Page 24 of The Duke’s Only Desire (The Dukes of Darkness #3)

“S ophie!” Her father met her at the door of Granville House, his arms open wide in greeting.

“Oh, Papa,” she sighed heavily and rushed forward to embrace him. “You’re such a sight for sore eyes!”

He hugged her closely.

Relief cascaded through her to see him looking so well. His health had improved over the winter since she’d been away. Perhaps it was because he now had good nurses and doctors to look after him. Perhaps it was because her marriage settlement had eliminated his debts, allowing him to finally cast off the financial weight that had plagued him. Perhaps—this last came with a stab of guilt—he hadn’t been worried about her being unmarried anymore…until now.

Three days ago, she’d had no choice but to send a message ahead to tell him she was returning to London and leaving Shay behind at Ravenscroft. She let him read between the lines and come up with the realization that her marriage was over, practically before it had begun. She couldn’t tell him the truth. Not yet.

He held her away as he scoured his eyes over. “Are you all right?” His eyes narrowed with anger. “I’ll never forgive Malvern for sending you to London alone like this.”

“I wasn’t alone,” she corrected and nodded toward the door, where her maid carried their two travel bags inside. Through the sidelights, she could see the Malvern coach waiting in the street as it was unloaded, its driver and three tigers heavily dressed against the cold…and she knew, heavily armed beneath their thick coats. “And it wasn’t Shay’s idea. It was mine.” She pulled in a deep breath and uttered what was not technically a lie, “ I decided to leave Ravenscroft Manor.”

She had made the decision…just not the way she wanted Papa to believe.

But lying to her father—rather, letting him believe something completely different than the true state of her marriage—couldn’t be helped.

Five days ago, on their return from speaking to Miss Danvies, she and Shay decided to put their plans into motion. The moment they returned to the house, Sophie declared to both Henley and Mrs. Sexton that she would be leaving to return to her father’s house in London. At dawn. The two servants had stared at her, aghast. Oh, she hated it! But she had to let them believe that she and Shay had irreconcilable differences and that her trip to London would be permanent. And no, she told them, preempting any questions they might have about where to send her things but which were actually a way of ferreting out if the separation would be temporary—her things should not be sent to Malvern House but to her father’s town home.

Only Pearson knew the truth of what they’d planned, and only so he could uncover the spies in their midst.

That evening had been a flurry of packing, with Ravenscroft lit brightly long into the night in order for the staff to prepare for her departure at dawn. Sophie directed Smithson in the packing; her most important belongings and whatever she needed for traveling would be taken with her in her coach, while the rest of her things should be sent in a separate carriage. All of it had to go, to keep up pretenses that she would never be returning. Mrs. Latimer busied the kitchens in preparing baskets of food, and Mrs. Sexton gathered bed linens, towels, and thick blankets for nights at public inns, as well as foot warmers that could be filled with a shovel of hot coals and thick fur lap rugs to keep the chill away while traveling.

The whole thing would have made Sophie believe she was preparing for a siege instead of a carriage trip, except that she was too upset to consider it. Yes, her leaving was merely a pretense to let Malcolm think she’d done his bidding, yet she couldn’t stop true worry from showing on her face, real tears forming at the thought of being separated from Shay, or the shame she felt at causing such distress for the servants. She truly was grieving, and all of it was made worse because she couldn’t see Shay at all that night, because he spent it pretending to sulk and drink in his study. Sophie was desperate to know that he was just as aggrieved as she was, except…well, she hadn’t had any contact with him since he helped her out of the sleigh and left her to address Henley and Mrs. Sexton. Alone. He hadn’t even bothered to be present at the front door to say goodbye when she stepped into the coach to leave the next morning.

But they’d had no choice. They had to fool Malcolm’s spies. She hoped.

“It’s been a very long trip.” She squeezed Papa’s hands reassuringly. “I have to send a message to an acquaintance in London to say I’ve arrived.” She handed over her coat, travel bonnet, and gloves to Saunders, her father’s butler. “And then we’ll have a lovely cup of tea and catch up, all right?”

Her father’s love for her showed on his face. So did his concern.

Ignoring a pang of guilt, she gave orders to the butler to bring a tea tray, then hurried to the old oak writing desk in the corner. She took out a note card, quill, and ink, and quickly scrawled out a short message:

I have arrived at Granville House.

Please come for me as planned.

—Sophie, Duchess of Malvern

She blotted, folded, and sealed the note, then wrote a name and direction on the outside. She handed it to the footman.

“Please deliver this,” she ordered. “Immediately.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” The young footman sketched a bow, then rushed off.

“Come, Papa.” Sophie linked her arm through Papa’s and led him to the settee. After five days in the carriage, she was grateful to be sitting without moving. “Tell me how you’ve been in my absence. How are you feeling?”

