My Inconvenient Duke (Difficult Dukes #3)

Chapter 16

She was behaving irrationally. This fact had not escaped Alice. She did not know how to go about finding her brother. She

might as well be in China, for all she knew of this place. She was on foot. She was a woman. And the sun would set soon, as

Blackwood said.

Everything he said was correct, and she hated this and wanted to kick him.

She stormed on. She ought never to have come. He didn’t want her help. He could find Ripley without her—more easily without

her. But to come this far, only to go home and pretend she had nothing more important on her mind than a dinner party...

to attend a party and behave prettily, making sure to keep Doveridge amused and intrigued...

Oh, certainly, he was kind and intelligent. He was charming, beyond question. So many fine qualities. The perfect choice,

truly.

Yet not her choice.

Worbury had made the choice for her. All she did was because of him and dread of what he’d do. He was a kind of cholera personified: a disease in human form that spread over everything, contaminating and destroying whatever happened into its path.

Even now, he controlled her. If she stepped wrong, she’d lose her carefully built place in Society. The Great World would

close ranks against her. Gentlemen would lose respect for her. Her plans would fall to pieces.

If the worst had befallen her brother, her plans wouldn’t signify. It was already too late.

She thought of Cassandra and Keeffe and wished she were with them, far away, where life made a kind of sense and offered a

kind of freedom.

She wanted very much to sit down on the nearest wall or stump or large stone and cry.

She marched on... and tripped. And fell face-first.

She lay there, dazed. Her ears rang.

“Damnation, Alice!”

“Oh,” she said.

Blackwood crouched beside her. “Don’t move.”

She was too stunned at first to move. She needed a moment to grasp what had happened, and another to sort out details.

Her face, she discovered, was partly turned into her hat brim rather than smashed against the ground. She’d thrust out her

arm instinctively to break her fall, and she lay partly upon it. The hat seemed to have taken the worst of the impact.

Very well. She seemed to be in one piece, physically, at any rate.

She started to push herself upright.

“Confound it, Alice, did I not just tell you not to move? You might have broken something.”

“I’m not broken.” She was a little short of breath. “Merely... surprised.” She started to turn over onto her side and winced.

“What?” he said. “What hurts? Your arm? Broken? You fell on it.” He ran his gloved hand over her shoulder and down her arm.

She felt the touch keenly, in spite of sleeve puffs and layers of fabric. Tingles raced up and down her arm, then inward and

onward, everywhere. Her body had merely suffered a shock, she told herself.

Her self would have none of it. You big liar , it said.

She said, “My arms are inside pillows, as ought to be obvious.”

The sleeve puffs were stuffed with down, but it was enough to cushion the impact. Of the ground. Not of his hand. She still

quivered inside.

“You went down hard. You might have broken a rib.” He pulled off his gloves.

“No! You don’t need to check. I’d know. I’ll be bruised, no more.” She added hastily, “I did fall hard, but it’s not the first

time. I’ve fallen off horses and walls and fences. Luckily, women’s clothing these days is more well-padded than in my mother’s

time. This is an awkward position to rise from, though, and I should be glad of a hand up, if you’ll be so—oof!”

He lifted her up off the ground and carried her.

She could have struggled. She didn’t.

He was large. All Their Dis-Graces were large men. She was by no means a small woman, yet he lifted her as easily as if she’d

been a bundle of clothes, carried her along the rough uphill road, and didn’t gasp for breath when he set her down, on one

of the thick roots of a tree.

She did not want to be set down. He was strong and warm. She could feel the hard muscles of his body in places where she was accustomed to feel only her clothing. She could smell his clothes and his skin. She detected traces of the various places he’d entered, hints of smoke and ale and spirits. She caught whiffs of horses and leather and faint scents of soap and wool and starch. She wanted to bury her face in his shoulder. She wanted to put her cheek against his. Her mangled hat was in the way, luckily for her.

She was deeply wrong in the head.

No no no no no, Alice. You gave up this nonsense years ago, because you’re not a fool.

They’re the fools, reckless, catastrophically immature.

They’re the problem.

That’s why you’re here, and not with Cassandra.

Here. With him.

He paced in front of her.

Surprise drove out self-pity. She could not recall seeing Blackwood pace before. He wasn’t the restless sort. She could not

remember when before she’d seen him so untidy, either, even a month ago, after the drunken incident.

Mud and scuffs dulled his boots’ polish. Dirt spattered his trousers. A button dangled from his coat. His rumpled neckcloth

hung limply. Dust coated his hat.

