Chapter 9
Pain throbbed in her leg, but it couldn’t be matched by the thrill of exhilaration coursing through her veins. It was all she could do to keep her seat as she pounded down Rotten Row. Her hair flew from her hat, her skirts billowed, and oh how free she felt!
It felt as if, long last, she were flying, the breeze whipping at her face, the scent of the earth surrounding her and she could see nothing but the view ahead.
As she reached the end of the dirt path, she pulled up her mare. How had she denied herself this feeling for so long? A grin pulled at her lips. A grin so wide and powerful, it nearly hurt.
The dark night of the year was still there, but she could see starlight now. Dancing, playful, promising the sparkle of something new.
She turned on her sidesaddle and spotted Captain Duke racing towards her. His face did not look so free. No, his handsome visage was a mask of fear and. . . Admiration.
Once he rode up beside her, his stallion pawing at the earth, clearly wishing to be given its head for another run, Captain Duke said, “I thought you might race to Plymouth.”
She laughed. “Tempting. What would I have done then?”
“Boarded a ship and sailed for the end of the world?” he asked playfully, even as he held himself as if he’d been bracing himself to be picking her up off the earth.
She laughed again. She’d surprised them both. It was wonderful.
“How delightful,” she declared. “I’ve never been out of England, you know. Can you recommend such a voyage?”
He adjusted his reins and, slowly, the tension slipped from his face, his usual jaunty arrogance returning. “They are commonplace to me, but I think you have the soul of an adventurer.”
“Then I must go.” She leaned towards him ever so slightly. “Perhaps, you will take me.”
His eyes flared. “Ladies on my ships are not a common occurrence.”
“Are you afraid I shall curse your vessel?” she whispered, loving this delicious line of fantastical conversation.
He let out a rich, barrel laugh. “No. Though sailors are a suspicious lot, I think ladies on the water are the least of the troubles to be found.”
“Then we are agreed,” she teased. “You shall take me to the corners of the world.”
He cleared his throat “Lady Beatrix—”
“Don’t look so frightened, sir,” she cut in, shaking her head.
“Do I?” he challenged, clearly surprised.
“You look like a man shown a jail cell.”
He smiled ruefully. “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as that.”
“Our suppositions only give my imagination fodder. I do not plan on forcing you to be my companion. Or daring the high seas just at present.”
His brow furrowed. “No man would have to be forced. But society might not like it.”
She cocked her head to the side, eyeing him. “I did not realize you cared for society’s rules.”
“I don’t,” he agreed as he turned his horse to keep the excited beast settled. “But I also know they exist. One can pretend otherwise, but there are consequences.”
“Perhaps I am ready for them,” she replied recklessly, truly feeling the summer sun and seeing the lime green of the leaves on the trees for the first time in months.
“Perhaps you are,” he said slowly, his gaze suddenly heating.
“Come then,” she teased. “I shall become a lady sailor and help you in your work.”
“Help me?” he asked, his voice deepening.
“What you do,” she said with all seriousness as she stroked her mare’s shoulder. “It’s important.”
“And dangerous,” he added.
“Surely there is something I could do,” she ventured boldly, finding the idea remarkably appealing. “I’m quite good with books and organization.”
A look of amusement but also consideration warmed his features. “Are you proposing to be my secretary?”
She shrugged. “What else could I do?”
His eyes darkened with some emotion she could not identify but, suddenly, she felt hot. Her blood hummed in her veins as she, even in her naiveté, realized there was another position she might take with him. One that would completely flout society.
One that might end the tomb of her current existence.
She gave him a wicked look. “Was there something else you had in mind?”
He laughed, but it was a rough, gravel sound. A sound of forbidden promise. “Only if you’re willing to throw society to the wind.”
“And why not?” she challenged. It mattered not that the turn of their conversation was absurd and inappropriate. He was a man who had already caused her to do unimagined things. Why should she stop imagining now? “They’ve already thrown me to the wolves.”
“Oh, Lady Beatrix,” he said softly now. “I do not think you quite know of what you speak.”
“I’m already notorious. Surely, I could have a bit of fun in my state.”
“Fun,” he breathed.
“Mmm.”
“Forgive me,” he pressed his sensual lips together before he queried, “do I understand you?”
She laughed. “I doubt it, but in your company? I feel free in a way that I haven’t felt in. . .” She paused. Had she ever felt so free? With him, all things were possible. With Captain Duke, she felt as if she could be as reckless as she chose and as honest. “I don’t know what I shall do, but I can’t keep on as I have.”
