Page 8 of Tantalizing the Duke (Wayward Dukes Alliance #22)

CHAPTER EIGHT

M orning filtered softly through the curtains in Milly’s bedchamber, where she sat nursing a headache as severe as if she’d drunk too much wine last night, which she had not. Her tears had kept her awake, and the lack of sleep was painful.

“It’s hopeless,” Rose exclaimed, her pacing quick and urgent, her movements punctuating each word. Her curls quivered with indignation as she swept past Milly. “And all of London knows it.” Her voice rose to fill the space, vibrant and unrestrained.

Milly regarded her reflection with an air of detached serenity, but the thin facade wavered under Rose’s assault. She sat at her dressing table, pretending a composure she did not feel. “Have they nothing better to talk of? I thought they’d all forgotten about me.” Her voice held more than the suggestion of irony.

“They’re saying you’ve trapped the duke in a scandal. They’re placing bets on when he’ll come to his senses and abandon you to infamy,” Rose cried, her arms waving dramatically as she paced. She stopped abruptly and leveled an intent gaze at Milly, the concern in her eyes belying her playful words. “Tell me it’s not true. Tell me you’re not letting your heart go to that impossible man again.”

Milly turned the brush over in her hand, her fingers tracing the contours as if they held some secret wisdom. “Rose, darling, when did you become such an admirer of his?” The teasing note in her voice couldn’t quite hide the vulnerability beneath.

“It’s not Dainsfield I’m worried for!” Rose replied, her tone lightening even as her eyes searched Milly’s face. “It’s you. I hate to see you hurt. I’ve heard about the way he looks at you, Milly. Betty and Verity talk endlessly of it. But it can’t happen. It won’t happen. He won’t have you.”

Milly’s smile was fragile. “Perhaps I should pin my heart to my sleeve, as all the poets recommend, and have done with it.” She drew a steadying breath, feeling her carefully crafted defenses buckle.

“You think this is a jest?” Rose’s disbelief shimmered around her like an aura, filling the room with its persistence. She resumed her pacing, though slower now, her steps matching the cadence of her words. “I wonder if you even listen to me.”

“Oh, I do,” Milly assured her, “especially when you make such a splendid fuss.”

Rose halted and crossed her arms, leaning against the window frame with a sigh. “He’s a duke, Milly. He could never marry someone like us.”

Milly’s laughter was a small, bright thing in the midst of the heavy truth. “And how do you know he hasn’t a fancy for bastards and scandalous pasts?”

“I wouldn’t joke about it,” Rose said, serious now. “Not with how he’s been around you.”

Milly met Rose’s gaze in the glass, the unspoken acknowledgment passing between them like a sigh. “I thought I had hardened my heart. But then…”

“You can’t just stop loving him,” Rose said softly, sitting back on her heels with a frown. “He was your first—not in your bed, but in your heart.”

“I must. Or else break it again,” Milly insisted, her voice growing firmer as her resolve hardened. She looked at Rose, her eyes heavy with unshed tears. “And you know I don’t have the strength for that.”

They sat in silence, the weight of truth settling over them like dust in the morning light.

* * *

Milly sat in front of her window watching people stroll past, enjoying the afternoon sunshine. Her eyes widened in surprise when Lord Parham’s gleaming curricle approached, his figure a handsome silhouette against the town houses across the street. The courage of the man, to drive so openly to her door!

He sat with relaxed elegance, his smile bright. Seeing her in the window, he doffed his hat with a flourish and called, “Miss Nichols, will you make my drive a pleasant one and join me?”

Milly felt a flutter of nerves beneath her calm exterior. She’d never gone riding with a man, never strolled the paths at Hyde Park. If London wished for a spectacle, she thought with wry resolve, it should have a splendid one.

As she came outside, Parham leaped down and assisted her into the curricle with a bow, as if she were some lady of rare and unblemished pedigree. Milly settled beside him, smoothing her skirts with the air of a woman used to such attentions, despite the irregularity of it all.

“Your presence does me a great honor. And, if I may be so bold, all of London as well,” Parham said, his eyes twinkling with mischief as he regained his seat and took up the reins.

Milly allowed herself a glance around, observing the curtain-drawn windows and curious passersby. “Are you quite sure you wish to be seen with me?”

“Quite,” he assured her, setting the curricle in motion with an expert flick. “Now, do try to look more pleased about it.”

The warm air lifted the tendrils of hair around Milly’s face as they made their way to the park, her apprehension slowly unraveling into a sense of unexpected enjoyment. The very public nature of Parham’s invitation felt like an extravagant act of rebellion, and for the first time in recent memory, Milly felt herself complicit in her own small insurrection.

As they entered Hyde Park, the fashionable set promenaded in all its glory. Ladies twirled parasols in pastel clouds, gentlemen rode tall and proud on their gleaming mounts, and everywhere eyes turned toward the unlikely pair driving with such casual daring. Milly’s appearance at Parham’s side was enough to stop conversation mid-sentence, and whispers trailed behind them like the tails of so many scandalous comets.

“Why, I believe we’ve been noticed,” Parham remarked, his voice dripping with amusement.

