The Reluctant Duchess Read online

  Darlene seemed horrified by the idea. “And be cursed my entire life?”

  It was a nonsensical response, but Rebecca let it pass. It seemed as if someone here was filling the maids’ minds with ridiculous stories, and she wondered if it were Mr. Starke. Every time she spied a maid, the servant was skittering about from one place to another, as if being chased by a phantom. Perhaps she ought to talk to Mr. Starke about addressing all the rumors and superstition, though he was likely the one who was perpetuating them.

  Darlene pushed a final pin in her hair. “There you are, Yer Grace. Do you recall the way to the dining hall?”

  “Will His Grace be joining me?”

  “Oh, goodness, no. His Grace takes all his meals in his rooms.”

  Odd that she felt a stab of disappointment. “Then I will dine alone?” The dining hall was a massive room and the thought of sitting at the long table by herself was absurd.

  “Mr. Winters will be joining you.”

  Rebecca forced herself not to frown, but her appetite swiftly diminished. Mr. Winters clearly held her in contempt; why would he lower himself to dine with her? With a sharp twinge of homesickness, Rebecca wondered what her family was having for their dinner. Meal times were a rather noisy affair at the Caine house, as one might expect in a home filled with five women chattering all at the same time. Her mother had never insisted on silence during mealtimes unless she was vexed with them. Were they thinking of her, wondering what she was doing? As Rebecca made her way down to the dining hall, her stomach in a bit of a knot, that unbearable urge to flee, to go home, struck her again and she wished fervently that none of this had ever happened. She would fly into her mother’s arms and her sisters would gather around and tell her how glad they all were that she was home.

  Rebecca stopped before the entrance to the dining hall and gave her head a firm shake. Such thoughts would only serve to make her miserable. At least the duke was not cruel. Thus far. There was that. But was it not cruel to extort her father and force her into marriage? Stop, Rebecca.

  Mr. Winters was already seated and the moment she entered the room he stood, pulled out his watch, and frowned, even as a clock behind her finished chiming the hour.

  “Am I tardy? I do apologize.”

  “Meals are served promptly in his household, Your Grace,” he said, his tone rather harsh for such a slight transgression.

  Rebecca glanced at the large mantel clock, which likely still vibrated from its marking the hour.

  “It is two minutes off,” he said, then flicked a hand toward a waiting footman, who immediately hurried to the clock to adjust the time.

  “You could have started without me if you were so hungry,” Rebecca said with exaggerated cheerfulness. She would not allow this man to get under her skin. Winters looked annoyed by the suggestion and Rebecca felt a bit of triumph. “I’m surprised you wish to dine with me at all, considering my very existence repulses you.”

  The footman, who had completed adjusting the clock, hurried forward and pulled out her seat. Rebecca sat near the head of the table and Winters across from her. The table was meticulously set, the china gleaming, the cutlery polished to a high shine. At one time, the Caines’ settings might have looked so fine, but years of use had left them with chips and scratches. What lay before her looked as if it had never been touched.

  “His Grace insisted I give you company.”

  “His Grace should offer his own company,” Rebecca said.

  “That is not possible.”

  She wanted to ask why, but she truly did not want to engage in conversation with the man. If the duke could take his meals in his rooms then the duchess could as well. In fact, she planned to refuse to eat anywhere but her rooms until Oliver joined her. What that would accomplish other than a bedroom that smelled of food, she did not know. But Rebecca found the thought of even that small rebellion satisfying.

  A footman brought out a tureen and proceeded to ladle a creamy soup for each of them. Resisting the urge to sniff it first to determine just what it was, Rebecca instead took a small taste, then smiled. Celery soup, one of her favorites.

  “I do hope your experiences here thus far have not been too unpleasant.” Rebecca snapped her head up to stare at Winters, who looked at her blandly but with that disturbing, mocking air just beneath the surface. He had put the slightest emphasis on the word “experiences;” could he possibly be referring to her time with the duke? She felt her entire body heat with outrage and embarrassment. “I imagine the temperatures here are much colder than you are used to.”

  “I have never experienced such cold before, but I am certain I shall get used to it.” She smiled politely at him, refusing to allow him to bait her. “In fact, all my experiences thus far have been exceedingly pleasant.”

  He returned her smile with one of his own, but something in his eyes was frightening, holding a malevolence that she prayed she was imagining.

  The rest of the meal held little conversation, and when it came time for dessert, Rebecca declined, for she was more than ready to return to her rooms. She stood and he slowly followed suit. “Thank you for your company,” she said. “Have a good evening.”

  “Good evening.”

  As Rebecca left the hall, she could feel his eyes on her and had to stop herself from hurrying her steps. If not for Mr. Winters, Horncliffe would be tolerable. But his presence cast a pall on the entire household, and she wondered how she could remove him. She didn’t think she could bear spending time alone with the man.

  Rebecca didn’t pass another soul as she made her way to her room, her muted footsteps on the thick carpet the only sound. Just before she entered her room, she paused. Would it be in darkness, indicating her husband planned another visit to her bed? As pleasant as the experience had been, it had been so distressing to have a man do such intimate things to her body and not know what he looked like. She recalled Eliza had said the villagers called him the Ghost Duke. For one fantastical moment she wondered if he were, indeed, a ghost and not a man at all. Could ghosts be solid?

