To Pleasure A Duke (The Husband Hunters Club #3)

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

E ugenie had barely slept a wink all night. Sinclair must have read her letter by now and she didn’t believe he would ignore it. She’d made such a fuss he’d be too curious to resist, and when he saw what she had written . . . Eugenie was under no illusions when it came to her duke; she had seen his ruthless streak.

It was still early when she heard a commotion outside and the overworked servant was sent up to her room to fetch her down. “Sir Peter says you have a visitor, miss, and to hurry.”

“Who is this visitor?”

“He didn’t say exactly, miss, but I think it’s someone wanting to buy that mare o’ his.”

Eugenie would have preferred to stay in her bed, with the covers pulled over her head, but she reluctantly rose and dressed. She felt unlike herself, despite the familiar clothing and the familiar face that stared back at her from her mirror. She was no longer the girl she’d been. Sinclair had changed her; last evening in his arms had made her someone else. Certainly she would never be able to look at the world in the same way.

How he must despise her! Even if she was able to explain to him why she had written such a letter, and why she had entered into such a plan, he would never understand. She could only hope he decided she was now beneath his contempt and would avoid her from this day forward.

Sir Peter met her at the door of his study, face beaming with smiles. “Eugenie, good, good. Look who has come to take a second look at our mare?”

Eugenie had already seen and her feet took root. Her father had to grasp her arm and tug her into the room.

“Good morning, Miss Belmont.”

His voice was even, his mouth smiled, but his eyes were full of fury.

Feeling sick, Eugenie looked away. “Your Grace.”

“The duke wants you to ride the mare for him, so that he can assess her suitability as a mount for his sister. I said you’d be only too pleased,” her father warbled on.

“I don’t think—”

Sir Peter leaned close to her, lowering his voice for her alone. “And I don’t want any excuses from you, my girl,” he warned. “You’ll do as you’re told.”

“I thought Miss Belmont and I could ride out on the lane,” Sinclair was saying in a pleasant voice, totally at odds with the expression Eugenie knew was in his eyes. “If I have your permission, Sir Peter?”

“Certainly, certainly.”

Dizzy from lack of sleep and too much emotion, Eugenie found herself out at the stables and tossed up onto the mare’s back. Behind her Sinclair was listening to her father pushing up the price, and she rode off a little way, hoping that they would fall out and she may not have to be alone with him. But the next moment Sinclair had mounted his own horse and set off through the gate and down the lane, away from the village.

Reluctantly she followed.

The lane was empty, with only a few farm workers busy in the fields either side. Eugenie’s stomach felt hollow and she remembered she’d had no breakfast. Last night’s meal of exotic fare seemed a long time in the past. Sinclair had fed her with tenderness, his smile warm, his eyes glowing with desire. The man she was riding with this morning might have been a stranger, with his face chiseled from marble and his black eyes blazing.

She’d been dawdling along the verge, hoping to turn back before he could accost her and spill his venom all over her, but now he had stopped his own progress and turned back to her, waiting for her to catch him up.

Coward that she was, Eugenie also stopped, leaving a good distance between them. Too far for conversation, at any rate. She didn’t see the puddle, but the mare did. As soon as she caught sight of her reflection, the creature started violently and jumped to one side. Eugenie, taken by surprise, was almost unseated. She screamed and clung on. Her hair, which she had tied back simply in a long braid, now came lose, hampering her efforts to regain control of the terrified animal.

He appeared at her side—the last man in the world she wanted to rescue her.

“What do you mean by such madness?” Sinclair roared. He looked furious, the icy arrogance she was used to completely vanished. Sinclair was out of control, and she had never seen him out of control.

“The puddle,” she gasped. “She’s afraid of them.”

He glared at her, his black eyes narrowed and savage.

“You read the letter then?” she said, her voice husky with dread.

“Oh yes. I read the letter.”

* * *

She flinched, as though he’d struck her, but Sinclair wasn’t fooled by her act. She’d played him all along and he’d been taken in by her, but no longer would he act the besotted fool. Her written words were burned into his mind, into his soul, and he meant to pay her back a hundredfold for humiliating him.

“Perhaps you would allow me to explain . . .” she began, but her voice trailed off when she met his gaze.

“I’d like to hear your explanation,” he bit out. “Why would you write to your friends and make me a laughingstock? Tear apart my character and mock my pride and my position? Turn me into a game for your amusement!”

