Dukes Are Forever Page 30

  But Phillip Benton never reached Australia. He was killed in an attempted break from Newgate, and Edward held her while she cried over the news, not for the man but for the father she’d never had.

  “Katherine.”

  Glancing up at the deep voice, her gaze fell on him as he stood in the doorway. In his formal evening clothes, with his blue brocade waistcoat over a snow-white shirt and cravat, white trousers and black superfine jacket, his hair shining in the firelight, he stole her breath away. She’d always thought him more handsome than other men, with his firm jaw and high cheekbones, the obsidian depths of his eyes…But tonight, he was simply magnificent.

  She held out her hand.

  Closing the door behind him, he moved to lie down on the bed next to her. He laced his fingers through hers, then raised her hand to his lips to kiss it. For several minutes, they lay together in silence, shoulder to shoulder and eyes on the canopy above, simply enjoying each other’s presence.

  “So.” He rubbed his thumb over her ring. “Did you enjoy your party?”

  She squeezed his hand, never having been happier in her life. “Immensely.”

  She’d truly felt like Cinderella, dancing in the arms of her Prince Charming and changing partners only to offer quadrilles to Grey and Thomas and her second waltz to the Prince Regent, who surprised everyone by appearing at the ball.

  “I stepped on Prinny’s toes.” With a soft giggle, she turned toward him on her side and smiled. “When I apologized, he said it was only fair, since he’d been stepping on your toes for years.”

  He laughed. Rolling toward her, he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. His laughter warmed through her, and the now-familiar ache of desire stirred low in her belly. She sighed and snuggled closer. Dear God, how much she loved this man!

  “I have your wedding gift with me,” he told her. “I want to give it to you tonight.”

  “But you’ve already given me so much.” And she had him. She didn’t need anything more.

  Sitting up, he pulled a folded paper from his breast pocket. “I had Meacham write it this morning.”

  She hesitated as she reached for it, her hand freezing in midair. “Isn’t this where we started?” Her heart skipped in warning. “With Meacham drawing up papers.”

  “Trust me, angel. This one you’ll like.”

  She cautiously took it and unfolded it. As her eyes moved over the page, she froze and read it again. Did it really say— Her heart thumped with happiness. Oh, she’d never dared hope for Edward and this, too. But she was marrying the kindest, most generous man in the world, and what else would he have given her but the most perfect wedding gift of all?

  “Brambly,” she breathed, finally finding her voice. “You’re giving me Brambly.”

  Her grandparents knew when they established the entailment that her father would never provide her with a dowry and the farm would have to serve, so they stipulated that when she married, Brambly would pass to her husband. It was the only property she brought to the marriage and so pitifully small in comparison to what any other woman who married a duke would have offered.

  But he’d agreed to relinquish all rights, to revert the farm’s ownership completely and in perpetuity to her…and to their future daughters.

  Edward had given Brambly back to her.

  He touched her shoulder. “Does it make you happy?”

  “Oh, so very much.” She took his hand and laced her fingers through his, never wanting to let him go.

  “Good.” He leaned over to touch his lips tenderly to hers. “Because that’s how I plan to spend the rest of my life, Kate. Making you happy.”

  He pulled her against him as his mouth came down on hers. The sweetest kiss she’d ever known, passionate and possessive, full of love and tenderness. Dear heavens! She could actually taste the happiness on his lips.

  He left a trail of hot kisses along her jaw and back to her ear. “Is there anything else I can do to make you happy?”

  A thrill pulsed through her, her mind racing with wanton thoughts of all the ways he could make her happy right here in her bed. Instead, she smiled as she ran her fingers through the silky, black hair at his nape, and teased, “Wed me tomorrow so we don’t have to wait three more weeks to become husband and wife.”

  “Why, Miss Benton.” He pulled back and raised his brows, feigning shock at her suggestion. “Are you asking me to elope?”

