Discouraging the Duke by Alexa Aston
Chapter Twelve
The word lingered in the air.
Murderer . . .
Fury filled Emery.
“Apologize at once to His Grace!” she shouted at Jernigan.
The old man glared at her. “Why should I, Miss Jenson? It is the God’s truth. This man shot and killed an innocent little boy. Everyone knew about it when it happened.” He snorted. “They said it was an accident. But Winslow sent his son away. We all knew what that meant.”
Horror rippled through her. The man beside her had killed the youngest boy in the portrait. No, not this man. A boy. The duke had been but a few years older than his younger brother. Though she had only met him yesterday, after spending time in his company, Emery knew this was no vindictive killer.
“It most certainly was an accident,” she said, hot anger pouring through her. “You were not present at the incident, Mr. Jernigan. Neither were any of the townspeople. How dare you slander His Grace with such an accusation! Don’t you think he suffered enough, losing his brother in such a manner? And for you to perpetuate lies about the circumstances—all these years later—makes you guilty of far more than an accident.”
Emery narrowed her eyes. “You will apologize at once and refrain from spreading such falsehoods in the future. Is that understood?”
Jernigan’s mouth tightened. He faced the duke. “I am sorry if I have offended you, Your Grace.”
With that, he stormed into his store.
“I don’t think that was much of an apology at all,” she said with distaste. “He wasn’t sorry one whit.”
“Come, Miss Jenson,” the duke said, taking her elbow and guiding her away from the store and down the street to Mrs. Fisher’s establishment.
“Wait with the horses,” he said gently, lifting her into the saddle and going inside the bakery.
Winslow returned less than a minute later, carrying a basket. He mounted Zeus.
“How can you be so calm?” she asked him. “After Mr. Jernigan made such horrid accusations?”
He shrugged. “It isn’t anything I haven’t heard.”
She heard the dejection in his voice.
“I knew the old gossip would arise once I returned to Wildwood. Fortunately, many of the servants are new and may never have heard the stories.”
“That’s all they are,” she said. “Stories. Why, you were but a little boy yourself. No one should blame you for . . . an accident.”
The duke gazed at her sadly. “While I am grateful for your passionate defense of me, I would ask you to keep your thoughts to yourself in the future. Fighting back—whether with fists or words—will not quiet the gossip. I must simply cease to acknowledge it.”
He wheeled Zeus and took off. She gave chase on Demeter. He slowed as they came to the church. She saw he gazed at the graveyard next to the building.
“Would you like to stop and see him?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know if I can,” Winslow admitted, his voice breaking.
Emery reached out without thinking and placed her hand on his arm. “You should. You have been gone a very long time.”
“Hullo!” a voice called.
She dropped her hand and turned, seeing Reverend Raleigh approaching.
“Good day,” she responded. “Your Grace, I would like to introduce you to Reverend Raleigh. He and his wife have been in Woodmorrow for what—seven—or is it eight years?”
“Eight, Miss Jenson,” the jovial, rotund man replied. “And it is a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace. Might you wish to come in?”
She glanced to the duke and he nodded. “We would be delighted,” he replied, his tone solemn, and she knew he was still deeply affected by the incident at Mr. Jernigan’s store.
“Bring your horses around,” the clergyman said. “Miss Jenson will know where to go. I will have Mrs. Raleigh put on the kettle.” Raleigh hurried away.
“We don’t have to go in,” she said.
“I would like to. I need . . . time.”
“Very well. Follow me.”
She cantered to the vicarage and guided Demeter behind it.
“We can secure our horses here.”
Winslow came around and helped her from the saddle without speaking. His eyes had lost their earlier sparkle. Her heart went out to him.
Impulsively, she reached and took his hand.
“Don’t let the mistakes of the past swallow you,” she advised. “The past is the past. You must look to your present and future. You are in a position of great power now, Your Grace. Do good with what you have been given.”
She squeezed his hand and stepped away, hurrying to the front of the vicarage. The door swung open and Reverend Raleigh ushered her inside. The duke followed. The clergyman led them to the parlor, where he introduced his wife to the duke.
They spent a calming hour with the couple, talking first about the area in general and the posts Raleigh had held before accepting the living at Woodmorrow.
“Your father brought me here,” Raleigh told them. “He had a distant cousin whom my father had tutored. Somehow, it resulted in my coming to Woodmorrow.”
“I have a close friend who is a vicar,” Winslow said. “The Reverend William Finchley. He was offered the living by the Earl of Marksby when we finished university and took his orders shortly afterward.”
“I have never meet Finchley, Your Grace,” Raleigh said. “I am sure he is a fine vicar.”
Emery saw a smile tug at the corners of the duke’s mouth as he said, “Finch is good at whatever he does.”
