Page 21 of Don’t Let Your Dukes Grow Up To Be Scoundrels (Dukes in Disguise #1)

Chapter Twenty

After an interminable rainy spell, the first of May dawned bright and beautiful. The entire village and all the surrounding countryside was covered in blooms, profusions of flowers that seemed to have burst out of their buds overnight and turned Little Kissington into a veritable bower of climbing wisteria, sunny yellow daffodils, and carpets of bluebells.

Gemma hated it.

Oh, she’d put on a smile and helped the village children with their flower crowns and let Lucy decorate the taproom with vases and jars full of colorful buds and garlands of spring greenery. She helped Bess in the kitchen, turning out dozens of scones and cakes and pies for the village fête. She supervised the raising of the maypole in the Five Mile’s courtyard and setting up the stalls for selling Bess’s wares.

But she felt as though she was doing everything in a fog, as though a light mist separated her from the rest of humanity and all its doings.

She was there, but not there. Nothing mattered much.

She opened the door of Five Mile House and nearly tripped over a pile of baskets. “What?—?”

“They’re May Baskets,” Bess said. She was busily setting up a stall dedicated to pork pies and sausage rolls, the savory, buttery smell of her creations wafting through the air. “Hasn’t anyone ever left you a May Basket before?”

Crouching to inspect them, Gemma shook her head. “May the first is just another day in London.”

“Well, here, it’s tradition to gather flowers in baskets and leave them on our neighbors’ doorsteps.”

Gemma picked up a shallow, oval basket laden with long-stemmed wild orchids, their purple elegance interspersed with cheery yellow cowslips and white snowdrops.

The sight of it, and the knowledge that one of her neighbors had gifted it, pierced through the fog that enveloped her like a ray of sunlight. “How utterly lovely.”

“’Tis, isn’t it?” Bess agreed, her small white lace cap bobbing. She was wearing a white dress trimmed in red, as were most of the girls and women milling about the courtyard making their preparations for the festivities. Gemma was glad she and Lucy had found out about the dress code in time to put together outfits for themselves, though as ever, Lucy’s simple white frock was better suited to a girl several years younger.

Gemma had unearthed her own white gown from the depths of her wardrobe. She hadn’t worn it since her disastrous debut. It was tighter across the bosom than she remembered, rendering the demure style slightly naughtier.

Of course, as Lucy had remarked, Gemma could make a long-sleeved gown that buttoned up to the neck look naughty, so Gemma had shrugged and squeezed herself into the white silk dress.

“You didn’t want to walk in the parade?” Bess asked tentatively, dusting crumbs from her hands and coming over to help gather up the May Baskets. The May Day parade started on the village green and would end at Five Mile House, where the youngest of the village children would name a May Queen and crown her with flowers before commencing the maypole dancing.

“I sent Lucy with Mama,” Gemma answered shortly, then sighed.

Bess had apologized for her part in Hal’s deception days ago, when Gemma first stormed back into the inn’s kitchen, sopping wet and palm still stinging from the slap she’d given Hal. Bess had seemed to realize instantly what must have occurred, and she had been quick to own up to playing along with Hal.

Gemma had accepted her apology—it turned out to have been true, what Hal told her about Bess’s family all but raising him, and Gemma could readily understand Bess siding with her almost-brother against an outsider like Gemma. Still, relations had been strained between the two women ever since.

But this morning, as the May Day Festival started to take shape around them and the air was filled with anticipation and excitement, Gemma couldn’t bring herself to keep up the chilly tension. She was tired.

Holding grudges took a lot of energy, she’d found.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucy is chosen as Queen of the May,” she offered with a smile. “She’s quite the prettiest girl in the village, and she’s become such a favorite of the local people. I’m sure most of these baskets are intended as tribute to her.”

“Don’t be so certain,” Bess countered, the line of her shoulders relaxing and her cheeks dimpling with relief at Gemma’s friendly overture. “The Five Mile has always been an important part of the community, but since you took over, it’s only become more of a gathering place. You’ve a knack for this work, Gemma. And it means something to the people hereabouts.”

Another ray of sunlight pierced Gemma’s fog, dispelling the clouds even more. She felt the corners of her mouth lift in a true smile for the first time in days.

“Everyone comes here for your food,” she told Bess. “That’s the real draw. Don’t think I’m unaware.”