  She stared at him, her mind spinning. She’d only been teasing, but…was that really such an outlandish idea? “We still have the special license,” she ventured. “We could be married tomorrow!—Oh, Edward.” She clenched his waistcoat in her hands. “If we left tonight, we could be married at Brambly in the morning.”

  He paused, as if truly contemplating the idea, then regretfully shook his head. “Augusta would be devastated if she wasn’t there when we married.”

  “Then we’ll bring her with us!”

  With a kiss to his cheek and a happy laugh, she slipped from his arms and hurried across the room to her armoire. She reached inside for her travel bag.

  He slid off the bed and followed. “Let me see if I understand correctly—we’re eloping with my aunt?”

  “Yes! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “Not exactly the word I would choose,” he muttered grimly. When she placed her green day dress into the bag, he picked up the night rail Mary had left out for her on the chair and placed it into the bag for her. “Grey and Thomas are standing up with us. We cannot marry without them.”

  She rose on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Then we’ll bring them, too.”

  “Wonderful,” he repeated in a sardonic mumble. “And Mrs. Elston, Arthur, Dorrie—”

  “All of them—we’ll have all of them with us!” She laughed with happiness and excitement, throwing her arms around his neck. “We’ll have a ceremony at Brambly just for us and our family, to start our honeymoon and life together, then we’ll marry at St. Paul’s in three weeks as planned, for everyone else to witness.”

  He laughed. “We’re doing it backwards, angel.”

  Yes, she supposed they were. But then, nothing about their romance had been traditional, so why should the wedding? She lovingly touched his cheek. “With us, could it be any other way?”

  He swept her up into his arms. “I love you.”

  “I know.” With a sigh, she rested her head against his shoulder. “But don’t ever stop telling me.”

  “Never.” He carried her downstairs, over the threshold, and out of the house.

  Major Nathaniel Grey will do anything to bring his friend’s little sister home. But instead of the gangly girl he remembers, he’s greeted by a stunningly beautiful woman holding a loaded musket. And he’s utterly captivated by her…

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  ALONG CAME A ROGUE.

  CHAPTER ONE

  London, England

  April 1816

  Hidden from sight in the dark shadows at the rear of the private opera box, Nathaniel Grey leaned one hand against the wall for support and with the other raised the glass of whiskey to his lips, then glanced down at the woman kneeling in front of him, her beautifully coiffed head bobbing at his crotch.

  Oh, Lady Margaret Roquefort was a lovely woman with a deliciously wicked mouth. He enjoyed her company immensely, more so when in private, and luckily, she shared his own interest in opera, finding far more fun in the activities occurring in the dark boxes than in whatever happened onstage.

  The rising notes of the aria drowned her soft moan of pleasure, her lips closing tightly around him. Shutting his eyes, he let himself enjoy the moment.

  He wasn’t meant to be there, two boxes down from the Prince Regent, dressed in elegant evening clothes, and taking pleasure in one of the most beautiful ladies in English society. Not him. Not the bastard son of God only knew whom and an orphan so inconsequential, so worthless to the world, that the lie he chose to tell about himself
—that he was the runaway son of a blacksmith—was a decided improvement over the truth. But even at ten, when he ran away from the squalor and brutality of the orphanage, effectively running away from fate, he knew he was destined for more.

  He somehow talked his way into a job as a stable boy at Henley Park, where he had a roof over his head, food in his belly, and pennies each week in pay—but more importantly, he had an education thrust upon him by the old Dowager Viscountess Henley, who forced him to attend her grandsons’ tutoring sessions. She had made it her personal mission to ensure that every employee at Henley could read, write, and speak properly, if in varying degrees, including the misfit stable boy who became so adept at lying about his past that he’d almost come to believe his father truly was a blacksmith.

  “Grey,” Margaret moaned, sensing his distraction, and he reached down to stroke his finger across her cheek.

