Page 16 of Duke of Eccess (Seven Dukes of Sin #4)

He slid his feet into dressing slippers. It was his fault, he knew, as he marched down the hallway and up the stairs to the children’s quarters. Miss Fields followed him, but now it was James’s cries that held his attention as well as the sinking, desperate need for a drink.

When he saw James on the stairs, Margaret one step higher behind him and holding on to his nightgown with one hand and the railing with the other, his blood turned to ice.

“He hates me… He hates me…” mumbled James.

Octavius’s heart bled as though cut a hundred times as he slowly walked up the stairs, positioning himself directly below James in case he fell.

What should he do? What should he say? If James had asked which wine would best complement fresh Atlantic oysters, or what to do to prolong a woman’s pleasure in bed, Octavius was the man.

But James didn’t need any of that advice, nor would he need it for several more years.

He needed a different kind of assistance.

Octavius looked helplessly at Miss Fields and then Margaret, her face full of fear. And Sophie? No, thankfully, Sophie was not here.

“Talk to him,” said Miss Fields. “He needs to hear from you.”

What he needed was to guide James safely out of the dangerous stairwell. Octavius moved to stand on the same step as the boy and placed his hand on his shoulder. “James, I’m here.”

The lad’s head turned slightly towards the sound, but his foot continued searching for the next step to descend, his arm still moving in the darkness.

“Your Grace?” he mumbled, but his eyes remained closed, his voice distant.

Now that Octavius had his attention, he stepped up to the landing behind him. “I’m here, James. Right here.”

James let go of the railing as both arms stretched out towards Octavius’s voice. “Don’t…send me away…please…”

“I won’t send you away,” Octavius said, keeping his voice steady and calm despite the crack in his heart that James’s words brought. “You’re safe, James. I’m right here. Just one more step up.”

With arms reaching, James searched for the upper step with his foot, Margaret tugging him up with her as the pair walked directly towards Octavius. The boy’s movements became less mechanical, more fluid, and Miss Fields hurried up the stairs behind them.

“I’m here.” Octavius gently took the boy’s shoulders. “James, open your eyes.”

James blinked slowly, his eyes focusing with difficulty in the light of the candle in Miss Fields’s hand. His face was misted with sweat, honey-blond locks plastered to his forehead, brown eyes still clouded with the remnants of his nightmare.

James blinked several times before looking at Miss Fields, then at his sister. The dream was gone from his eyes as he looked at Octavius. “Y-Your Grace?”

Relief flooded Octavius’s body and he let go of James’s shoulders. “I’m here, my boy. All is well.”

It could have been so different. If Margaret had not followed James, if Miss Fields had not decided to seek help…but Octavius could not think of that now. That particular image would fill his own nightmares.

Miss Fields gave the boy a reassuring smile. “James, dear boy, you were walking in your sleep and found your way here. You called for the duke. Here he is. Should we all return to bed now?”

James looked around them again, shivering, and nodded. “Y-yes.”

Margaret gave a shuddering sigh, and as the four of them walked to the children’s bedchamber, Miss Fields gave the boy her candlestick and put one hand on each of the children’s shoulders as they walked. Inside the bedchamber, as predicted, Sophie was fast asleep.

It was unconventional, perhaps, that two girls and a boy shared a bedchamber at their age.

But since the day they’d arrived at his house, shaken and wide-eyed, Octavius couldn’t separate them.

After the fire had taken their parents’ lives, all they had was each other—and it brought them comfort to sleep in the same space.

That would, hopefully, change one day once their grief didn’t torture them quite as much.

Octavius had to believe they could heal.

Had to believe that the tragedies of one’s childhood would not cast shadows that eclipsed all joy for the adult.

When Margaret and James had settled in their beds, Octavius sat at the edge of the boy’s bed, and Miss Fields crouched in front of him and asked, “You’ve been saying the duke hates you…but do you truly think so?”

James slowly lifted his eyes to Octavius. “I think he might. I—I am sorry I took the pistol and scared Sophie and Miss Fields and the guests… I—” He swallowed violently as his eyes filled with tears. “I’ve been bad… I’m too much trouble. You’ll send me away!”

