The Historical Collection 2018: The Duchess Deal / From Duke Till Dawn / His Sinful Touch / His Wicked Charm. Candace Camp
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work to be done.
She needed a gown. Not just a gown, but the gown. Luxurious, elegant, impeccable. A gown that screamed not merely wealth, but refinement and exquisite taste. She needed to look like a duchess.
After years of using her skills to bring out the beauty in other women—and the occasional undeserving man—she must turn that eye on herself today. Take a hard look in the mirror. Stop focusing on faults that needed concealing, and look for the beauty that could be drawn out.
She had one day. And precious little to work with, save some yards of sapphire-blue velvet draperies and a few embellishments left over from making Davina’s pelisse. A handful of false pearls, a bit of ribbon. Her eye fell on the sparkling combs she’d worn to the theater. Perhaps she could pry the crystals off.
Right, then. The first thing she needed was a pattern. Easiest to cut the pieces from a garment that had previously been fitted to her measurements. She went to the closet, pulled out her one and only proper gown, and began to yank it apart at the seams.
It felt good.
Ash needed an outlet for his emotions, and badminton was not going to do. Not tonight. He was still confused, still angry. Mostly, he was annoyed with himself.
Emma had left the house six minutes ago, and already he missed her like hell.
He’d stubbornly refused to watch her depart for the evening, much less bid her farewell. Too perilous.
However, he was suffering anyway. No matter where he went in the house, he couldn’t escape the misery. The cat followed him around, blaming him in plaintive yowls. In every room, she’d tugged the draperies down to admit the light. The symbolism of it was trite and syrupy, and it all made him want to throw rocks through the window glass and then lay prostrate on the carpet, desperate with longing.
It was definitely time for some manly sport. Cricket by candlelight? He’d done stranger things.
In the ballroom, Ash held down the narrow end of an Aubusson carpet runner borrowed from the corridor, taking practice swings with a cricket bat.
In the center of the space stood Khan, glumly enduring his role as bowler.
“Come along, then.” Ash was ready to rattle some portraits on the far wall of the ballroom.
Khan plucked a ball from the basket, wound his arm, stepped forward, and bowled. Rather forcefully, as it turned out. The ball took a sharp bounce off the carpeting. Ash swung the bat and caught only air.
He glanced behind him at the missed ball.
“Just warming up the muscles, you know.” He took a few more idle swings.
“But of course, Your Grace.”
Khan took up a second ball and bowled it with surprising speed and skill. This time, Ash grazed the thing—just barely.
“Quite an arm on you, haven’t you?”
The butler’s next effort bounced directly at Ash’s feet, shooting upward and hitting his shin with one devil of a wallop.
“Ow.” Ash rubbed his smarting leg with the flat of his hand. “Take care, will you?”
Before he could even lift his bat, Khan bowled again. This ball struck Ash directly in the thigh. There could no longer be any doubt that he’d aimed for Ash purposely.
“What was that for?”
“You’re letting her leave, you bloody fool.”
Ash threw up his hands. “It’s what she wants! She’s been planning it for months. Manipulated me into tupping her all over the house, going out in society, and—and feeling things.” He walked in a circle, shaking the stinging pain from his leg.
Ash barely managed to duck as another ball whistled by his ear. “Good Lord. What the blazes are you doing?”
“A missile knocked the sense from you once. Perhaps another can knock it back in.” He reached for another ball. “You vowed to love, comfort, honor, and keep your wife. It was in the vows. I was there.”
Ash lifted the cricket bat and pointed it at him. “Then you should recall she vowed to obey me. Look how that’s turned out.”
The butler pulled his arm back, preparing to bowl.
Ash flinched. “Wait.” He threw the bat aside and held up both hands in surrender. “Listen to me, will you? If she wants to leave for the country, that’s best.” He passed a hand over his twisted face. “She doesn’t need me.”
“Of course she doesn’t need you.” Khan’s indignant words rang through the ballroom. “Only a fool would underscore it.”
“What am I supposed to do, then?”
Khan gave a long-suffering sigh. “Go. To. The. Ball. Whether you agree with her or not. Whether she goes to Swanlea or not. You know how Miss Worthing will be salivating to tear her apart. If you send her to face that on her own, you’re no better than the rest of them. First that rotter Giles—”
Ash frowned. “Who’s Giles?”
“The squire’s son. In Hertfordshire. Don’t tell me she hasn’t—”
“Yes, yes. Of course she told me. I didn’t ask for the blackguard’s name.”
Khan began again. “First Giles. Then her father. Next, that villain Robert . . .”
“Wait, wait, wait. There was a Robert?”
The butler winged the last cricket ball. “Robert. The one who made a pretense at courting her, when his true goal was to learn about the ladies who came into the modiste’s shop? The one who eloped with a rubber heiress? She must have told you this.”
Not only did Ash not know about Robert—he didn’t even know there could be such a thing as a rubber heiress.
Khan stalked about the ballroom, gathering the errant cricket balls into the basket. “Every one of those men failed Emma in the same way: He chose protecting his own pride over standing by her. And now you’ve done the same. You’d rather skulk about London playing at ‘monster’ than stand at her side for one night and be the man she needs. How utterly infantile.”
Ash groaned.
“You’re going to lose her. And when you do, you are losing me. I’ve served your family for thirty years. I’m due a pension, and I’m not enabling this self-pitying codswallop any further. I wish you all happiness living alone and growing old with your twenty cats.”
“I never expected any different outcome,” Ash protested. “Emma and I had an arrangement of convenience, not a love match.”
“Your Grace, you wouldn’t know a love match if it punched you in the stomach.” The butler plunked the basket of cricket balls at Ash’s feet. “Dodge.”
“What?”
Thwack.
Khan dealt him a solid blow to the gut. Ash doubled over.
The butler tugged on his vest. “You were supposed to dodge.” He bowed deeply, then departed the room.
Ash was left dazed and hunched over, working for breath. He braced one hand on the wall. “Damn, Khan.”
He supposed he’d deserved that. And really, what was one more injury atop all the others?
He’d spent years hurting. For that matter, so had Emma. Neither of them could undo each other’s wounds. He couldn’t go back in time and tell her not to waste her love on a series of increasingly worthless men.
Ash was her worst choice of all. He was supposed to be the one