Her Favorite Duke Read online

  He smiled as he took Emma’s hand and led her to the dance floor. Once they were gone, Simon let out a long breath. Not just because he had survived a very uncomfortable conversation but because Meg and Graham had left the dance floor and immediately parted. Meg had gone to talk to a few friends, Graham headed for the terrace. At least Simon would not have to see them move together in the infinitely more intimate waltz.

  “You are staring at her,” Kit said from beside him.

  Simon jolted. “Who?”

  Idelwood turned toward him, arms crossed. “Margaret.”

  Simon froze, staring up at his friend and trying to read whatever he knew. But Kit’s face was impassive in that moment.

  “Well, she has been my friend for a very long time, hasn’t she?” he asked, reverting back to the same explanation he gave whenever someone asked him about Margaret. The words weren’t untrue. Since her engagement to Graham, he and Meg had become closer. Friends.

  He would venture to say, though never out loud, that she was his best friend.

  Kit tilted his head slightly, his expression filled with dangerous disbelief. “I’ve known you a long time. I’ve known her a long time, too. And…it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Simon said, setting his jaw as he made to walk away. Kit darted a hand out and caught his arm.

  “I wouldn’t say a damned thing,” he said softly. “You are my friend and it’s clear from the way you’re standing there, shifting in your place and unable to look at anything but her, that you are struggling. So what is it? Tell me and I swear on all I hold dear that I will never breathe a word of it to anyone. Anyone.”

  Simon shut his eyes briefly. What Christopher offered was a boon, indeed, for he had no one else to talk to about this. Not James or Graham, certainly. Nor the rest of their tight group of friends, either, for they had all pledged such loyalty to each other. He wasn’t certain he wouldn’t be shunned for admitting he coveted what Graham had.

  He sighed. “You may not be wrong,” he said carefully, watching Kit’s face for a flash of judgment and horror. There was none. “But there is nothing that can be done about it, is there? Meg was long ago promised to a man I consider as close as blood, and by another I hold just as dear. To pursue or even admit what I feel…it would destroy everything and everyone I love. Including her.”

  Kit’s expression softened. “How long have you felt this way?”

  “Forever,” he whispered. “Seven or eight years.”

  “But you…you were whoring around London with Roseford back then, almost coming to blows over women you bedded.”

  Simon flinched. “I had my fun, yes. I wasn’t ready to settle down. And I…I missed my opportunity. Or maybe there never was one. Even if I had been a choirboy, perhaps James still would have chosen Graham to match to Margaret. Because they’re closer friends.”

  He looked out at James and Emma, close together, eyes locked on each other as they twirled. They looked blissful. Simon loved and hated them for it.

  “I’m sorry,” Kit said and it was clearly genuine. “I can well imagine how painful it would be to watch the woman I loved marry someone else. Especially a friend.”

  Simon shrugged. It felt a little better to say something out loud about the subject. But it changed nothing.

  “In the end, James is right,” he sighed. “We must all begin to do our duty. To marry and produce the heirs that will take our place. So I suppose the best thing I can do is forget this foolishness with Meg and get about doing it.”

  “So you should dance,” Kit said gently.

  “Yes,” Simon said, clapping a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I should dance.”

  But as he peered out over the crowd, looking for the lady he would do just that with, his heart sank. When he spoke of the future, he could never picture anyone but Meg by his side.

  And that was the place she would never, never be.

  Margaret hated Sarah Carlton. Oh, she had never hated her before. She hardly knew her well enough to feel one way or another about her. But now, as the other young woman was dancing in Simon’s arms, leaning up into him to talk above the music, Meg hated her.

  And hated herself even more for feeling so strongly about her. About Simon.

  She turned to look at the man who stood by her side. Graham Everly, Duke of Northridge, was everything a lady could desire. Only she didn’t, despite the fact that he was devilishly handsome, with blond hair that was just a little too long, bright blue eyes and a smile that lit up a room. Well, when he did smile, which he had done less and less frequently as of late.

  Even now, as he caught her staring, he shifted with discomfort under her attention rather than seeming pleased with it.

  “Do you need something?” he asked, ever solicitous. Her friends were so very jealous of that fact. “A drink? Some air?”

  She sighed and looked out of the corner of her eye at Simon again. He was laughing and she wanted to slap his pretty dance partner right across the face. “Yes,” she said. “Air, I think, would do me good.”

  He nodded, taking her arm and guiding her through the crowd and out onto the terrace. He released her immediately, and she walked to the terrace wall and drew a few long breaths to steady her nerves.

  Then she faced her fiancé. He wasn’t looking at her, but worrying a loose thread on the hem of his sleeve. She took the moment to really observe him. Once upon a time, she had liked Graham a great deal. She’d considered him a friend, and once she’d resigned herself to their engagement, she had hoped she would one day see him as more.

  But it had been seven years and if anything, they had only drifted further and further apart. They did not talk beyond the surface of most subjects. They did not laugh. And he certainly never made any attempts to touch her or to kiss her.

