Dukes By the Dozen

Yet what an astonishingly productive, life-changing hour and a half it had been—he had barricaded himself in a room, made a public spectacle of himself dancing a waltz, throttled and threatened a toad of a man, asked a lass to marry him, and was attempting to carry off an elopement.

Devil take him, but if he wasn’t in love, he didn’t know what he was.

“There are fur rugs inside.” He held the coach door for his already shivering duchess-to-be. “Get yourself under the fur.”

She clambered in, but still he held her hand.

“Penelope.” Marcus said her name aloud for the first time because he wanted her to know he was serious, and because he had been wanting to say it, longing even, to taste her name like tart sloe wine upon his tongue. “You may trust that I will take care of you, and I will always do everything in my power to do what’s right.”

“Of course you will,” she answered. “Just as I will take care of you.”

“Is that a yes?”

Her smile warmed him far more than any raging bonfire could. And just like that, the cobbled courtyard seemed to move beneath his feet, like the deck of a ship rising and falling upon the sea. He was upended—as dizzy as the young midshipman he had once been. And twice as exhilarated.

“Another successful cutting out expedition, Commander?” Penelope held his hand fast. As if she would never let go.

“Aye.” This was what Marcus loved and had lived for—the excitement of action and command. This was what he missed. All he had needed was Penelope Pease by his side—excitement and adventure seemed to follow her wherever she went. “Worried?”

She gifted him with a rueful smile. “I’d be a fool not to be.”

“And you, my darling girl, are no fool.” He gathered her close to his good side.

“Hardly, Beech—I seem to be a fool for you.” And then to prove it, she kissed him.

A kiss of such sweet promise and soft passion that the world fell away again, and he was nothing but aching pleasure. Nothing of hurt or pain or loss. Nothing that was not hers and hers alone.

Devil take him, but she was fine.

CHAPTER 8

PENELOPE PUT EVERY FEELING—EVERY thrill and every worry—into that kiss. Every inch of gratitude and wonder and exhilaration, until her body tingled, and she felt giddy and strange and afraid.

Because if running off with Beech wasn’t the most reckless, exhilarating thing she had ever done—and she had done any number reckless, exhilarating things in her life—she didn’t know what might be. Because this was not the Beech she remembered.

It was Caius Beecham who had been all rash, mad impulse, not his younger brother. Beech had always looked before he leaped, always wanted to make sure the water was deep enough before he took any plunge. He had been a cheerful, fun companion and a thoughtful, wry lad, but the years away had added something more—an experience that put him at a soaring distance. A sort of gravitas that set him well apart from the reckless rascals and heedless swells of her recent experience. A surety, a self-command that showed he truly did not care what others might think of him.

How steadfast. How ruinous.

Marrying Beech was the answer to all her problems, of course—she would be a bloody duchess. But she had been offered a duke before.

The real temptation wasn’t the dukedom. No, the real temptation was Beech himself. Even with only one arm, he was twice the man his brother had ever been, and three times the man of two-faced swells like Lord Maynard.

Lord, what must Beech have been like before he was injured? He had been sent away to sea before she had been grown-up enough to ever have the pleasure of so much as a country dance with him.

If only he had not been sent away.

If only she had not been lured in by the dark fascination of passion. If only.

Cold caution of the sort she had never felt that night she had closeted herself with his brother in the Warwick Court library gripped her in its icy fist now. That night, the flirtation with Caius had been a game—one that she was sure she could win. But she knew better now.

Knew that she did not want to play any sort of game with Marcus Beecham.

And, so, she asked, “Why, Beech? Tell me why.”

“Why we should marry?” He smiled at her as if he had ten reasons to hand. “Other than the obvious?”

Penelope felt heat blossom under her skin from the top of her forehead all the way down to the edge of her bodice. And lower. “Be serious, Beech.”

His eyes softened at the corners. “I know what is right and true and valuable in this world, my dear Pease Porridge,” he said in that low, sure, captainly way of his. “And I know my duty.”

Duty. It was as if the heel of his large leather sea boot had stepped directly upon her heart, so sharp and painful was her disappointment. It was as it had been before with Caius—Beech would marry her because he felt he ought to. Not because he wanted to.

“Beech.” Penelope could not entirely swallow down the bitter brew of her dismay. “I thank you for your candor, but I am quite firmly decided against being anyone’s duty.”