His face distorted and he began crying, splitting Octavius’s heart in two. Helplessness weighed his arms like an anchor. He looked at Miss Fields for guidance. She nodded at James with her chin and made a movement with her head.

He swallowed. What was she implying?

Hug him , she mouthed, though he wouldn’t have heard her anyway through James’s crying.

Octavius exhaled. He’d never been hugged by anyone when he’d been crying like this. He supposed his mama had wrapped her arms around him once or twice, as duchesses didn’t give hugs, but it was certainly not something he was ever expected to experience except with a lover.

He shifted on the bed and gingerly wrapped his arms around James. The boy didn’t flinch, didn’t move away, didn’t jerk in disgust. On the contrary, he clung to Octavius in a hot, sweaty, trembling ball.

“I…I don’t hate you, James,” said Octavius gently, hoping the boy would hear him through his crying. To his relief, the lad stilled and his sobs quieted down. “And I’ll never send you away. You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid, until one day you’re so sick of me you want to escape to Oxford.”

James took in a shaky breath and looked up at him, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve. “You—you won’t send me away?”

Octavius found it hard to look the boy in the eyes as raw emotions—regret, affection, guilt—whirled in him in a dangerous, hot mixture that ached to spill over. But he forced himself to keep the eye contact. “I won’t. Any one of you.”

“Even though I took the pistol?”

“Even though you took the pistol… But that doesn’t mean you may do it again.”

The boy nodded enthusiastically. “No, of course not—I won’t. And I promise I’ll behave tomorrow at the soirée.”

Octavius nodded and exhaled. The crisis seemed to be averted. He looked at Miss Fields, who stared at him with a such tenderness that it made his heart ache.

“I’ll tuck you in, James,” the governess murmured. “Do you think you can go back to sleep?”

James looked at Octavius again and nodded, lying back on his pillow. “Thank you, Your Grace…for not punishing me. And for not hating me.”

Octavius nodded, his body stiff. He should say more, give more reassurance, say he cared for the boy and his sisters. He was chasing the presidency for them, after all. He was giving up his beloved gluttony for them.

But he couldn’t. He didn’t know how. He felt like a big, stiff oaf.

“Good night,” he said curtly.

He left the room, but he didn’t return to his bed. Instead he waited for Miss Fields in the darkness.

When, a few minutes later, the candlelight appeared from the children’s door, and she walked to the stairwell where he was standing, Octavius stepped forward. “Miss Fields…”

She shrieked and started, the candlestick falling to the floor and the light swiftly extinguishing.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Octavius said as he came closer to her. He could barely distinguish her features now without any glow but the starlight coming from the windows on the wall of the staircase. “I—er…” he began.

They stood there in the darkness, the air between them charged like lightning. He could smell the faint scent of lavender from her hair, could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest beneath the thin fabric of her nightgown.

“Thank you,” he said. “For coming to get me. For helping me give him what he needed.”

Miss Fields stared up at him, her gray eyes dark in the starlight. “You did everything right with him. You said exactly what he needed to hear.”

Octavius shuffled his feet. “I didn’t know what to say. Minding children isn’t a skill I possess.”

“You underestimate yourself.” She clutched her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “James needed to know he wasn’t a burden, that his spirit—his curiosity and energy—wasn’t something to be ashamed of. I suppose we all need to know that…some of us more than others.”

A jolt of instinct made him pause. “Some of us?” The question slipped out before he could stop it, and she stiffened.

Miss Fields wasn’t saying anything else, but he knew she must be talking about herself.

Had someone made her feel ashamed of her spirit, her curiosity and energy?

“Didn’t you say your education was encouraged? ”

“It was, by my papa. My stepmama, on the other hand, often made it clear that my interests were unseemly for a young lady. That I was too much.”

“Too much… What a bloody ridiculous thing to say to a child.”

He was gratified to see a brief smile dancing upon her lips.

“It’s quite strange, isn’t it, how the people closest to us can betray us in the most painful ways?

As I had lived twelve years of my life never having known Mama, I worshipped my stepmother when Papa married her.

