Never Desire a Duke

She wouldn’t be able to survive losing him a second time. She needed more days like this one with Claxton before she could at last say good-bye to her doubts. A history. Then she could finally surrender everything. She could again give him her heart. “If you’d not been here, goose, I would have thrown that first quest on the fire with his portrait without ever having read it, a coward from my pain.”

She shook her head. “You’re the furthest thing from a coward. To hear what you have suffered at the hands of your own father, a man who should have treasured you. I can hardly bear it.”

“No pity.” He mouth found hers, breathtakingly ardent.

“Vane.” She sighed. “No, never pity.”

He had fought his battle and won.

“I need you now,” he murmured. His mouth burned a hot path down her neck to her breasts.

Sophia stared into his eyes, her heart swollen with a love she couldn’t express in words, so strong and consuming she felt terrified from the immensity of it. “Claxton, I—”

He touched his fingertips to her lips. “I told you. You don’t have to say anything. Not until you’re ready.”

Sophia melted in his arms, lost to his touch. He scattered kisses along her temple and cheek. Down her throat.

“Let me make love to you now,” he rasped against her skin. “One last time before we go…then again in our bed in London.”

“Please,” she begged, grasping fistfuls of his shirt and tugging the linen free from his breeches.

“We’ve got to be quiet.” He laughed, a chuckle deep in his throat. He cupped her breasts in his hands and squeezed before plucking at the tiny pearl buttons at the center of her bodice. “The Kettles—”

“Yes, quiet.” She tugged his shirttails from his breeches, tilting her head, so he could kiss her neck.

Suddenly, he stilled in her arms. A low, jagged breath issued from his lips.

“Vane?”

She felt something there at her breast. The brush of his fingertips, the sensation of—

Oh no.

He tore the folded page from her bodice.

“What the hell is this?” He held the folded square of paper in her face. “That damned list? You wear it here against your heart, a ward against me?”

He paled, his face having gone devoid of emotion. A sudden flick of his wrist unfolded the page with a snap.

“Vane, don’t be unfair. And please don’t misunderstand. Everything happened so fast, and I felt so scared. I just needed to keep my head in the right place, my heart—”

“Unfair?” he roared. “After everything? After last night? Don’t you know what that meant to me? Don’t you understand what we did? And you still woke up this morning and thought this of me?”

“I just—I just need more time. It’s only been four days, even less really…and I felt so overwhelmed—”

He trembled with rage. “Do you think I don’t feel? That I can’t love?”

He lunged forward to toss the list on the fire.

“No,” she wailed for some inexplicable reason, not ready to let go of the one thing that had given her power when she’d felt so powerless. It should be her choice when to burn it, not his. Once it was gone, she’d have no choice but to love him completely, to take the terrifying chance her heart might get broken again.

With the poker, she fished out the curling rectangle, an impulsive move she regretted instantly, for the page, already consumed by flame, floated on the air, an ashen wraith, to flatten against her skirt.

She beat it away with her hands, but too late. The flames latched onto the muslin. She screamed. Claxton cursed, throwing her to the floor, where he tore her skirts from her legs.

“There’s more,” she shrieked. “There.”

Flames rippled across the carpet, devouring old threads and the ancient wood beneath, but most horrifying of all, the little wooden chest containing his mother’s family treasures and Lord Haden’s letter, still unread.

Vane threw her a glance, one that in the brief second it lasted, screamed betrayal.

I gave you my love, and you give me this?

In that moment, she knew. She loved him more than anything. I love you. I take it back. Please forgive me.

But it was too late. She had doubted not only him, but herself, and in doing so destroyed everything she’d ever wanted.

Mr. and Mrs. Kettle rushed into the room, their faces transformed by fear. Sophia’s nose filled with smoke and her heart with frantic dread. How quickly the fire grew out of control. All she could think was that she had done this to them. Camellia House was on fire, a place she had so come to love now destroyed by her petty insistence on keeping a meaningless list.

Vane lifted her, snatching up her redingote. He carried her away from the horrible heat and light through the vestibule and out the door until his boots met snow and he flung her from his arms.

“Go,” he ordered, his eyes wild and furious. He threw the garment at her. “Stay out and don’t return.”

* * *

Sophia did not return. She waited with Mrs. Branigan in the stable, the both of them inconsolable until the fire had been put out. By then, villagers crowded into the yard, having come from the village to offer help. Boots trampled the melting snow, turning the grounds into an ugly mud bog.

Mr. Branigan eventually returned, his skin shadowed by soot and his eyes with regret.

Still, he explained to them one bit of good fortune. The frost, having thawed earlier that day, allowed Mr. Kettle to install a hose on a functional pump. The availability of water, combined with Lord Claxton’s quick action in smothering the flames with the heaviest draperies, allowed the fire to be extinguished. Although he described the great room as severely damaged, the remainder of the house had been largely spared.

“But no one was hurt?” Sophia demanded softly through tears.

He shook his head. “No one hurt.”

Thank God. But she could never face Claxton again, not after what she had done. He had given her the gift of his love, and in return, she’d continued to harbor secret doubts, ones that had brought about the destruction of not only the new trust between them but also his mother’s home. A place that had inspired his sweetest childhood memories. Just as heartbreaking, he’d lost the treasure chest of mementos, of a family he had never known. Such precious items could never be replaced or rebuilt. She had taken all those things from him.

All for an imbecilic list she ought to have burned the same night it had been written, committing its sins to the past. Claxton’s stunned look of betrayal would forever be preserved in her mind.

How would he ever forgive her? How could she ever expect him to?

She’d never felt so choked with sadness, so dead inside.

“Mr. Branigan,” she said numbly. “Would you please take me down into Lacenfleet?”

The young man displayed reluctance, clearly in fear of provoking the duke’s displeasure, but at last, when faced with her tears, he took pity on her. She would indeed be home for Christmas, but with her spirit broken and more hopeless than she’d ever imagined.

They arrived at the village inn a short time later, she with no possessions other than the clothes she wore, ruined by soot and flame.

“My lady,” exclaimed the innkeeper. “What a relief to see you in good health. We all saw the smoke. This gentleman who says he knows you had just inquired as to your residence. I was just about to tell him the terrible news.”

Only then did Sophia look at the man who stood beside him. She recognized the familiar face and golden hair of a childhood friend.

“Oh, Fox,” she exclaimed, dissolving into tears and collapsing into his arms. “Please take me home.”

Within moments his carriage conveyed them toward the Mowbray ferry landing, where the vehicle paused to await the disembarkment of a wagon and horses that had just come over from the other side. The river, swollen from melted ice and snow, nearly overwhelmed the dock.

“I came on behalf of your family, of course,” Fox explained from the seat opposite her. “They, having heard nothing from you since the night of your grandfather’s party, wished to confirm your well-being as soon as the