Lily Dalton - Never Desire a Duke

“Claxton,” Sophia exclaimed, visibly mortified.

“Then a Scottish divorce, perhaps, which allows for a husband’s adultery as a cause of action.” He pretended to ponder the idea, tapping his finger against his lips. “We’ve the estate in Inverness to establish residency. I resided there for nearly a month after…well, I’m certain your investigator can find some local doxy to say she was my—”

“I believe a separation will suffice,” she blurted coldly. “You’re all bluster. I suspect you want a child as badly as I do, not the scandal and nastiness of a divorce.”

He laughed into the shadows, a bitter sound. Of course, she was right. He wanted a child with Sophia, or no child at all. She had him by the bollocks.

This night had gone nothing at all like he had planned. It had been his intention in coming to Camellia House to confess every one of the allegations she had spoken—except for Lady Darch, which of course had occurred before their betrothal—to ask her forgiveness for giving her cause to question his commitment to their marriage. But the same sins, when described by her innocent lips, had become infinitely more indefensible than he’d allowed himself to believe. How could he have blundered so badly and caused such damage to the trust between them that she now despised him so completely? He had no idea how to take her pain away or how to return their world to center. At the same time, he felt so angry at her. He’d harbored such hope. He could not help but feel betrayed.

Sophia fled to the window and pushed aside the curtain to stare into the night, so she would not have to look at him anymore, he knew.

“What a miserable Christmas this has turned out to be,” she announced.

Christmas. His mother had always made their Christmases special. When the duchess Elizabeth had lived within these walls, Camellia House had been draped in greenery, warmth, and light, nothing like the cold, cavernous shell that surrounded them now.

For years after her death, he’d not known a true Christmas. His father did not celebrate the occasion, finding such observances overly sentimental and gauche. Later, while an officer in the army, he had attended the occasional Christmas ball or supper, but afterward had retired to his quarters alone.

The only Christmas in recent memory where he’d felt included in a family and at peace with the world had been last Christmas, which he’d spent at Wolverton’s country estate with Sophia and her family. A magical memory. How had he allowed things to fall apart so completely since that time?

He stared at her back. She stood proudly, her head erect and her shoulders back, distant and unattainable. From out of nowhere, a torch flamed into blazing life inside his chest, one born of desire so intense and hot he knew he must do whatever possible to claim her again. To ease his soul-deep need. If only for one last time.

“Very well,” he muttered. “I will agree to your demand.”

She did not grant him so much as a glance over her shoulder, but remained motionless. “I rather thought you would.”

From outside, the sound of the wind arose, battering the house. The walls and floors creaked. The windows rattled.

“Since you seem to be holding all the cards,” he said, “where do you propose we go from here?”

We’ll return to London first thing in the morning. I’d prefer that you take residence at your club.”

Elbow on the mantel, Vane pinched his fingertips against the bridge of his nose, an attempt to soothe the pounding inside his head. She was throwing him out of his own house?

“How do you suppose, then,” he demanded harshly, “that I get you with child?”

For a long time she stood in silence, back to him. Would she turn around and tell him they could still step back from this cliff? That separating wasn’t what she wanted? Did he even want her to change her mind, with the trust between them so irrevocably destroyed?

She turned, the suddenness of the motion parting her scarlet redingote below her waist to reveal a lace froth of petticoats and the pointed tips of embroidered green mules. “We will come to a mutual agreement as to when you will visit.”

Though buttoned up tight, all the way to her high velvet collar, she’d never been more alluring than now. Never more beautiful and composed. He almost hated her for it.

“But first,” she said, “I want the documents drawn and all agreements in writing.”

Claxton blinked, dismayed. “What other agreements are there?”

“That I will retain Sylventon Place and the income from that estate, as I brought that property into our marriage—”

Claxton grunted in assent.

“And that the child, once born, will live with me to be raised by me and my family.”

Her words came like a cudgel to the back of his head.