Linking their arms, Bess led her down the steps to start distributing the May Basket flowers among the stalls and tables bordering the stable yard. “I’ll have you know I’ve been giving Cousin Flora more responsibility in the kitchen lately. If she keeps on as she’s going, I fancy one day I could even leave the place in her hands long enough to travel. See a bit more of the world than this sweet little corner of it.”

“I didn’t know you had a yen to travel! We must make that happen.”

Bess sighed, her smile dimming slightly as they paused beside the dais that had been erected beside the stables. Ropes of greenery festooned the front of it, and a green sheet had been tacked up on the wall of the stable as a backdrop. “It’s been a dream of mine since I was a girl. Oh, to see London! But like as not, it’s only a dream and nothing more. Little Kissington is my home. What call do I have to go gallivanting off to Town?”

“Everyone should see London at least once in their lives, but it’s not the center of the universe.”

Bess looked askance. “I thought you missed it.”

Arrested, Gemma paused and thought about what she’d just said. “I thought so, too,” she replied thoughtfully. “Hmm. Perhaps it’s just as well that I’ve developed a liking for country living. Stonehaven isn’t the type to want to attend countless balls and soirées. I imagine once we’re wed, we’ll spend much of our time at his estate in Hertfordshire.”

“So you’re still planning to accept the earl’s proposal, then.”

Bess’s tone was neutral, but Gemma found herself bristling defensively. As if there was any other choice to be made. “He returns from London today, and I will give him my answer. Until then, I’d like to simply try to enjoy the fête.”

Her friend appeared to hesitate before saying in a rush, “You know Hal will be here later, don’t you?”

All of Gemma’s muscles tensed, her insides turning to jelly. She had not seen Hal since that awful morning. Nor had he made any attempt to contact her. Just as she’d demanded—so why did it feel so dreadfully wrong?

It wasn’t wrong, she reminded herself firmly. It was what she wanted. Nevertheless, she had realized sometime in the past few days that as the area’s largest landowner and a true pillar of the community, the Duke of Havilocke would undoubtedly have a role in one of the county’s most important annual festivals.

She was fully in command of herself; she would face him with utter equanimity. And if the sight of him killed something inside of her, well, no one but Gemma would ever know.

“What is that to me? We are nothing to one another,” she declared, head held high. “Perhaps there was a brief moment when I thought we might be…friends, but clearly he did not feel the same.”

“I’m sure that’s not true…”

“It is true,” Gemma insisted. “Friends do not lie to one another.”

“I lied,” Bess pointed out. “We all did, in keeping Hal’s secret from you. Yet you forgave me. Can you not forgive Hal as well?”

Gemma was shaking her head and pulling away from Bess before she’d even finished asking the question. “No, no. No! Bess, please, do not ask it of me. What you and the others did—it’s different. It was not your idea to deceive us, you only went along with it as a favor. To Hal. Hal, to whom I told things that I’ve never admitted to another person…and all the while, he hadn’t even told me his real name.”

The humiliation of it stung the surface of her skin like a swarm of bees protecting their hive, but the sense of betrayal…that went far deeper.

“That’s not completely fair, he’s always gone by ‘Hal’, since he was a wee babe.” Bess sighed. “But the rest is true enough, I suppose. It was a mad, foolish thing to do, and you can be certain we all told him so. Repeatedly. But you can’t tell a duke anything; even one who knows how to thatch a roof.”

Gemma snorted. “I suppose he’s no different from most men in that respect.”

While they’d been talking, the courtyard had been filling up with townspeople and families from the tenant farms dotted around the village. It was a sea of girls in white dresses, running through the gathering throng, laughing and waving red ribbons. The music from the Morris dancers in the approaching parade filtered through the buzz of the crowd, pipes and drums and clacking sticks setting up a beat that got toes tapping and hands clapping.

The air was full of the scent of flowers and flaky pastry, the mood of the crowd infectious. When Lucy ran up to grasp Gemma’s hands and swing her into a quick dance, Gemma found herself able to laugh and enjoy the moment.

Even Henrietta had been prevailed upon to forego her widow’s weeds for the day of the celebration, and the white dress and red sash went very well with her pink cheeks and sparkling blue eyes. She’d chosen a hat that stood nearly two feet tall, wide-brimmed and cheerfully trimmed with bunches of cherries.

Gemma smiled to see Henrietta looking so much like her old self again. Actually in some ways, she looked better than she ever had. There was a new focus to her eyes, a sharp attention as she looked around herself and found her daughters in the crowd. The woman who waved at Gemma was the same woman Gemma had always known as her mother—but she was also a woman who was coming into her own, learning to live again. It made Gemma happy to see it.

