Page 6 of The Duke’s Price (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #18)

6

T hey arrived in Narbonne an hour after noon. There, they left the driver. He would allow the team to rest for a couple of hours and then take them back to the previous staging post, to exchange them for the now rested team they left there, and would continue sapping teams until he took back to Carcassonne the horses Perry had purchased. Ah well. No doubt someone would benefit from them.

The driver’s fee was in a pouch, double what Perry had promised him. Perry handed it over. At their next big town, he would have to find time to sell another couple of gemstones. The driver weighed the pouch in his hands and peered inside. His eyes widened and he smiled. “A pleasure doing business with you, sir. Can I help you find a new driver to take you to… where was it?”

“Perpignan,” lied Perry, naming a town to the south, “and thank you. The ladies and I will stay here overnight—or perhaps in another inn if this one doesn’t please them.” He cast a supercilious glance at the busy innyard, curling his lip. “If you find someone, send them to me. I’ll tell the innkeeper here if we decide to take rooms elsewhere.”

The driver shrugged. “As you wish, sir.” He weighed the pouch again and walked away muttering, “Arrogant goddam.”

Perry followed to make sure he was occupied. Sure enough, he ordered a room, a meal, and a glass of wine. When he took a giggling barmaid onto his knee, Perry was satisfied that he’d not be checking up on Perry any time soon.

Fifteen minutes later, with a new team, this time hired, Perry was driving the carriage north east, having told the innkeeper he had just recalled some friends who lived on the coast to the south east, and intended to call on them and perhaps stay for a day or two.

He had thought to head to just outside of Beziers, where his friend lived, but as he drove around the Narbonne market place, a troupe of horses on the other side of the market changed his mind—or, rather, their leader did so.

It was Carlos. Perry was finding it harder and harder to read small print, but his long-distance vision was excellent, and Carlos had made no effort to disguise himself. He was wearing the gaudy purple uniform encrusted in gold piping that was his favourite, and he had just lifted his hat as he bowed to a lady who had caught his eye.

By contrast, Perry had changed his fashionable attire for workman’s trousers, heavy boots, and a driver’s jacket. Even if he drove straight past Carlos in his slouch hat—and he could, for he was well camouflaged—the man was unlikely to look at him. Common drivers were beneath Carlos’s notice.

There was a knock on the sliding panel that allowed those inside the carriage to communicate with the driver, and a moment later the panel slid open. “Perry, I just saw Carlos.”

“I see him too,” Perry said. “It is just as well that I changed, sweeting. Don’t worry. There’s no reason for them to look closely at us.”

The cart that had been holding them up moved a few feet forward, giving Perry room to pass. Perry touched his cap and nodded to the other driver, in acknowledgement. “Sit down for a minute, love. I’m just going to pass this cart and get us out of here.”

He focused on his team for a few minutes, but as they crossed the bridge over the Canal de la Robine on their way to the main road north, he cast a glance back over his shoulder at Carlos and his men. They were leaving in the opposite direction.

“Have they followed us?” Ruth asked from the communications panel.

“They didn’t notice us,” he assured her. “We won’t go far today, Ruth. Perhaps two villages on. Somewhere they wouldn’t expect us to stop. We’ll abandon the carriage and buy a couple of horses so we can leave the roads and go cross country. No. Three, for we’ll need one for our luggage.” Perhaps he should give her something positive to look forward to. “We’ll find a place to stop for the night, and tomorrow, we’ll ride to where my yacht is moored, and take it offshore until it is time to meet the canal boat.”

Tonight, he would take her fully, and after that as often as he could. Would coupling get her out of his system? He was afraid it would not, and then what was he supposed to do?

The word ‘wife’, which he’d spoken as a blithe lie for the last few days, hovered at the fringes of his mind, demanding to be acknowledged. Had it come to that? He had known so many women. What was different about this one?

Domestic scenes he’d observed played in his mind, with him and Ruth cast in the main roles. Was marriage to Ruth such a terrible idea?