She assumed this was one of the loyal friends he had mentioned to her earlier.
Mrs. Raleigh asked about the duke’s time at war and Emery could tell he gave her a sanitized version of events.
Finally, the duke rose and the others followed suit.
“Thank you for the tea,” he said. “It was very kind of you.”
“We hope to see you in church every Sunday, Your Grace,” the vicar said.
“I attended the church as a boy, always sitting in the family pew with my brothers. My parents were often in London and our governess or tutor would make certain we came in order to represent the family each Sunday.”
She noticed he didn’t mention if he would continue this practice.
They said their goodbyes and returned to their horses.
“I think I do want to visit Tony’s grave,” he said quietly.
“Would you care to go alone?”
“No. Please come with me.” His voice came out a whisper.
They left the horses behind and walked to the graveyard next door to the church. The duke looked about as if unsure where to go.
“It is this way,” she told him. “At the far end.”
As they walked toward the Notley family plot, she added, “I mentioned to you my interest in history. I am very familiar with this graveyard and the stories it tells. The untimely deaths of the young. The headstones that reveal the few who lived to a ripe old age. The prominent families with beautiful markers.”
She led him to the Notley plots and then halted. “Your brother is over there. Your father and older brother lie nearby. I will wait here.”
He nodded and went slowly toward the graves, passing by those who had recently died and going straight to the brother he called Tony. She knew the gravestone read Anthony Notley, Beloved Son of the Duke and Duchess of Winslow, 1789-1796. It had been one which had intrigued her, not only because her parents were in the duke’s employ but because the boy had died so young. Emery had wondered over the years what had happened to Anthony. If he had been fragile and in ill health. If young Anthony had perished in the rush of the influenza which had taken the area by storm since several other graves were dated with that same year, some of them even listing influenza as the cause of death.
Never, though, had she thought the boy had been killed in an accident. Shot by his brother. She supposed they had come across one of the old duke’s pistols and in playing with it, it somehow had gone off. Still, it didn’t seem in character with the man who now knelt at his brother’s grave. The Duke of Winslow was a deliberate, rational man. He himself had told her he was a serious boy, teased for his solemn manner by his friends. It seemed incongruent that he would act in such an irresponsible manner. Then it came to her.
It was the oldest brother’s fault.
Ralph Notley had been careless and carefree in his manner when he had come to Wildwood upon rare occasions. Instinct told her he had been the one to pull the trigger that day.
Emery moved toward the duke, whose head was now bowed as he wept. Her heart went out to this lonely man. She understood loneliness because it was her constant companion. Though now a duke, he seemed as alone as a person could be. His only living family member was the Duchess of Winslow and Emery couldn’t think of a more self-centered woman.
Moving to stand behind him as he knelt, she placed her gloved hand on his broad shoulder. He quivered beneath her touch. Then his own hand engulfed hers as he placed it atop hers as his body trembled in grief. She felt the warmth as it spread through her.
His weeping subsided but he continued to kneel on one knee, his hand still covering hers.
“I loved him, you know. He was the only one I loved. My parents were rarely at Wildwood and abandoned us to the care of servants. Ralph only thought of himself and had little to do with Tony or me. We were a pair. Always together.” His voice broke.
“Your older brother—Ralph—he was the one responsible, wasn’t he?”
His hand tightened around hers a moment before he released it. The duke stood but remained facing away from her, staring out across the graveyard.
“Why would you say that?” he asked, his voice distant.
“Because you loved your younger brother. You were his confidant and protector.”
“You couldn’t know that.”
“I feel it,” she told him. “And I know a bit about the previous duke. He was selfish. Irresponsible. You, on the other hand, Your Grace, are thoughtful and deliberate. You were not the kind of boy who would recklessly play with a firearm, especially around a beloved, trusting brother.”
He didn’t speak. Emery studied his large, broad frame, so still and waiting.
“It was exactly the kind of the thing the most recent duke would do. He was always a braggart. He treated the servants almost as poorly as your mother does. I can see where he would hold his younger brothers in little regard.”
Winslow slowly turned to face her. His blue eyes were filled with anguish. The scar, white on his cheek, stood out on his tanned face, almost throbbing.
“Did he give you that scar?” she asked.
“No. My father did. He struck me when I denied shooting Tony. Ralph told him I was the one who had pulled the pistol’s trigger—and Winslow was always one to believe his heir apparent.”
“He is the one who sent you away?”
The duke nodded. “Shortly after the funeral. I was sent to Turner Academy, a school with a reputation for taking in boys who had done terrible things. Boys whose families didn’t want them.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. “So you were sent away and never came back. Not even for holidays.”
“No,” he whispered.
Emery took his hands in hers. “How old were you?”
“It was my tenth birthday that day. Cook made me a cake.”