That happiness lasted until Gemma looked past her mother’s towering layer cake of a hat to see the so-called Hal Deveril, in actuality the Duke of Havilocke, at the head of the parade procession entering the courtyard.

The dark green coat he wore was better fitted than his usual rough garb and made his eyes appear intensely green, swallowing up the flecks of gold.

Gemma stiffened and started to turn away, but their gazes caught and tangled across the crowded square. She felt as though she’d been struck by lightning, singed and scorched to the spot, unable to move for the shock of it running through her whole body.

On the dais, the blacksmith and town elder, Mr. Cartwright, was saying a few words to welcome everyone to this year’s celebration of the May, acknowledging the work that had been done to make it all possible, and thanking everyone in the village for taking part.

The enthusiastic cheers and applause from the crowd startled Gemma into blinking, breaking the hold Hal had on her. Swiftly turning her back to him, she made a concerted effort to focus on what her mother was saying.

“I haven’t wanted to make a fuss of it to you girls before, because, oh, I suppose I didn’t know if I’d have anything ready to show. You know I’ve only dabbled in the past, but dear Bess has been so encouraging, and you know, I have found such refuge in my walks these past few weeks and I’ve seen so many interesting things.”

Gemma blinked. “In what? What are you talking about, Mama?”

Henrietta opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, Mr. Cartwright was calling her name from the dais. Coloring prettily, Henrietta swept her skirts up and mounted the low platform to stand by the blacksmith and other town elders.

Confused, Gemma and Lucy exchanged questioning looks and shrugs.

On the dais, the dowager duchess fidgeted nervously as Mr. Cartwright’s son, Peter, the little dark-haired lad who worked for the Five Mile, moved to the back of the platform and took hold of the green cloth Gemma had assumed was merely a backdrop. With a flourish, the two pulled the cloth away to reveal a trio of paintings hung on the stable wall.

A murmur went through the crowd, and Gemma felt herself pushed gently forward as the people around her stepped in for a closer look.

The paintings were nothing like Henrietta’s old still lifes of fruit baskets and floral arrangements. For one, these paintings all had human subjects. But instead of the usual high society portrait or scene of ladies reading or gentlemen pursuing leisure activities involving dogs and horses, each one of these paintings was a detailed, intricately observed moment from their lives since moving to Little Kissington.

“Oh my,” Gemma heard from her left. It was Bess, her shining eyes on the first painting, which showed her in her kitchen at Five Mile House, standing at the stove stirring a big, black pot. Henrietta had invested the homey image with a dignity that beamed out of Bess’s pretty face and the graceful arch of her strong, capable wrist.

The next painting was of Mr. Woodhill on his land, instantly recognizable by the squashy brown hat shadowing most of his face. All that was visible beneath the hat’s shadow was the contented curve of his smile, bright against his dark skin, as he stood shoulder to shoulder with his friend, Mr. Prince, looking out over the vegetable garden they tended together.

Mouth dry and throat tight, Gemma moved up through the crowd right to the edge of the dais, Lucy on her heels. The two sisters stood in silence amid the admiring murmurs of their neighbors.

Around them, the crowd erupted into applause, stamping their feet and cheering wildly for Henrietta, who flushed bright pink and swept a curtsy deep enough to honor the Queen. Gemma felt a wave of affection wash over her as the people nearest her patted her shoulders and shook her hand to congratulate her, as though it were her accomplishment and not her mother’s.

Gemma accepted their comments distractedly, most of her attention captured by the final painting in the series.

In the last painting, Henrietta had caught the mood of jovial peace and camaraderie that reigned on the average night in the taproom of the Five Mile, as townspeople and tenant farmers mingled with travelers stopping in for a bite to eat on their way to somewhere else.

The table in the foreground was occupied by a young family, the Courts. The dairy farmer and his wife pointed and marveled from the crowd, so pleased and proud and amused to see themselves in oil on canvas, their apple-cheeked toddler crawling under the table to make friends with the scruffy terrier curled beneath the next table.

But it was the tableau in the background of the scene that took Gemma out at the knees.

In the darkened back corner of her mother’s painted taproom, Gemma beheld herself leaning one elbow on the bar and staring out at the room full of happy guests with a cat-in-the-cream-pot expression. And there, behind the bar and watching Gemma, was Hal.

The painted Hal was tall and strong; Henrietta had taken pains with the slope of his broad shoulders and the sinews of his throat. He held a glass mug delicately in his large, blunt-fingered hands, polishing it with a rag, but all his attention was on the woman beside him.

