Page 3 of His Tempting Duchess (Regency Wedding Crashers #4)

CHAPTER 3

T he world was a confusing rush of colors for Emily. Without her spectacles, even the familiar faces of her family were difficult to pick out from the crowd. It sent a rush of anxiety through her, which wasn’t particularly easy to hide.

And a tall, dark-haired blur was now coming towards her, and she had a nasty suspicion that it was the man she was meant to marry. She squinted, and was able to make out a little more of his features. She knew that he was a handsome man—if that counted for anything—with a mop of dark hair and green eyes fringed with long, dark eyelashes. He was something of a dandy, it was said, with the finest clothes in London, but he managed not to be ridiculous about it.

He gave a brief bow. “My apologies for disturbing you. I imagine you have a great deal to reflect on.”

He had a deep voice, cultured and even. Some might even have described it as pleasant.

“Yes,” she responded at once. “A great deal, indeed.”

She was having difficulty focusing on his face, and that would continue until she could go home and get her spare spectacles, which had to be left behind out of necessity. Her poor eyesight left her with a feeling of vulnerability that she did not like much. Not to mention the fact that hers and Daphne’s rapid change of costume meant that she still had her hair done up in the elaborate bridal style, with pins digging into her scalp.

If the duke noticed her discomfort, he did not let on. They had met briefly, but not enough to actually spend quality time together. She knew nothing about the man.

“I thought perhaps we might talk some things over,” he said equably. “I don’t know about you, but now I have a whole day to spend as I wish.”

She did not smile. “What do you want, Your Grace?”

Get to the point, you wretch.

He tilted his head to the side. It made him look like a curious bird. “I’m sure you must have guessed by now that a mistake has been made, Miss Belmont.”

She tightened her grip on her bouquet. At some point, somebody had knocked into her and crushed the bouquet. Some of the flowers had half-snapped stems, the blooms tilting sadly to one side.

“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about,” she said, as evenly as she could.

Perhaps he wouldn’t notice how bad her eyesight was.

“I am referring, of course, to your twin sister taking your place at the altar,” the duke responded sweetly. “It would have ended badly had I not noticed. Why, the marriage would likely have been annulled. I doubt that your sister’s reputation would have recovered.”

“As it is, it may not recover now,” Emily snapped.

Inside, however, she was beginning to panic.

What had she been thinking? She should never have let Daphne take her place. Oh, it was beyond foolishness.

The period before the wedding was something of a blur to Emily. She remembered her breakdown, the tears, the numb feeling as though she were becoming slowly paralyzed. And then Daphne’s voice, cutting through it all like a light through the fog.

“It’s not too late. It’s never too late. I’m not going to let you do this, Emily.”

And then they’d switched gowns, and Daphne had strode ahead to the church in her sister’s wedding finery, ready to embrace her fate instead.

And Emily had just watched Daphne run away. She just stood there.

Am I a coward? Daphne certainly isn’t. Is this how I’m fated to live my life, then? Quietly accepting whatever comes along?

“I’m sure your sister would have caused a scandal one way or another,” the duke remarked, his gaze lingering on her.

She wanted to shiver, not sure if she wanted him to continue looking at her with that intensity or whether she wanted to hurl something heavy at his head. Perhaps both?

This close, she could make up a little more of his features. He was handsome. Not that Emily put a great deal of store on looks. Her eldest sister, Anna, was a great beauty, and so was Daphne. Emily was pretty enough— of course she was, for she had the same face as her twin sister—but somehow less so. Her hair was dark and glossy, her eyes large and an idyllic shade of blue, and aside from that, her features and Daphne’s were even and pretty.

However, one had no control over one’s looks any more than one had control over one’s eyesight. Emily couldn’t recall a time when she had not had to wear her round, wire-rimmed spectacles, or a time when gentlemen and ladies looked at them as if they were some kind of great stain on her beauty.

As if she cared. At this moment, she would have happily sacrificed all of the pearl studs in her hair to get her spectacles, so that she could look this man in the eye properly.

“My sister is my dearest friend,” Emily shot back. “You rejected her.”

“Well, the banns were read for a different woman altogether.”

She folded her arms, abandoning the bouquet altogether. “How did you know about my eyes? We’ve scarcely met.”

He shrugged. “My cousin reminded me. Which brings me neatly to the main point. I asked my cousin to take care of the details of our arrangement. He is a dear friend, although a tad overzealous at times. I believe now that he did not go about it in the right way.”

Emily stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“He sent you a letter with my seal. My proposal, if you will. Can you tell me exactly what was said?”

Wordlessly, she fished in her sleeve.

It was a mistake to bring the letter here, but lately, Emily had been in a real panic about it. What if one of the maids found it, or her ever-meddling mother? Octavia would think nothing of going through her daughter’s things.

She handed the letter over to the duke, who unfolded it. She squinted, watching his sharp eyes skim over sentence after sentence. His mouth tightened.

“Hm. I see. What would one call a letter like this?”

