My Last Duchess, стр. 9
Who could leave him?
Yvette likely had very good reason. For example, because her former husband was the type who leapt into strange women’s carriagesand demanded to be heard.
“Would you deny entry to me if I paid you a morning call?” he asked.
“I am too busy for calls,” she said. Which was a polite way of saying: Yes. Yes, I would.
He looked surprised, which was good. Men of his rank were likely never refused entrance.
“I don’t know you,” Ophelia continued, “and I have no reason to wish to know you. You are frank, Your Grace, so I shall bethe same. As far as I can remember, I had no acquaintance with either of your former duchesses.” She raised an eyebrow.
“Not to the best of my knowledge.”
He was looking at her, eyes intent, seeming as comfortable on one knee as he was in the ballroom.
“And certainly not with you, so what in heaven’s name are you doing, kneeling on my carriage floor?”
“Asking you to marry me.”
For a confused moment, Ophelia thought she’d lost her hearing. “What?”
“You’re the one for me,” he said, his voice deepening to a rumble.
“The one?” To her own shock, Ophelia heard herself laughing. “One, Your Grace? What about your other two wives?”
He rocked back on his heels and grinned up at her.
“You!” she said, rapping him on the shoulder with her closed fan, as if he were a naughty schoolboy. “Have you lost your mind?You don’t know me. I am not your ‘one.’ Get up, if you please.”
“I wish to marry you.”
“I don’t wish to marry you!” Ophelia said tartly. “I don’t even know you. And even if I did . . .”
She would never want to be a duchess. Duchesses were forever being gawked at. Gossip columns described what they wore, andwhat they said, and whom they smiled at. As Sir Peter’s relict, she had slipped out of that ballroom without anyone takingnotice of her.
No duchess walked from a room without people tracking her movements.
He nodded, eyes on hers. “Indeed, duchesses are always in the public eye.”
“How did you know what I was thinking?”
With a swift movement, he rose and sat next to her. Practically on top of her skirts.
“Watch out!” she cried.
He waited while she rearranged her skirts, taking her time because her fingers were trembling and she needed to regain control.
“Your Grace,” she said at last, raising her face to his. “I am not of your world, and I don’t wish to be. I do not referenceyour divorce,” she said swiftly, when he opened his mouth. “’Tis an infamous thing, but I understand that your wife left under—sheleft with . . .” Tangled in words, she stopped.
“The second part of this particular private act is the only one that matters,” he said. “The act dissolved our marriage andspecifically enabled ‘the said Duke to marry again.’ I would not have petitioned for divorce if it hadn’t been for our—” Hecaught himself. “For my children.”
“I see,” Ophelia said, feeling desperately sorry for him.
“In case you are wondering, I did not refuse to allow the children to go with their mother. I’m not sure what I would havesaid, had Yvette asked for them, but she did not. She left a letter explaining that our marriage was a mistake and that shefelt English children should stay on English soil.”
Ophelia’s gaze fell to the duke’s hand, clenched on the carriage seat.
“She spelled Joan’s name wrong,” he said.
A soft noise came from Ophelia’s mouth, unbidden.
“Joan is my baby,” the duke said. “She’s only two.” His mouth twisted. “Her mother apparently believed we had baptized herJoanna.”
Before she could stop herself, Ophelia reached out and curled her fingers around his fist. “I’m sorry.”
“They are better off with me, although I don’t know how I will explain to them, when they are grown up, that their motherdidn’t want them.”
“I don’t know that you’ll have to,” Ophelia said. “Children are very accepting, as long as someone loves them. My daughter,Viola, has no idea that a father is missing from her life. At some point she will understand that she never knew him, butI hope it won’t be a grievous loss to her.”
“Sir Peter didn’t choose to leave his daughter,” the duke said, sounding tired all of a sudden.
Ophelia withdrew her hand, clearing her throat. “I don’t—”
His Grace bent toward her, his eyes even darker green in the soft light of the carriage than they had seemed in the ballroom.Ophelia froze, her heart hammering in her throat. Carefully, delicately, he cupped his hands on either side of her face, benthis head, and brushed her mouth with his.
Ophelia’s mind stuttered and fell silent. The duke’s eyes were fringed with thick black lashes. They didn’t curl up, the wayhers did. Instead she had the feeling they hid his eyes from the world—but not at the moment.
His eyes were shining with an emotion she didn’t recognize.
She swallowed hard. “This is madness.”
“Yes. Love is madness. I’m not in love with you yet, Ophelia, but only because I haven’t had enough time.”
It was that moment that Ophelia realized that the Duke of Lindow—a man clearly used to getting exactly what he wanted, whenhe wanted it, a man whom the world had blessed with beauty, power, and wealth—was truly at her feet.
Metaphorically, because he was sitting beside her and kissing her again. This time, when his mouth brushed hers, her lipsparted.
Her breath stopped, and her hands rose of their own volition, flattening themselves against his chest. Through layers of silkhis chest felt warm and hard. In that moment when she gasped for breath, his tongue slid into her mouth and an inarticulatemale sound, a growl or a rumble, came from his chest.
Ophelia shouldn’t . . . She couldn’t help it. Her tongue met his, curiously. She hadn’t felt desire in well over two years,but it came back to her in a rush,