Of course it was. She was a woman like any other, and he’d had hundreds. And yet, it seemed like blasphemy thinking of Ruth in the same moment as the hordes of wanton females who’d fleetingly possessed his body, even more fleetingly his attention, and never his heart.

It is because I have not yet had her. Afterwards, I will tire of her as I have tired of all the others . As he had the thought, he knew he was lying to himself. He had never felt this way about anyone. Even Mathilda, back in the early days of his marriage when he was besotted with the bride his uncle had chosen for him.

Perry, my boy, you are in deep trouble. Best drop Miss Henwood to the nearest British consul and run . He wouldn’t, though. He had promised to take her and Bella to England and he would keep his promise. Yes, and take his price out of her lovely hide. Even if it destroyed him.

The day had been long and boring. At least leaving the driver behind in Narbonne meant that Perry was willing to stop along the road, far from human dwellings, to let her stretch her legs and use the bordeleau in some privacy and comfort.

Not in villages. In an excess of caution, as he himself put it, he insisted on her not showing herself when he stopped to change horses. Furthermore, at one village he called on a wheel wright. He bought a pot of paint and a brush, and turned outside of the village on a track into a small forest, where he stopped in a clearing to inexpertly paint the carriage door and the wheel hubs.

“We’ll have to wait until the paint is dry or all the dirt and dust of the road will stick to it,” Ruth observed.

For a moment, Perry looked flummoxed, then his devilish grin appeared. “I wonder what on earth we can do as while we wait?” he asked.

Ruth was torn near in two. On the one hand, each amorous encounter left her eager for more. On the other, they were already far past what her vicarage upbringing taught her was appropriate for people who did not intend to marry.

Indeed, as a child of the gentry, she was shocked at what they had already done, though she’d lived long enough to know that both the aristocracy and the common folk were relaxed about anticipating marital vows. A betrothal was, after all, very nearly a marriage.

Except Perry did not mean to marry her. Of course, he didn’t. She was not duchess material, nor young, nor particularly beautiful. That she even thought of marriage was witness to how far she had fallen, and she had no doubt at all she would fall all the way, and gladly.

And suffer after, both for her sin—for she believed Perry when he said he would never force her, which meant her fall was her own choice—and for the loss of the flawed but noble man with whom she was in love.

You will have saved Bella. It will be worth it .

She stepped into Perry’s waiting arms, determined to hold on to any last pieces of her heart that were not already his, and already knowing she would fail.

“The day has been long enough,” he said an uncountable time later, surfacing from a long kiss. “Let us make camp. We can tether the horses and sleep in the carriage.”

Ruth nodded, knowing exactly what her agreement meant. Today, perhaps before nightfall, Perry would complete the seduction he had begun. She dreaded it and could hardly wait.

Had she been asked, Ruth would have said that a duke, especially one with Perry’s reputation, would be at a loss faced with setting up a safe and comfortable camp. She would have been wrong. Wherever he had learned the skills, as she collected wood and kindling for the fire he proposed to build, he took the horses to the nearby stream to drink, tethered them where they could graze, and produced a spade from a tool rack under the carriage to dig a fire pit.

“Would you make a bed for us upwind of the fire, Ruth darling?” he asked.

“A bed? But are we not going to sleep in the carriage?”

Perry’s eyes twinkled as he gave her a wicked grin. “We’ll sleep in the carriage,” he explained. “This bed is not for sleeping. Sweep the ground of any rocks or sticks, then lay a couple of quilts for comfort underneath, and put a sheet over them. The bedding is inside the backward facing seat.”

“And the broom?” Ruth did her best to sound as matter-of-fact as Perry. It would be soon, then.

“I’ll make you a broom,” Perry offered. He pulled out a knife and began cutting branches from one of the bushes that surrounded the clearing. By the time Ruth had collected the bedding, he was binding branches to a stick he’d selected from Ruth’s firewood. “There. Not particularly robust, but it should hold together for long enough to sweep the ground.”