His face turned grave. “Be careful. Once you go down certain paths, it is impossible to go back.”
At that warning, she leaned forward again and asked, “Do you promise?”
Before he could reply, she squeezed her knees and urged her mare off in the direction they had come, as fast as before, as wild as before, and now as free as she had longed to be. It was the happiest she had been in over a year and there was no way she was going to let that go.
*
“I’ve unleashed a devil,” Adam Duke groaned into his gin.
Alexander Duke, who usually was happily at home or at a political rally with his wife, sat with his brother, drinking.
Adam wiped a hand over his face, wondering how the hell he was going to explain all this to anyone, even his rather open-minded brother. The whole Hunt clan was going to hate him. It was something he hadn’t really considered when embarking on his mission to help Lady Beatrix. Possibly because he could never have guessed it would take such a turn.
In truth, the Dukes had only just been accepted. Adam had always gotten along with most of the family, but as Americans they would never be. . . Well, English. And they would always be regarded with some suspicion. Usually, he would not have cared a whit, but he did care for Alexander’s happiness. And his wife’s family’s approval had been important.
Not for any sort of power or alliance, but the general contentedness of Lady Gemma and Alexander. To his shock, he’d discovered that the Hunt clan was an incredibly close family, unlike most of the ton families he’d encountered. Not only were they eccentric and loyal to the blood, they were a loving group.
“Surely, it’s not so terrible,” Alexander replied with the sort of ease only a man in a blissful marriage could express.
Adam palmed his glass, knowing he had to get all this out while he was capable of logical speech. “It’s that bad. I’ve converted an angel, though I suspect she has always had a taste for adventure, to sin.”
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Alexander drawled. “You’re not known for your angelic ways.”
He stared at his brother and then confessed, “I’ve befriended Lady Beatrix.”
Alexander spat his gin across the table “Gemma’s cousin?!”
Adam brushed the alcohol from his coat. “Yes.”
Adam’s eyes darted about frantically as if he half-expected her army of a family to suddenly appear and kill both of them. “But. . . She’s a young lady of society.”
“Not exactly,” Adam corrected.
His brother squared his shoulders and lowered his chin. “Adam. What have you done?”
“Nothing,” Adam protested. “We’ve done nothing. I’ve done nothing.”
Alexander narrowed his eyes. “Then why the devil do you look so guilty.”
Adam looked for some way to say it without sounding like a madman but there was nothing for it. “She wants to go adventuring. With me.”
“Bloody hell.”
“I wanted to help her,” Adam assured quickly. He was determined that it be understood he had not gone after a young lady in a potentially vulnerable state. “To be her friend.”
“And now she wants to be a pirate?” Alexander drawled, pounding back his gin. “Of course does.”
Adam cleared his throat and, despite the seriousness of the situation, his lips twitched. “She wants to be a pirate’s secretary.”
Alexander blinked, silent for a moment. Then he, too, realizing the absurdity of it, bellowed with laughter.
“This is not amusing,” Adam gritted. He leaned forward, his elbows scraping the rough wood table. “I think. . . I think she might want to be my mistress, too.”
Alexander’s laughter vanished. “I beg your pardon?”
Adam groaned and poured more gin into their cups. Soon, he was going to have to call the barmaid over if they continued at this rate. “She seems ready to flout society at every turn.”
Arching a brow, Alexander said tightly, “Tell her to flout with someone else. You did tell her that.” His brother’s voice suddenly notched upward with desperation. “Did you not? You did, didn’t you?”
Adam prevaricated and fiddled with his cup. “Not exactly.”
Alexander poked a finger into his brother’s shoulder. “You’re not allowed to ruin my wife’s cousin.”
He brushed the hand aside. They’d brawled before. They’d likely brawl again. But not over this. “I’m not ruining anyone.”
Alexander nodded and lifted his glass. “Damned glad to hear it.”
“But. . .”
Slamming his cup back down, Alexander roared, “No! No buts. You will turn about and hie yourself off to the West Indies if need be, but no buts about this.”
“She’s miserable in her current state,” Adam protested, determined to defend his actions and, frankly, the desires of the young lady. She had more sense than half of England combined in his estimation.
Alexander gestured with his hand, as if trying to extract the true meaning of the situation. “And you hope to help her to happiness?”
Adam shifted uncomfortably. “Well, yes.”
In truth, in the last day, another motivation had begun to take a rather insidious hold.