His voice was growing louder. He couldn’t remember ever being so angry in his life. She’d done all the things he’d accused her of, but there was something he wouldn’t say aloud. She had hurt him. Struck him to the heart. He’d trusted her as he’d trusted few women and she had betrayed him.

“I’m sorry if I made you a laughingstock,” she said, tears filling her green eyes. “I didn’t mean to. It’s all been an awful mistake. My wretched tongue ran away with itself and I was trapped and when I’m trapped I tend to make things worse . . . well, I’m not making excuses. I accept it was all my fault. I should have told them straightaway that I didn’t even know you, let alone expect to marry you. Your name just sprang into my head! I could just as easily have chosen an earl or a lord or someone else. It didn’t mean anything.”

“I’m glad my pursuit of you didn’t mean anything,” he said between his teeth. “I’m glad you were indifferent to me last night when I took your maidenhead.”

She jumped as if scalded by his anger, and it took all her courage to meet the heat in his dark eyes. “I wasn’t indifferent,” she said. “You know I wasn’t.”

He stared her down. “I thought I wanted to know why you acted as you did. I even thought I might receive an apology.”

She tried to interrupt but he held up his hand.

“Now I find I don’t care after all. You are beneath my contempt, Eugenie. I am glad I discovered what sort of woman you were before we went any further. I have had a lucky escape.”

A blessed wave of anger washed over her.

“A lucky escape? I had no intention of becoming your mistress. I told you so from the beginning but you did not want to hear. You are so used to getting your own way you thought you could force me to your will. But I do not want to be kept like a nasty little secret. I want to share the life of the man I choose, Sinclair. I want to walk at his side and sit at his breakfast table. In short, I want to marry him.”

His lip curled in that way she loathed. “I pity the man you finally trap.”

Eugenie swallowed back more hasty words.

This was not the time nor the place, and perhaps there never would be a right moment. But she could apologize, and then at least she may be able to put it behind her.

“The letter was very wrong and I’m sorry for it. Most of it I made up.”

“ Most of it?” he growled. “It was a pack of lies from start to finish.”

Her wretched bluntness made her say, “Apart from your mother being so rude to me, that was true. And the way you sneer at those you consider beneath you—unless they can be of use to you, like Jack. And the way you curl your lip when you feel superior. Yes, just like that!” she burst out, as he obliged her.

For a moment he said nothing, his face white, his jaw bunching.

“So it is all right for you to insult me, but I am not allowed to insult you?” he said in a deadly tone. “Miss Eugenie Belmont can splatter her poison about without a thought for the damage she may do. And it is all my fault for curling my lip?”

“That isn’t what I meant at all!” she cried.

“Good-bye, Miss Belmont. Tell your father I have decided against his mare. She is far too tricky for my liking.”

She might have said more but her voice failed her. With a sob, she turned and kicked the mare into a gallop, her curls flying behind her, her skirts tucked up about her bare legs.

* * *

Anger was Sinclair’s companion on the way home to Somerton. He had business to attend to, important affairs he’d left to come here and see Eugenie. Luckily his mother had already set out to her friends in the west, but Annabelle wanted him to look at some filly she had her eye on, and he’d promised.

He needed to get himself under control before then.

Although his anger was justifiable, he told himself, it was aimed at himself just as much as Eugenie. Somehow he’d allowed himself to be drawn into her net, to the extent of believing she would be his. He’d even made plans as to where he would install her in London, he realized, with a savage bark of laughter.

How deluded he had been!

He lifted his head and looked up at the sky. Eugenie Belmont was nothing more than a devious, conniving slut who wanted to be a duchess and believed she could inveigle him into setting aside his principles for another taste of her body. Well, he would never marry her. There were plenty of other far more compliant girls out there who would be forever grateful for the chance to be his mistress. He could have any of them.

All of them!

* * *

Eugenie rode through the village, almost knocking over the postman’s wife. The woman shook a fist after her, but Eugenie didn’t stop. Everyone thought her a hoyden, even Sinclair. Suddenly their opinions of her seemed justified. She thoroughly deserved their approbation.

For several miles she rode on without easing her pace, and it was only when the tears had dried on her cheeks and her sobs quieted, that she finally stopped. She’d cried herself out but her heart was leaden in her breast.

Eugenie knew she’d learned a lesson she’d never forget. This silly scrape had changed her, made her more aware of her actions and how they might affect herself and others.

She’d been foolish and selfish and she told herself that from now on she would be neither.