The man is astonishingly competent . Ruth blushed at the thought of the competence for which he was most famous, and perhaps he guessed at her thoughts, for he winked at her as he bent over the fire pit, carefully placing wood to build the fire.

“We won’t light this before the sun sets,” he commented. “I don’t want smoke to give us away, and it is warm enough that we only need it for cooking. And for a cup of tea, if you want one, dearest. Meanwhile, our wash will need to be cold. I propose that we wash now, and then go and test out the bed you have made. Do you want the stream first, darling? Or we could wash together, if you prefer.”

“First,” Ruth said, through a suddenly dry throat. She did not drag out her wash. The cold water did not make her inclined to linger. Besides, now that the time was on her, she wanted it done and over.

Perry did not keep her waiting long. He returned quickly from his wash, with a towel wrapped around his waist, a pair of shoes on his feet to protect him from stones and prickles, and nothing else on.

Ruth was sitting on the make-shift mattress, still fully dressed. He came and sat beside her to take his shoes off. He then started to unwrap his towel. Ruth stiffened in shock.

“Too soon?” Perry asked. He pulled back the top sheet and slipped under it, pulling the sheet up to his waist before tossing the towel to hang from a nearby branch. “If I may just comment, Ruth darling, you are somewhat overdressed for the occasion. Do you need help with your laces?”

An advantage of men’s clothing was that nothing fastened at the back. Ruth shook her head and took off her coat. Her fingers fumbled with the laces on her trousers, but she reminded herself that Perry would offer to help again, and she would far rather do it herself. She had not replaced her socks and shoes after her wash, so once the trousers were off, all that remained was the voluminous shirt that hid her down to the knees.

Apart from her chemise and drawers, and she was not taking those off while Perry watched. Though perhaps later. Since this was going to happen anyway, she was putting the demure daughter of the vicar into a box for the moment. Instead, she was going to experience everything Perry could show her. It was going to happen, so why should she not enjoy it?

He obligingly shifted to the far side of the mattress, and flipped the top sheet ready for her to slide under. She did so, pulled the sheet as high as she could, and tugged the shirt off over her head.

Lying down, with the sheet up around her neck, she waited to see what happened next.

“What are you still wearing,” Perry whispered, sounding interested rather than irritated.

“My chemise and drawers,” she muttered.

His response was a noncommittal noise. “Would you be kind enough to kiss me, Ruth?” he asked next.

She could do that. She now knew how, and kissing was very pleasant. Keeping the sheet over her shoulders, she rolled to face Perry, but he remained flat on his back, his face turned to the sky, smiling as he watched her from the corner of his nearest eye.

With a sigh, she raised herself until she could lower her mouth onto his. After that, she quickly lost the ability to catalogue what was happening. Perry didn’t take over the kiss so much as lead her to greater and ever greater intimacies. Deeper kisses. Caresses. Kisses in places that would have made her blush if she had paused to think about them.

He filled her senses. The sight of him—so male, so fit, so beautifully sculpted. His smell—something spicy and musky, with an extra something that said ‘Perry’. His touch, with mouth and fingers—gentle and then firm, always pleasurable, each stroke and glide ensorcelling her still further. His taste on her tongue, as he encouraged her to explore his body with her kisses—a slight remnant of his lunchtime coffee, the tooth powder he must have just used, the slight salty flavour of his perspiration. And his sound—the murmurs of instruction and encouragement, the soft sighs and groans that were her reward when she found the touches that affected him the way he was affecting her.

At some point, he dispensed with her chemise. She didn’t miss it. The drawers went the same way, though she could not remember how or when. All of the sensations were mixing together, until she could not tell whether she was hearing, tasting, seeing, smelling, or feeling. She was just one creature of sensation, every nerve in her body straining for something.

“That’s it, dear heart,” Perry murmured, his voice just one more sensation in the orchestral symphony he was playing on her body. “That’s it. Let go. Let it happen.”