  He smiled at the wry irony of his current situation as arousal throbbed hot through his veins. Would Lady Roquefort be pleasuring him right now if she knew the truth?

  He choked back a laugh. Knowing Margaret, the baroness would have been perversely delighted in pleasuring someone so far beneath her station, her lips sucking even more eagerly in rebellious glee.

  But she knew nothing of that past, and he fully intended to keep it that way. Because when he turned eighteen, he’d purged even that part of his life by taking the money he’d managed to scrimp together to purchase a commission and joined the cavalry as the lowest ranking officer, somehow ending up as part of the exclusive First Dragoons. Grey suspected the meddling of the dowager viscountess on his behalf, yet the old woman denied it. He knew the truth, however, and he was immeasurably grateful.

  In the army, he’d risked his life in order to have one worth living, and through skill and sheer fearlessness, he rose to the rank of captain with the Scarlet Scoundrels, that group of soldiers under Colonel Westover’s command who earned their hard-won reputation in saber charges across the battlefields of Spain. The bastard orphan had managed to make a decent life for himself, after all.

  But then fate found him again, in the middle of a sunflower field, in the form of a single bullet to his leg.

  It hadn’t taken his life, but it had snatched away his career, forcing him once again to reinvent himself, this time as a War Office agent. He was often called on to carry out jobs that other men connected to the War Office either didn’t have the wherewithal to complete or wouldn’t dirty their hands to do. Grey didn’t mind. He’d proven himself very good at it, rising quickly in the estimation of the undersecretaries and generals, proudly earning himself a promotion to major.

  Now he was here, the last place an orphan should have been. He looked like every other gentleman in the opera house, his cravat elaborately knotted and secured with a ruby pin, his maroon brocade waistcoat from the best tailor on Bond Street. And he had more than earned his right to be there, having killed—and nearly been killed himself—to protect all of them from Napoléon and other enemies within, without a word of thanks.

  Yet while he could dress like them, gamble with them, drink their best whiskey, and bed their finest ladies, he would never truly be one of them.

  Still, living on the periphery of society was more than an orphan could ever have hoped to achieve, and he certainly never regretted any of the lies. Why would he? Lying had given him a far better life than telling the truth.

  The soprano reached her last notes, and pulling a rasping breath through his clenched teeth, Grey shuddered and released himself. He felt Margaret swallow around him as her hot mouth milked his cock, and when she’d finished, he pulled away and handed her the glass.

  As she drank the remaining liquor, he fastened up his trousers. Ah, how much he enjoyed the opera! And one of these nights, he fully intended to watch a performance.

  “Ugh! Whiskey.” Margaret made a disgusted face as he took her elbow and helped her to her feet. “You know I can’t stand the stuff, Grey. Why don’t you ever drink anything that I enjoy—like port or brandy?”

  “I never drink brandy.” Not anymore. His mind registered the sound of applause around them, followed by the rise of the audience to their feet as they filed from their boxes for the intermission. The mindless chattering among the blue bloods rose nearly as loud as the opera singers.

  “Port, then.” She set the empty glass aside and smoothed her hands down her skirt to press out any telltale wrinkles around her knees, and his lips twitched in private amusement at her expense. He enjoyed women like Lady Roquefort, those well-bred ladies of the ton who were always so proper and fashionable, even when on their knees. “Next time, bring me port.”

  He forced a charming smile for her, this woman who meant absolutely nothing to him except as an evening’s entertainment, and stifled a contemptuous laugh because she thought she could order him about. But he’d humor her. Only because she’d implied that he’d get to enjoy her again. “Of course, my lady.” He reached out to trail his fingertips over the swells of her breasts revealed by the daringly low neckline and felt her breath quicken. “Anything you desire.”

  She gave a long exhalation and trembled beneath his exploring hands. “You know, all the ladies were gossiping about you tonight in the retiring room.”

  “Hmm…and what did they say?” She expected him to ask, so he indulged her, yet he couldn’t have cared less about those gossipy hens.