  Letting out a giggle at her foolishness, Rebecca pushed open her door and sighed a breath of relief when she saw a cheery and vibrantly burning fire in the grate. So, no, he would not impose himself on her that night. Within minutes of her entering her room, Darlene arrived to assist her in undressing, her face slightly red as if she’d run all the way from wherever she’d been, no doubt urged by Mr. Winters to attend her.

  “We’ll have to be getting you a new wardrobe, we will,” she said with a tsk. “Something worthy of a duchess.”

  Rebecca did not see the point if they were to have no visitors nor leave the house, but she nodded. The thought of new dresses in the latest style seemed pointless if no one but Mr. Winters and the staff saw them. When Rebecca was in her nightdress, she put out her lamp and crawled into bed to stare at the fire.

  “Rebecca?”

  Her heart hammered in her chest at the sound of the duke’s voice on the other side of the door. “Yes, Your Grace?” she called. It was so long before he answered, she wondered if he would.

  “Tell me about St. Ives.”

  The question made her smile, and she climbed out of bed and walked to the door. “St. Ives?”

  “That is where your portrait was painted, was it not?”

  “Yes. I posed for several artists. Which painting did you see?”

  “You are sitting on a large boulder looking out to sea.”

  Rebecca knew the one; she’d been quite taken aback by the artist’s suggestion that she remove her shoes and allow her bare feet to poke out beneath her skirt. It wasn’t really improper, but it had seemed that way at the time. “Last summer,” she said, her voice wistful. “I’ve lived in St. Ives my entire life. I don’t think I fully appreciated how beautiful it is until I left. I had no idea, for instance, that the sea wasn’t that brilliant blue everywher
e. The sea here is so dark. Forbidding. But in St. Ives, the color is warm and beautiful.”

  She went on to tell him about her village, the colorful houses, the steep cobbled streets, the scent of bait fish, and the beach with its soft sand. He listened, asking infrequent questions, and just let her talk until she was there, could picture herself on a summer’s day, a soft breeze bringing in gentle waves, the seagulls floating above her. At one point, she excused herself to gather a blanket around her and sit on the floor. He must have followed suit, for the sound of his voice seemed to be at the same level. She leaned against the wood and imagined him doing the same, heads separated only by an inch of mahogany.

  “We should go there some day,” she said finally. “So you could see for yourself.”

  That remark was met by silence. “You are settling in?”

  “Ah, the change of subject.” The soft sound of his chuckle made its way through the door. “I’ll allow it this time. Yes, I am settling in nicely.”

  “And you…” He cleared his throat. “…are not suffering any ill effects from last night?”

  “No, Your Grace.” Something about his tone touched her, his real concern, his hesitance.

  “I believe I requested that you call me Oliver.”

  Rebecca grinned. “No, Oliver.”

  “Good night, Rebecca.”

  “Good night, Oliver.”

  Oliver knew the moment his duchess retired for the evening the next night for he could hear the murmuring of voices—hers and her maid’s—and then her door close as her maid left. His nerves were a bit frayed for he’d been thinking of her all day, remembering her smooth skin, her female scent, her heat. Her laugh.

  Waiting to touch her again was far more difficult than he would have thought. His body screamed for him to walk through the connecting door, to touch her, sink into her, find the blessed relief from the agony of his desire. It had not been this way with the others. Yes, he’d needed to find release but he’d found the entire process of having Winters supply him with a woman humiliating and found other ways to slake his lust that, while not as satisfying, worked to keep him from going completely mad.

  And now he had Rebecca. Who had cried out when she came, who had turned soft and drowsy and had touched him as if she wanted to, not because her profession demanded it.

  He let out a long, shuddering breath as he stared at the door knob. Thinking about her beneath him would only leave him painfully hard, so he forced his thoughts away from visions of her naked body. Before that night, he’d judged a week was a considerate amount of time for her to heal and become used to him. That was, he realized now, entirely unacceptable. He’d never make it. Tomorrow, he would make love to her again.

  “Rebecca?”

  He heard the rustling of sheets, then the sound of her hurrying to the door, and he couldn’t help but smile. His wife was just a few feet away. His wife.

  “Yes, Your Grace?”

  “How was your day?”

  “Lonely. I’d like to have spent it with my husband.”

  He shook his head, smiling. “Perhaps one day.”

  He heard her sigh, then a rustling sound as he realized she had sat down on the floor, readying herself for a nice long chat, so he followed suit. “Tell me about your childhood,” she said. “It’s only fair as I told you about mine.”

  “Very well, although it’s not a pretty story. My mother left a month after I was born and died five years later in Italy in her lover’s villa, which was destroyed in an earth quake. My father died when I was six. We were at the breakfast table.”

  That should suffice, he thought, and waited for her to respond.

  “You’re not much of a story teller, are you?” she asked, a smile in her voice. “What was your father like? I saw a portrait of him in the gallery and he was a handsome man. Devilishly handsome.”