“Do I, too, look as though I’ve been dragged behind a cart?” she said.

He stopped, and his dark gaze settled on her.

She felt it, as though he’d put his hands on her. Which he’d already done and which she wanted him to do again because, obviously,

she’d suffered a concussion.

She hated herself. She wanted to run away.

“This will not do,” he said. “It’s impossible to think clearly when I have to deal with you. Mere hours have passed since we left Sussex Place, though it feels like months. In that short time you’ve nearly killed yourself twice. Had I not happened along, you might have killed Bray. Admittedly his absence from the world can only improve it, but he was a source of information. I am trying to do the right thing, and you...”

He threw up his hands. “You hate me, and you have ample reason, but can you not set that aside for a time, and stop colliding

with me at every turn? Do you not understand that I want to go on searching, too? But doing so would only increase our difficulties

while accomplishing nothing. Why can I not make you understand that the longer we delay, the more difficult it will be to

get you back to London without setting off a scandal?”

“I own a brain,” she said. “I understand perfectly well. Excruciatingly well. Scandal comes so easily for women. For men,

it’s nigh impossible.”

“Do you imagine I’m unaware of that? Why the devil do you suppose I’m such a brute as to insist on getting you back? I can

break rules, but I cannot change them. I cannot make the world the way you want it to be. And at this point, I’m not at all

certain what you want.”

She was no longer certain, either.

She stared at her scuffed half boots. Ruination stared back at her.

So unfair. She hadn’t done anything wrong. If she were a man, she might stay away from home for as long as she needed to,

and nobody would raise an eyebrow.

If she were a man, she wouldn’t be in this obnoxious position in the first place.

“I had a plan when I came to London,” she said. “It was a good plan. But you and Ripley—”

“We’ve ruined it, have we? Your plan was rubbish.”

She looked up at him. “You don’t know what it was!”

“Do I not? Pray credit me with a little intelligence—or at the very least, the ability to put two and two together. You leapt onto the Marriage Mart mere days after Ripley nearly shot off his face. Admittedly I was slow to comprehend. But matters became exciting so very quickly after the Hyde Park Corner episode that I lacked the mental wherewithal to discern the obvious. By gad, Alice, I find myself wondering why in blazes I’m fighting with you about taking you back. Society and your beaux are your problem, not mine. Must I remind you that, if you insist on staying here, you’d better forget about Doveridge.”

She needed a moment to collect her wits. He knew. But of course he knew. This was Blackwood, the man of logic and precision

and rules.

She found words. “He isn’t as narrow-minded as many. He of all people will understand.”

“He can be as broad-minded as he likes. That changes nothing. He has a position to maintain, and no ordinary one. This isn’t

the Prince Regent’s day. Society is a deal more intolerant and hypocritical than it used to be. He cannot overlook your disappearing

overnight, even if he wants to. If he marries you in spite of the scandal, he’ll be pitied and laughed at. His prestige will

sink, and with it his influence.”

He spoke nothing but facts, and she felt as though she was falling on her face and slamming against cold, hard ground.

Doveridge’s influence was prodigious, and he used it wisely. He had the King’s ear and the Queen’s. He was a force in the

House of Lords, fighting a Sisyphean battle for a measure of reform. She knew of no other peer who had so much compassion

for the lower orders. Liliane Girard was a mere tradeswoman in the eyes of the Great World, yet Doveridge treated her with

the same courtesy he gave queens and princesses.

He’d already done so much good. He could do a great deal more.

Or he could be mocked and pitied. People like Worbury and Lady Bartham would leap at the excuse to belittle him. Alice had no trouble picturing the satirical prints and the jokes in Figaro in London and elsewhere.

“I wish you would use the brain you own,” Blackwood went on. “Even a man like Doveridge must be circumspect or pay a great

price. And if he’s off the list of prospects, your other lovers will shy away. If we leave now and get you back to your aunt

at a reasonable time, you can continue your husband-hunting. There may be a little talk, depending on whether you were seen

leaving with me, but nothing so bad as if you’re gone overnight.”

“But Ripley—”

“You want to see him for yourself. You want to punch him in the face for worrying you. Understandable. He’s your brother.

But can you not wait until tomorrow to do that?”

“We don’t know! We don’t know what’s become of him. We only surmise.” She clenched her hands. “This is intolerable. It’s so

absurd for you to have to take me back now instead of continuing. Who knows what will happen while we’re away? How do we know

he isn’t ill? How do we know he hasn’t met with an accident?”

“We don’t,” he said. “What I do know is, if you insist on remaining here, you’ll have to marry me.”