The same cake they had shared yesterday.
“I kept wanting Ralph to tell the truth. For my father to believe me. For my mother to intervene and keep me from being sent away.” He shook his head and looked at her with clear eyes. “I learned I was better off without them. The instructors at Turner Academy didn’t just teach academics. They molded boys into the best men they could be. I made good friends, friends who to this day are closer than brothers. I survived.”
She searched his face, sympathy for the unjustly accused boy he had been growing within her. Tears cascaded down her cheeks.
“I don’t need your pity, Miss Jenson,” he said harshly.
“It isn’t pity I feel, Your Grace. It is sorrow for the injustice you suffered. Heartache for the helpless little boy who was uprooted from his home and taken from everything he had ever known.”
His hands tightened on hers. “And what do you feel for the man, Miss Jenson?”
“Desire,” she whispered.
His eyes darkened. “So do I.”
His head bent, moving closer until his lips touched hers. A spark flashed between them. He released her hands and took her by the shoulders, drawing her to him, even as his mouth pressed firmly against hers. Her palms moved to his broad chest, feeling the hard muscles beneath his layers of clothing.
She had never been kissed. What the dead duke had tried to force upon her didn’t count. Emery never guessed what it might feel like. A humming seemed to invade her body and her senses sharpened. The feel of his wool coat beneath her palms. The sandalwood soap rising from his heated skin. Hers, too, felt on fire as he continued to kiss her, making her heart slam against her ribs and her knees threaten to buckle.
Then he eased the pressure and his tongue slid along the seam of her mouth, back and forth, hypnotizing her. He teased her mouth open and his tongue swept inside, filling her. She tasted the cinnamon from the sticky bun and something else. Dark. Masculine. Heady. Slowly, she responded, becoming an active participant as her tongue mated with his playfully.
He groaned and his hands slid from her shoulders, down her back, bringing her against him. Want—or need—rippled through her as her hands moved up his chest and grasped his shoulders for support, kneading them as if she were a purring kitten. Her breasts began to ache and dampness sprouted between her thighs, in her most private of places.
This was madness.
Emery was kissing a duke. In public. A man so far above her station that it caused her head to reel. Though they were in the far corner of the church’s graveyard, anyone who entered it might see them.
She clutched his shoulders and then pushed him away, breaking the kiss. At once, his heat, which had enfolded her, was absent, leaving her bereft. Her breath came in quick, short spurts, as did his. He gazed at her, those blue eyes glowing with need.
“My sincerest apologies, Your Grace,” she said stiffly and she whirled, striding across the graveyard and back to Demeter.
He caught up to her, his fingers locking around her elbow, bringing her to a stop.
“What is your name?” he rasped.
She tried to shake him off but he only tightened his grasp.
“Your name, Miss Jenkins. Your Christian name.”
“Emery,” she managed to get out, forcing herself to keep her hands at her sides instead of bunching them in his coat and bringing him toward her again.
“That is an unusual name,” he remarked, his eyes roaming her face.
“It was my mother’s maiden name. She was an only child and the surname died with my grandfather’s passing. Mama said it was a small tribute to the man who had raised her to be independent and hardworking.”
“Your mother has instilled those traits in you, as well, Emery.” His lips smiled in approval.
“It isn’t proper for you to call me by my first name, Your Grace,” she said stiffly.
“Mine is Miles.”
Miles . . .
It suited him.
Emery shrugged off the thought. “Your Grace—”
“Miles,” he urged, his fingers now massaging her shoulders.
“Your Grace,” she emphasized. “I apologize for getting carried away back there.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said, his thumbs lazily rotating in circles.
She swallowed. “Still, I am asking for your forgiveness.”
“We were equal participants in the kiss, Emery.”
She loved the sound of her name on his sensual lips.
“Nevertheless, it cannot happen again,” she said primly.
“Why?”
“Because I won’t let it.”
She broke away and hurried to Demeter. Though her legs were long, his were longer and he easily caught up to her.
“Allow me to help you into the saddle,” he said.
“I can manage on my own,” she said stubbornly.
“Can you?” He took a step back, crossing his arms and watching her in amusement.
She struggled but somehow managed to hoist herself into the saddle, thankful she hadn’t been riding Zeus today. With his height, it would have been impossible to mount.
“Impressive,” he said, a slow smile spreading across his face.
Emery looked down upon him. “I will not be trifled with. Your brother thought he could behave in a similar manner. He was wrong. I made certain he understood that.”
She pressed her knee against Demeter’s side and the horse took off. She didn’t let up until she reached the Wildwood stables, where she handed her horse off to a groom and told him of the supplies to be picked up at Mr. Jernigan’s store.
As she made her way back to the house, the Duke of Winslow was nowhere in sight.