With a healthy gleam in his eyes, he told her all about the new nurses and doctors Shay had helped hire for him, as well as the other changes in his life…more long walks through the park for air and sunshine, less rich foods and sweets…endlessly teasing the nurses. The unbearable pressure of the earldom and its debts had been lifted from his shoulders, thanks to Shay, and the stress that had made him ill and nearly put him into his grave had seeped away. He now possessed more vigor and energy than he’d had in years, if ever.

Sophie beamed at him with love, knowing he would be all right. Finally.

The tea tray arrived, and as they continued to talk, Sophie poured out two steaming cups, adding the milk and honey exactly as Papa liked it. Doing this little gesture for him caused tears to well in her eyes. She loved him with her whole heart, and she hadn’t realized until then exactly how much she had missed him. She hoped to change that once Malcolm was stopped. Part of her was already scheming to bring her father to Ravenscroft Manor with her when she returned. Which she prayed would be soon.

Two hours later, Saunders arrived at the drawing room door and knocked quietly. “A visitor has arrived for Her Grace, but the gentleman refuses to give his name.” The normally staid butler appeared flustered. “I have left him on the portico. Should I send him away?”

“No.” Sophie scrambled to her feet, her heart pounding. “I was expecting him. I’ll meet him at the front door. Saunders, please fetch my coat, hat, and muff.” When the butler nodded and hurried to leave, she took her father’s hands as he rose politely after her. “I have to go out for a few hours. It can’t be helped.” She kissed his cheek. “Don’t worry. I’ll be in good hands.”

“A gentleman caller who won’t give his name?” Papa asked, bewildered. “What on earth…?”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” she assured him, then hurried out into the entry hall and collected her things from the footman who was racing down from her room. She slipped on her coat and pulled open the front door herself, too overcome to pause to put on her hat or wait for Saunders—

When the tall, broad-shouldered man on the portico turned toward her, her heart skipped.

“Your Grace.” Chase Maddox, Duke of Greysmere, nodded solemnly in greeting. The man she had sent for, per Shay’s instructions, the man she had been expecting…

Except she couldn’t deny how much it hurt to know that the wrong man was waiting at her door. Her heart desperately wanted her husband.

He gestured toward a waiting, unmarked carriage, its curtains drawn to hide its compartment from view. “Shall we go?”

“Sophie, I refuse to let you leave with this man,” Papa interjected as he approached her at the door. From the dark frown on his face, he didn’t recognize Greysmere from her wedding, and Sophie was glad of it. It was one less part of their plan she would have to find a believable excuse to hide from him.

But then, why would he recognize Chase? She barely recognized him herself. From the way Greysmere looked, no one would confuse him for a duke. Instead of being dressed in New Bond Street’s finest, he wore a coarse brown jacket, plain tan waistcoat, and trousers that would have been right at home in the possession of a common laborer. So did the plain neck cloth, dirty boots, and scruffy tweed cap, and all of it matched the old hired hackney waiting in the street and the three-day growth of beard covering his face. Why Saunders hadn’t sent him around to the service door in the rear, she would never know…except for his bearing. That proud, straight-spined, imperial bearing could never be mistaken for belonging to anyone but an aristocrat and soldier. It was the same bearing she’d always glimpsed in Shay.

“Who are you, sir?” Papa demanded, every inch as formidable as the duke. “And what business do you have with my daughter?”

“It’s all right, Papa,” Sophia assured him with a light hand on his arm. “I sent for him. He’s my…” Her mind raced to find an acceptable word. “My bodyguard for the afternoon.”

That was the god’s truth. Shay trusted Chase with his life. So would she.

Her father’s frown deepened. “ Bodyguard? What on earth do you need—”

“I’ll explain later.”

With a kiss to his cheek, she slipped out the door before her father could stop her and hurried across the small portico and down the short steps to the footpath. Chase gave a polite nod to her father in deference, then turned and fell into step beside her.

When they reached the waiting hackney, she realized why he was dressed as he was. He didn’t want anyone to recognize him, including her father. Which was why he’d hired a hackney instead of bringing the Greysmere town carriage. Any spies Malcolm had in London wouldn’t know what she and Shay were up to.

He helped her inside and climbed in after her, then shut the door, and pounded his fist against the roof. The team started forward.

“Thank you for coming for me,” she told him and slipped the metal bird into her coat pocket.

“Anything for the woman who domesticated Seamus Douglass,” he drawled, amusement coloring his voice. “I hear he’s busy with flower gardens these days.” He leaned back against the torn squabs, but Sophie suspected that, despite his casual appearance, he was on alert for every movement and noise around them.

