Page 12 of A Duke Makes a Deal
It had been a mistake going to Trembley’s home. Not just because of the anxiety that he had fought against daily since his divorce, but because of the guilt he had felt the moment he realized that the poor Miss Woodvine had witnessed the unscrupulous affair of being used as collateral.
It seemed he would have no peace tonight. After wrestling with the decision to remain in bed or get up, he finally tore the sheets from his body and grabbed a dressing robe. Tying the belt at his waist, he found his slippers and found a cheroot cigar on the nightstand.
Unwilling to fill his bedroom with smoke, Silas walked to the window, opened it and sat partially on the frame as he struck a match to light his cigar. His bedroom window sat at the front of the house, overlooking a small public park, but it was too late for anyone to be scandalized by a duke in a dressing robe, hanging partially out of his second story bedroom window.
Taking a long, smooth pull off the cheroot, Silas exhaled slowly and leaned back to see the night sky. It was an ugly habit, smoking, one he had picked up almost immediately after his divorce when he’d been desperate to find something to soothe his frazzled nerves. He had tried several times to quit, but there never seemed to be a good enough reason to do so.
He inhaled the sharp flavored taste of smoke as he replayed the events in his mind. He should have refused to participate in the card game the moment Dilworth started betting things he had no governance over. The man had obviously been out of his depths in that room and while Silas recognized that it wasn’t his fault, he couldn’t help but feel shame for letting it go on as it did. Not to mention the odd mixture of guilt and curiosity he’d felt when Miss Woodvine appeared.
The frizzy, ash blonde beauty was taller than most women, and she had an arresting presence. She was strangely attractive, with a wide, full mouth, strong nose and grey-green eyes that had glowed with indignant fury when she discovered their wicked game. The overly bejeweled gown she wore, particularly in the bust area, had been hard to miss, but while it was unfashionably gaudy, it had certainly caught his attention. It was almost as if her dressmaker had been trying to signal to everyone that she didn’t quite fit in, that she didn’t belong. Silas rather liked that about her.
Of course, Silas couldn’t afford to be interested in anyone. He had promised himself after his last debacle of a marriage that he would never again marry, let alone feel for another woman. It didn’t matter that he found Miss Woodvine attractive or that he had felt a primitive claim to her when she appeared in all her disgruntled glory in Trembley’s library.
Cynthia had made sure that Silas would never love again.
His fingers snaked through his dark hair as he inhaled his cheroot. Cynthia had left her mark on him and he had been a ruined man ever since.
They had been mad about each other in the beginning. Surely, no one had fallen more swiftly or deeply in love as Silas and Cynthia. Their relationship had burnt brightly, like a shooting star and had fizzled just as quickly, leaving scars on them both.
Silas was stone still as the memories came rushing back to him. Pain in the dark, pain in the day. It had been the only way to have her, the only way to please her—and for a time it had been how he found his own pleasure. In the early days, it had seemed as if their desires blended effortlessly, but where Silas had firmly set limits, Cynthia was boundless.
It had been innocent enough in the beginning, starting with biting, pinching, and the like. A bit unusual, to be sure, but nothing he had been unwilling to provide, if that was what his beloved craved. But soon Silas had learned the true depths of her depravity. Her pain tolerance was unlike anyone he had ever met and Silas still wasn’t sure if he’d genuinely enjoyed inflicting so much on her, even when she begged for it. It wasn’t that she couldn’t handle it, but Silas had always felt as if he went too far.
Maybe if it had been only an occasional indulgence, he could have dealt with it more calmly, but she craved pain and was soon insisting on it every time they laid together. It was obvious that neither his opinion nor his own pleasure mattered to her. And while he was the one to apply physical force, Cynthia was anything but passive in return. But the pain that she chose to inflict was psychological in nature. Nothing gave her more satisfaction than hurting Silas in the way only she was able to. The constant games and lies had soured their relationship, though it had taken a long time before Silas had been willing to admit that to himself. He’d loved her so passionately that hehadn’t been able to imagine giving her up, even when being with her brought him torment rather than happiness.
