Never Desire a Duke

At hearing the words from Sophia’s lips, the earth opened up and he fell through into a burning crevice of hell, a place he remembered well. Somehow, amid the flames, he heard it—his own quick inhalation of breath sharply audible in the silence.

“No.”

It was all he could think. No. Goddamn it, no.

“I thought you might say that,” she replied quietly, looking down at her hands. “But you see, I have something to offer in exchange for your agreement.”

“Don’t, Sophia—” He knew with a dark and sudden certainty what she would say. What she would offer to gain his compliance.

“A child.”

He closed his eyes. “Damn you.”

She cleared her throat. “In exchange for—a child—you will grant me a separation.”

For a long moment, he seethed in silence.

“A boy?” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “An heir?”

Her lashes lowered against her cheeks, something he’d always found painfully alluring. “A child,” she said firmly. “Whatever its sex may be.”

He’d never felt an obligation to continue the Claxton line. But yes, he had wanted children with Sophia desperately. The loss of their first had devastated him to his soul, and he had grieved each day since for that baby, just as strongly as he’d grieved the loss of his wife’s affection.

Now she offered him one of the two things he wanted most in the world, a daughter or a son, in exchange for the other—herself. Instinct commanded that he go to her and fall on his knees and beg her to withdraw her abominable proposal. To carry her upstairs and make love to her until she loved him back.

Yet fear that she would still reject him paralyzed him, and he did nothing. Instead, all his hurt and anger spilled out from his throat.

“Do I have any choice?” he snapped.

“My grandfather’s lawyers have assured me the separation will occur if I so wish it, regardless of your cooperation. So the choice is yours. We will separate, either with a child…or without.”

“A formal separation with all the legal and binding implications,” he whispered.

“A complete severance of our marital obligations.”

“I shall have to think. Given the circumstances, perhaps there should be no child.” He forced a casual shrug and with the next words sought to wound her just as deeply as she’d wounded him. “Perhaps, as long as we’re undertaking to create a scandal, I might simply prefer a divorce. To be truly free of you. To marry and have children with someone else.”

“A divorce?” she blurted, eyes widening. “But I didn’t commit the adultery.”

Parliament, as a rule, granted divorces only to husbands who proved adultery by their wives. There were only very rare exceptions.

“Neither did I,” he ground out. “But the truth doesn’t seem to signify with you. The endeavor would simply require that we make up some salacious stories about you. The more the better. Repeat them enough, and they’re as good as true, eh, Sophia? Then we can have our divorce and truly be done with each other.”

“Claxton,” Sophia exclaimed, visibly mortified.

“Then a Scottish divorce, perhaps, which allows for a husband’s adultery as a cause of action.” He pretended to ponder the idea, tapping his finger against his lips. “We’ve the estate in Inverness to establish residency. I resided there for nearly a month after…well, I’m certain your investigator can find some local doxy to say she was my—”

“I believe a separation will suffice,” she blurted coldly. “You’re all bluster. I suspect you want a child as badly as I do, not the scandal and nastiness of a divorce.”

He laughed into the shadows, a bitter sound. Of course, she was right. He wanted a child with Sophia, or no child at all. She had him by the bollocks.

This night had gone nothing at all like he had planned. It had been his intention in coming to Camellia House to confess every one of the allegations she had spoken—except for Lady Darch, which of course had occurred before their betrothal—to ask her forgiveness for giving her cause to question his commitment to their marriage. But the same sins, when described by her innocent lips, had become infinitely more indefensible than he’d allowed himself to believe. How could he have blundered so badly and caused such damage to the trust between them that she now despised him so completely? He had no idea how to take her pain away or how to return their world to center. At the same time, he felt so angry at her. He’d harbored such hope. He could not help but feel betrayed.

Sophia fled to the window and pushed aside the curtain to stare into the night, so she would not have to look at him anymore, he knew.

“What a miserable Christmas this has turned out to be,” she announced.

Christmas. His mother had always made their Christmases special. When the duchess Elizabeth had lived within these walls, Camellia House had been draped in greenery, warmth, and light, nothing like the cold, cavernous shell that surrounded them now.

For years after her death, he’d not known a true Christmas. His father did not celebrate the occasion, finding such observances overly sentimental and gauche. Later, while an officer in the army, he had attended the occasional Christmas ball or supper, but afterward had retired to his quarters alone.

The only Christmas in recent memory where he’d felt included in a family and at peace with the world had been last Christmas, which he’d spent at Wolverton’s country estate with Sophia and her family. A magical memory. How had he allowed things to fall apart so completely since that time?

He stared at her back. She stood proudly, her head erect and her shoulders back, distant and unattainable. From out of nowhere, a torch flamed into blazing life inside his chest, one born of desire so intense and hot he knew he must do whatever possible to claim her again. To ease his soul-deep need. If only for one last time.

“Very well,” he muttered. “I will agree to your demand.”

She did not grant him so much as a glance over her shoulder, but remained motionless. “I rather thought you would.”

From outside, the sound of the wind arose, battering the house. The walls and floors creaked. The windows rattled.

“Since you seem to be holding all the cards,” he said, “where do you propose we go from here?”

Chapter Five

We’ll return to London first thing in the morning. I’d prefer that you take residence at your club.”

Elbow on the mantel, Vane pinched his fingertips against the bridge of his nose, an attempt to soothe the pounding inside his head. She was throwing him out of his own house?

“How do you suppose, then,” he demanded harshly, “that I get you with child?”

For a long time she stood in silence, back to him. Would she turn around and tell him they could still step back from this cliff? That separating wasn’t what she wanted? Did he even want her to change her mind, with the trust between them so irrevocably destroyed?

She turned, the suddenness of the motion parting her scarlet redingote below her waist to reveal a lace froth of petticoats and the pointed tips of embroidered green mules. “We will come to a mutual agreement as to when you will visit.”

Though buttoned up tight, all the way to her high velvet collar, she’d never been more alluring than now. Never more beautiful and composed. He almost hated her for it.

“But first,” she said, “I want the documents drawn and all agreements in writing.”

Claxton blinked, dismayed. “What other agreements are there?”

“That I will retain Sylventon Place and the income from that estate, as I brought that property into our marriage—”