“Just as you intended,” Milly countered, the brightness of her eyes revealing her growing enjoyment. It was a curious thing, the way exhilaration crept into her chest, mingling with a nervous flutter she could not quite place. “I feel like a circus act.”

“Better a performer than a spectator,” Parham replied, casting a quick, knowing look her way. “Are you not having fun, Miss Nichols?”

“To my surprise, I am.” Her voice softened, touched with a vulnerability she hadn’t expected to reveal. “I never realized how enjoyable it could be, simply to be seen.”

They moved through the park, the sunshine warming their faces and loosening the brittle edges of Milly’s carefully maintained defenses. Parham guided the curricle with practiced ease, his attention seemingly split between the horses and his lively conversation.

“There are advantages to infamy,” he mused, keeping the pace steady. “Why, just look at me—riding about with the most notorious beauty in town, and no one to tell me I cannot.”

“Is it so easy for you? Surely you don’t require infamy to enjoy yourself.”

“You might be surprised,” Parham said, his eyes glinting with a shared understanding. “I am not quite the eligible catch marriage-minded mamas seek for their precious daughters. I rather fancy I’m considered something of an odd fish.”

Milly laughed at the imagery, feeling the warmth of camaraderie blooming where she had least expected it. “I suppose we swim in the same pond, then.”

“Very much so,” Parham replied, smiling in that disarming way that made his words feel like confidences.

Milly leaned back, letting herself relax into the moment, the intoxicating sensation of being part of something other than whispered gossip. She wondered at Parham’s motives, at the seemingly uncalculated charm with which he conducted himself. For a man of his position, he was almost too good to be true. “I would have thought a man like you would be quite the catch.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” he said with a mysterious shrug, the only sign of any deeper meaning hidden behind a rakish grin.

Their laughter mingled with the calls of birds and the rhythmic thrum of hooves, an elegant symphony that carried them across the park and back to the streets of Milly’s neighborhood. Her heart soared in time with the curricle’s speed, exhilarated by the combination of daring and dignity she hadn’t realized she craved.

When they arrived at her building, Milly felt the thrill ebb into a pleasant, if unsettling, awareness of just how much she had enjoyed their outing. Parham pulled the curricle to a stop, handing her down with all the courtesy of an ardent suitor.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling the inadequacy of those two words as she spoke them. “For everything.”

“The pleasure was entirely mine,” he assured her, the weight of his gaze leaving her with more questions than answers.

As Parham tipped his hat and drove away, Milly remained on the step, watching his elegant departure and pondering the turn in the day’s events. He hadn’t hinted at a proposal, but he had given her something else entirely—a glimpse into a world where she might belong. And yet, the ambiguity of his intentions left her suspended between hope and uncertainty, a state she both feared and found strangely exhilarating.

The thrill of the day faded into a tangled mess of unanswered questions as Milly closed the door behind her. Parham’s visit had left her reeling, exhilarated by the spectacle of their outing yet caught in the grip of uncertainty. She moved through the sitting room like a restless spirit, her thoughts circling the same unsatisfying truths. He had driven with her so openly, so defiantly. What, then, was his intention?

Surely Dainsfield had told the earl of her need to marry posthaste. There was no need for courtship on her end. She was a guaranteed “yes.”

She longed to speak to Dainsfield for some reassurance. Time was passing so quickly. Her father hadn’t made an effort yet to drag her to a modiste or any of the preparations needed before her wedding, but the agreement with Crampmoore was signed, from what he’d said. Parham, or whoever Dainsfield found to rescue her, needed to do so quickly.

Was Dainsfield truly the best one to advise her? To guide her toward a suitable match, now that she feared she no longer wanted it? She should call on Betty or Verity. They’d also offered to help.

She recalled the way Dainsfield had spoken of Parham. An eligible catch, yes, but a catch for someone with the right expectations. Parham’s hints about his outsider status seemed to suggest something she wouldn’t guess by looking at him—that he needed a wife in name only, someone to give him an heir while he loved another. There were very few “others” who would be a less acceptable match than she was.

Could his love be another man? Yet she’d seen Parham with a woman at Sutcliffe’s. Or was that a ruse, as marriage to Milly would be?

She thought once more of Dainsfield. Had he known? Was this his plan for her all along? Perhaps it was better not to know, she decided. At least not while her memory of Dainsfield’s office and their passionate encounter still burned so vividly, so painfully.

The office had been cold, she remembered. Cold until he pulled her to him, kissed her as if he might devour the distance he had kept between them. He’d taken her so quickly her gown had needed repair. And then his breathless words of regret. His apology. The audacity of the man! To claim her body so hungrily, then pretend he hadn’t meant to.

But hadn’t she done the same? Wasn’t she pretending even now, trying to make herself believe she could put him from her heart?

She moved to the window. Outside, a hackney rolled along the cobblestones, staid and unhurried. She watched it disappear down the street, feeling the slow unraveling of her resolve. Perhaps she could find Dainsfield at the club one evening. She could confront him, demand answers, insist on knowing what he thought of her.

She needed a plan. A way forward that didn’t rely on the whims and wishes of men who might never propose. A way to face Dainsfield that would keep her dignity intact, her composure unruffled.

She would find him at Sutcliffe’s.

And she would be prepared this time. She would be the woman he thought he had known, the woman who would let him go and do it with grace.