The Duke Goes Down Read online

  She should have known better, but she did it anyway. She trusted him.

  When he kissed her against the double doors, she permitted it, reveling in the moment, in the warm fuzzy sensation that swept over her.

  After that evening they were sneaking kisses whenever they could. Behind potted ferns. In Aunt Bernadine’s garden. In a dark alcove at the theater.

  All very discreet, of course. They made sure of that. She thought him very considerate to keep her reputation in mind.

  Kissing became like breathing. Something she needed every day from him. It was their secret. A luscious little gem she held in her hands, cupped between them like fairy dust. The secrecy of it all was part of the thrill. That much she knew.

  He spoke of them spending the rest of their lives together and she was eager for Papa’s visit in less than a month to collect her. At that time Edgar would reveal his intentions to her father and ask for his blessing. That was the plan. It was decided. They had discussed it. He had proposed. She had accepted.

  It was happening. Before the year was out she would be a married woman. She would be Mrs. Edgar Fernsby. Imogen only wished her mother was alive to meet her dear Edgar—to see her so blissfully happy. Mama had always said one day would arrive when Imogen found her perfect partner. Imogen had had her doubts, but clearly Mama knew what she was talking about because Imogen had found him.

  She’d had no notion when she left to visit her cousin for the summer that she would meet the love of her life. Her young heart was bursting from the newness and unexpectedness of it all. She saw stars and hearts and rainbows in everything. Which would explain why her maidenly reserve was nonexistent. Nothing had prepared her for such an ardent suitor or his cajoling words. She’d never been the object of any man’s lusts.

  Perhaps it was because her father was a vicar. Gentlemen tended to steer clear of her. Or perhaps it was her provincial existence that did not boast an abundance of suitors or even potential suitors. She was unaccustomed to such an assertive gentleman.

  A few afternoons before Papa was set to arrive, Imogen and Edgar found themselves alone in the garden. A common enough place for them in their interludes.

  Edgar kissed her and the pressure of his lips on hers grew more and more insistent and coaxing.

  She gave a feeble protest as his hand pawed over the front of her gown, her fingers circling his wrist. “Edgar, I don’t think . . .”

  “It’s all right, love.” His gaze fastened on her face, his eyes reminding her of a pleading puppy dog. He brushed his thumb down her cheek. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Of course. Yes.”

  “Then let me make you feel good.”

  She released her grip on him and let him touch her at will. He wanted to and she did love him . . . and trust him. She wanted to please him. They were going to be married, after all.

  Pinning her against the tree, his hand found its way beneath her skirts and he fondled her between her thighs. His fingers unerringly found the slit in her drawers. It was wicked, but not . . . unpleasant. She wouldn’t say his awkward strokes were making her feel good though. Not as he promised.

  “Ahh, there, there, my love,” he panted in her ear, increasing the pressure of his fingers until he probed inside her. “You feel splendid.”

  She winced, inching away from his touch. “Ouch.”

  “Beg your pardon,” he murmured, sliding his fingers out from beneath her skirts. “Let’s try something else, eh?”

  “Something else?” she queried, slightly relieved for an end to that bit of awkwardness.

  “It’s my turn,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows, taking her hand and guiding it to his manhood.

  With a quick glance around, he hastily freed himself of his trousers.

  “Edgar?” She looked around nervously. “Are you certain—”

  “It won’t take long. I’m almost there, love.” He guided her and showed her how he wanted her to move her hand up and down the length of him.

  He wasn’t very large. She didn’t know what to expect, but he was far from intimidating even as he grew slightly in size at her ministrations.

  “That’s it,” he encouraged, dropping his hand away and leaving her to her rubbing and stroking of his rod. His breathing grew erratic. “Oh, I’ve dreamt of you touching me like this, my love. I knew you would be brilliant at it.”

  With a groan, he spent himself and she wrinkled her nose in distaste at the sudden wetness coating her palm and fingers.

  He quickly removed a handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it to her as he tucked himself back inside his trousers.

  “That was brilliant, love,” he said in approval, nodding as he tidied himself.

  Strangely, she did not feel brilliant.

  They returned inside. Separately, of course, for the sake of discretion. But he did not look at her the rest of the evening. She tried to meet his gaze, but he avoided her eyes, and she could not help wondering if she had perhaps been less than brilliant.

  In fact, he stayed away the next couple of days. No calls. No joining them for their walks in the park or for tea.

  Papa arrived and Imogen grew desperate to see Edgar again. Perhaps he had confused the date of Papa’s arrival?

  His absence was worrisome. Beginning to fear that he had fallen ill or to injury, she entrusted a letter to a servant with instructions to deliver only to Edgar at his residence.

  When the servant returned, he assured her that he had placed it directly in Edgar’s hand.

  She had no choice but to wait.

  Just as she had no choice but to leave with Papa as scheduled two days later and return home to Shropshire.

  For days, for weeks, she foolishly looked to the horizon, staring forlornly out the window, wondering what could have happened and searching for Edgar’s figure to appear to fulfill his promise of marriage.