  When she lay in bed at night, it wasn’t him who visited her in her dreams, either. That was Simon. Still and always and forever. She hated herself for it, more than she hated any woman Simon had ever paid attention to for more than a few moments. She hated herself because she knew her feelings for Simon were wrong.

  She cleared her throat and stepped closer to her fiancé. “James and Emma seem very happy,” she said.

  He lifted his gaze and his lips tilted ever-so-slightly in a soft smile. A true smile, and her heart softened a bit toward him. Graham had always loved her brother. That she appreciated more than anything.

  “They do,” he said, looking back over his shoulder to the ballroom, where James was dancing yet again with his wife. “Despite all the drama that led up to their union, I cannot imagine he ever could have found a better match than he has in her.”

  “You know I agree with that. I adore Emma, I’m so pleased to have her as a sister. And they are the first in our set to marry, and their true happiness is a good example for us all.”

  He looked at her briefly, then back toward the ballroom. “It does make one think,” he mused.

  She faced him. “Think about what?”

  He pressed his lips together and his hand wavered at his side, like he was thinking of taking hers but then changed his mind. “James wants us to marry.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Hence, the arrangement.”

  He shifted, his expression suddenly one of frustration. “No, I mean, he has spoken to me about it a few times since he wed, himself. His being settled seems to have increased his drive to see our engagement come to its conclusion.”

  Meg caught her breath. She’d only been sixteen when she and Graham’s contract was signed. No one had expected them to wed immediately. But the years had slipped by and somehow she’d let herself be lulled into the safety that the marriage would never actually come.

  Now it seemed Graham was about to change that.

  “We’ve been engaged a long time, Meg,” he said.

  She could hardly breathe, but somehow she managed to croak out, “Seven years.”

  He
cleared his throat and forced himself to meet her eyes. “Christmas.”

  She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “What do you think about marrying at Christmas? On my estate, with our friends and family in attendance?”

  Meg’s lips parted. Most women in her position would be thrilled at the idea of finally wedding their duke. Most would be even happier that he wanted a date that was only a few months away.

  But to her, his words felt like a noose. Inescapable. Inevitable.

  “Yes,” she choked past a closed throat as tears stung her eyes. “That would be lovely and it gives me enough time to plan. Plus, it will be before Emma’s baby comes, so she and James should still be able to travel.”

  Graham stared at her a long time, almost like he was seeing her for the first time. Then he bent his head and any attempt to make a connection with her was gone. “All right. I’ll go in and speak to James about it. Will you join me?”

  She shook her head. “No, I-I’d like to be in the cooler air a bit longer. I’ll return shortly.”

  “Very good,” he said, then turned away from her and walked into the ballroom, leaving her alone on the terrace.

  She slipped away from the main area, around the corner of the house to a darkened corner outside an unused parlor. There a small table and chairs were set. She sank down into the seat and rested her arms on the table. Then she put her head down and began to weep.

  Simon shut the terrace door behind himself, then sucked in a great gulp of cool air. Since his conversation with Kit, he had felt this weight pressing down on him, crushing him. He hardly recalled the last twenty minutes. Hardly recalled the dances or his partners.

  He didn’t recall anything except for the pounding refrain that echoed in his head. Margaret. Margaret. Margaret.

  He deserved to be called out for his obsession. He deserved to be abandoned. And yet he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about her.

  “I should leave,” he murmured. “Go away for a few months or a few years.”

  He’d often thought that same thing, but he never followed through. Maybe it was time to finally do what was right. He bent his head and stared at his fingers, clenched against the stone wall of the terrace. He’d have to make a good excuse to go. He certainly couldn’t tell Graham and James that he was desperately in love with Margaret.

  He was still pondering that notion when he heard a faint sound echo from another part of the terrace. He turned, looking around as he did so. He was alone out here, or at least he’d thought he was. But now that he was attending, he heard more sounds. Sounds of…weeping.

  He moved forward, toward the dark part of the terrace that was away from the windows and doors, around the corner and away from where anyone would easily find a person.

  “Hello?” he called out as he stepped into the darkness and stopped, allowing his eyes to adjust now that light no longer filtered from the house. When they did, he gasped.

  A woman sat at a table in the shadow of the house, her head resting down on her arms, and she was crying.

  He rushed toward her. “I say, are you all right?”

  For the first time, the unknown lady seemed to recognize his presence. She jerked her head up, turned her face toward him, and he screeched to a halt.

  “Meg?” he whispered.

  She didn’t rise, but just stared up at him, her eyes unreadable in the half-dark. “Of course it would be you,” she said, her voice thick with tears before she set her head back down.

  He should have walked away. He should have gone inside and found her brother or her fiancé and let one of them comfort her as was appropriate.

  But Meg had always been his friend as well as his obsession. And he wasn’t about to walk away in her time of need.

  He took a seat at the table, sliding it closer so that their legs brushed beneath the tabletop. Slowly, gently, he slid an arm around her shoulders and guided her toward him until she rested her cheek against his chest.