“Blackmail,” Emily answered shortly. “It is blackmail. I am to marry you, or my secret is out. That is what your cousin said—the man who calls himself a gentleman.”

The duke winced, carefully refolding the letter and handing it back to her. “Careless, careless.”

Hope jumped in Emily’s chest. She eyed him closely.

“Just a moment…” she trailed off, studying his face. “I don’t believe for an instant that your cousin would have taken such a liberty. I think you knew about my secret , as you so nicely put it, and you were about to let him do the dirty work of forcing me down the aisle.”

The duke stared down at her, something like surprise on his face. And was that admiration? No, surely not.

“You’re a clever girl, Miss Belmont,” he said briskly. “I had hoped Richard would be a little less forceful. The letter reads like a bailiff’s notice. Where is the charm ?”

“Charm? Charm ? The subject remains the same. You insist on me marrying you in exchange for keeping quiet about… about my secret. Tell me, Your Grace , what is so repulsive about you that prevents you from finding a wife the ordinary way?”

Anger boiled up inside Emily. She hadn’t eaten a thing all day, and her empty stomach growled. She tasted bile.

Taking a step forward, she glared up into the duke’s face, daring him to answer.

He was handsome—not that it meant a thing. In her experience, handsome men were just as likely to be cruel as plain ones, which the Duke of Clapton was demonstrating very nicely.

Even so, there were plenty of ladies in Society who did not care about that sort of thing. They would happily snap up a duke of any age without regard for looks, and the duke was… well, he was pleasant to look at if one liked that sort of thing.

The most handsome blackmailer I have ever seen.

He held her gaze for a moment, a small smile playing on his lips.

“How forthright you are, Miss Belmont. My cousin mentioned that your sister was the firebrand, but I feel that you are every bit as fiery, and distinctly prettier. My reasons for seeking a wife are, after all, my own, but perhaps I have resorted to such a method because timing is an issue.”

She blinked, trying to understand. “Timing? What, are you dying of consumption?”

That did not earn her a smile.

“Very amusing, Miss Belmont,” he said dryly. “I want a marriage of convenience. I don’t care to fall in love. It seems like a nasty business, with a great deal of risk involved. I never was much of a gambler. If you had married me, we might have gone about our own lives without bothering each other in the slightest.”

“I could never live the life I wanted with a man who threatened me into marriage,” she snapped.

Far from being offended, he only smiled.

“ Persuaded , my dear. Persuaded into marriage. And I’m sure you would manage quite nicely. You do enjoy your peace and quiet, don’t you?”

She took a moment before responding.

“You know so much about me,” she murmured. “Why take so much effort to learn about me, only to blackmail me?”

He shrugged. “I like to understand my rivals.”

“But I am not a rival. I am your bride-to-be. Or at least, I was,” she corrected. “I think it’s safe to say that the wedding is off now.”

He looked sharply at her, and she realized in a rush that it was not over. Not by a long shot.

“Oh, my dear Miss Belmont, this is a mere hiccup in our wedding plans,” he said, his voice even and unconcerned. “There’ll be a small delay, but you and I shall trip down the aisle together once more. Hopefully, next time you will wear your spectacles. I daresay you’ll enjoy the ceremony much more if you can see it. This embarrassment, you know, will not affect me very much. As a man and a duke, my reputation is unharmed, and any humiliation will roll off my name like water off the back of a duck.”

Emily took a step backward, panic and anger fighting for dominance inside her. She wanted to scream, to hit him, to do something, even if that something was turning and running for her life. Most of the congregation had filed out by now, and they would soon be alone at the head of the church.

Another part of her was—it was awful to admit it—enjoying their exchange. It was rather like playing a game of chess with a truly worthy opponent. A challenge .

“You can’t possibly think that I’ll marry you now,” she gasped. “The whole of London will know that my sister took my place at the altar and that I let it happen! You’d be humiliated.”

“Weren’t you listening, Miss Belmont? Humiliation barely touches me. I can assure you, there’s no need to change a thing.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “You agreed to marry me. We are engaged. You aren’t about to go back on your word, are you?”

He took a step closer, and Emily suddenly found that they were standing too close together. Spectacles or not, she could see him very clearly now. There were flecks of gold in his eyes, and up close, his eyelashes were even longer.

Are those freckles on his nose? Surely the infamous Duke of Clapton, blackmailer extraordinaire, does not have freckles.

She swallowed hard, refusing to let herself be cowed. Tilting up her chin, she looked him dead in the eyes. She wanted very much to take another step back, to retreat into her shell. But that would be a weakness, and so it could not be allowed.

“If you wish to marry me,” she said, as coolly as she could manage, “you are going to have to court me like a gentleman should. I can’t marry a man of whom I have such a dire opinion, so you’d better work hard to make me think better of you.”

He gave a sudden bark of laughter, pitched higher than she might have expected. It gave him a faintly unhinged air.

It was entirely too much for Emily, and she took the opportunity to put a little distance between them, banishing him back to distant blurriness, just out of arm’s reach.

