The Devilish Pleasures of a Duke Page 23

  “Nah,” the maid said. “She hasn’t had time to marry what with all the work that fell upon her shoulders when her father took sick. Her day’ll come soon, I reckon.”

  The younger maid chimed in. “There ain’t a person within twenty miles what don’t worship Lady Serena.”

  “I see,” Hermia said, narrowing her eyes. “A paragon. I don’t mean to sound unkind, but this lady sounds to be a bit of a spinster.”

  “All I know is that she’s a beauty, ma’am,” the second maid answered. “A spot of sunlight on a cold winter day.”

  Adrian stood for several moments behind his chair and examined his father’s oak-paneled drawing room. This had not been a familiar place in his youth. Children had been forbidden to enter the duke’s hallowed sanctuary. Now the entire family, his brother and sister, his medieval aunt, even the stooped estate manager, had assembled to greet the prodigal.

  The gratitude on their faces, the affection, all older and more important to him than he’d realized, humbled him.

  “The young viscount is home,” Bridgewater, the bald secretary, said over and over. “Home after all these years.”

  “Where’s he been, anyway?” his great-aunt asked.

  His father stared at him, tall, a stone thinner, but still a man who commanded a room. “It doesn’t matter where he’s been. He’s home.”

  His sister Florence smiled at him warmly. “And brought a wife. Where is she, Adrian?”

  “Is she a foreign woman?” his aunt asked. “I hope the English weather doesn’t make her ill.”

  Adrian chuckled. The only good thing he could say of his family meeting Emma was that she would be able to handle them, and with far more grace than he could muster, too.

  “Adrian was set upon by brigands at the bridge,” Florence explained gently. “He fought them off, Aunt Thea. Everyone is fine, it seems.”

  The elderly woman nodded in approval. “Foreign brigands, I suppose. Why did you go away, Adrian? I’ve missed your company so much. Cedric is boring, and Florence has forgotten how to laugh.”

  Adrian smiled at her. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  “What is your wife’s name, dear?”

  “Emma. Emma Boscastle.”

  “That doesn’t sound very foreign.”

  The duke, who had been quietly watching this scene unfold, motioned to his estate manager. “Do you mind taking everyone to the conservatory for wine and cake, Bridgewater? Adrian and I will join you shortly.”

  And then, moments later, Adrian was alone with the duke, still unable to think of him as his father, but not able to dredge up his former hatred, either. He waited in resignation. There was an old picture mounted on the wall of his mother in a riding habit with her beloved spaniel. A deep ache stirred inside him. She had not deserved to die in condemnation.

  “You look well,” he said to the duke, “for a man who is suffering a terminal illness.”

  “I could have been dead ten times over in the time you took coming here,” the duke retorted.

  “I—”

  “Don’t lie. I have no wish to fight with you. We have too many issues to pound out concerning the estate.”

  “Are you and Lady Dalrymple truly old friends?” he asked, seeking a more neutral subject.

  “Hermia?” The duke’s careworn features seemed to soften. “I sought her favor as a callow youth, and lost. It is to your credit that she befriends you.” He put his hand to his breastbone, his eyes suddenly dark. “Indigestion, Adrian,” he said with a grimace. “Are you done evading the matter of your responsibilities?”

  Adrian hesitated. In his memory his father had always been omnipotent, invulnerable, aloof at his best. At his worst, Scarfield had seemed weak-willed and malicious. And now? He could not deny his father had aged and, unexpectedly, he pitied him.

  He shifted. “It’s been a long day—”

  As if he’d been eavesdropping, Bridgewater entered the room bearing a tray of medicine. “It’s time for your evening cordial, your grace.”

  “Do you have nothing better to do with yourself than interrupt me every five minutes?” the duke asked in more resignation than anger.

  Bridgewater smiled. He, too, showed the signs of age and service.

  Adrian came to his feet. Bridgewater and his family had been devoted to Scarfield ever since, well, according to Bridgewater, ever since the damned Crusades. And although Adrian could not pretend affection for the duke, he did not wish him ill. He was not sure what, if anything, he felt.

