Page 28 of Unraveled By the Duke
Celia wanted to say yes, but stopped herself. They were married, true, but this didn’t feel right. She didn’t want to be his secret lover, hidden away from his family. She wanted to be trusted, to be his partner, not his adversary.
“Very well. In a week from now, we will consummate our marriage. Then, there can be no annulment. We will be husband and wife in truth, not just in name. But for now, I must meet with my solicitor to discuss preparing my accounts for your perusal.”
CHAPTER 9
Alexander lowered himself into a leather armchair that had been dragged to the fireplace. A tiger-skin rug covered the dark floorboards in front of the hearth, and numerous relics from Africa adorned the mantelpiece.
Bright shafts of sunlight filtered through the tall windows of the office of Mr. Percival Trent, personal solicitor to the Dukes of Cheverton for three generations.
He sat opposite Alexander, a glass on the table next to his right hand containing a concoction he claimed was an elixir discovered in his years in Africa. To Alexander’s right hand was a glass of brandy that he had not touched.
Alexander, contrary to his reputation, was not a heavy drinker, and he never drank during the day.
“It is most irregular, but then you would expect me to say it,” Trent said in the peculiar accent he had acquired during years spent with the Boers.
“I do, but it is necessary,” Alexander insisted.
Trent had a ledger open on his bony knees, and his long-fingered hands were turning the pages.
“And I would like you to do everything you can, when preparing these accounts, to remove any hint that the debts were accrued by my father.”
Trent nodded. “That will be done, of course, but I am troubled that it exonerates the previous Duke at the expense of the current one. And it is the current Duke I serve. Whomever these accounts are given to will believe you to be…”
“A rake and a wastrel,” Alexander said harshly. “Because that is how the stark numbers appear. Especially if read through the lens of the reputation I have been careful to nurture.”
“Most people would come to the same conclusion regardless of your reputation,” Trent said, his tone never shifting from reasonable neutrality. They could have been discussing the weather or the end of the world.
“But I will not countenance the risk of my father being viewed in such a way. He never was that kind of man. I was… once.”
Trent nodded with no trace of judgment. “I remember.”
The judgment might not have been in the old man’s voice or eyes, but Alexander felt it, nonetheless. He felt guilt for the days of his youth spent in idle pleasure while his father’s health deteriorated.
Health and mind. I should have been there. Violet is a saint for not blaming me. I should have been there.
“You have your assignment, Mr. Trent,” Alexander said, signaling an end to the meeting.
“I do, Your Grace. Is there a deadline?”
There was a spark of hope in his voice that made Alexander smile mirthlessly.
“As soon as possible,” he replied.
Trent smiled tightly. “As usual. Oh, for the days of specifics. Perhaps in heaven.”
Alexander left his solicitor’s idiosyncratic office at Gray’s Inn and stepped out of the building into the sunshine. Across from him were the Gray’s Inn gardens. He crossed the road and walked along a path flanked by yews that looked as though they had always stood there with the city growing around them.
It gave him a sense of peace to be surrounded by greenery, but the gardens were too crowded to slow his racing mind. Too many people with inquisitive minds and eyes, wondering about his business, speculating, and gossiping.
What am I to do about Celia? A beautiful and fierce woman. So alluring. So tempting. There was a time when I would have pursued her and considered catching her a great victory. But now…
He followed the path towards Kings Road, seeing nothing of the gardens, his mind focused on Celia. Her deep brown eyes, limitless pools of pure emotion, communicating so much. Her perfect face, sculpted by her maker to be a paragon of femininity. Her body, so soft and pliant.
He reached the road before realizing he had left the greenery behind him and shook himself. Looking around, he raised a hand to hail a cab, knowing where he wanted to go to truly find peace.
Celia will see my debts and believe they are mine. Her father will pay the dowry, and my creditors will be satisfied. Funds will be freed up to finally arrange a suitable debut for Hyacinth, the kind of event this city sees once only in a Season. Her future will be secured.
That is what I must focus on, not my desire for Celia. Those feelings are irrelevant.
