The Taming of the Duke

Page 71

Imogen ran a hand over her hair. At one point her hat had almost blown free again, but she had snatched it just in time. Still, her hair was doubtless tangled. She probably smelled like leather and yellow parsley, because she'd lain down in the field for a moment and looked at the sky. "I'll stop in to see him now," she said, making up her mind. "I intend to take my sister to London tomorrow morning, Brinkley. We both are in desperate need of a new wardrobe."
"But—"
She pushed open the door to the study. It was a dim room, with large, comfortingly male, furniture. The walls were lined with books, and one had the odd feeling that they were leaning in at the top, as if the walls were bowed under their weight.
"Rafe?" she called. "Where are you?"
"We are here." She walked forward and then saw Rafe's hand go out in the dim light and turn up the Argand lamp.
She stopped short.
Rafe was wearing court dress. His suit was of red velvet, a suit created for an encounter with the king. Or the queen. He wore formal breeches, and a square vest of embroidered satin. He was magnificent. Every inch of him was ducal, from the beautiful fit of the velvet on his shoulders to the braided trim on his vest. His hair no longer fell around his shoulders but was tied back. The shoulders of his coat looked slightly strained, and yet he wore the elegant, tight-fitting garment with the ease of someone who pulls on a waistcoat embroidered with pearls every day.
"Rafe?" she gasped.
He bowed. It was the bow of a duke to a young widow, a bow that combined to a calculated degree a sense of both their positions—her beauty, his wealth.
Her eyes slid to the side, and there was Mr. Spenser, smiling with his customary scholarly gravitude. "Lady Maitland," he said, bowing.
Griselda stepped forward. She too was dressed as magnificently as if royalty were expected. "Darling," she said, kissing Imogen on the cheek.
"How extremely formal you are," Imogen said. "All of you."
"Gabriel will act as your guardian in this discussion," Rafe said.
"He will?"
"Under the circumstances," Mr. Spenser said. "Your guardian has received a request for your hand in marriage, Lady Maitland."
"But Rafe is my guardian."
"I hereby disavow the position," Rafe said. "I've asked Gabriel to help me with a great many of the ducal responsibilities. In fact, he is thinking of giving up his post at the university."
"Oh," Imogen said flatly. "I shall not accept that offer of marriage."
"Wouldn't you like to hear who offered it?" Mr. Spenser had both her hands, somehow, and he was smiling down at her with that gentle, lopsided smile that was somehow both his and Rafe's.
She didn't dare to answer, just looked at him.
"His Grace, the Duke of Holbrook, has requested the honor of your hand in marriage. As your guardian, I have advised him that since you are a widow, and not a dependent in anyone's household, you are free to make your own choice." Gabriel's face creased into a swift smile, and he picked up her right hand and kissed it. "I shall leave you to contemplate your decision."
Griselda took his arm. "I believe that widows may accept proposals without chaperonage, my dear." She smiled, and then the door closed quietly behind them.
Imogen turned slowly to Rafe. She felt as if she were in a dream: that it wasn't Rafe at all, but some glittering, aristocratic creature who stood before her.
And then, as she watched him, he sank onto his knee before her. He took her hands, and those were his hands, so large. They weren't a pampered duke's hands, but the calloused hands of a man who held the reins every day. He brought her palm to his lips, and her heart leaped.
"Lady Maitland, will you do me the honor of giving me your hand in marriage?"
The words hung in the air of the study.
She pulled at his hands, trying to raise him to his feet. But he stayed there, looking up at her. "I love you. If you don't marry me, Imogen, I shall never marry. There is no other woman for me in this world. I did not know it was possible to feel such emotion as I feel for you."
She sank onto her knees and held out her arms. "Oh, Rafe!"
"I am a slow man, and a careless one. There is, I suppose, a chance that at some point I will take up whiskey again. I can perhaps never be the man you would wish—"
She cried out, involuntarily, but he continued. "But I love you, Imogen." He had both her hands to his lips now. "I want you with a passion that will never leave me, not even when one of us sees the other into a grave, and by God, I hope it's at the same moment."
She was blinking away tears, but he wasn't done.
"I think I've loved you from the moment you walked into this house. God knows, I've never hated a man as much as I hated Draven Maitland, from the moment you mentioned his name, and your eyes shone. I know you likely will never feel the same for me, but—"
She tried to speak, but he stopped her again.
"I love you enough for both of us."
"There's no need to say that!" she said it through her tears, through a brilliant smile, through the joy making her heart sing. "I love you… I love you too." She tried to pull him toward her, but his eyes were still dark, tormented almost.
"You might not when you realize what I've done to you, Imogen."
She stopped him by the simple method of capturing his face in her hands and pressing her lips to his. And when he still tried to say something, she kissed him into silence.
"I came to you under false pretenses," he said, sometime later. Some three hot, endless kisses later.
She was struggling with the buttons on his magnificently embroidered vest. "What are you doing?" he whispered into her ear. "Dukes don't make love on the floor of their study."
"This duke does," she whispered back.
"You're seducing me. I thought you would never make a bold advance to me again." He was laughing with the pure joy of it. "Didn't you tell me that in a properly ordered marriage… wasn't that what you meant?"
She was laughing too, laughing at him, laughing as she unbuttoned, as she trembled, as she wondered just how far Brinkley was from the door. "I was wrong," she said. "I was wrong."
"I have been wrong about so many things," Rafe said, stopping her hands so he could kiss them again. "You still don't understand, Imogen—"
"Don't I?"
"You don't." He said it desperately, because her hands were running over his chest, and he knew that his wife would always be like this, seducing him, taking him. Unless he stopped her. So he did. He eased her to the ground, rolled on top of her, and growled, "Imogen!"
She looked up at him, her eyes all languorous, and said, "I love you, Rafe."
He forgot for a few minutes what he meant to say, what he had to confess. He could tell her later. He wasn't even thinking of that when he'd finally gotten himself out of all that embroidery, and her out of her riding habit. All the thinking he did—and that briefly—was to wonder whether Brinkley was smart enough to stay away from the room (he decided yes).
So, finally, she said it for him.
"Do you think that you might put on the mustache sometimes?" she whispered, with a wicked smile that went straight to his heart. "It tickled, and I found it vastly… amusing."