I’d thought she was the best thing that had happened to me, thought she’d be the mother I’d craved my whole life…

As she never had her own children and had only a nephew to care for, she loved me too…

Until she discovered I had an acute interest in science.

She deemed me…unnatural. Became as cold as ice. ”

Octavius cupped her face. He couldn’t stop himself, marveling at the soft, warm skin under his palm.

“You’re not unnatural. You’re not too much, Miss Fields.

You’re…” He struggled for the right words, keenly aware they were standing alone in a darkened corridor, both of them in nothing but nightclothes.

“You’re exactly what we need. What I need. ”

The admission hung between them like a bridge neither dared cross. Her lips parted slightly and he found himself leaning closer, drawn by forces he couldn’t name or control.

“Your Grace,” she whispered.

He ached to correct her, to ask her to call him Octavius…

She’d seen him pleasuring himself not ten minutes ago, and yet he’d never felt closer to her than now.

Physically and in spirit. The warmth radiating from her skin caressed his own.

One more step and he could pull her into his arms, taste those soft lips again, show her what he really ached to do to her.

Consequences be damned.

“Were you surprised at what you saw earlier, in my bedchamber?” Octavius managed. “Did I terrify you?”

With satisfaction, he watched her lips part further, and her hooded eyes appeared to darken, if it was even possible in this darkness. “You most certainly didn’t terrify me.”

Octavius allowed himself a glance down her body and could see taut nipples peeking through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

He couldn’t tear his gaze away, his body reacting to the sight with an immediate erection.

She wasn’t terrified, thank heavens…but was it possible he was reading the signs right, and this collected, perfect little woman was… tempted?

Aroused?

His mouth went as dry as a desert. Octavius was so close, he could reach out and cup her breasts, roll her nipples with his thumbs and see her mouth open just like in his imagination.

“What did you think, then?” he asked, forcing his gaze to return to hers.

Even in the darkness, he could see color rush to the governess’s cheeks, her chest move quicker. “I didn’t know what I was seeing. I only apologize for intruding upon your privacy.”

“A welcome intrusion, Miss Fields.”

Their gazes were locked. The challenge laid down. If he made a move now, he knew she’d welcome it despite the difference in their positions and everything that went against such impropriety. And by God, he wanted to. He ached to. He had to.

Yet he couldn’t. He’d want her night after night, day after day, here, by his side, just breathing the same air as him.

And then what?

Octavius was her employer and she was under his protection, his responsibility. He couldn’t just use her, unleash his gluttony upon her. Not only would it result in her leaving, but it would ruin her for the rest of her life.

This woman had brought peace to his household, had given those poor children something he’d never been able to provide.

She’d seen James’s distress and known exactly what to do.

She deserved better than a man who couldn’t control his appetites.

A man who moments ago had been lost in fantasies of her while a child cried for comfort upstairs.

And marrying her was out of the question.

He couldn’t marry so far below his station.

Not only because of his run for the presidency.

But to prove to his father he was not a worthless glutton.

His dearest papa had said no nobly born women would ever agree to marry such a hapless fool as him, that no one other than a servant would have him, and the line of Eccess would be forever diluted by common blood.

He couldn’t prove his father right.

With enormous effort, Octavius stepped back. “You should return to your room,” he said, his voice rougher than he intended. “Before someone sees us like this.”

Hurt flashed across Miss Fields’s features, then disappeared quickly under the mask of propriety. “Of course.”

He wanted to reach for her, explain he wasn’t rejecting her but his own appetites. Instead he stood frozen as she gathered her shawl more tightly around herself.

“Good night, Your Grace.”

The formal address felt like a door slamming shut between them. “Good night, Miss Fields.”

Octavius watched her grab the dropped candlestick, then climb the stairs to the attic.

Only then did he return to his own chamber, where the chair and the evidence of his earlier activities waited in the darkness.

Instead of returning to his interrupted pleasure he found himself standing by the window, staring out at the snow-covered garden and thinking about gray eyes and the way she said she knew, too, what it was like to be too much.

For the first time in years, pure physical release seemed less appealing than the possibility of sharing his true self with a woman.

And the admission terrified Octavius more than any pistol ever could.