Let go of what? Let what happen? But even as the thought struggled to make its way through the sensuous haze, she found out. All the sensations reached a crescendo, a peak, a space of light and glory.

She shouted as the culminating peak stretched across moments, and slowly drained from her body, leaving her limp.

Perry was moving, coming over the top of her, shifting her legs apart so that he could lie between them, nudging the focus point of those wondrous feelings with the blunt tip of his male organ. “May I enter you, dear Ruth?” he asked, polite as ever. She said, “Mmmm-huh,” even as she wondered whether she could make him as mindless as he made her.

“I need a ‘yes’, darling,” he coaxed.

Ruth found the energy to lift her body against him. “Yes.”

He brought her back to mindlessness, but this time, he came with her, and it was even better.

It was only afterwards that she remembered her father’s teachings. How disappointed he would be with her.

Perry had never felt so wonderful. Their coupling had been spectacular. Ruth was spectacular. He couldn’t wait to do it all again, to show her more of the magnificence they had wrought together this first time. He chuckled to himself—waiting was a physical necessity. His age might have given him greater staying power, but it took him longer to recover.

Or perhaps not. With Ruth in his arms, he was already beginning to feel the first stirrings of interest. He pressed a kiss to her hair. What a woman! He wanted to never let her go. And for once, he let the thought settle in his mind without shying away.

It was then that he realised the reason for the growing dampness on his chest, too much for perspiration. Ruth was crying, without movement or noise, weeping silently into his chest.

He twisted his neck to try to see her face, but all he could see was her hair.

“Ruth? Ruth, darling, what is wrong? Did I hurt you? Dear God, Ruth, why didn’t you say something! I would never have… But I could have sworn…” Surely, he had felt her reach her culmination? Heaven knew he was experienced enough to tell when a woman was faking it. Not that Ruth was the sort to fake anything.

“You must know it was beautiful.” The sob was obvious in her voice as she spoke. “Don’t mind me, Perry. I am just being silly.”

This unaccustomed feeling was panic. Perry wanted to slay whatever villain had upset her, and he had a growing sense it was him. “I don’t believe it. You are not a silly woman. Tell me, darling. What is wrong? What makes you cry?”

When she did not answer him, he cradled her head gently in his hands and pulled back far enough to look into her eyes. Tears kept welling up and sliding down her cheeks. “Tell me,” he begged. “How can I fix it if I don’t know what is wrong.”

“You can’t.” She gave a watery chuckle. “It is well and truly broken. Oh, Perry, do not worry so.” She brought her hands to cup his face so that they lay there, him half over her, both holding one another’s heads. “I am fine. Truly.”

Something that was well and truly broken. Her maidenhead? If she’d had one, which was unlikely, given her age, it had not presented any barrier to his entry. Something less tangible? “You are still a virtuous woman, Ruth. If we have done wrong, I am to blame.”

Something in the way she sighed told him he was on the right track. “Is that it, Ruth? You think we have done wrong?”

“Not you, Perry,” she assured him. “You have acted the way you always act, the way I expected you to act. It is I who have allowed you to change me, to weaken my will. I cannot deny I gave myself to you gladly. I, who resisted so many who would have assailed my virtue. What would my father say if he saw me now?”

It stung, to be dismissed as a careless rake. She expected him to seduce her and he had done so. There was nothing wrong with that. They were both adults, and though she had been a virgin, what use was her virginity to her? And yet he felt guilty, as if he had broken something precious.

He rolled away from her. What right had he to touch her when he had made her cry? “Tell me about your father,” he said, hoping to give her time to calm herself.

“He was a vicar,” Ruth said. “He raised me on his own after my mother died, and then he left me all alone when I was seventeen. A heart attack, they said. A broken heart, I think. He was never the same after my mother died. I think he knew it was about to happen, for I had just started in my first position—as governess to the Stocke sisters, though I was only a year older than Anne Stocke. The Earl of Selby, their father, was a friend of my father, you see. I think they arranged it between them so I would have a home.”

