An American Duchess

“I do not have emotions. Now, return inside. Dance in whatever shocking way you want with Sebastian. But send Julia out to me. I am taking her home.”

Her look of concern hardened to iron-strong determination. “Why? So she can be alone, with nothing to do but think of the man she lost? That is not going to help her get over grief. That will force her to wallow in it. She needs dancing and excitement and fun, Langford.”

“You cut her hair, for God’s sake.”

“Even you can’t be afraid of a woman’s haircut.”

“I am not afraid. There is no reason for Julia to change. She is a lady, not a dance-hall floozy.”

“You can’t lock her away as if this were Victorian England.”

“Julia is under my protection. I shall take care of her as I see best.”

For the first time, he realized his voice had risen. Everyone in line outside the club was staring at them. Blast Miss Gifford.

“She is not your chattel, Your Grace. Julia is a grown woman, and every change she made today is one she chose to do. If she wants to cut her hair, she can. If she wants to go to university, she could do that, too. The world is changing, Your Grace.”

“My world bloody well is not—”

A flashbulb exploded in his face. All he could see were spots before his eyes. The instant his vision cleared, a horn blared so loud, it sounded as if it were inside him. Jolting back, he took in the scene in an instant. A weaving car, going too fast.

Miss Gifford froze. Nigel caught her up in his arms. She weighed almost nothing—far less than a wounded soldier. He jumped back as the car lurched into the curb, its tires crunching over the spot Miss Gifford had been standing on.

The door opened, and the drunken driver fell out as he tried to get out.

“Oh, God, I could have been crushed like ice,” she muttered.

He set her on her feet and turned her roughly. “It’s not a joke,” he said heatedly, his chest heaving, his heart pounding. Something was burning through him, something he didn’t understand. It wasn’t the usual cold that hit him before the battle memories attacked him.

He looked down; she looked up. Her eyes were huge violet circles beneath the bright club lights, but her usual expression was back on her face. Jaded amusement. She had no idea what danger was about. She made him want to—

“I should thank you,” she said, “for saving my life—”

His mouth slammed into hers.

Heat. The sweetness of a cocktail. Lightning shot through him, riveting him to this moment in time. Her mouth answered his fierce kiss with hunger. Her kiss was scorching. She was so utterly unlike any woman he’d known before. Vibrant, infuriating but so damn alluring.

Her tongue found his, making him sweat beneath his evening dress. His body had been cold for as long as he could remember. Now he was heating up.

Brilliant light exploded around him. The glare of it froze him. His brain registered two words—scandal-mongering newspapers—just as Zoe Gifford pulled out of his embrace.

Sebastian shouted something at him in an inebriated slur, and his brother hit him for the second time in two days.

5 (#ulink_6785d069-2524-506d-b60d-8d99b2bb9168)

AT THE SAVOY HOTEL

Several hours later, Nigel pressed a towel filled with ice against his eye, the ice chipped from a block in the kitchens of the Savoy Hotel around the corner from Murray’s. If he were to open the door of his suite, he would hear the strains of the orchestra in the ballroom downstairs, playing jazz for the partying crowd. Drunken laughter. And witness more couples stumbling through the hallways, sinking to the floor to kiss passionately and indecently before they even reached a bedroom. Indecent.

He had ripped off his tie. Now he paced his hotel room like a caged cat.

He had told reporters he was Oswald Warts, Oxford student, and the girl he’d kissed was an actress’s understudy. Luckily, none of the press recognized him, as he was practically a hermit at Brideswell—except for the few times he came up to London to see his man of business and to visit his friend Rupert, who had been badly wounded at the Somme and was in a charity hospital. Given the late hour, he’d insisted they spend the night at the Savoy, and he had taken two suites: one for Julia and Miss Gifford, one for Sebastian and him.

A snore sounded from the adjoining bedroom. Sebastian was sprawled across the bed, fully dressed and unconscious.

“I don’t know what in hell to do.” He wouldn’t sleep tonight. After what had happened, he was certain he would have nightmares. He didn’t want to wake his brother with his screams and have Sebastian witness them.

What could he do? He couldn’t let the wedding go ahead, but what could he do with Sebastian? The problem was not just the rumors; it was Sebastian himself. He was drinking more. He’d grown even angrier, edgier.

Nigel didn’t know how to give his brother any peace. He couldn’t just say: do your duty and prefer females. Father had tried that and it had sent Sebastian on a self-destructive path that had seen him spend much of his time dead drunk.

If the blasted marriage ended in divorce, wouldn’t that lead to more rumors about Sebastian? Of course his wife kicked him out—he was batting for the other team.

Sebastian wasn’t going to be able to fool Zoe Gifford. Her kiss had been hot enough to melt the soles of Nigel’s shoes to the sidewalk. He had never been kissed like that.

It made him hot, when he was so accustomed to feeling empty and cold. It made him hunger for more. But—

“It cannot happen again,” he muttered to his brandy glass. “Not with my brother’s fiancée.”

A soft knock sounded at the door. It was 3:00 a.m. The party in the ballroom was still roaring at full speed—he could feel the rhythm of the music through the floor.

Groaning, he got up. What if he hauled the door open and faced bobbed blond hair, huge violet eyes and painted lips? He remembered discovering traces of her red lipstick on his mouth.

Heat seared him just thinking about it. Perhaps he had better not answer that door. He’d never had his control snap like that. Was it another symptom of shell shock—hauling unsuspecting women into scorching kisses? He didn’t think so, but losing control like that left him stunned.

Another knock. “Langford, open the door. It is Zoe and Julia. We want to make sure you haven’t beaten each other senseless.”

Both of them. At least it meant he wouldn’t be tempted to—

No. Hell, he would never be tempted to do that again.

He took his bag of ice from his eye and opened the door. Miss Gifford walked in, beautiful in a dark blue silk robe tied at her waist and frothing around her ankles. Feathers adorned the neckline and the cuffs. Julia wore a new robe of scarlet silk.

“You have quite a shiner, brother,” Julia observed. “I’ll go check on Sebastian.” She quietly went into their brother’s room.

Miss Gifford walked up to him with her arms folded over her chest. Her face was scrubbed free of makeup. Soft pink lips. Unusual purple eyes with long, gold lashes. Soft, ivory skin.

She was beautiful. Luminous.

Then her finger jabbed his chest. “Julia is afraid she has made you angry. She’s worried she hurt you. Don’t you think she’s grieved enough?” she asked in a quietly furious voice.

She always put him on the defensive. “Of course Julia has not made me angry,” he said. “And of course I want her to stop grieving.”

“Then tell her that. She can’t live in the past. She believes she won’t have a home to live in once you are married. She fears she will be displaced by your wife, and that if she is very lucky, she might be allowed to live in a cottage.” Miss Gifford’s voice vibrated with indignation, though it stayed low in tone. “If this is true,” she went on, “Julia’s only hope for a future is marriage. And she doesn’t want to marry because she is still in love with the man she lost. I can understand what that is like. But she needs to fall in love again, and she can’t if you insist she must act as though it is still 1914. You are like that madwoman in Dickens—Miss Havisham or whatever her name was. Let your sister brush off the cobwebs and take off her unused wedding dress and find love!”

He gazed into her snapping violet eyes. “Thank you.”

“What does that mean? Will you do something? Or are you going to tell her to drop her hems back below her knees this instant?”