Page 5 of Secrets of a Duke’s Heart (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #25)

CHAPTER FIVE

A part from the slight knitting of her brows, Miss Penfirth displayed no hesitation descending into the rather terrifying rough-cut stairs. The steps had been hacked and chipped into the stone, steep and uneven, prompting him to wonder how ladies managed in long dresses. He supposed they were accustomed to managing such impediments.

A lesser woman would have shrieked the first time a stiff ocean breeze blasted up the naturally formed cavern, moaning like a sea monster. His hackles rose. Miss Penfirth stopped.

“This must be where the smugglers stash their smuggled goods.” Unperturbed by strange noises, she peered into a naturally-formed niche too low to stand up in. There was nothing inside except for an empty wooden box, but when he thrust the lantern forward, the dust revealed footprints and a blank spot where a large object had recently been stowed. A trunk of lace, perhaps. Or a tub of uncut brandy.

“You are admirably composed,” he said when the eerie moaning sound came again.

“I do not believe in ghosts or old wives’ tales,” she said crisply.

“Not even will-o’-the-wisps?”

Her nose wrinkled adorably, and she sneezed. “Especially not will-o’-the-wisps.”

“What do you think they are, if not spirits that lead travelers astray?”

“Gasses rising from the marshes,” she answered.

“How mundane.”

They continued downward. It was mostly a straight shot. If one knew the passageway well, he could understand how a grown man could navigate the steps while carrying an unwilling woman. He refused to believe that Harriet had run off deliberately. The first time he’d been down here, immediately after her kidnapping, he had been too anxious to notice details like a dark alcove.

A sick feeling sank to the pit of his stomach and lay there. Was she all right?

“What are you grumbling about?” asked Miss Penfirth.

“I was thinking that if the smuggler has harmed Harriet in any way, I will personally hunt him down and kill him with my bare hands.”

“You truly do care about your niece, don’t you?”

A lump formed in his throat. “Yes.” A thought occurred to him. “I suppose I ought to let Lucarran know that his bride has been stolen.”

“Wait a day or two. If we recover her unharmed, their wedding can proceed as planned. Once they are married, this Irish earl will have every incentive to protect her reputation.”

“Do you know of Lord Lucarran?”

“A little. He isn’t well-liked. He’s also quite old, as I recall. Nearing sixty?”

“I myself turn forty in a few weeks,” he said indignantly. To Jude, the difference in ages hadn’t seemed egregious. He hadn’t thought to ask Harriet.

“And I am not yet thirty. I would still hesitate to marry a lord twice my age. If I were barely into my twenties, I cannot claim I would do so with any enthusiasm.”

He did not want to argue with Miss Penfirth.

“I made my decision. Harriet agreed it was her best option.”

“What other choice did you give her?”

“I told her she could live at home”—he remembered not to mention his estate, lest he tip off the intelligent Miss Penfirth that he was no mere mister—“forever. She preferred marriage to the man I selected as the most suitable match for her.”

Guilt gnawed at his bones. Harriet might not bear the honor of a title due to the unfortunate circumstances of her birth, but he had raised her to be a lady and he wanted to rectify his sister’s error by ensuring that his niece received the distinction through marriage that she had been denied by birthright.

“Did she have any say in the matter? Apart from yes or no? Did he court her, is what I’m asking.”

“She had five Seasons to find a suitor on her own.” The breeze was cold and crisp now, indicating that they were near the exit. Why wasn’t the passageway getting lighter? They ought to be able to see the opening to the hidden cave by now.

“I can personally attest that a lady without either an ample dowry or striking looks will struggle to attract a suitor.”

“Her dowry was fine.” The grinding noise in his ears was from his own teeth. “You should have had no difficulty, dowry or no.”

She barked a laugh. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” he said gruffly. “You’re beautiful.”

“I assure you I am nothing of the sort, though I appreciate the compliment.”

His ears burned. Jude hadn’t meant to blurt that out, however sincerely he meant it. Worse, he’d made Miss Penfirth feel awkward. Her cheeks might be pink from physical exertion, but judging from the way she wouldn’t meet his eye, there was a measure of embarrassment in the mix.

“Well,” he said. “This wasn’t here last time. I suppose this might be why the upper door was such a makeshift contraption.”