“Not nearly as domesticated as all that, I assure you.” She paused, then asked with trepidation, “And the other?”

She’d sent a letter ahead three days ago to each of Shay’s best friends in London, including Greysmere, explaining the situation and asking for their help in finding anything of use against Malcolm. Shay hadn’t wanted to involve them, yet Sophie had no such qualms. She didn’t regret including the men who were more like brothers to Shay than John had ever been.

“We’ve found some interesting information about Lord Malcolm,” he confided carefully, if vaguely as if in fear of dashing her hopes. “Crewe has been calling on his contacts, so has Dartmoor, both in Whitehall and in less fashionable areas. We’ll let you know more as soon as we’re able. But know that we’re doing the most we can to help you both.”

Her heart swelled with gratitude. “Thank you.” She gave up all pretense of hiding her growing agitation and nervously glanced out the window at the passing city. “Where are we going? Shay only said to contact you, that you would come for me—he didn’t say why.”

“An inn in Southwark. You’ll be told more then.”

She grimaced. “Is all this cloak and dagger really necessary? Malcolm has made threats, but I don’t think he’d stoop to harming me physically.”

“To get his hands on a dukedom and its fortune?” he muttered. “I think any man in his circumstance would stoop to doing just about anything to ensure it. Including harming you.”

Her heart slammed painfully against her ribs, and she let an uncomfortable silence grow between them. There was no point in asking any more questions; she knew he wouldn’t give her any more answers. His role wasn’t to enlighten her on Shay’s plan but to protect her.

The carriage wound its way east out of Mayfair and on toward the City of London in a circuitous route that took them the long way through Westminster and along the Thames. When they passed Somerset House, Chase leaned forward and glanced out the window.

“Here will do,” Chase muttered.

Sophie tried to see past him. “Do for—”

He pounded his fist against the roof, and the jarvey pulled the horses up sharply. Chase flung open the door and dropped to the ground, then turned to help her down. He tossed a coin up to the jarvey, took her by the elbow, and hustled her away from the road toward the river.

His long strides forced her to nearly run to keep up with him, but he refused to slow, guiding her down the embankment toward the stone steps leading toward the water. Two wherrymen waited nearby with their boats. Chase let out a shrill whistle. One of the men leaned hard against his long paddle and spun his boat toward them, bringing it up against the stairs with a bang of its long side.

“Southwark,” Chase ordered and assisted Sophie onto the wood plank seat. He scanned the embankment above them and the long shadows cast by the sun as it sank behind London’s buildings. “And hurry.”

“Aye, sir!”

Chase helped the man to shove off, then jumped into the boat and sat next to Sophie. But his hand rested beneath his coat, and she didn’t dare contemplate whether he hid a pistol there.

The ride across the Thames was cold, the icy water tossing up waves stirred by the winter wind that whipped through the city and out toward London Bridge, and all of it seemingly made even colder by the dying sun as it slipped completely beneath the horizon. But Sophie was too worried to be bothered with the cold and simply stuck her hands deeper into her muff, her collar turned up against the rapidly oncoming night.

The wherry bumped against a set of steps just west of London Bridge, and the wherryman reached out to grasp the metal pole driven into the last step and swung the boat sideways. He held it there as Chase jumped out of the boat, then reached back for Sophie.

When she was safely ashore, he tossed the man a coin. “You didn’t see us,” he warned in a harsh order.

“See who?” the man returned as he pocketed the coin and shoved off, back into the blackness of the Thames. “Ain’t nothin’ here but us shadows!”

Chase took her arm to guide her up the stairs. As soon as they reached the top, he led her into a rabbit warren of narrow streets and alleys near the cathedral. Only once they reached the main street above the river did he slow their pace, yet they didn’t stop.

“Where are we going?” she huffed out, her breath a ghostly white on the darkening air.

“The George.” He gestured at an inn just down the road. It was four stories high with long white galleries stretching nearly the full length of its facade. Lamps lighting the ground floor and shutters closing in the rooms above signaled that it was awakening for the night, although the inn yard behind would be busy until dawn with coaches and travelers coming and going. “That’s where you’re meeting Mr. Alton.”

“Not Shay?”

“Mr. Alton,” he corrected firmly.

She fought to keep her shoulders from sinking in disappointment. She hadn’t seen Shay in nearly a week, not since she’d left Ravenscroft. She knew he planned on leaving the same morning under the pretense of traveling northwest to a Malvern property near Carlisle—“To be as far away from my wife as possible,” he’d announced to the staff, in hopes of misleading Malcolm’s spies—only to change directions and race to London as fast as he could. He had wanted to arrive before her, hire investigators to hunt down Cora White, and carry out their plan in secret without being seen by anyone. Apparently, including her.