And the look on his face…

Gemma’s heart pounded so hard, surely the people all around her could hear it. She pressed a hand to her chest to cover it, and felt the vibration through her palm.

Hal’s face, the way her mother had painted it as he gazed at Gemma—surely, it must be a mother’s fond imagining that made him appear so completely and entirely captivated.

It was clear, somehow, in the painting, that Hal couldn’t have looked away from Gemma if he’d tried. There was an invisible thread that connected the two figures, a palpable tension and attraction that bound them together and placed them just outside the cheerful scene in the foreground, in a bubble all their own.

Henrietta had painted a man deeply in love.

Gemma clenched her fists at her sides, her breath heaving sharply as she fought to control the urge to leap onto the dais and rip the painting down, slashing it to pieces with her fingernails.

It hurt to look at it, to see that silly, deluded woman basking in Hal’s attention, in the heat of his gaze that was more than besotted, more than hungry, more than entranced.

The look on the painted man’s face was all those things, but it was complicated by the thin, straight line of his sensuous lips behind the dark beard. There was a shadow in the painted Hal’s eyes, even as they glowed with desire. A darkness underlay the happy scene.

Her mother had seen what Gemma hadn’t. And that, more than anything else, made her wonder if the rest of the painting was true.

Did Hal truly love her?

The thought blew the locks off the box in which Gemma had put away her own feelings.

Everything she’d stuffed down came roaring forth, grief and panic and anger, challenge and frustration and triumph, passion and laughter and heartbreak.

Beside her, she was dimly aware of Lucy wrapping a slim arm around her shoulders just as the applause for Henrietta’s art died down. “And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for! It’s time to crown the May Queen!”

More applause that Mr. Cartwright used his slow, booming voice to speak over. “But this year, since it’s our first year celebrating the May as a community together in a decade or more, we’re doing things a little differently. This year, the May Day committee has chosen to crown…a Lord and Lady of the May! Our own Hal, beg pardon, His Grace the Duke of Havilocke…and Lady Gemma Lively! Come, come, do your duty and lead us in the dance!”

“Don’t go up there with him ,” Lucy said urgently, holding onto her. “You don’t have to, Gem!”

But Gemma looked about them at the happy crowd, stomping and smiling and for this small moment, free of the cares that burdened their lives. She couldn’t disappoint them.

“I do have to.”

The scene took on a dreamlike quality as Gemma mounted the dais and stepped up to stand beside the man who had broken her heart.

Hands placed the elaborate flower crown on her head. At her side, Hal bent to let Bess’s young cousin, Flora, set a circlet twined with green ivy and sprouting a pair of antlers on his thick chestnut hair. The crowd cheered wildly, drums and pipes and sticks clacking along with the claps and stomps, and Gemma felt as trapped as if she’d been tied in place.

In fact, Flora was tying her in place. The girl placed Gemma’s limp hand in Hal’s open, outstretched palm and began swiftly winding a red ribbon around their wrists. By the time Gemma recovered enough to resist, they were bound together.

“I’m sorry,” Hal muttered, low enough for only Gemma to hear. “I don’t know why they’re doing this, but I swear I didn’t ask them to.”

“You’re their duke,” she said tonelessly, aware of his subtle flinch at the word. “Of course they want to honor you today.”

“Well, I’m sorry you were dragooned into it.”

Gemma pasted on the best smile she could come up with and said, “Let’s get this over with. What do we have to do?”

She was intensely aware of the solid, muscular presence of him beside her, their arms pressed together, her white silk voile skirts fluttering against his dark brown trousers in the breeze. Every breath she took smelled of his sharp, piney, woodsy, smoky scent. She tried to breathe shallowly through her mouth.

“We’re supposed to lead the maypole dance,” he told her grimly. “But we can stop this at any time. You can just walk away.”

The temptation was strong, but Gemma looked out over the benevolent, encouraging faces of the crowd and couldn’t do it. These people had taken the Lively family in, accepted them and lived alongside them as if they’d been born and raised in Little Kissington. Gemma knew how hard they worked, day to day. She wouldn’t be the cause of ruining any pleasure of theirs.

“It’s fine,” she said, tugging at their joined wrists to tow him after her, off the dais and through the crowd to the waiting maypole. With awkward determination, she grasped one of the trailing ribbons while the unmarried village girls, including Lucy, scampered to grab hold of the rest.

