Page 26 of The Duke Disaster (The League of Extraordinary Widows #1)
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O liver stared out the window at the sunshine filtering through the trees, fingers drumming absently against one thigh. Claremont was here, uninvited in both his appearance and opinions. Oliver had little need of either.
“Lord Claremont.” He had been in a small bubble as of late, one that contained only him and Celia. A place no one else was invited to invade. Until today, it seemed.
“Sir Richard Barnes called upon me two days ago.” Claremont pursed his lips at Oliver, chin weak and quivering with muted indignation. “He is concerned.”
“About?” Claremont loved to drag things out.
“The cousins fear you dine far too frequently at the home of Mrs. Barnes. They find no reason for you to do so.”
Well, I’m bedding her. Oliver wanted to say. And her cook makes an excellent trifle. Both were true, but there was much more to it. Even he had to admit as much. Sex was the least of the reasons he craved Celia. Even now, with Claremont sniveling before him, Oliver ached for her warmth and affection.
“I did not realize my affairs were of such concern to the cousins. Am I to understand that Sir Richard, who sits in Her Majesty’s treasury, a position I helped him achieve, by the way, now spends his time spying on me?” A cold wave of fury struck Oliver.
“No, Your Grace,” Claremont stuttered at the sudden chill in the study.
“Sir Richard is a coward, as evidenced by the way he sent you instead of calling himself,” Oliver said in his most icy tone. “Sit. Down.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Allow me to satisfy the curiosity of my family.” How dare any of them, especially that toady Sir Richard, challenge Oliver in any way. “Did the Barnes cousins not task me with solving the problem of Mrs. Barnes? One you could not fix?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“I have been reviewing a select list of gentlemen with Mrs. Barnes while simultaneously convincing her to accept one of them as a husband.” He leaned across the desk. “I’ll remind you, Claremont, as a widow, I cannot force her. Oh”—Oliver waved a hand—“I can threaten her. Toss her into the streets, much as I should have your brother because I own the house, but do you, or any of the Barnes cousins, realize how much fodder that would give the gossips?”
“It is only, Your Grace,” Claremont said in a tentative voice, “that your strategy has not been in evidence. Not since Pratmore.”
The mere thought of Celia with another man, another suitor, dug sharp claws into Oliver’s chest. His possessive nature wouldn’t allow another man near her. And Celia had asked that she not be subjected to any more subtle introductions. “Musgrove, she saw as an insult. She and Pratmore had little in common. Chester lost interest. But I do have someone else in mind,” Oliver lied.
He rarely lied. He didn’t need to. The knowledge didn’t sit well with him.
“I would also point out that due to my efforts, the Barnes name is no longer in the papers. Her behavior has been inordinately correct.”
Claremont deflated in an instant. “I assumed as much.”
No, you didn’t, you simpering prick.
“Then why are you here, Claremont?”
“There is concern,” Claremont stuttered, holding up a hand, “about the conjecture surrounding you and Mrs. Barnes. If the duchess were here, she would wish such talk to be stomped out immediately.”
“A good thing she’s dead, then, isn’t it?” Oliver retorted. The very last person he wished to discuss was his mother. Lately, her presence had dimmed.
“I meant no offense, Your Grace. The very idea that you might be… involved with Mrs. Barnes is unthinkable. A man of your stature would never lower yourself so. I’m not sure what Sir Richard was thinking. I’ll speak to the rest of the family. Make sure they understand that your association with her is for the family’s sake.”
“See that you do. I will not sit by and have my character questioned,” Oliver said calmly, though his thoughts were in disarray.
A duke should not indulge his baser instincts.
Dimmed, but not gone, apparently.
“I’ll take my leave.” Claremont bowed and made his way out, Edmonds appearing as if by magic to see him to the door.
“Edmonds,” Oliver said to his butler. “I am not to be disturbed further.”
After Claremont departed, Oliver leaned back in his chair, staring at the tidy stacks of papers on his desk. Moved a paperweight back and forth. Stared at the single apricot rose sitting in a vase. He’d planned to take the solitary bud to Celia later. He was going to teach her how to play chess tonight, because she’d never had the patience to learn before.
He took a shaky breath.
What the bloody hell am I doing?
In the month since their association had started, Oliver had gone from dining with Celia once to nearly every night. He had stayed in her bed so often, he knew the name of her maid. Therese. She was French.
Kemp bid him good day when he left in the morning.
Her cook made lamb and roasted potatoes. But no carrots, because Oliver didn’t like them, and Celia, blasted Celia, had noticed and requested they no longer be served.
The pads of his fingers gripped the wood of his desk.
Last night, he and Celia had sat before the fire, a simple dinner of roasted chicken placed before them on a blanket. A picnic. Because Oliver had never had one. But it was raining, and they couldn’t sit in the garden and?—
He took a deep breath, trying to slow his pulse.
—Oliver had pulled the chicken from the bone and plopped it into her mouth. She’d deliberately refused to allow him the use of a fork, licking his fingers herself in a seductive manner after each bite.
Cider. She served me cider.
Then Celia had read to him from one of her improper romantic novels, his head cradled in her lap. Oliver had fallen asleep, soothed by her voice and the feel of her fingers in his hair. He’d awoken shortly before dawn, surprised to find them twisted around each other on the floor. Oliver hadn’t even cared that his back ached from sleeping on something other than a mattress. Covering her with a blanket, he’d left. Whistling a ribald tune.
Oliver did not whistle or indulge in such coarse amusement.
A cloying, suffocating sensation closed over him. A sense of growing panic. The terrifying fear that he had lost all control.
The cousins were questioning him, for God’s sake.
His entanglement with Celia had been meant to be brief. Physical. Lustful . If they were under a blanket together, his cock should be in her.
Claws sank into his heart.
No wonder Atherby grew impatient. The Barnes cousins suspicious. Oliver was supposed to offer for Lady Helen Robb. Make her a duchess and fulfill his familial obligations. Not roll around in trifle with the very problem that had brought him to London.
Oliver had spent months sifting through young ladies until he’d found Helen. She would be the perfect duchess. He’d decided . So why did the thought of tying himself to Helen for a lifetime suddenly seem so… abhorrent ?
Your father was impulsive. Do you see what it did to him?
The duchess had taken the arm of ten-year-old Oliver and shoved him forward to view his father’s bloody, bruised body as the men from the village had brought him home.
Douglas Barnes, eighth Duke of Hartwood, had been hit by a carriage, right in the middle of the street. The out-of-control vehicle had been headed directly towards a young lady, and his father had run across the street, pushing her out of the way. He’d sacrificed himself, his responsibilities, his duty, for—the woman who, Oliver had learned much later, must have been his father’s mistress.
Your father dishonored us all.
The duchess was a cold, strict disciplinarian. Affection, what little there was, had to be earned. But she knew her duty. Her responsibility. Under her guidance, the Barnes family had flourished.
A devotion to duty and family. Those things make a duke.
What was he, if not the Duke of Hartwood?
His family depended on him. Trusted Oliver to exemplify the tenets by which every Barnes lived. He had promised to solve the problem of Mrs. Barnes and, instead, become distracted. Swayed by a head of hair the color of autumn, a sharp tongue, and a glorious bosom.
And it could not continue.