  “Aren’t you in the least bit curious about your old love?” his father asked.

  Adrian managed to grin. “My sheepdog is still alive?”

  The duke chuckled as Bridgewater hovered at his side with a glass of cordial. “I meant Serena, the girl you were meant to marry.”

  Adrian raised his brow. “Do not tell me you’ve convinced her to wait for me.”

  His father laughed, and suddenly, to Adrian’s surprise, some of the awkwardness between them seemed to ease. “To be honest, Adrian, I think Serena has always been more in love with her horses than with you. Now, when am I to be introduced to your bride?”

  Adrian met his father’s eyes. “Tomorrow.”

  “A Boscastle,” the duke mused. “How did you manage it?”

  He shook his head, unable to hide his pride and happiness. “I don’t know. But I will confess she is the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

  “Married and obviously besotted. I look forward to meeting your wife at breakfast.”

  Besotted.

  Adrian locked the bedchamber door behind him and stared at the alluring figure on the bed. There was a book, still open, in her hand.

  The candle on the nightstand had burned low. He blew it out, undressed, and crawled into bed beside his wife.

  She sat up with a small shriek of protest. “Adrian, you are absolutely freezing!”

  He laughed and pulled her back into his arms. “You’re very warm,” he whispered, burying his hands in her hair.

  “What about your father?”

  “I don’t know. I’d say he tended toward the cold side, but if you’re really curious, you could ask Bridgewater.”

  She arched her brow. “Since you’re smiling, I shall assume all went well.”

  “Well enough. We didn’t argue.”

  She sighed as if she sensed what he’d left unsaid, then curled herself around his body. “Still, it must feel good to be home.”

  The warmth of her presence relaxed him. His wife. “It feels good to be here with you. I wouldn’t have come back alone.”

  Her voice deepened to a drowsy whisper. “It’s a beautiful estate, Adrian. The park looked like paradise in the moonlight.”

  He stroked his hand down her spine. “I’ll show you the rest of it tomorrow.”

  “And I suppose I’ll meet everyone then?”

  He closed his eyes. It wasn’t home. Too many painful memories lingered, in every room, in every face. “You’ve already met my brother. Florence and my father are impatient to see the lady who tamed me.”

  “No old friends showed up for the prodigal’s return?” she asked innocently.

  “If you mean Serena,” he said mischievously, “then no.”

  She was quiet for a moment. He wished she understood that there never had been, nor would there be, a woman who could compare to her.

  “Do you think,” she asked after several moments, “that you might like to stay here?”

  “In Berkshire, perhaps. I promised you a country school. But not here. Not now.”

  “I do feel guilty,” she whispered, “that I left my duties in London unfulfilled.”

  “We can leave whenever you wish,” he said idly. He’d never discussed his foreign investments with her. The typical English aristocrat thought earning money to be a vulgar occupation, but the truth was that he could afford to make their home anywhere she desired.

  She sat up unexpectedly, leaving him bereft of her pleasingly warm bod
y. “Are you in a particular hurry to make a return journey with Hermia and Odham, my lord?”

  “That,” he said, pulling her back against him with a laugh, “is a thought to give one pause.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Emma had anticipated that the next day would challenge the sum total of her social knowledge. She had not expected, however, that Adrian would abandon her before breakfast. She could have cheerfully crowned the devil.

  He had gone off riding with his brother to survey the estate, which meant she would sit alone with the duke in the private winter room—a retreat so opulently designed it would have befitted a Roman emperor.

  The plasterwork ceiling drew the eye to a fresco of mythic scenes depicted on gilded stucco. Her feet sank into the garden of overblown peonies and peacocks of an Aubusson carpet. She surveyed the sideboard with a sigh of approval. Wedgwood plates of classical design and silver tea urns glistened under the guard of six attentive footmen.