That would have been the uncle of the Selby Perry had known. As Perry remembered it, the uncle and his wife had died in an accident, leaving a son and three daughters in the guardianship of his brother. “I am sorry,” Perry said. “Lord and Lady Selby died too, didn’t they? And then their son, the new earl?” One of his partners in debauchery, a man called George, had brought the son to an orgy at Perry’s place in London, once. Then a disaster had ruined their friendship.

Out at the Selby country estate on a repairing lease, George had humped someone he thought, in the dark, was the governess. He later discovered it was one of the sisters. When his friend, their brother, challenged him to a duel, the drunken fool accidently shot and killed the brother.

After that, the three sisters disappeared, too. And the governess. Perry hadn’t made the connection, though he should have. After all, he knew that the Countess of Chirbury, Ruth’s beloved friend Anne, was also Countess of Selby—holding that earldom in her own right.

“So you went into hiding,” Perry mused. “The sister who was attacked had a baby, and your friend Anne pretended to be a widow.”

“I forget that you must have known that awful man,” Ruth said, frowning at him.

“Selby, too,” he admitted. “I had to ban Selby from my… ah… parties. I don’t allow violence or forcing the unwilling. But George was mainly just a drunk. He was truly sorry, you know. About the rape and about his young friend’s death. I’ve always believed that is what he meant by his suicide note.” It had been three words, written over and over until it filled the page. “I am sorry. I am sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t put what is broken back together,” Ruth responded sharply.

Broken. It was how she had described herself. Or her maidenhead. Or her virtue. Perry was not quite sure what was broken, but he had done it.

He hardly dared ask his question. “Did I force you against your will, Ruth.”

To his relief, she shook her head. “You did not.”

But his heart sank again when she added, “I do not have that excuse, Perry. I knew you would not force me. We had a bargain, but if I had begged off, you would not have abandoned me. I wanted what we did. I just didn’t expect to feel so dreadful. Such a wretched sinner.” The last four words were almost whispered.

It was rubbish, of course, her holding herself accountable. He knew how to seduce. He’d coaxed any number of women to his bed, some of them at least technically innocent, though he had always steered clear of those who were innocent out of conviction rather than habit or the fear of what people might think.

With Ruth, he had miscalculated badly. Hers wasn’t a temporary discomfort, easily soothed by a tawdry gift and the reassurance that no one would ever know. Hers was a bone deep belief. She felt soiled, and he was responsible.

“It is not your fault, Ruth,” he told her. “I’m not called the Duke of Depravity for nothing. I have been seducing women for twenty-four years, and I am an expert at making a woman’s body my ally in her downfall.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand better than you think.” Was he really going to tell her this? He never spoke of it. “I fell in love with my wife, Ruth, if you can believe it. I thought we were a love match for the ages. Then I discovered she loved someone else—someone unsuitable. Her father and my uncle had cooked up the plan of her marrying me, and had promised she could have her lover once she’d given me a son. I caught them together, in her bed, in my own house, and she told me all of it.” Ruth had been lying beside him, staring up at the sky, but part way through his story she had come back into his arm, tucking herself into his side with her head on his shoulder.

He hugged her close and continued. “She hated me, she said. She had always hated me. I went straight to London and to bed with one of the women who had been propositioning me since I first came out in Society. And then another and another. And I felt unclean, disgusting, unfit to be near decent people.”

He shuddered. And he had done that to her. To Ruth. To the best woman he had ever met.

But Ruth, of course, was now thinking of him. “Oh Perry. I am so sorry.”

“She died a year later. Measles, of all things. Her lover had them, and passed them on to her. Fortunately, she had little to do with Caspian, which is one of things that make me think he really is mine, and not her lover’s.”

“Caspian is your son,” Ruth commented, making it a statement, but he agreed, as if it had been a question.