He shoved on a wooden panel. Beyond it was a natural cave leading out into the sea. Water sloshed around his boots. Miss Penfirth joined him on the narrow walkway. The door slammed shut behind them.

“A rising tide,” she said when a particularly strong wave graced the toe of her boot. She edged back. “Look at the mark on the wall there. By high tide, there will only be a few feet of walkway. We should go back before we’re trapped here. I have seen everything I need to see.”

Wordlessly, Jude pushed the door. It didn’t move.

“Stuck,” he said in disbelief.

“Let me try.”

He stood back, as far as was possible, and for once in his life managed not to say anything while she attempted to pull, push, and otherwise yell for help.

“Save your breath. They won’t hear you.”

Miss Penfirth slumped with her back against the door, staring at the sloshing water in defeat.

“What will we do now?”

“Wait,” he said grimly. “Unless you know how to swim?”

* * *

Time passed. Without any way to gauge it, for he had left his pocket watch back at Prescott’s, each second felt like an hour. Minutes ticked by in eons. The incessant waves crept higher, sloshing over the makeshift walkway and forcing them back against the stone wall. The sun’s rays through the far opening barely shifted. Jude grew tired of staring at them.

“Someone must notice us missing soon.”

“I admire your optimism, Miss Penfirth.”

“Nathaniel will wonder where I’ve gone off to.” She cast a pebble into the sea. “Eventually.”

“Probably not until nightfall.”

“I hope it’s sooner than that. I never did get breakfast.”

Jude winced at the loud gurgle of her stomach. “I should have waited for you to be ready.”

“I am a grown woman and chose to join you. Besides, I have been told I should try a reducing diet.”

“By whom?” he said indignantly.

“Nearly everyone, at one time or another. My mother, sisters, friends…” She trailed off. A pensive expression clouded her delicate features. “Everyone.”

“Any person who would ask you to change yourself is not worth your time,” he said gruffly.

She flashed him a quick, sunny smile that nevertheless failed to break through the clouds in her eyes. “A conclusion I also arrived at, although the lesson came at a considerable cost.”

“We’re not going anywhere, it seems. Tell me what price you paid, Miss Penfirth.” He leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “If it’s not too intrusive of me to ask.”

She chucked another pebble at the waves, casting a little too hard and sending the stone careening off the far wall instead. He’d touched a nerve. Despite her reticence, it felt nice to think about something other than Harriet’s predicament. He couldn’t remember spending time with a woman for no purpose other than idle conversation and companionship, other than his own female relatives.

For years he’d been so focused on raising Harriet to be a proper lady that he’d neglected his own life.

“It’s not a very interesting story.” She gave up throwing rocks and leaned back against the cold stone next to him.

“We’ve nothing else to do until someone decides to rescue us.”

Still, she hesitated, until Jude thought he might explode from curiosity.

“I am the eldest daughter in a family of nine children. My father died not long after my fifth sibling was born. Mother was forced to remarry, which resulted in three more children. Her sister, my aunt, is Nathaniel’s mother. When the Prescott title passed to him, my mother saw an opportunity to launch the family into a better social circle.

“Alas, her grand plans for me were thwarted by the fact that the Prescott name was penniless. A new viscount with little in the way of a fortune was considered an upstart. His poor cousin was no prize. After my first failed Season, upon which she had spent a considerable sum that we couldn’t really afford, I was put on a reducing diet and sent back to try again. If I were a stone lighter and kept my mouth shut, surely I could attract a wealthy gentleman.” She scoffed.

“Not one man in London took an interest in you? I find that difficult to believe.”

“One did. For a time,” she said wistfully.

“What happened to him?”

“To the best of my knowledge, he is hale, hearty, and happily married.” Her sigh of resignation was swallowed by the churning sea. “He courted me for three Seasons before throwing me over for an heiress. I truly believed we had a connection, but in the end his love of money outweighed any affection for me.”

“His loss.”

Her quiet scoff was swallowed by the lapping waves.

“Love makes fools of us all,” he said.

“Except for you,” she teased impishly.

“Yes, except for…How did you know?”