  Plate-warmers coddled a golden brown roast turkey, and three mince pies, as well as a beefsteak bursting with savory meat and gravy. She sighed happily at the sight of a tureen of piping-hot porridge nestled between tall pots of coffee, fresh cream, and chocolate.

  Heaven, she thought. She had expired in her beloved husband’s arms and awakened to discover herself in a paradise of elegant living.

  The duke rose from his chair, watching her with the intensity of an eagle atop an aerie. If he had expected his daughter-in-law to be intimidated by either his estate or the grandeur of his presence, he was to be disappointed.

  For Emma Boscastle was suddenly hurled into her element, the place amidst the stars reserved for her. In truth, she would have been at ease in any of the world’s royal courts. The rituals of aristocracy came as easily to her as breathing. On her mother’s death, it had fallen upon her to attend the details of her papa’s private life. It was a young Emma who had answered cards of condolences, remembered birthdays, reminded her siblings of their manners. She had worked hard to deserve her parents’ faith in her.

  She dipped into a perfect curtsy before the duke.

  He exhaled in pleasure and lifted his arms to welcome her. “Thank God,” he muttered. “Oh, thank you, thank you, God.”

  And Emma, who had lived with five unruly brothers, understood exactly what he meant. Adrian had not married an unmannered woman. Despite the questionable foundation of her romance with his son, she was not about to bring disgrace upon the name of Scarfield.

  They embraced like long-lost souls, neither with an excessive display of emotion. That the duke had ever doubted Adrian to be his natural son puzzled Emma. Their resemblance to each other was striking. Both men had the same angular face and long-boned build that lent fluid elegance to their every move.

  Still, there was a warmth and wicked spontaneity to Adrian that Emma deduced might have come from his mother. But then perhaps the duke was subdued due to some inscrutable illness. As a wiry balding man detached himself from the wall to assist him, Adrian’s father seemed to shrink both in strength and personality.

  “This is my nursemaid Bridgewater,” he said wryly.

  Emma took the chair a footman had drawn for her. “You mean your secretary and estate manager, your grace?”

  The duke coughed. “Yes. Go, Bridgewater. Bother my children. I wish to be alone with the enchanting lady who has brought my son home.” He looked Emma in the eye. “I assume he came at your encouragement?”

  Emma made a show of examining her ivory-handled knife. “I only know that he returned home. And that he has a will of his own.”

  Perhaps their private breakfast was meant to be a test of her inner mettle. By the time the footmen brought in an assortment of hothouse peaches, pineapples, and early strawberries, she and her father-in-law were discussing the practical affairs of the estate as casually as they would the country weather.

  “Adrian’s mother had a talent for tallying my accounts,” the duke explained wistfully. “I did not appreciate her intelligence at the time. But the woman could balance our books to the penny.”

  “A practical lady,” Emma said in approval.

  He chuckled. “She caught the blacksmith cheating us when Bridgewater missed the offense. Of course, she also chastised me when I neglected to pay a laborer.”

  “And you, being a man of—”

  Emma broke off as the side door opened to admit the duke’s attentive secretary. Bridgewater took one look at his master and his mouth thinned in dismay. “You are fatigued, your grace.”

  Emma stared down at her plate. On one hand she felt that Bridgewater acted in too personal a fashion. On the other, she had to agree that the duke appeared more pale and tired than when he had greeted her. Personal concern for his well-being superceded all other observations. She stood decisively.

  “I have overtired you, your grace.”

  “Bloody stuff and nonsense. Bridgewater is a bothersome old woman.”

  Bridgewater glanced at Emma as if to beg her support. She said, “I admit I am still overwrought myself from the ordeal at the bridge yesterday.”

  The duke rose. His steely gaze informed her he was not at all deceived.

  “My son has exceeded my expectations in choosing you for his wife. I couldn’t have dreamt a lady better suited to becoming the next Duchess of Scarfield than you.”

  Emma went to his side. Bridgewater was steadying his progress to the door. Perhaps it was prideful of her to enjoy his praise.

  But she did.

  Only for a moment.