She tried to bolster her hopes. “Is Mr. Alton an investigator?”

Chase didn’t answer, walking on silently. When they reached the inn, he released her arm and stopped. “I’ll wait here.”

To make certain they hadn’t been followed. A chill raced up her spine. She didn’t like this cloak and dagger business at all. Yet with no choice, she hurried forward into the inn.

She paused to let her eyes adjust to the smoky lamplight. The public room was filled with travelers, yet none of them paid her a second glance as she moved forward toward the bar in the corner.

An innkeeper wiped down the bar with a dirty towel. He didn’t bother to look up. “What d’ya need?”

“I’m to meet a Mr. Alton. Can you please tell me where I can find him?”

He jerked up straight at the man’s name. “Mr. Alton, ya say?” When she nodded, he gestured toward the stairs. “He’s been expectin’ ya.”

Snatching up a candle from behind the counter, he led her through the crowded inn and paused only to light the stub on a wall sconce before guiding her up the creaky old steps to the top floor, then to a room tucked into the far end of the hallway. Around them, the inn was alive with travelers and locals eating, drinking…and doing all kinds of things she didn’t want to contemplate.

He handed her the candle and nodded toward the room. “In there.” Then he gave her a deferential nod and left.

Sophie took a deep breath and knocked at the door. When no one answered, she opened the door and stepped inside. “Mr. Alton?”

She paused as her eyes made out a dark figure on the other side of the small, shadow-filled bedroom. Her heart slammed against her breastbone as she closed the door behind her.

She placed the candle onto a wall sconce near the door and turned toward him with a smile. “Mr. Alton, I’ve found you at last.” She removed her bonnet and coat, threw them over the end of the nearby bed, then kicked off her shoes. “You’re a very difficult man to find.” She reached beneath her skirts to untie her stockings and roll them down her legs and off. “I hope you’ll be worth all the trouble.”

“If not,” Shay said as he stalked forward into the dim candlelight, “you can punish me for it.”

Mr. Alton. She’d never been happier to be played for a fool in her life.

Shay grinned, that same wanton smile which haunted her dreams. “What the hell—punish me anyway.”

Her laughter turned to a giggling scream as he scooped her into his arms and tossed her onto the bed. Before she could catch her breath, he was on the mattress with her, his hand pulling up her skirts and his head lowering between her legs to bring his mouth against her. Like a starving man, he devoured her, taking deep licks and greedy mouthfuls until she writhed beneath him in joyous torture.

“Shay, I’ve missed you,” she panted out as his mouth claimed her. “So much!”

A deep groan rumbled into her from his lips, and she knew that attempting to hold on to any restraint was a fool’s errand. So she dug her fingertips into his scalp and shoved herself up beneath him to bring his mouth as tightly against her aching core as possible. She shuddered uncontrollably as pleasure galloped toward her, and when his lips closed over her and sucked—

“Yes!” Her hips bucked, and she writhed with joy, only to find herself pinned down against the mattress by his large hands on her hips so he could toy with her again. “Oh, please yes!” She could barely keep her breath as his tongue thrust relentlessly into her and brought her to the edge of release. “Make me yours again.” She spread her thighs as wide as possible to grant him access to every secret bit of her. “Take me now— please !”

Her begging was silenced by a fierce kiss as he lunged up the length of her body and seized her mouth with his. Immediately, she felt the hard length of him plunge inside her, her eager body clenching hard around him in demand to be satisfied. He thrust harder and faster than ever before, driving them both quickly toward release, and the desperate rhythm of their greedy bodies made tears of primal need fall down her cheeks.

She shattered with a high-pitched cry, and overwhelming pleasure engulfed her. She could do nothing more than cling helplessly to him and let the tears of joy come. He continued to ride her pleasure until, with a last deep thrust of his hips, he jerked hard inside her, and the hot rush of his release surged into her. His body strained as he fought to pour every bit of himself into her, and her folds quivered greedily to claim every delicious drop.

When he collapsed on top of her, still buried deeply inside her, and fought to regain his breath, Sophie placed a tender kiss to his heated temple, where she could taste the salty perspiration on his skin.

She smiled and flippantly purred, “Whatever you do, Mr. Alton, don’t tell my husband what we’ve done.”

Shay laughed and rolled onto his side, and when she felt his thick length slip from her tight warmth, she immediately longed to have him inside her again. His hand continued to stroke over her body as if he simply couldn’t believe she was real and with him again. But then, she could barely believe it herself. And the way he gazed at her, his eyes bright and glowing…

He loved her. There was no hiding it.

Yet her heart tore, because even now, after all they had shared, he still wouldn’t let himself admit it.