Silas took another drag from his cheroot, remembering the agony he had felt when Cynthia tried to use his heart against him. He had finally accepted that they were doomed when he’d walked in on Cynthia with the Marquis of Winston, at Trembley’s country estate during a weekend house party. She had demanded a divorce soon after and Silas, disgusted with her actions and himself, had given it to her.
He was told it would be humiliating, that he would be a laughingstock of London and that he couldn’t let his wife get away with embarrassing him like that, but Silas hadn’t cared. He felt as though his heart had crumbled and ceased to exist. What did he care what the public thought of him? Nothing they could say mattered to him when he’d already been brought as low as it was possible to be.
The sight of Miss Woodvine that night, in all her rageful indignity had caused a stirring within him that made him feel like he’d woken from a long sleep. She had been so beautifully furious, so justly irate that it was as if her passion had sparked something back to life in him—most notably, the first embers of desire he had felt in quite some time. For the first time since Cynthia, he had wanted to bed a woman and the realization made him wary.
He glanced up at the sky, wondering what it would be like to touch Miss Woodvine. She was so unlike Cynthia in every way. Honestly, she was not the sort of woman he had ever given much notice to but, he could not shake her from his mind. She was an inventor’s daughter, an heiress from a world he understood very little about. There was something honest about her, something wholesome that he couldn’t quite understand. She seemed uninterested in the ton’s opinions of her, as opposed to Cynthia who had lived for gossip.
It was clear Miss Woodvine had a very low opinion about him as well as his peers. But a part of him wondered what she would say if he tried to claim his winnings…
He shook his head and grinned, imagining her becoming red in the face and cutting him to ribbons with her words. Silas had no intention of making any claim to her, and he certainly had no intentions of marrying her, but he let himself imagine what that might be like for a moment. Miss Woodvine would prove to be a lively wife; of that, he had no doubt. He wouldn’t fit into her life any more than she would fit into his, but then his world hadn’t been quite right for a long time.
Taking a final pull from his cheroot, he decided the least he could do was to apologize to Miss Woodvine in person. While he was sure she wouldn’t be happy to receive him, let alone accept his apology, it was his responsibility to hold himself accountable for his actions, and as a gentleman he planned to do just that.
Standing up, he stretched as he saw a shooting star streaked across the sky. He had often compared his relationship with Cynthia to shooting stars. He couldn’t help but appreciate the fanciful notion that they could make dreams come true. It sat in the same theory as luck when it came to gambling.
Only fools relied on such things as luck and wishes. If it were possible, he would wish to be whole again, to cease having the crippling anxiety that had been left in the wake of his broken marriage. All he truly wanted was peace.
Once more, the image of Miss Woodvine flashed in his mind as he removed his robe and slipped into bed. He closed his eyes and saw her bright eyes, her full lips and the curve of her body. He was annoyed to feel himself harden. Clearly it had been far too long since bedding someone if the thought of Miss Woodvine could make his blood run hot.
*
Silas had decidedit would be best to apologize first thing in the morning. He waited until a quarter past nine, far earlier than what was socially acceptable, but Silas preferred going out before the fashionable hours as to avoid the crowds. He rode to Paddington where he had learned, through a series of personal inquiries, that the Woodvines had taken lodgings. It wasn’t polite to turn up without notifying the family, but he assumed it was his best chance at actually being seen by Miss Woodvine, who had explicitly told him and the rest of Trembley’s players that she never wished to be approached by any of them.
He knocked on the black lacquer door of the handsome brick building and waited for it to open. When it did, an ancient butler answered the door. His white hair stuck out from the sides of his head and he seemed slightly unfocused. He stared at Silas with confusion.
“Sir?” he asked.
“The Duke of Combe,” Silas said. “I’ve come to see Mr. Woodvine.”
“Eh?” the old man said, leaning forward, obviously hard of hearing.
“Mr. Woodvine,” Silas repeated, louder.