He desired Lady Beatrix. There was no lying about it. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to take her in his arms and teach her not just the freedoms of dance and riding but of the body as well.
“By doing what?” Alexander gritted.
“I had hoped to be her friend,” Adam replied with all honesty.
Groaning, Alexander leaned back in his chair then whipped up his arm, calling for the barmaid. “What the devil were you thinking?”
He drew in a deep breath, finding he had no pithy reply. “I couldn’t bear to see her throwing her life away.”
“You don’t even know her,” Alexander countered.
Adam looked away. It was true. He hadn’t known Lady Beatrix. But the moment she’d stumbled upon him in the garden, he’d felt. . . Hell, he didn’t know what he’d felt. But it had been an affinity that was impossible to give words to. It had made him throw himself in where he most definitely should have stayed out.
“We know what it is to lose someone,” Adam said quietly but firmly.
Alexander frowned. “We’ve known suffering.”
“And she needs someone, someone who understands, yet helps her overcome it.”
At that moment, the barmaid, who knew them both by sight, took one look at the nature of their conversation, plunked a bottle of fresh gin down between them and headed quickly off for friendlier sport.
Dragging the bottle towards him, Alexander pointed out, “She has family.”
“Well, they damned well weren’t helping her,” Adam gritted.
Adam blew out a harsh breath then poured more gin, lots more gin into their cups. “The Hunts have helped her more than you can ever know.”
Adam tossed back his cup in a single swallow, savoring the astringent burn. “Fine. I’m sure you’re correct. But she’s so much more than just a debutant.”
“You’re on dangerous ground,” Alexander warned as he leaned against the table. “You know what they’re like. If her older cousins hear of this, they’ll corner you in an alley and kill you.”
“We get along,” Adam reminded, though even he knew their tentative understanding might not withstand this turn of events.
“Not if you despoil her.”
“Despoil? What a mad word.”
“It is one of the only words that comes to mind at present.”
Adam glared at his brother. What did he take him for? “I’m not taking her as my mistress. I only say, I think she’s looking to rebel.”
Alexander gave a contented nod then instructed, “Let her rebel with someone else.”
With someone else? Someone else. The words laced through him like a weapon, causing physical pain. A primal call deep within him, whispered mine. If anyone was going to lead her astray, it would not be a bumbling fool who did not see the glory of her spirit and the wicked mischief in her gaze. “I will not.”
“She’s not yours.” Adam said each word with a point of his finger into the table. “Love you as I do, Brother, she is not yours.”
“I know that.” The passion with which he said it shocked him. Was he trying to convince himself? He rested his back against the hard wall, trying to hear the lilt of the fiddle music. But all he could hear was her laugh. “God help me, I’ve no intent to wed. Not with the work we do. But I won’t let some other man hurt her. She’s been hurt enough.”
Alexander folded his arms across his chest. “What is it, then, that you’ll do?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed.
“You must make her see some sense.” Alexander swiped a hand through his hair. “Running away with you will not help her.”
“Are you certain?” The words slipped past his lips before he could stop them or even give true thought to them. But then the image of Lady Beatrix standing on the deck of his ship flashed in his mind, hair whipping, skirts battering her legs.
“Listen to yourself.”
Adam nodded. He did hear himself. He sounded like a madman. “I can’t abandon her now. I persuaded her to be friends.”
“Then be friends. Just friends.”
Adam swallowed. That had been his intent. All he’d wanted was to assist her in her recovery after such a life-changing set of events. But now?
That wild look in her eyes, as if she’d laugh at the devil? It had struck a chord deep within him. It had been as if he’d been staring at the other half of himself and he’d been transported. As if, suddenly, he’d found a part of himself that had been lost.
“I’ll keep my distance. I don’t wish to cause troubles for you. But you have to understand, I saw her pain. I saw her suffering. I couldn’t allow it. She has so much life ahead.”
Alexander nodded. “I do. I understand why you’ve done it. But now, if she’s stepped out of the shadows, as she seems to have done, you must not lead her into ruin. She may have the chance at a family. A peaceful life. Would you not wish that for her?”
“It would be my deepest wish, of course. How could I not wish her peace?”
And yet, he wondered. Peace was different that placidity. Lady Beatrix came from a family of rebels. Every single one of the Hunt clan was wild. Even Lockhart, though he tried to appear the perfect man. Was it possible that it was simply in Lady Beatrix’s nature to stray from the path so worn by others?
Even if it was, it could not be he who helped her from it. His brother would never forgive him. Of that, he was certain.