“We write to one another, you know. After Mathilda died, I sent him to live with my sister, and she has raised a fine young man. He will be a good duke, I think, when it is his time.”

“How did you heal? How did you feel clean again?”

It was a discomforting question, for he had responded to that sense of wrong by diving into debauchery. Several couplings a night with different women, often two or three at a time. Wild parties where he did things he didn’t want to think about in Ruth’s sane company. Drink. Drugs. Women. Gambling. Crazy life-risking stunts.

“Marry me,” he said, startling himself as much as Ruth. It was a good idea, though. He couldn’t think of any other way to wipe out his crime against her, and besides he wanted to marry her. He really did. He’d not been bored once in days. “Marry me, Ruth. Then what we do together won’t be wrong. Won’t have been wrong. Just a bit previous.”

Ruth stared at him in disbelief. Then she laughed as if he had made a joke and rested her head back down on his shoulder again. “It would serve you right if I took you up on that. Can you imagine? Me, a duchess?”

“I’m serious,” Perry insisted. “It isn’t so bad, you know. Being a duchess. Duchesses, like dukes, make their own rules. You can still be you.”

She was silent. Was she thinking about it, or had she dismissed him out of hand? He shifted so that they were side by side, facing one another. “Think about it, Ruth. I know I am no prize. My past doesn’t bear speaking about. But it is the right thing to do, for us both. You are not made for casual entanglements. I am trying to change… You asked what I did to feel clean again. I didn’t. I threw myself into the muck. But in the past few years, I’ve begun to yearn for something different.”

Her clear-eyed gaze drew out of him thoughts he’d never articulated before. “I thought I was bored. But nothing satisfied. Not for long. Temporary distractions, but the restlessness always returned. But in truth, I was changing. Perhaps I was growing up at long last—my sister always said I needed to. It is why I decided to return to England, to reform my life and get to know my son. I can do it, Ruth. I can be a better man. Marry me?”

She shook her head, slowly. “You don’t mean it, Perry. It is just that you are sorry for me. I won’t marry a man because he pities me.”

She couldn’t be more wrong! It was her strength and resilience, as well as her integrity and kindness that he wanted to make his own. But before he could find the words to explain that, she spoke again.

“I have seen enough marriages, good and bad, that I have promised never to marry where I cannot give my heart. And I cannot give my heart to a man that might well grow bored with me. That probably will grow bored, for what is there about me to compete with the women you have known?”

“Everything,” he insisted. “None of them held my attention beyond the physical. Not like you do.”

Another slow shake of the head. “I wish I could believe you. I am tired, Perry. Let us sleep. Tomorrow, we can talk about this again, if you still wish to do so.”

Perhaps that was best. Give her time to think about it. At least her ‘I wish I could believe you’ showed some desire for him, did it not? “Just know that I mean this, Ruth. I want to marry you.” Should he promise her a lifetime of fidelity? But why should she trust him? As they tidied up the blankets they had been lying on, set the carriage seats up as beds, and saw to the horses, he tried to consider the question logically. Certainly, she was justified in her doubts, given his past.

Even Perry was not certain. He had no doubt he could resist the lures of the harpies, but what if he was faced with a long period of celibacy because she was ill or they were separated either physically or emotionally? He had never tried, which was a lowering thought. On the other hand, surely it was something that he didn’t break his promises? If he promised fidelity—he had a vague notion there was something about that in the wedding vows—he would be faithful.

As they lay down to sleep one on either bench of the carriage, he said, “Ruth, if we marry, I will give my word to be faithful, and you know I keep my word.”

“But will you come to resent me?” she replied.

He had no idea. Would he?

After a moment, Ruth turned her back and pulled the blankets up over her shoulders.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Ruth, are we not both reasonable adults? If we have problems, we can talk them out. Can we not? And come to a decision that suits us both?”

“Go to sleep, Perry. I am too tired to think about this.”

Fair enough. Perry pulled up his own blankets, and said once more, “I will not change my mind.”