Page 29 of The Duke Decides

“Perhaps the ruse is mine,” Gabriel said, staring straight ahead as the driver turned them down the broad boulevard of Grosvenor Place, which skirted the gardens behind the King’s Palace, the old Buckingham House. “Perhaps I am trying to induce you to become my duchess in truth.”

“You cannot mean that.”

“I might, if I knew more about you. Your past, for instance.”

Louisa struggled to feed breath into her lungs. Steady, calming breath. Her bosom felt naked, pushed up like this and on view to the world. So was she. Self-display was a hobby of the high-born; these carriages were made to promenade aristocratic women in their expensive gowns and fripperies while being pulled by expensive horses and attended by expensive servants.

She had known long ago she was not fit for the life of a woman of leisure. It suited her talents and her need for industry to have an institution of her own to run. No one would believe, looking at her installed in this carriage beside an English duke, that she had spent her afternoon deciding on menus for the next month, budgeting for the orders they would place for meat and fish, and walking through the gardens, pulling weeds as she went, estimating how well the spring crop of vegetables would bear and how long the produce would feed them.

No one would believe that she wouldn’t want to sacrifice that life, not for anything.

“I told you before, I cannot speak of my history.” Louisa turned her head away as they passed the Royal Mews and the Riding School and came upon the King’s Palace. This too was under renovation, or had been. Gossip went that the architect, John Nash, had been let go as his designs became too extravagant even for the ambitions of a notoriously expensive King.

She did not want to return to that life of luxury, where the show was all. She wanted to stay where she was. Overlooked. Useful.

And she could not stay there, because of who she was. Her heart contracted painfully in her chest.

“Will not speak of your history.” Gabe pointed the driver down Bird Cage Walk, the promenade that skirted St. James’s Park and had only recently been opened to the public.

“My past is a danger to you and to me. I already have one man blackmailing me.”

“You still do not believe that I have vowed to protect you?”

Her gaze fell to his hands. He wore the signet of the House of Declan, which looked so like the blackmailer’s seal that it had deceived her at first. There was another on his finger, two letters within a ring of lace, or stars.

“I do not know what your other allegiances might be,” Louisa said slowly.

“Up until very recently, my allegiances have all been to myself,” he answered, an edge to his voice. “If you ask about, I was a veritable wastrel.”

“So Lady Westmeath seemed to think,” Louisa murmured. “But the Duchess of Rutland holds you in higher esteem.”

“She contacted me because, after conference with the men within or soon to join her family, she decided I was the only one they knew likely to have acquaintance with the lower, desperate kind of orders within which your erstwhile Lord Vérité might be moving.”

“Oh. So she approached you precisely because of your…”

“Low associations,” he confirmed. “So you see, becoming my duchess might not be all that much of an elevation.”

“I think any woman would be pleased and proud to gain your attentions, Your Grace.”

He tilted his face toward hers. “Save you.”

A flush climbed from her breasts and clambered up her neck to her ears and scalp. Doubtless he would see it.

She remembered all too well how his attentions had pleased her. The kisses in her parlor at the Benevolence Hospital. Their stolen idyll on the balcony of Rutland House. There she had been very pleased by his attentions. Her entire body ached to revisit that pleasure.

He focused his attention on the passing traffic as they passed through Storey’s Gate into George Street, passing the Gothic spires of the great Abbey and Westminster Palace. Louisa seldom traveled here, and she marveled anew that she lived so close to the beating heart of London, the houses of government and the home of the King.

She hardly ever had reason to cross the Thames, as she gaped at the breadth of the river as the horses clipped across Westminster Bridge. Workmen perched atop one towering support, making repairs, and the cries and shouts of the watermen drifted to her ears as they shot their boats through the massive arches.

Gabe, far from thrilled by the scene before them, wore a brooding expression. “I think you credit the allure of the ducal title too much,” he said slowly. “I imagine few women would wish to put themselves forward as my future duchess once they know of my past.”

“The reputation Lady Westmeath mentioned?” she ventured. “I heard you were a bit of a brawler.”

They reached solid ground, the horses setting their hooves on Bridge Street, and Gabe’s expression darkened as he regarded the edifice of Astley’s Theatre. Louisa had heard much of the entertainments on offer there, but had never seen one. They talked frequently among themselves, she and the Sisters, about taking the girls for outings now and again to places in town, but there was always so much to do, and not enough time to accomplish it all.

Why hadn’t she done more lovely things with them? It would leave fond memories of her when she was gone.

Gabe touched the side of his brow, where she’d noticed a fading bruise half obscured by a falling lock of hair. “You refer to this? Got it right there, a few nights ago, after the show.” He nodded toward a side street as they passed.