The Taming of the Duke

Page 10

Before, she thought rather bleakly, she had talked Draven into eloping with her.
Her current bedchamber faced east, not west. She couldn't see anything of Maitland land. But she had looked that direction from the window of the carriage. Yellow leaves were tipping the willows between Draven's and Rafe's lands. There were blots of crimson low to the ground, probably rowan berries. Now those were her rowan berries, and her willows, and all the pretending in the world wouldn't erase the fact that her young husband had died, and his mother had died after him.
It is an odd truth that when grief wanes, other unpleasant emotions rush into the space left by mourning. Even the thought of Maitland House made her feel sick with guilt. Why should she own even a single Maitland rowan bush? She was practically a stranger to the family. The new baron lived in Dorset because Maitland House, unentailed, had passed to Imogen. She hadn't brought herself to enter the house since Draven's mother died. And yet she could feel it looming, full of ghosts, to the west.
She turned from the window impatiently. Her maid, Daisy, had unpacked her things and run a bath, so Imogen obediently sank into the pool of steaming water and tried to think of more cheerful subjects.
Of course it didn't work. She could hear Daisy talking to herself as she put away clothing, tut-tutting over the wear her clothing had taken on the journey from Scotland.
Draven's clothing was in that house. She couldn't let his cravats molder into silence and decay. She should parcel up Lady Clarice's things and give them to the poor, send her jewelry to female relatives, order the furniture muffled in Holland cloth. Perhaps she should sell the house.
It used to be that she would climb into the bath, and the very act of surrounding herself with water would bring on tears. But she hadn't cried in days. Her two-week marriage was starting to feel like a childhood memory, one of the vivid ones that slips from your fingers even as you try to remember it.
When she finally emerged, Daisy had left out a nightgown that was little more than a scrap of rosy silk, so pale that it resembled the inside of a baby's ear, which made Imogen remember that she did need to think about husbands. She was over twenty-one. Annabel was having a baby, and Tess would likely follow suit.
She whirled from the mirror, refusing to acknowledge the pain that had so agonized her after Draven's death, when it was clear that she hadn't managed to produce an heir. It had taken her days to gather the courage to tell Draven's mother that no heir was on the way, and sure enough, Lady Clarice had simply folded up and died after she was told that final bit of news. All her frivolities, her gossip, and her chatter faded after Draven's death. It was as if she relinquished her life as easily as one puts away a handkerchief, turned to the wall, and died.
Imogen caught sight of herself in the dressing table mirror and pulled up the sleeve of her nightgown. It was all very well to own a gown with the propensity to leave one's breasts open to the night air. There are undoubtedly situations in which such a nightgown might be useful, but the widow's blameless sleep is not one of them.
A baby, she thought, pulling up her sleeve again. A baby.
And then, as if it were an answer to her thought, she heard something. Surely that was a baby?
It was a chortle, a chuckle, a sound no one but a very small child could make. But that was impossible. Rafe's house was the quintessential bachelor establishment. Male friends drifted in and out on their way to the races in Silchester, or escaping from female companionship… but babies?
She must have misheard. But then it came again. A sound. A baby sound.
Imogen pulled open the door, walked outside, and promptly collided with a large body. She gaped up at him. In the dim light of the corridor, he looked rather like Rafe. Except…
It wasn't Rafe. He was slimmer than Rafe, and younger-looking, and not as sturdy. His eyes were the same gray-blue, and almond-shaped. She loved that about Rafe's eyes. Sometimes it was hard to look away from Rafe.
It was hard to look away from this man as well.
He was smiling politely at her, while she stood there rooted to the ground like an idiot. In his arms was a child, a bonny little girl who dimpled at Imogen, waved her right hand, and said "mamamam."
Imogen pulled her gaze away from the baby's father. "Well, aren't you a dear," she breathed, holding out a finger.
The baby curled a plump little hand around Imogen's finger and showed her dimples again.
"What an adorable child you have, sir. You must be—"
But her voice died as she became suddenly aware of two things. There was something in the stranger's eyes… an awareness of her as a woman that one did not generally encounter on a first meeting. For a moment she just blinked at him.
Then she suddenly realized that her nightgown had once again fallen from her shoulder. She looked down to find her breast gleaming in the dim light.
She jerked up her sleeve and her head at the same moment.
"I—" she said. And stopped. What could she say? There was a gleam of amusement in his eyes.
A second later she was behind the safety of a thick oaken door, cursing silently. That was Rafe's illegitimate brother, the one he only discovered he had last May. No question about it.
And his child, one had to assume. So the brother must be married.
That gave her a queer twist of disappointment. He was so beautiful, in the ways Rafe was beautiful, but without the faint wolfish air that Rafe had. Instead, this brother was a civilized version of their guardian, oddly enough, since he was illegitimate and Rafe quite legitimate.
He had Rafe's eyes; one had to admit that Rafe had fine eyes: gray-blue without a philandering tone to them. But Rafe had an ungentlemanly air, overlong hair, a care-for-naught attitude. And his eyes had a hint of sadness lurking in their depths.
She always thought that Rafe's lack of desire was constitutional; he'd drowned any desire in a pint of liquor. That wasn't the case with Rafe's brother. Surely that was interest in his eyes, along with amusement.
But of course, he was married. And making up one's mind to have a discreet affaire did not, to Imogen's mind, include the possibility of indulging with a man who had a wife.
Still, she leaned her head back against the door and grinned. It wasn't only from embarrassment. It was because she felt alive for the first time in months. He was tall and tautly built, this illegitimate brother.
Not that it mattered. But if her pulse could race over one man's amused glance, it would surely race over one thrown by another.
She pulled up the sleeve of her nightgown one final time.
Chapter 6
In Which Illegitimacy Turns Out to Be Less of a Barrier Than One Might Think
The drawing room On the following day
He wasn't married. At least, not anymore. "He's a widower?" Imogen said. "That's— that's—" and caught herself on the verge of saying it was wonderful. Of course it wasn't wonderful that the poor man was widowed and left with a small child to raise. Of course not.
"There's something in your face that I don't like," Lady Griselda said. "He is the illegitimate—and therefore, Imogen, quite ineligible—son of the late Duke of Holbrook."
"I am not interested in marrying him," Imogen said, knowing full well that there was a smile on her mouth, and she was quite unable to restrain it. "I merely think that he's—he's delightful."