  She let out a shuddering sigh, and the feel of her moving against him shot through him, waking every nerve ending, forcing him to face how desperately he wanted and adored her.

  “What is it?” he asked, shocked he could form words when he was so damned aware of her in his arms.

  She lifted a trembling hand and rested it against his heart. She could probably feel it pounding, even beneath all the layers of his clothing. He certainly felt the pressure of each and every one of her slender fingers.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, her tone a little calmer now. “I was just overwhelmed for a moment.”

  He looked down at her and caught a whiff of the honeysuckle fragrance of her hair. God, how he loved that smell. He’d planted fourteen honeysuckle bushes around his estate in Crestwood five years ago just to have a tiny piece of her there with him.

  “Did someone say something untoward to you?” he asked. “Because I’ll go in there and—”

  She tilted her face up toward his and his heart stopped. Her lips were three inches from his. Close enough that he could feel the faint stir of her breath against his mouth. Close enough that kissing her would be easy.

  He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to do more than kiss her.

  She swallowed, her eyes going a little wild as she gently extracted herself from his arms, stood and walked out of the dark and into the safety of the light from the house.

  “No one said anything,” she whispered, her voice barely carrying.

  He should have thanked her for moving them back into safety. What he wanted to do instead was catch her by the velvet sash around her waist and draw her back into the corner.

  He got up and followed her. “You and I have been…friends…for a long time,” he choked out. “You know you can tell me anything.”

  She stared up at him, and then her hand moved. He watched it as she lifted it and pressed in against his chest once more. Her fingers slid up and she brushed just the tips along his jaw. There was no breath between them, no space, and in that moment, there were no lies.

  He could see something he’d spent years convincing himself didn’t exist. Meg wanted him.

  She pulled her hand away with a soft sound in the back of her throat and whispered, “I can’t tell you everything, Simon.”

  “Meg,” he ground out, moving to take her hand.

  Before he could, the door opened behind them. Meg spun away, turning her back to him, her slender shoulders lifting and falling on panting breaths.

  “Ah, there you two are.”

  Simon turned to smile as her brother stepped out onto the terrace with them. “James.”

  “We’ve been looking for you. Come inside, will you? We’ve an announcement.”

  Meg turned around and Simon caught his breath. She had composed herself to the point that no one would ever guess she had been weeping in the corner not five minutes before. She smiled brightly at her brother.

  “Of course, James.” As she passed Simon, she shot him a brief look. “Thank you for the—for the talk, Crestwood.”

  He nodded as he followed brother and sister into the house. “Of course, my lady.”

  James took her arm, leading her toward the small dais where the orchestra was playing. When he said something, they stopped, causing the dancers to halt and turn toward the cause of their interruption.

  James shifted Meg so that she was standing beside Graham on the dais, and took Emma’s hand, helping her into a place beside his own. Simon pushed through the crowd, coming closer as he tried to figure out what James could have to say. It was clearly a family announcement. Perhaps of Emma’s pregnancy? James had already told his friends the happy news, but was this the proper forum to make it clear to the world?

  But Emma looked just as uncertain as Simon felt as she slid a hand into the crook of James’s elbow and awaited what he would say.

  “Our family has been blessed with much good news as of late,” James said. “And tonight I’ve a little
more that I cannot wait to share. The Duke of Northridge and my sister, Lady Margaret—”

  Simon jerked his face toward Meg. She was smiling, but her cheeks were pale, her eyes staring straight ahead.

  “—will marry at Christmas!” James finished.

  The crowd erupted in applause and talk, but Simon felt separated from all of it. He stood there, staring at Meg. She nodded as friends called out felicitations. She smiled into the crowd and once up at Graham.

  But Simon knew her. He knew her and he’d seen her tears outside. This was why she’d been crying. This supposedly happy announcement of her impending wedding. After all this time, Meg didn’t want to marry Graham.

  And even though that should not have changed a thing for Simon, even though it should have only made him sorry for them both, instead it put a light of hope in his chest. It made him wonder if the future was cast in stone after all.

  Chapter Two

  Meg let her fingers move over the keys of her pianoforte, pouring out her emotion into the music in a way she could not pour out her emotions in real life. She put her anger there, her desperation, her heartbreak as she played, losing herself in the keys, forgetting the pounding fact that her wedding date was now set and marrying Graham suddenly felt very real.

  She smashed her fingers down all at once and let out a strangled groan.

  “Meg?”

  She started as she turned to watch Emma slip into the music room, shutting the door behind her. Meg’s cheeks burned as she looked away from her sister-in-law. “I missed a few notes.”

  Emma stared at her, silent for what felt like forever, then she moved to sit in one of the chairs beside the fire. She motioned for Meg to join her, and with a sigh Meg did so.

  “You always play beautifully,” Emma reassured her. “With more passion than most ladies I’ve watched play.”

  Meg held back a bark of frustrated laughter. “When she is sober, my mother calls my playing unseemly. Unladylike.”