite places of art and music, historical treasures, and kilometer after kilometer of stunning forest, valley, and lake, that we take Miss Rose to The Badger?”

“It’s just a pint, Your Grace,” Mack said, with what Molly could only describe as puppy-dog eyes.

“Just one pint then,” the Duke relented grumpily.

Molly settled back into her seat with a mischievous grin. She knew what both Mack and the Duke knew as well: it’s never just one pint.

 

* * *

 

Just outside Kelso, The Badger was the town’s favorite pub; she’d already figured that out before she’d met the Duke. Nestled into a grassy hill, as Molly stepped from the car into the muddy lot, she thought The Badger would one day be part of the hill. Vines grew up its face and sides, and grass and weeds covered half the roof.

By the way the Duke trudged behind Mack and Molly with his hands in his pockets, it appeared like he was being dragged to the dentist. She chuckled to herself.

Inside, The Badger was dim and stuffy, but Molly loved the cozy intimacy. The rosy-faced bartender started pouring drafts the second they walked in the door.

“Your Grace,” he said, sliding a sloshing pint across the bar top to him, “it’s quite the honor to serve you. We miss your father here at The Badger.”

“Thank you, Gregory.” The Duke stared into the foam. “Big shoes to fill.”

“Not too big that you won’t fill them, Your Grace,” Gregory replied.

Molly noticed how stiffly the Duke stood against the bar, how flat his hands rested on the polished wood, how tight his jaw clenched. She watched him tap his glass against Gregory’s glass, then take a sip of beer before he nodded to her.

“Gregory, this is Miss Priscilla Rose. She’s here in Kelso from the States to paint my official portrait.”

Molly smiled and accepted the pint from Gregory. “I’ve been in here before but you weren’t the bartender, Gregory. Cheers!”

He grinned. Mack received his beer as well, and the three of them walked toward a quiet booth in the corner of the pub. But as Molly slid across the worn leather seat, Mack stopped and patted his back pocket.

“Forgot my wallet, I do believe,” he said before turning and weaving back through the empty tables to the bar.

From across the table, Molly and the Duke shyly glanced up and down at one another. Molly traced her finger, still covered with specks of red paint from earlier that day, around the lip of her glass.

“Mack didn’t leave his wallet at the bar, did he?” she finally asked, her voice low over the hum from the bar.

He shook his head. “No, no he did not.”

“And he isn’t coming back, is he?”

She watched him glance at the bar. Again, he shook his head.

“It does not appear that he has any inclination of returning.”

“He wanted us to be alone then.” She lifted her eyes rather nervously toward him.

“I believe so,” he said.

Why was she so nervous all of a sudden? What was it about the way he looked at her that made her bite her lip?

“Why do you suppose that is?” she asked.

His green eyes seemed to be searching for something in hers. Molly realized she had no idea what he’d say. There was definitely more than enough mystery hiding under his tailored appearance and perfect manners to drive her crazy. Who was this man sitting across from her? And why did she care so much to know?

In that moment of tender silence between them, a waitress dropped a glass in the back of the bar, and a chorus of hoots and hollers rose up. Molly watched the Duke’s demeanor fall back into his uptight, perfectly presentable ‘Your Grace’ as he sipped his beer.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he finally answered.

Molly frowned. She’d had him and then lost him. She leaned back in the booth, grabbed her beer, and threw it back, not stopping until she’d chugged it all. As she slammed the glass on the table, she found the Duke’s startled eyes assessing her.

“Good lord,” he mumbled.

As she climbed out of the booth, she pointed to his glass.

“You do the same, Your Grace,” she commanded. “I’m going to get us another round.”

After that second round, however, he remained stiff as a board in the booth. But at least he’d loosened his tie.

Three rounds in, and he draped himself in the booth’s corner, one hand on the back of the cushion, one wrapped around his pint.

Four rounds in, and his suit jacket was tossed haphazardly onto the seat next to him, and Molly noticed his starched white shirttail poking out from the back of his pants as he went to fetch the next round.

Five rounds in and his shirt sleeves were rolled up, his elbows were on the table, and he was leaning towards Molly as they played quarters.

The last coin they had between them rolled off the table and disappeared on the floor of the now crowded pub, making them both burst out laughing. Molly took the interlude to sip her own beer, and when she looked over at the Duke, he’d leaned in closer.

“Can I tell you something, Molly?”

She wasn’t sure if he’d used her name because it was too loud in the pub for anyone to hear or because he was too drunk to remember she was supposed to be Priscilla Rose. And she also didn’t know if it was her own buzz or the heat in the pub getting to her, but she very much liked the way her name sounded on the Duke’s lips.

“Um, yeah,” she said, hoping she wasn’t slurring. “Tell me.”

He nodded and glanced around, although they were secluded in their booth and no one was giving them even a curious glance. He blocked each side of his face with his hands and leaned closer.

“It was my fault,” he said.

Molly’s eyes bounced between his, trying to focus despite the fogginess starting to gather in her head.

“What was your fault?” she asked, unclear if she’d missed something.

A sadness so all-consuming Molly had only seen it once before on another’s face shadowed his features.

“Jamie.”

Molly waited again and yet it was all he would say, so she asked, “Who is Jamie?”

The Duke shook his head, only managing to half shake away the heaviness of the sadness she had just witnessed.

