The Scoundrel Duke of her Heart by Violet Hamers

Chapter Eight

“Ernest,” she said, smiling, “it’s good to see you.”

He rose from his chair and bowed. “Likewise, Jenny. I heard you had taken ill last night at the ball.”

“I am better now as you can see. Please do be seated.” She sat down adjacent to him. “Your grandmother left not long ago.”

“She came to threaten you to marry my cousin, did she not?”

“Persuade, more like.”

“And did she succeed?” he asked, looking worried.

“She did. I have agreed to marry Nicholas.”

“I was hoping for a different answer,” he said, frowning. “Are you certain you want to do this?”

She could be open with Ernest, tell him things she could not tell her father. “The benefits are too great to pass and…” she trailed off and looked away. She had been about to say that Nicholas was not a stranger. Hewas a stranger now.

“And what?” Ernest prodded gently.

“Nicholas has changed,” she said. “I don’t recognize the man he has become.”

Ernest leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees. “Neither do I and I can’t understand what brought on the change.”

Jenny had been wondering the same thing. Before he’d left England after his studies at Oxford, he wrote to her frequently, asked her how she was faring, and even inquired about her growing collection of rocks. But then he had left and all that came after that was silence.

“Has he ever replied to your letters when he was on the continent?” she asked.

“Yes,” Ernest answered, “but they contained very little information. He mostly informed me of where he was.”

“He never replied to me,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands.

“This is my fear. I’m afraid he has changed too much for you but if I am being honest, you are the only woman I would approve for him to marry. Perhaps you can help him with whatever is troubling him.”

Jenny doubted that. “I don’t know if I can.”

He smiled gently at her. “You will be able to. I trust you.”

She chuckled. “We shall see.” He had become the brother she never had and she cherished their relationship. He also knew Nicholas—the new Nicholas—more than she did.

“Does he know that you have accepted his proposal?”

“My father has signed the contract and I gave your grandmother an answer in person. He will know soon enough.”

“He should be delighted,” Ernest drawled and she was unsure whether he was being ironic. “I did not eat breakfast before I came here,” he declared. “Will you be a dear and feed a poor man?”

She laughed and rose to ring the bell for the butler. “You are anything but poor.”

“Well, I have no title,” he joked. She was happy he had outgrown his jealousy of Nicholas’s title. It had caused them a lot of trouble when they were children. Ernest had even refused to play with her because she was Nicholas’s friend.

“And still, fresh-faced debutantes throw themselves at you.” Before she could draw the bell pull, the butler appeared in the doorway with a calling card on a tray. “Another caller?” she asked, picking up the tray.

“Yes, my lady. The Duke of Seaton.” Immediately after he said that Nicholas appeared behind him.

He bowed in greeting before entering the drawing room. Jenny took a moment to order Ernest’s refreshments, doubling the ration to accommodate Nicholas, then joined them.

“I believe felicitations are in order,” Ernest said, smiling slyly.

“I was hoping to find my fiancée alone,” Nicholas replied and Jenny cringed at the word he used.

Ernest leaned back in his seat, looking very comfortable. “I would like to offer my service as your chaperone.”

Nicholas did not deign to respond. “How are you, Jenny?”

“I am well,” she replied.

“You had all of us worried last night.”

“I would be less worried if everyone stopped talking about it.”

“Of course.”

An awkward silence fell over them. This had never happened before and there was no telling the cause.

Ernest broke the silence. “My, is this place tense?”

Jenny looked at Nicholas. He was giving his cousin an irritated look. Then he said. “I would like to speak to Jenny in private.”

“Oh, I will give you as much privacy as you require but I must eat first. I have not eaten anything today.”

“You can eat somewhere else,” Nicholas suggested.

“I could.” Ernest grinned. “Doesn’t mean I would.”

Nicholas groaned, turning to look at her. “This is what I have to put up with every day. Did you know that my grandmother insisted I come with her this morning?”

“She mentioned it. Said you were taking too long to get ready,” Jenny replied.

“And for good reason.” A devilish grin split across his face and she smiled.

“There,” came Ernest’s drawl, “that is much better.”

“Perhaps we should talk about the attention you gave Miss Bexley last night. Two dances, I heard.” Nicholas stretched one of his arms over the back of the sofa and placed his ankle atop the knee of his other leg.

Ernest sat up, frowning and pointing a finger at Nicholas. “I was running from the triplets and you know it. We shall speak no further about this.”

This piqued Jenny’s interest and she joined in. “If you were permitted, would you have asked her for a third dance?”

He rolled his eyes. “I know what the two of you are doing. You are using me to divert your attention from each other. I shan’t be used in such manner.”

He made no effort to remove himself from there. Jenny liked having a shield against Nicholas and Ernest provided that. He had kissed her last night and she had allowed him. She was not sure he wouldn’t try to take the same liberty again, and she didn’t know if could stop him.

The refreshments arrived: tea with small sandwiches that Ernest was all too eager to begin to eat. She poured tea and handed a cup to Ernest before offering Nicholas. “I will not have any, thank you,” he declined politely.

“Cook might have some biscuits. Would you like some?” she asked.

He still hesitated but he finally gave her a nod with, “I cannot decline something sweet.”

Ernest laughed. “I thought you would decline that, too.”