“No.” He shook his head, a snarl forming on his lips. “I don’t agree to that, not completely.”

“You will,” she answered calmly, hovering at the edge of the candlelight.

He felt dragged in the dirt. Drawn and quartered.

“You’ve got this all worked out in your mind already, don’t you?” he growled.

She responded in a quiet voice. “I had a lot of time alone to think about it.”

He shook his head. “Again, I won’t agree.”

“We will work out all the details then.” She circled round the end of the settee.

“Whatever,” he snapped.

From the cushion, she collected her valise, her cap, and the oil lamp and stood like a woman preparing for an arduous journey. “Unless there’s something else, I am very tired and shall retire.”

Only she didn’t leave. She hovered there, staring at him.

“What do you expect?” he barked. “That I should bid you a good night?”

It was not a good night. It was a terrible night.

She looked him up and down. Her lip twitched as if she found him lacking. “I don’t expect anything from you, Claxton. I haven’t for a very long time.”

With a glare, she disappeared down the corridor and up the stairs. The glow of the lamp dimmed with her every step, until he was abandoned to deeper darkness, with only a dying fire by which to see. Her footsteps grew faint, and at last there came the sound of a door closing.

The sound gutted him. Only in the ensuing silence did he acknowledge what he’d done. He had agreed to a legal separation from the only woman he had ever loved.

There were men on the battlefield who when faced with overwhelming force chose to blast their brains out rather than be torn apart by their enemy. In one fell moment, he’d done much the same, murdering his dreams rather than exposing himself to failure. He’d never been a coward in life or in war, but when faced with the disdain in his wife’s bewitching green eyes, he had run like a callow boy.

He muttered an oath and said to the portrait over the mantel, “Are you quite happy?”

The painted countenance responded with a sneer of disdain, as his father had so often done in life. Of course, anyone else looking at the portrait would have noted only a dignified mien, the same expression emulated in countless portraits of important men. But Vane saw it. The artist had captured the dark glimmer, there in the farthest reaches of those steely blue eyes. Likely, his father had been an insufferable ass during each sitting. Oh yes, it was there. The elder lordship’s general attitude of contempt for all things that breathed.

Throwing open one cabinet and then another, he searched for a bottle of something, anything strong and numbing. As a rule, he did not drink excessively. He mistrusted the recklessness that spirits inspired, the looseness of tongue, preferring instead to remain always in complete control.

Not tonight. Tonight he wanted to get ape drunk. His search yielded no such paradise, and the wine cellar was most certainly locked and the key in Mrs. Kettle’s possession down in the village. Though less desirable in the given moment, he did, however, find another lamp and a store of oil.

With the lamp lighting his way, he followed the path Sophia had taken, noting the waning light seeping out from under the door of the ducal bedchamber, his rightful domain. God, he swore he could smell her fragrance and even hear the sensual brush of velvet against her skin. He felt like a feral animal, left out in the cold, when he ought to be there in the bed beside her. How would he get a moment’s rest this close to her? With this shameful need even now burning in his blood? Instead he sullenly sought out the room he’d occupied as a boy.

Everything was familiar here, each panel and stone etched into his memory. There were his books. His drawings. Even his collection of miniature soldiers painted by his own boyish hand, waiting just where he’d left them on a table beside the window. But there were no linens or pillows. There wasn’t even a mattress on the bed, just bare ropes. A glance into the other rooms—not hers—provided a similar result, and all hope of a comfortable night fell away. He returned to the great room.

He’d passed many a night in less gracious circumstances, on cold earth, unyielding stone, or creaking, damp boards, believing anything was better than a bed provided by his father’s tainted largesse.

Though narrow and shorter than he by a good foot, the settee would more than suit for the next few hours.

Sophia stepped back from the fire she’d only just managed, after numerous failed attempts, to coax to life. Accustomed since birth to the skilled assistance of servants, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d built her own. That she’d successfully accomplished the task gave her some satisfaction. If she could build a fire, she could certainly survive her future alone.