  Oliver closed his eyes, trying to picture the flesh and blood man who had been such an influence on his boyhood. “He was. My father was a heroic figure to me. My nanny was appalled that he allowed me to eat with him, but he insisted we be together for every meal. When he died, I was relegated to the nursery, a change I was not happy with. We went to London once, to see a physician to find a cure for my affliction. I remember little of that visit, but I do recall how fascinating the buildings were. The smells and people. It seemed impossible to me that so many people could exist in one place.”

  “Oliver?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m resting my head against the door. Here.” He heard two light taps. “You should do the same.”

  He found himself oddly moved by her suggestion and moved closer so that his head rested precisely where hers did.

  “I was terribly angry with my father because of what happened,” Rebecca said softly “When I left, I could hardly look at him and I know it broke his heart. I think I shall write him a letter to tell him all is forgiven.”

  “A good idea. I am forever grateful that my father and I were having a pleasant morning the day he died. We were laughing about something Winters had done. What was it… Ah, Mr. Winters likes things just so, and his face turned nearly purple when a footman served him buttered toast. He loathes butter, if you can imagine. My father took one look at the toast and one look at Winters’ face and burst out laughing.” He frowned, recalling how angry Winters had been, how even when his father had been stricken, he’d seemed unconcerned. At least initially. “Moments later, he just dropped to the floor and was dead.”

  “That is a terrible thing for a child to see.”

  “It was.” It was. Even as a lad he had recognized that his life would change irrevocably and that change had been immediate. Mr. Winters had been appointed his guardian, a job the man took on with surprising dedication. Even now, the older man took it upon himself to shield Oliver from anything or anyone who might harm him. He’d let it happen, to his great shame, relinquishing all decisions, all management of staff. Marrying Rebecca had been his most important decision, and even that he’d relegated to Mr. Winters.

  It had not happened in one day or one year, this realization that he was monstrous to others, something to fear. He knew not how it had all started, how the rumors about him were spawned—devil’s child, ghost, demon—but he’d learned at a young age to do anything to avoid being ridiculed. If that meant living his life within the walls of Horncliffe, never venturing beyond the boundaries of the estate, never seeing the world he’d longed to explore, then so be it. No visitors called on him, no invitations were issued, and he told himself he was glad of it.

  How could he risk the small joy of talking with his wife by allowing her to see him?

  “Are you still there, Your Grace?”

  “Lost in thought,” he said.

  “You must have been very lonely to marry someone you’d never met.”

  Desperately so. “I require an heir,” he said instead.

  This time, she was silent for a long stretch. Finally, she spoke. “If that’s all you require, then why are you speaking to me at all?”

  “You want me to admit that I am some pathetic creature who was wasting away from loneliness when that is hardly the case,” he said, bristling a bit, even though it was mostly true.

  To his surprise, he heard her softly laugh. “I see it is quite easy to stir your ire. I shall enjoy myself immensely.”

  “Are you saying that you enjoy making me angry?”

  “A bit. It is my natural tendency when confronted with an aristocratic boor,” she said lightly, as if she hadn’t just insulted him.

  “Was I acting boorish?”

  “You were.”

  “Shall I apologize?”

  “Would that not be like the sky apologizing for being blue?”

  He stared at the door in astonishment, as if he could see her. Then he started laughing, an odd rusty sound he had not heard i
n a long time. It sounded rather like croaking.

  “Are you quite all right?” He could hear the smile in her voice.

  “That was a laugh. Apparently I have not done enough of it lately for my throat wasn’t sure how to respond.”

  She laughed then, a musical, easy sound that told him she laughed often.

  They talked long into the night, talked until he could hear Rebecca yawning every few minutes. He’d never talked and laughed so much in his entire life and he told her so just before bidding her a good night.

  “Good night,” she said. “And Oliver, I think you and I shall get along famously.”

  Rebecca spent another long, lonely day seeing only Darlene and the occasional servant moving silently through the house. There was none of the usual chatter she’d become used to at her home and the homes of her friends. The silence came from more than a stringent sense of propriety, she thought. It was more oppressive. Dark. She ate breakfast and luncheon in the breakfast room, alone but for two footmen who stood at attention throughout the entire meal unless they were serving her. Her single attempt to make conversation with the one serving her was met with a startled expression and silence. Rebecca couldn’t help but wonder if her husband, who spent so much time alone, was even aware of the general gloom that shrouded the place.

  She’d explored most of the house, getting lost more than a few times before making her way back to the main section of the mansion. Again, as she was walking by the gallery, she thought she heard a woman singing or crying, but it was only a whisper of sound that gave her chills. Could the place be haunted? She stood outside the dark room, straining to hear something, but whatever she’d heard—if she’d heard anything at all—was now gone. After a brief meeting with the housekeeper, Mrs. Cutter, a severe-looking woman in her fifties whom she’d seen only once, Rebecca resigned herself to going back to her rooms for the evening. She had no intention of eating alone with Mr. Winters in the cavernous and dark dining hall. Just thinking of the man made her stomach hurt.