Page 95 of Dukes All Night Long
“O llie!” Jo pressed her fingers to her temples. “I…I mean, Lord Oliver.” She shook her head, looking at the Duke of Winchester with the correct amount of propriety. “Your Grace,” she added with a curt nod.
Lord Oliver’s dark gaze remained fastened on her, the quirk in his mouth moving the right side up an infinitesimal iota higher than the left. “Lady Everly,” he returned in that smooth, velvety tone that Jo once knew better than her own. “Are you all right? What on earth are you doing here?”
Good question, that.
Oliver’s focus moved behind her, and Jo turned, remembering the man whom she’d been escaping. But there was nothing. Like mice when the lights came on, everyone who’d been loitering in the alley had scuttled off.
Jo took another step back, lifting the veil off her face, tossing it over her black velvet bonnet.
She’d seen the duke a handful of times over the last few months.
He’d even come to her aid when her cricket club friend, Lady Maggie, needed help catching the attention of her now-husband.
But that had all been before his accident.
Earlier in the summer, Oliver had tipped his phaeton over while racing it one morning in Hyde Park. He’d pitched into the Serpentine, bashing his head on a rock in the process. If it hadn’t been for Ella Chesterfield, who’d fished him from the lake, Oliver would have lost his life that morning.
Even after regaining conscience, it had taken the duke weeks to regain his strength, and even longer to reenter Society. Jo wasn’t even certain if he had reentered.
But here he was now, standing in front of her.
Anyone who happened upon the duke would assume that he was back to being his best self, but Jo knew better.
Oliver’s curly, ink-black hair and beaver-fur top hat may hide his scar well enough; however, this duke was a far cry from the man she’d first given her heart to as a young woman.
He could smile that lazy, lopsided grin as much as he wanted, but Oliver was far from carefree.
His normally tanned complexion was chalky on skin stretched tight against his bones, and though his eyes cast that familiar glint, the green was missing that deep emerald shine that could make a girl blush with one wink.
His shoulders were wide and broad, though they still had a difficult time filling out his overcoat, and there was a small gap between the collar of his finely starched shirt and his neck. Most people wouldn’t notice these things, but Jo wasn’t most people.
Especially—and unfortunately—when it came to Oliver.
“Lady Everly?” he asked again. “Are you all right?”
Jo snapped to the present, planting a staid smile on her face. “Of course, yes, sorry. I just got lost.”
“Lost?” The word fell between them with the weight of an anvil. “In the Limehouse District?”
“I’m here with my brother and his wife…meeting a friend,” Jo explained, desperately hoping to change the subject.
The last thing she needed was for Ollie to know she’d met with a witch and maybe, possibly, communicated with her dead husband.
“And you? What are you doing here? In the Limehouse District ?”
Oliver chuckled, angling his head, no doubt fully aware of how the cleft in his chin made women’s knees tremble. “I was also meeting…a friend.”
Jo’s smile turned so brittle that she thought it might crack. “A friend. Yes, that makes sense.”
Jo was well aware of Oliver’s friends . But usually, he had enough sense to escort the ladies to his home. Oliver wasn’t one to tolerate an uncomfortable bed, and the Limehouse District seemed to be full of them.
He recognized the censure on her face, the plotlines she was weaving in her head. “Don’t be too creative with your assumptions, Lady Everly. I’m afraid I won’t be able to live up to them.”
Jo barked out a laugh, chagrined with how bitter it sounded. “Oh, I doubt that, Your Grace. You never had a difficult time before.”
He stared at her down the length of his long, straight nose and then made a gruff noise in the back of his throat. “The accident has…slowed me a bit…in that regard.”
Jo was surprised by his honesty. Most men—especially dukes—wouldn’t dare acknowledge a decline in power or manhood. It eased the bite from her voice. “How are you?” she asked.
Oliver’s smile turned wan, and for the first time, Jo saw the true damage that the accident had done to him.
He’d always had a devil-may-care attitude about him, one of the things that had drawn her to him those many years ago, that made him seem forever young, preternaturally fresh and shiny.
Even when he’d arrived at balls on no sleep, smelling like a French courtesan, he’d reeked of vitality and life.
But the accident was forcing him to show his age.
At thirty-three, the duke was only one year older than Jo.
Lately, she had come to understand what that number meant, how it felt in her joints and her ego when she contemplated her reflection in the mirror.
From the downturn in Oliver’s lips, the wistful glances he gave her when he thought she wasn’t looking, Jo understood that the duke was feeling that number too.
“Did you hear that Jackie got married?”
Jo’s stomach leapt at the safe topic. Lord Oliver’s brother, Jack, was a great favorite of theirs. “Yes, in fact. Miss Ella is a friend of mine. She’s wonderful.”
Oliver nodded. “She is. She is. Of course, Jack snatched her up and now they’re off to God knows where on some exotic honeymoon. New York, I think.”
Jo laughed. “Hardly exotic.”
“You don’t know many Americans.”
“I suppose not,” she replied good-naturedly.
Their laughter evaporated, the safe topic quickly running its course.
Jo couldn’t understand what was wrong with her.
Over the last few years, they’d adopted a fail-safe routine—Oliver would say something glib and infuriating in an effort to rile her temper, and Jo would shoot back some pithy remark, slashing his pride in half.
It served to keep them from talking about the past—or ruminating on the future they might have had.
But this new Oliver wrecked her.
Because pity coalesced inside Jo, shoving out the anger. And she didn’t want to do that. Hating Oliver made everything so much easier. Even if she’d never truly hated him for a day in her life.
“Jo? Jo, where are you?”
“Ah,” Oliver said, glancing over her shoulder. “It sounds like you’re seconds away from being found. Good old Matthew.”
Jo craned her neck in the direction of her brother’s voice. She couldn’t see him yet, but by the strength of his voice, he would make it to her soon.
She put her veil down, taking another step away from the duke. “Well, it was good to see you, Your Grace. I’m glad you’re…better.”
He bowed gracefully. “I was happy to be of service, my lady,” he replied affably, touching the brim of his top hat. “You know how much I enjoy it.”
Jo’s chest fluttered. Damn him . This was another type of ache she’d managed to whittle down to nothing but that still crept up at the worst of times.
It was different than the other ache she’d experienced in the witch’s home, more visceral, needier.
More inconvenient for a widow with a sterling reputation.
“Jo? Where the devil did you go?”
Matthew was getting closer.
Jo slid her tongue over her teeth, sizing up the man who always thought he got the better of her. “From what I understand, Your Grace, you’ve served so many over the years. How could you possibly remember one person?”
Oliver grinned, and it struck Jo so acutely because there—finally—was the young man who’d claimed all the love from her youth.
The man with the charming smile and bold words who could make her feel like the only person on this earth.
The person she’d believed had been hand-picked by God for her and only her.
Oliver pinched the bottom of Jo’s veil and lifted it halfway up her face.
Slowly, he lowered himself inside it, joining Jo in anonymity.
His gaze fell on her lips. His breath was warm against her cheek.
Jo felt fifteen all over again, like she were standing on the bluffs over the sea with her arms outstretched, daring the wind to push her forward. Daring anyone to make her fall.
“You were the first woman I ever held, Jo,” Oliver said quietly. “I thought I was a man before that, but instantly I knew I was wrong. You created me in that moment.”
The veil dropped from his fingers, lightly tickling her nose. Oliver straightened, digging his hands into his pockets. “There are some things a man never forgets…like holding a woman for the first time, and what it does to him. He’s never the same again.”