  It was two months later when they received the news.

  Word reached them via a letter from Aunt Bernadine. Winnie was betrothed.

  To Mr. Edgar Fernsby. They would wed at the end of the season.

  A bit of Imogen died that day.

  Her heart most certainly broke, but so did something else inside her. Her last bit of childhood, the innocent inside her that believed in things like love and happily-ever-after and blind trust.

  Mama had been wrong. There was no perfect partner waiting for her. She would never be so foolish to believe that again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As Imogen peered out the window and into the yard, her grip on the filmy edge of the sheer curtains tightened until her knuckles ached. A fingernail poked a hole through the fabric, rending it, but she couldn’t be bothered to care.

  Edgar Fernsby was here. He had dared to come here.

  Blast it. She released the curtain and stared through the crack, scrutinizing Edgar as he stepped into the midmorning light. She searched for the differences in his countenance, if any, that time had wrought.

  He had not changed very much . . . and yet he had.

  His skin was pallid, and the luster was gone from his eyes. She could detect that even from her window.

  He lifted his hat and smoothed a pale hand over his head. His hair had thinned and rested somewhat limply against the shape of his skull.

  She knew without touching that those strands would feel wilting and not at all as they had once beneath her fingers, silky rich and thick.

  Mr. and Mrs. Fernsby stood side by side, a fine pair in their lavish attire—and something seized inside her. A wash of panic. A bitter taste coating her mouth. A tremoring up and down her body.

  “No,” she whispered, stepping back from the window.

  She did not want them here. She did not want to be here. She could not do this. She could not face them. Not yet.

  Panicked, she darted in multiple directions in her small bedchamber, like an ant seeking escape from the rain, before returning back to the window and looking down again.

  They were gone
. They had advanced on the front door. Any moment they would be inside her home. A knock sounded from the bowels of the house. Soon Mrs. Garry would let them inside and she would call up for Imogen to come down.

  No, no, no, no.

  Yanking the curtains wide, she pulled open the window, more grateful than ever for the wall of ivy covering the front of the vicarage. Hiking her skirts up to her thighs, she straddled the windowsill, casting aside any sense of modesty. These were desperate times. She would not endure an entire day with Winifred and Edgar. She would have to face them eventually, at dinner, but she could avoid them during the day. For now, eventually could wait.

  A glance down confirmed her cousins had already entered the house.

  It was now or never.

  As though to hammer that home, Papa called to her from belowstairs, “Imogen!”

  She stretched one slippered toe until she found a trellis hole, reminding and encouraging herself that she had done this before—when she was a child.

  Her pulse jumped against her throat and she hurried her descent, carefully staying to the right of the front door, but to the left of the parlor’s wide mullioned windows. It would not do at all to be spotted climbing down the trellis like a hoyden escaping her cage. Even if she was.

  She did not give herself time to consider the madness of her actions. Papa would simply think she had slipped from the house to complete an errand without them noticing. Mrs. Garry might wonder how she had not noticed Imogen departing, but she would never believe she had done anything so rash as to slip out her window.

  Dropping down on the ground, she shook her skirts back into place and then dusted her hands on the fabric, carefully wading through the front flowers, trying not to crush them as she stepped up beside the window.

  She was careful to remain out of sight as she peeked into the parlor.

  Papa was standing at the hearth beside Mr. Fernsby and Winnie was seated on the sofa, speaking in a lofty manner to Molly as she tugged off her velvet gloves. Molly was their occasional maid who helped out Mrs. Garry a few days a week. She looked a little apprehensive as she faced the full force of Winifred.

  Imogen could not hear her cousin’s words but she could surmise she was instructing the girl on some matter or another. Perhaps instructions for their bedchamber, or the tea service yet to be served to them. Winnie had always excelled at bossing others around.

  “That was quite the most singular way I’ve ever observed someone exit a house.”

  Imogen spun around with a gasp to find Mr. Butler standing not two yards behind her, his head cocked at a curious angle as he studied her.

  “Do you never announce yourself?” she hissed, hopping clear of the window, again taking care not to stomp on her flowers.

  He first surprised her in the Blankenship gardens, then in her very own home, and now here again. She had never seen so much of him before, day after day after day. The man needed to wear a bell around his neck.

  “I thought I just did.”

  She cast a worried glance over her shoulder, fearful she might be detected by the occupants inside her house, then stepped hurriedly forward, determined to put as much distance between herself and her cousins as possible.

  Oh, she would have to face them. She knew that. But it didn’t have to be now. And it didn’t have to be like this. If she could minimize all time spent with them until they departed, the better for her. It would mean less time pasting a pretend smile on her face.

  Mr. Butler dogged her heels as she circled the vicarage and opened the side gate that cut through the vicarage cemetery.

  It wasn’t as morbid as one might think a cemetery to be. It was full of blooming rosebushes and flowers, and a beautiful old oak tree sprawled at the center of the graveyard. As a child, when she first moved here, she had climbed that tree and sat high in its branches, looking out in awe at the vicarage and the surrounding fields and trees, the myriad rooftops in the nearby village, and the distant smoking chimney at the Henry farm.

