Page 3 of Dukes All Night Long
A ugusta—or Verity—did as he’d asked, allowing him to lift her down from the carriage.
Then she was all but running to keep pace with him as he hurried into the house.
There was no time to stop and look at anything, no time to see if it triggered some lost memory within her.
The great front doors loomed above her as they entered, the marble-floored vestibule echoing faintly beneath their steps, but she was given no chance to pause.
Instead, they climbed the stairs that emerged into a long corridor lined with portraits.
He stalked toward the end of that hall, purposeful and silent, his movements tight with restrained urgency.
As they drew nearer, a bone-deep chill settled within her.
The portrait was of her—wearing that same pale-green velvet she’d seen so many times in her dreams. But now she could see the gown in its entirety, every detail clear.
Velvet so fine it caught the light with every movement, embroidered roses at the hem, the subtle glint of seed pearls at the neckline.
And with it came flashes of memory—of sifting through fashion plates and choosing fabrics, of holding swatches to her cheek, of standing before a looking glass while a modiste fussed with pinned muslin.
“Look,” he commanded, pointing to the spot in the portrait where her hands were clasped in front of her. “It isn’t there… the scar.”
“Artists will often eliminate or camouflage flaws of their subjects,” she said, her voice faint.
“I was the artist,” he stated. “There were no flaws to eliminate or to camouflage. And I would never have made such a choice. If I didn’t paint the scar, it was because the scar was not present.”
“I’m so confused,” she whispered. “Are you saying I’m not your wife?”
He pointed to the portrait once more, more gently this time.
“I placed that ring on your finger at the church, and there was a scar present on your hand then. You are my wife… but you are not the woman in this portrait. You are not the woman who made our lives hell for four months prior to simply vanishing.”
A single word appeared in her mind, unbidden. A name, in fact. A name that made her shiver.
“Vanessa.”
Verity—and she had to admit after seeing that portrait—whether it was her or her twin—was definitely her name, pulled her hand from his.
“You had no idea that it wasn’t truly me? That sudden shift in my personality—the sudden absence of my sister—didn’t raise suspicion?”
“I did not know your sister was absent,” he replied, his voice edged with bitterness but also something wounded beneath it.
“She and her husband, Mr. Thomas Abelard, went to Scotland together immediately after the wedding in order to care for his ailing mother. I had no reason to suspect, Verity, that the woman who had taken up the role of duchess was not the woman entitled to do so.”
“I am not concerned about the role of duchess,” she said. “My concern is the role of wife … and being married to a man for whom my twin sister and I are interchangeable.”
*
Understanding dawned on him immediately.
“I never bedded her,” he said. “Not on our wedding night or any night thereafter. That first night, she refused me—and the more I saw of her behavior toward others, the more I recoiled. I simply didn’t want to.
Being in her presence left me entirely cold.
And because of that, I should have realized…
but I didn’t. And the only thing we can do now, going forward, is to find out precisely what occurred on the day of our wedding. ”
She laughed somewhat bitterly. “How? There are only two people who know the truth of that. One cannot remember, and the other would never tell the truth.”
“So we help you remember,” he said. “We recreate it, down to the last detail. That morning, I left your room just before dawn.” He paused, watching her closely, waiting for the implication of what he’d said to fully take root within her mind.
When she blushed, her cheeks blooming with slow color, he knew beyond doubt that it had.
“And before I left your room, I kissed you… quite thoroughly.”
“And you think it would help me to remember if I allowed you to do so again?” she asked dubiously.
“Would it hurt to try?”
After a second’s hesitation, she shook her head. “No, I don’t suppose it would. Only a kiss?”
“Only a kiss,” he agreed. Then he glanced up at the portrait and the cold gaze of its subject. “But not here. Not in front of her.”
With that, he took her hand once more and led her down the corridor to the guest chamber that she’d used on the eve of their wedding.
Opening the door, he noted that the furniture was still covered with dust cloths and the room had the air of disuse about it—the stale hush of a place long undisturbed.
It would have to do for the purpose of demonstration.
He guided her into the room, just so that she was standing in the doorway. Then he plucked the pins from her dark hair, letting it tumble down her back in a silken cascade even as she gasped in shock.
“You are making very free with my person,” she scolded.
He intended to make freer once they had it all sorted out—once she remembered enough to allow it. What if she never remembered ? Insidious as that whisper was inside his mind, he instantly knew the answer.
He would simply do whatever was necessary to make her fall in love with him again.
He’d done it once, after all.
“We’ll come back to that another time. For now, let’s just focus on this… and your hair was down then. But in a bit more disarray.”
Her blush deepened. “Let’s just get on with this… I don’t think it will help.”
Colin raised his hand, sliding it along the side of her neck until his thumb could gently caress the delicate curve of her jawline. He watched her eyes widen in surprise, watched her pupils dilate and her lips part on a soft breath.
Only then did he lean in, closing his lips over hers.
As it had always been whenever they kissed, it was like a firestorm.
And yet it was different. A year’s worth of anger, fear, and frustration did not simply dissipate.
They were still there, still locked as tightly inside him as her memories were in her.
But he poured all of that into the kiss—tension, desperation, longing—taking it to a place that was hungry and demanding, that skated along the blade’s edge of dangerous.