“Tell me, what prevented you from eating in your own home this morning?” Nicholas asked as Jenny made arrangements for his biscuits to be brought.

Ernest grinned and stuffed a sandwich into his mouth.

Nicholas stood and walked over to a small table, then picked up a rock that Jenny had left there earlier.

Jenny glanced in his direction. When she was certain he was not looking at Ernest, she turned to Earnest and shook her head. Seeking to understand, he said. “What is in these sandwiches, Jenny? They are delectable and I wouldn’t mind having more.”

“You can have as many as you want,” she said. He nodded, understanding her request.

Nicholas turned his head sharply to look at him. His eyes moved from Earnest to the plate of sandwiches on the table. “There is no way you can finish all of that and have more.”

“It might take me the entire afternoon but it is possible,” Ernest returned.

Nicholas returned his attention to the rock in his hand. “I didn’t know you still liked these, Jenny.”

“Not much has changed about me.”

He set the rock down. “The day I left for Eton, you wouldn’t come out of that cave to see me. I lost to rocks that day.”

Jenny remembered that day very well. She had been upset that he was leaving her and stayed in a tiny cave that he had never been able to fit into with her rocks. After begging her to come out for what had seemed like hours, he had given up and left before he could be late.

She had compensated him when he came home for the summer. She joined him at the table. “It’s a geode. That day was the first time I ever discovered a geode but I didn’t open it until months later to see what was inside.”

“When did you find this geode?” He pointed at one on the table in front of them.

“I discovered this one last winter. I named it Azure.”

“You give them names?” He sounded surprised.

“Only the significant ones. This one has quite a story.” Her thought traveled back to that day when she had been filled with pain and longing.

“Will you tell me the story?”

The story involved him. No, she couldn’t tell him. “Not today,” she said.

“Fair enough. I suppose I shall have to earn it.” He picked up a geology treatise and began to examine it. “You take this very seriously.”

“Quite. I have a dream of becoming a member of the Geological Society one day,” she revealed to him.

“How are you going to manage that? They do not include women.”

“Hardly anything beyond the realm of marriage includes women. There is a specific matter that I am studying. It might make them take me seriously when I reveal my findings.”

“It is not going to be easy.”

“I know that but I am willing to try.” There was nothing she wanted more than to share her knowledge with the world and the best way to accomplish that was to be acknowledged by the Geological Society.

“Perhaps your status as a duchess might help,” he suggested.

Jenny had not thought of that: Using her rank and power to her advantage like that. “I didn’t know I could do that.”

“The Geological Society might be more inclined to listen to a duchess.”

“What are we talking about?” Ernest called from his seat.

“Rocks and the Geological Society,” Jenny supplied.

“Carry on, then. I have never been able to understand that subject.”

Nicholas turned to her and lowered his voice a notch. “I am happy you agreed to marry me.”

That ought to have drawn a smile from her but it didn’t. “Why?” she asked. “What changed your mind?”

“I already told you, we are a good match.” He smiled.

“I don’t recall you saying that. You spoke of the advantage my family would gain.”

“Forgive me. I was keen on convincing you and I thought it would make for a good argument.”

Jenny was annoyed by his assumption. “Because there is no distinction between me and all the women that marry men for their fortunes.”

“Jenny, that is not what I meant.” There was sincerity in his eyes and she felt her ire ebbing away.

“Fine. I believe you.”

“What changed your mind now?” he returned her question. “You were quite adamant.”

“Your grandmother made me see things from a different angle.” He frowned and she quickly added, “She didn’t force me. I decided to marry you of my own accord.”

One side of his mouth tilted into a rakish smile. “Does that mean you find me tolerable?”

Heat began to rise up her cheeks. “Hardly,” she murmured. “I find your title more tolerable.”

He laughed. “If you weren’t standing before me, I would swear those words did not come from you.”

Her hand was on the table and he picked it up, his eyes boring into hers. “I want you to know that I appreciate your sacrifice and I willnot let you down.” He kissed the back of her hand and a tendril of pleasure traveled from the spot he had kissed to the rest of her body.

Her breathing quickened as desire began to spread through her. It was just a kiss on her hand, and nothing more. She should not be responding to him like this. Jenny removed her hand from his and picked a poetry book from a stack on the table. Being with him like this was dangerous.

“You are courting me, are you not?” she asked, giving him the book.

“We are engaged so a courtship is not necessary, but if that is what you want, I will be happy to oblige.”

“Then read us some verses from that book, please.” She turned and began to return to her seat.

He glanced down at the small volume. “This is Wordsworth’s work.”

“Yes, and you will find it interesting.” There! She had just prevented a disaster from happening.

Nicholas sat down and opened the book, clearing his throat. Ernest looked up from his food and inclined his head, a mischievous smile playing on his lips.

“The Child is father of the man…” he began to read.

As Jenny listened, she realized it spoke of the happy childhood they’d had. The late duke might have been a cruel man but Nicholas had been happy at some point. She yearned for those lost years, yearned to have that light that had been sniffed out back in his eyes.

“You make quite the romantic,” Ernest commented after Nicholas had finished reading.

“I did it for Jenny.”

“Nicholas—” The butler’s knock interrupted what she was saying.

“Sir Phineas, my lady,” he announced.