“I have to be this way,” he said. “I know you see someone else, or the potential for someone else, and I’m grateful for that, I really am. But I have to be this way.”

Molly frowned, cursing the way the alcohol had made her thoughts sluggish. He was finally opening up to her, telling her something revealing about himself, but she couldn’t figure out what the fuck he was saying.

“I don’t under—”

“I want to be the guy who can grab you from this booth, throw you over my shoulder, and lay you down on the bar, the guy who does not give a damn who is watching.”

Molly was stunned to hear those words tumble so freely from his mouth, but he wasn’t finished.

“I want to be the guy who not only gets you naked in my bed, but the guy who rips your shirt straight down the center, pulls so roughly on your pants that the button pops loose, and tugs down your underwear with my mouth alone.”

Her heart couldn’t beat any faster. Was he actually vocalizing his desire for her? In public? In dirty words that made her ache to be filled by him and him alone?

Maybe she’d drunk too much and passed out and all of this was a dream. But no. He leaned across the table and brushed his hand against her cheek. It was the slightest touch, probably even accidental, but it was real. This was no dream.

“I want to be the guy,” he continued with a voice rough as gravel, low as the smallest whisper. And yet Molly heard every single word. “I want to be the guy who is wild with you, open with you, vulnerable with you. I want to be the guy who knows you and I want to be the guy you know. I mean really, really know. The one you call by his given name. Not Duke. Not Your Grace. Callum. I want to be that guy.”

It’s his title, she realized, recalling how he’d said he’d given up drinking when he’d become Duke. It was all about his title. What some would say was an enviable pedigree and privilege was actually a massive weight on his shoulders. And she feared he alone was the one who placed it there. What was it that prevented him from being who she knew him to be? Was it this Jamie he’d mentioned?

“You have no idea how much I want that, Molly,” he added. “You have no idea.”

Molly waited as he paused to take a drink and stare distantly at a spill of beer on the table. She didn’t know what else to do. His words stirred such a desire in her that she was having a hard time even sitting still.

“But I can’t.” His eyes met hers for the briefest moment, only to fall again to the swirls in the polished wood table. “I can’t.”

Molly wanted to wrap her fingers around his wrists and rub her thumbs in comforting circles across his skin. But she wrapped her fingers instead around her pint glass. Everything he said he wanted, she wanted, too.

She wanted Callum’s strong arms to rip her shirt. She’d listen again and again to the groan her exposed chest elicited from him. If the button on her jeans rolled off the bed and disappeared, never to be found, underneath the bed, Molly didn’t think she would be happier. She squirmed on her side of the booth at the thought of his teeth around the elastic of her thong, against her skin.

She wanted all of that. She wanted all of that more than she’d expected to. But more than that, she wanted to know him. And she wanted him to know her.

But for some reason, she couldn’t have it, and only he knew the reason.

“Your Grace,” she began, frowning when a live band took the small stage, causing a lot of cheering. An accordion’s wail on top of the noisy bar made it almost impossible to hear.

He blinked, straightened, and cleared his throat, obviously trying to gather his wits about him.

Damn it, Molly thought, even as she climbed up onto the booth seat and perched on her knees so she could reach him across the table. She hugged him to her, feeling the warmth of his cheek against her own. His beard tickled her chin, and he lifted his hand to rest it against the side of her face, inadvertently dulling the screech of bagpipes.

All around them was chaos and noise and bustling, but within their embrace, it all faded away. This intimate space between them wouldn’t last, couldn’t last. This was her only chance. And so she made herself vulnerable when she said, “You can do anything you want to do. Be anyone you want to be. You’re not just your title. You’re more. You just have to remember that, and I believe you can.”

She pulled away just far enough to see into his eyes. Music vibrated from the floor beneath her feet. The cheering crowd deafened her ears. Alcohol tingled on her tongue, and above it all, she felt only his hand gently over her own.

He seemed to move closer to her, but maybe it was all in her mind. His fingers seemed to tighten, as if desperately on her sleeve, but perhaps she imagined that. As he exhaled, his breath stuttered like his heart rate was thundering away in his chest. But she probably wouldn’t have heard that either over the loud pub. She gently pressed her lips to his…

He abruptly pulled away and sat back, rigid and proper, against the booth, removing his hand from hers. His eyes wouldn’t meet her own.

“I’m, um,” he stammered as she stared in confusion. “I’m sorry.”

With that, he got right out of the booth and hurriedly wove through the crowd. Alone, she watched until he disappeared somewhere in the busy pub. The shock started to wear off after he’d startled her, along with the comfort of her warm, fuzzy buzz, leaving her with the horror of the situation.

She’d made a play for a man who wanted her to call him Callum, but who was Your Grace. Royalty. A duke.

Fuck, what was wrong with her? She dragged her hands through her hair and thumped her palm against her forehead. Stupid, so stupid. What had she been thinking?

Well, of course she knew what she’d been thinking. She’d thought that he felt the same way. He’d been opening up to her. He’d admitted he wanted her.

Nope. She’d been wrong.

She glanced around the pub. What was she doing there? She wasn’t Priscilla Rose. She wasn’t a girl a duke could fall for. She wasn’t escaping the reality she was bound to.

She was Molly Lane.

She was starting a job in New York City next week, whether she liked it or not.

And she needed to leave.