  “I’m honored to be your son’s wife,” she said with her hand at his arm. “I love him.”

  He shook his head in bemusement. “How the deuce he was able to persuade you to marry him—ah, well. He’s inherited his mother’s charms and will soon inherit my estate. It’s a relief for me to go knowing you will advise him.”

  They walked arm in arm to the door, Bridgewater trailing. “And where exactly do you plan to go, your grace?” she asked lightly.

  “Most likely to Hades.”

  “Not true,” Bridgewater said. “Your grace is going upstairs to rest.”

  “No, I’m not,” the duke said irritably. “I’m playing cards with Hermia and Odham. He and I are both passionate for that woman.”

  “Well, you must not let your passions get the better of you, your grace,” Bridgewater said gracefully.

  “Stuff it, you old busybody.”

  Emma bit her lip as the pair of them, clearly forgetting her presence, began to bicker back and forth. She was certain that the duke would not have permitted such familiarity had he not trusted Bridgewater as one did a cousin or close friend.

  By the time the three of them reached the dark vaulted hall, she could see that the duke was indeed struggling for breath. She thought of her own father, how she’d believed him invulnerable before his death.

  “He’s come back just in time, hasn’t he?” a soft voice asked her. Adrian’s sister came up the stairs behind Emma. “I think there will be peace now for everyone.”

  Adrian did not return from his ride with Cedric until late afternoon. Windblown, elegantly commanding his mount, he cantered across the park where Emma was walking with Florence. Both women stopped in their tracks and turned as he dismounted and ran toward them. He was as grand as the estate he would inherit.

  Before Emma could greet him in a fashionable manner, he picked her up and spun her in the air. “I missed you.”

  Florence coughed lightly. “Has it been all of six hours?”

  “Nine,” he replied, setting Emma back on her feet. “And you’ll both be relieved to know that there are no brigands in the area.”

  “That’s where you’ve been, chasing villains?” Emma asked in chagrin. “You really do love danger, don’t you?”

  He laughed. “I love you.”

  Her face grew warm. If they had been alone, she would have had a hard time keeping her hands off her husband. He looked irresistibly handsome in his billowing white muslin
shirt, molded leather riding breeches, and—

  “You’ve got mud on your boots.”

  “So I do.”

  “We’re having a formal supper tonight with the family,” she said, biting her bottom lip.

  His eyes danced with mischief. “Are you suggesting I’m not decent to dine with?”

  Indecent. That’s what you are. And that’s fine with me.

  She glanced away. “A bath would not be remiss.”

  “Oh, good.” He closed his black-gloved hand over hers. “We’ll take one together. My father has had a huge Roman bath built.”

  “Adrian,” she whispered, “your sister.”

  He winked at Florence. “She can take her own bath later.”

  “You haven’t changed at all,” Florence exclaimed with a delighted grin.

  A groom ran forth to take Adrian’s lathered horse. Cedric trotted past them toward the stables, nodding his head to the ladies. A footman greeted Adrian at the entrance portico with a sweeping bow.

  “Shall I draw your bath, my lord?” he inquired, his young voice unsteady.

  Adrian glanced down at his mud-besmirched boots with a devil-may-care grin. “Are you all in on my wife’s plot to make me a presentable gentleman?”

  The footman grinned. “A message arrived for you while you were gone, my lord.”

  “For me?” Adrian asked in surprise. “What have I done now?”

  “What haven’t you done?” Emma whispered, covertly nudging him away with her chin.

  “I don’t know,” he said under his breath. “If I’ve missed something, do let me know. My wife is forever eager to further my education.”

  She gave a delicate cough. “In private, my lord.”

  He sighed. “What was this message?”

  “Lady Serena says she will be delighted to join you for supper tonight,” the footman replied.

  Adrian smiled uneasily at Emma. “I swear to you, I had nothing to do with this. Do you wish me to tell her that we are unable to receive her tonight?”

  “No,” Emma answered him firmly. “If she is an old friend, it would be unforgivable to snub her.”