  “They wondered what the major was like as a lover, if he’d singled out anyone to be his mistress or if he prefers being promiscuous.”

  “Promiscuous,” he murmured with mock solemnity, dipping his head to trace the tip of his tongue down her throat. “Definitely promiscuous.”

  With a flirtatious laugh, she swatted playfully at his shoulder and forced him to step away as the noise of the milling crowd grew louder around them. With a sigh, she tugged her dress back into place and adjusted her long gloves. “How do I look, then?”

  “Stunning.” Carefully keeping all sardonic amusement for her from his face, he took her hand and raised it to his lips. “As always.”

  The flattery was empty, but it pleased her. Which was all that mattered. He needed to keep her happy only so he could enjoy Mozart again with her in the future.

  With her eyes shining, she leaned casually against the wall. “Quite a coup by you, securing a private box all to yourself tonight. However did you manage?”

  “I’ve always appreciated the privacy of a reserved box,” he said earnestly, expertly deflecting her question.

  He’d long ago grown used to the backhanded compliments leveled at him by her kind. They no more bothered him now than getting caught in a warm summer rain. But he wasn’t foolish enough to open himself to wounding by admitting that the box belonged to Edward Westover, Duke of Strathmore, and his former colonel.

  No doubt Margaret thought she’d been utterly scandalous tonight by having her mouth on him. She was right, of course, although not because of the act itself but because of who he was. As an army officer and the imposter son of a blacksmith, he’d never be able to show his face publicly with any woman of Lady Roquefort’s status, he knew that—even the rank of major wasn’t enough for that when he had no allowance or family name to accompany it—and he certainly would never be able to marry one of the innocent darlings of the ton.

  Neither did he care. Hell would freeze over before he leg-shackled himself.

  In that, he was superior to the rest of the fop dandies crowding the opera house tonight, despite their wealth and titles, their storied family histories, and their roles in Parliament, in which they agreed to send expendable men like him into battle without so much as a second thought. He had no grand estate, no need for an heir, and so no need to bind himself to a wife and then spend the rest of his life longing for the freedom of bachelorhood and all its delights. He was free to bed whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted—and in the case of Lady Roquefort, wherever he wanted—and answer to no one but himself.

  He was willing to l
ay down his life for his country, but as for domestication…He repressed a shudder at just the thought of it. Good God. Never!

  “Now, be a good girl”—he turned her toward the box entrance, happily done with her for the evening—“and return to your husband before the old baron discovers you’re missing.”

  With a satisfied grin and a playful slap to her arse that made her jump, he was gone, stepping through the curtain into the hallway and blending into the milling crowd, making his way down toward the crush in the lobby and leaving her behind without another thought.

  The night was still early. There was time yet for a few hours of cards at one of the clubs since he no longer had any reason to linger at the opera house. After all, he certainly hadn’t attended to hear the Mozart.

  As he made his way downstairs, he slipped between the groups of operagoers gathered to gossip in the hall and even on the wide stairs, which curved down into the grand two-story lobby below. He nodded his head occasionally at acquaintances among the men and carefully kept all knowing expressions from his face at acquaintances among the women. But none of them gave him a second glance, their attentions oddly rapt on the new bit of juicy on-dit floating through the house tonight. Juicy enough that some of the faces held shocked looks from the ladies and bewilderment from the men.

  He skirted a group of pastel-donned debutantes at a safe distance but heard the shocked whisper rise from behind a flutter of fans, “…the marquess!”

  Lots of marquesses among the quality, Grey dismissed, paying the comment no mind as he slipped down the stairs and past yet another group of gossiping hens with the same shocked expressions, the same frantic waving of their fans in agitated excitement. Just as with the debutantes, he gave the hens a wide berth. The last thing he wanted to sour his mood tonight was those disapproving glances that society matrons were so skilled in sending at rakes like him.