“That you’ve never been in love?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“An educated guess, Mr. Montague. I have known you for only a day, and yet I feel we have an understanding of sorts, which has loosened my tongue unforgivably.” She shuddered. “I must apologize. I am boring you with wretched family secrets and being completely ill-mannered in discussing money, of all things. I understand how such topics invite discomfort. I assure you that I have experienced the burden of a too-light purse for most of my life. It is only recently that Nathaniel has managed to restore the Prescott family’s fortunes and provide me with an escape from my mother’s constant criticism. Even so, if you are here to beg his aid, I can assure you there isn’t much to spare.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that money was not an issue for him, that in fact he had more of it than he knew what to do with, but then Jude realized that she thought he was in financial straits and that was his purpose in visiting her cousin. Which was not an illusion he could afford to dispel at present. His true identity must remain a secret for Harriet’s sake.

He stared at the sun streaming brightly through the cave passageway in stunned disbelief. He didn’t like for people to know he was a duke, but at some point, Miss Penfirth would discover the truth. She was far too clever not to, even if she had temporarily arrived at the wrong conclusion about him.

“I’m babbling,” she said sheepishly. “I admit I have not spent this much time alone with a man, ever. What about you?”

“What about me?” he asked defensively.

“Are you yet unmarried? I assumed so, since the only ring I see is that signet of yours.”

Jude clasped his hand around his left pinkie finger to conceal the only jewelry he wore: a small signet ring passed down to him from his father on his deathbed.

If you ever get into trouble, use this to request assistance from the other Wayward Dukes, he’d said. Without their help, I never could have kept Pamela’s secret from the world. If you are ever caught up in a bad business venture, a scandal you need to keep quiet, or need help escaping a marriage trap, for example, call upon your fellow Dukes for assistance. They are an unpredictable but loyal lot.

He could hardly tell Miss Penfirth about the secretive Wayward Dukes, however.

“Not every man wears a wedding ring,” he said stiffly. Most men of his class didn’t, but he couldn’t exactly tell her that. “You are correct. I remain a bachelor. I truly intended to turn my attention to my own matrimony once my niece was settled.” He tossed a pebble into the water. “Then this happened and everything went to hell.”

“What kind of lady would you pursue?” she asked teasingly.

You. The word popped into his mind instantly.

“Wait. Allow me to try and guess.” She tapped her lower lip in mock thoughtfulness. “You’d choose a girl fresh from the schoolroom. A rich one, to keep you in fine waistcoats and good boots. She would timidly await your instruction in the marital bed, and never complain when you would ignore her as long as she has sufficient pin money to keep her in ribbons and frivolities.”

What hung in the air, loudly unspoken but understood: the exact opposite of me.

“You wound me,” he declared. “I could never be content with only fine waistcoats and good boots. I shall require a sizable fortune indeed to make such a stultifying match worth my while.”

He turned to her. There was so little space on the walkway that the waves sloshed their boots. The hem of her dress and his pant legs had gotten wet and he could feel her slight tremble. She was cold, he realized as he edged closer, trapping her between the stone and the water.

He had compromised her, and he didn’t even care. Miss Penfirth was the only woman he would countenance for his wife, now. Once this business with Harriet was over, he would marry her. She simply didn’t know it yet. Tension flared when he brought his hand to her face and stroked the curve of her cheek.

“I vastly prefer the company of a woman with a quick wit and keen observation, who doesn’t take me too seriously.”

“Have you met such a lady?” she asked breathlessly.

“I have.” Her skin was so soft and rosy beneath his touch. “We are only recently acquainted, but I find I prefer her company to that of any woman I have ever met.”

He brought his mouth to hers and brushed a kiss across her soft, sweet lips. She moaned and parted in welcome. Satisfaction coiled through him as he curled his free arm around her waist and tugged her lush body closer against his.

She was delicious. Ripe and crisp like an apple fresh from the tree; soft and strong like magnolia petals. The floral scent that had teased him relentlessly clung to her hair and skin, mixed with a womanly earthiness that awoke a carnal possessiveness within him.

Now that he’d had a taste, he would never be content until he devoured her whole. She tipped her head, opening to him with a sigh. Jude’s mind blanked. His arms tightened greedily around her waist.

Caden Bulloy chose that moment to rescue them, damn his soul to perdition.