The musicians took up their instruments once more with a merry tune that started the Maypole dancers whirling and skipping, in and out, plaiting their ribbons around the pole in a dance Gemma would have found difficult to follow even if she hadn’t been shackled to a lying, no good scoundrel of a duke.

She stumbled for the third time, and Hal cursed. Moving behind her and crossing their joined arms over her breast, Hal used his strength to gracefully lead them through the steps of the dance.

Gemma set herself to endure the torture of it.

Hal’s chest was hard and warm against her back, his strong thighs moving against hers. Their hips were pressed together.

Her breath came fast and faster, her head feeling floaty, and she would have stumbled again but Hal caught her close and passed their ribbon to a waiting dancer.

Spinning them free of the maypole chaos, he gently twirled her out to arm’s length and began to work on untying the ribbon that yoked them together.

The crowd had closed around the maypole, everyone’s attention on the exuberant dancing. No one was watching her and Hal anymore. Gemma felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“Sorry,” he muttered, his fingers picking ineffectually at the knot. “Flora trussed us up like a pair of prize piglets. I’ll have it in a moment.”

Frustration and panic set in. Was she to remain trapped in this ridiculous position for the rest of eternity? Twisting her wrist, she pulled and tugged until the skin reddened and chafed.

“Stop that,” Hal commanded, ripping at the ribbon until he got it loose enough to slip off over their hands. Before she could get away, Hal turned his hand and captured her fingers in his warm, secure grip so he could inspect the marks on her wrist. “You hurt yourself.”

A lump too big to swallow around formed in Gemma’s throat. “It’s not my wrist that hurts,” she whispered, the words broken and altogether too revealing.

She closed her eyes, her humiliation complete.

They stilled for a long, heavy moment, standing close with their hands clasped in a parody of a lovers’ embrace. The tension stretched to the breaking point.

When Gemma forced her eyes open, intending to extricate herself at once—she stopped with her mouth open, utterly shocked by the look on Hal’s face as he stared down at her.

It was the same look from the painting, she realized on an indrawn breath. His green eyes glittered, hot and hungry, longing and captivated.

And full of pain, she could see now. The darkness that was as much a part of him as his easy laugh and his care for his people—it was on full display now.

“My mother hated my father,” Hal rasped, his eyes never leaving hers. “I don’t remember a time before I was aware of that. Not that she ever complained to me. But I knew. He made no secret of the fact that he’d only married her for her money, and then he proceeded to squander it on horses and cards and mistresses and lavish parties. It turned her bitter, soured her life so much that when she was thrown from her horse and broke her leg, she… simply refused to recover. Wouldn’t let a doctor see her. Wouldn’t let anyone help her. She just lay in her bed and allowed the wound to poison her blood. It must have been agonizing, but she never uttered a word.”

“Hal.” Horror gripped her, along with grief for the young boy he’d been. “How old were you when she died?”

He shrugged tightly. “I was six.”

“Oh,” she said, her throat feeling thick and her chest cramped. His poor mother—and yet, how could she choose to leave her son at the mercy of such a father? “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“It didn’t happen to me. It happened to her.” He shook his head, as though shaking away the past and any hurt that remained from it. “I don’t tell you this in a bid for sympathy. But the look in your eyes just now—Gemma, that’s the same look my mother had as she lay there dying. And I can’t tell you what it does to me to know that you hate me that much—that I’ve made you hate me enough that you would endure any pain to get free of me.”

A spasm of pure agony crossed his face, hardening his jaw and turning his eyes to dull green stones. “I always knew you were planning to leave. I never doubted that, because you see…people leave. My mother left me. My father ignored me. To my brother, I barely even existed at all. So I was certain you wouldn’t stay, and in my rush to protect myself from the pain of hoping for more, I pushed you away and closed myself off. I should have opened myself up for you instead. I should have laid myself bare. I’m sorry, Gemma. I know you’re going to leave, and that I deserve to be left, but I can’t let you go without telling you that you’ll be taking every bit of hope, laughter, and light with you.”

Gemma turned away, not wanting to see the torment in his eyes, not wanting to be tempted to believe the worst lie of all. Because it had to be a lie, didn’t it?

He didn’t love her. He couldn’t love her.

Without warning, the lump in her throat broke open on a sob that nearly broke her ribs. Air wheezed in and out of her lungs on another sob. Pain in her head, in her temples, behind her eyes, and she squeezed them shut only to feel wetness running down her cheeks.

Oh God. For the first time in years, Gemma was crying.