  The cemetery grounds were very green and well tended. Fresh vases of colorful blooms sat at several of the graves. Papa saw to that. Well, rather, he once saw to that when he had remembered to do such things. Now she remembered to do it, and the task fell to her along with the rest of her increasing duties.

  The gate had a longer than usual delay before it clanged after her, and she sent yet another worried glance over her shoulder to confirm she wasn’t being followed by Fernsby—an irrational fear perhaps, but she felt the flash of it, nonetheless.

  Indeed, she was not being followed by Edgar.

  Mr. Butler was there, passing through the gate after her, his handsome expression cast into grim lines.

  “Are you stalking me?” she demanded.

  “As you are fleeing and not stopping for a much needed discussion, then yes. I am following you. Indeed, I am.”

  She felt herself scowl. “Go away.”

  The arrival of her cousins made fresh the humiliation she had thought she buried years ago. She needed to find someplace to lick her wounds in private and compose herself.

  Mr. Butler’s presence did not help in that endeavor.

  She had scarcely spent any time in his company whilst he was a duke, but now that he was plain and simple Mr. Butler he was everywhere. She could not escape him. As soon as she had the thought another intruded. There was nothing plain or simple about this man.

  He had kissed her and she had kissed him back and she had never felt as alive as she had in that moment when his mouth had locked on hers.

  Shaking her head, she was determined to put that behind her. It was an aberration. A thing that had simply happened in a flight of temper. It didn’t mean anything.

  She wove a path between tombstones and stone crosses and crypts. “Why won’t you leave me be?” She felt an odd mixture of dread and elation at his persistent attention. It baffled her and she clearly was not in a state to make sense of it.

  “I want to know everything. No more evasions. No more lies.”

  Everything? All her truths? That gave her a jolt of alarm. The pulse at her neck gave a skittering leap.

  Because the truth was this: Kissing Peregrine Butler had brought forth feelings and sensations she had never felt before. Not even when she was ten and eight and believed herself in love. Even besotted as she had been all those years ago, a kiss from Edgar had never made her feel as splendid as she had felt with Peregrine Butler and that was dangerous.

  Longing was dangerous. Especially for a firmly committed spinster who had no hope of developing anything lasting with the likes of Mr. Butler. He was after one type of female. And she was not after anyone.

  She could certainly never tell him all of that.

  Shaking her head as though that would perfectly clear it, she demanded, “What do you mean?”

  “I want to know all the bloody rumors you’ve been spreading. I don’t want to wake up in the morning to any more surprises.”

  He was here because of that. Of course. He knew of the latest rumor. She winced.

  “Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Charming unsuspecting heiresses?” And their papas. Yes. She’d prefer he do that if it meant he left her alone. She felt too vulnerable right now . . . too raw for this.

  “I would love to be doing that very thing, however, you’ve made that a difficult endeavor.” He sounded angry now.

  She winced again. She had put a bit of a crimp in his agenda. She should not have said that thing to Mrs. Hathaway. She knew that now. In truth, she’d known it the night she did it. In her bed after the Blankenship ball, staring into the dark, the truth, the wrongness of her actions, had found her.

  Shaking her head, she reached the back gate to the cemetery and passed through it, every stride taking her farther and farther from her house and the wretched Mr. Fernsby. The knot in her chest gradually eased.

  She lengthened her strides for the line of trees ahead. They loomed like the Promised Land.

  “Miss Bates, wou
ld you please stop for a moment?” he bit out in exasperation behind her.

  She kept going. She spent a good amount of her time on foot. Rarely did she take a horse or carriage anywhere when on her own. Not a day passed when she did not walk from one end of this shire to the other end. The fact that he could keep up with her brisk pace illustrated that he was fit in his own right.

  “You realize you have no coat on? The day is rather chill.”

  She glanced down at herself, realizing he spoke true. There was a bit of chill to the air, but she could not summon the will to care. She would not go back home for anything. At least not until much later. Not until she must.

  “Where are you going?” he pressed.

  She shook her head slightly. Away.

  Away was all that mattered.

  Why had they come? They’d never done so before and she knew from Winnie’s occasional letters that they had vacationed in Scotland before. Never before had they stopped in Shropshire en route north. She’d assumed it was Edgar’s good sense keeping them away. Given their history, it was the prudent thing to do. This visit was not prudent at all.

  It was only two nights. At least according to Winnie’s letter. Perhaps less than that once—if—they realized Papa was not himself. Prolonged social engagements could be awkward with Papa. He grew overtired and repeated himself, forgetting what had already been spoken. For that reason Imogen was selective about what invitations they accepted and scarce was the occasion when they hosted overnight guests.

  Larger, short-lived events like the Blankenships’ ball where Papa was no single individual’s sole focus worked best. She didn’t want it bandied all over the shire that her father was incapacitated in any way. The new duke could arrive any day and word could reach his ears that Papa was less than whole. On his whim, they could be ousted. Then where would they go? What would become of them?

  “Miss Bates!” Her pace did not slow. “Imogen!”