“Oh, my dear! You are very bold, I must say, but what are you playing at? Do you believe you have any leverage at all? I’m afraid there are no choices here for you. Beggars cannot be choosers, as the saying goes. Why, if your little secret were to come out…”

“I’ll deny it,” Emily snapped, suddenly determined. “I’ll deny it like I denied you .”

He pursed his lips, looking down at her. In a flash, before she could react, he wrapped long, cool fingers around her wrist and hauled her close to him, so close that her chin almost brushed his chest. It wasn’t a painful grip, but it was tight enough that she could not wriggle away.

There was a sharp, spicy smell of sandalwood and crushed grass, and it took her a moment to understand that it was his cologne. There was something remarkably pleasant about the scent, and Emily fought to keep herself from sniffing him.

He leaned down, putting himself almost nose to nose with her, and she held her breath.

I do not like this, she told herself severely, ignoring the flutter in her gut. There was no reason, none at all, to feel even the faintest twinge of attraction towards this man. She would just have to ignore those feelings until they had the decency to fade.

“We’ll see about that,” the duke whispered, a wolfish smile spreading across his face. “We shall see whose word holds stronger—yours or mine. You’ve made a promise to me, my dear Miss Belmont, and you will be keeping it, at any cost.”

Emily swallowed thickly but did not allow herself to look away. Instead, she forced herself to speak.

“Unless your time runs out, of course.”

He blinked at that, and she had a faint sense that perhaps it had shaken him, just a little.

Leaning forward, she hissed out, “ I am not afraid of you anymore, Your Grace .”

Before anything further could be done or said, the click of approaching bootheels rang out on stone.

“Release my daughter at once, Your Grace, or you’ll be sorry!”

Emily felt a knot of worry untangle in her chest at the sight of her mother advancing on the Duke of Clapton with a faintly murderous look in her eyes.

Her mother, of course, did not know the whole situation. Emily had not told her about the blackmail, and certainly not what had led her to being blackmailed in the first place.

Nevertheless, Octavia Belmont, the Dowager Viscountess St. Maur, was a formidable woman and fiercely protective of her children.

The duke wisely released Emily’s wrist and stepped back, bowing graciously.

“Lady St. Maur. I hope you have recovered from the shock of all this.”

Octavia curled her lip. “I’ll recover when I have my other daughter safe and sound, and when this one deigns to explain to her mother what’s going on. In the meantime, Your Grace, perhaps you should keep your distance from us.”

The duke bowed again but said nothing.

Octavia seized Emily’s elbow and prepared to drag her away. Hesitating, she glanced over at the duke for good measure and said loudly, “Come along, Daphne .”

Emily bit back a smile. “Mama, he knows I’m not?—”

“Hush. Let’s keep it up, just in case.”

Octavia ushered her daughter out of the church and into the fresh air, and hastily across to the carriage. They crawled inside, and Emily flopped bonelessly onto the seat.

“Anna and Theodore have started the search for Daphne,” Octavia explained bluntly. “We’re going back home in case she goes there. In the meantime, you can explain to me why you are doing all of this. What hold does this man have over you? What can he reveal?”

Emily closed her eyes. “Mama, I can’t… I can’t tell you.”

Octavia pursed her lips, shifting in her seat. “I am your mother, and I would like to know what this secret is. I have never pried into your life or your sisters’, but are we not family, Emily? Do I not deserve to know?”

Emily breathed out slowly, before opening her eyes and meeting her mother’s gaze.

“It will be easier, I think, if I just show you,” she murmured.

Octavia frowned. “I don’t understand.”

At that moment, the carriage drew to a halt in front of the house. Emily scrambled out, hurrying across the gravel. She was faintly aware of her mother calling after her, following close behind.

The drawing room was cold and empty, with no fire in the grate. Emily crossed the room to the writing desk that she used every morning, kept locked with the key tucked underneath the drawer. Before she could give herself a chance to think twice, she unlocked the drawer and took out her sketchbook. She flipped directly to the drawing at the very back, the first sketch of her most famous piece now on display in a London gallery.

Turning to her mother, she held up the sketchbook.

“I know I have never really shown you my work,” she murmured, “and this is why.”

Octavia stared at the sketch. “Why, Emily, that isn’t your work at all. It’s that painting that the Society papers keep talking about. It’s…” she trailed off, her eyes bulging. “Oh. Oh .”

“Yes, Mama,” Emily whispered. “I… I’m Anon. I’ve been selling my paintings.”

Octavia sank onto an armchair. “If this was found out,” she managed at last, gulping audibly, “you’d be ruined. A lady painting such things? Oh, Emily. Who else knows about this?”

“Well, Daff knows, of course. And…” Emily steeled herself. “The Duke of Clapton knows. He knows, and if I don’t agree to marry him, he’s going to expose me.”

Octavia sank back in her seat, looking rather dazed.

“Oh dear,” she murmured. “And to think I always thought you were the quiet one.”