An American Duchess Read online

  * * *

  Zoe never dreamed she would be looking at Nigel with the bars of a jail cell between them.

  Her husband was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. Her house had been filled with movie actors and producers and handsome young men hoping to become the next Valentino. But no man she’d seen took her breath away like Nigel. To her, his scars made him irresistible. They spoke of the danger he’d faced. They revealed on the outside what had forged the man on the inside. The man who respected his tenants, who had fought for his country, who was now willing to give her the one thing she’d claimed she wanted.

  He was right. How could they live together? But in that moment, she knew she loved him. Not still. More than ever.

  “Stop pacing, Nigel. You’re making me nervous.”

  He stopped, growled and stalked to the bars. Gripping them, he faced her, a few inches from the iron. “Is this what you meant when you put in your telegram that there must be some scandal that would make me willing to let you go?”

  “Not exactly. That wasn’t why I did this.” She swallowed hard. “Do you want to let me go like you said on the beach?” It was what she knew she needed. Her independence. She couldn’t live, loving him, knowing there was even more than an ocean and a continent between them.

  If she moved on, she could put their past behind her. Couldn’t she?

  When she looked at him, God, she didn’t want to.

  “I am getting you out of here,” he said curtly.

  “They’ll fine me, I’ll pay it and I’ll be out. They will likely let me out on bail—”

  “I am getting you out now,” he broke in. His hard, cold tone sent a shiver down her back.

  With that, her husband stalked out of the jail. She saw him a few hours later and he was accompanied by a police officer carrying a set of old-fashioned keys.

  She had been behaving cool and sophisticated, but as the door to her cell swung open, she almost ran into Nigel’s arms. Being locked up had been more frightening than she let on. She wasn’t as wild as she pretended.

  “I had a discussion with one of the magistrates,” he said. “The charges have been dropped.”

  He had brought clothing from her house. In private, she stripped off her prison garb and put on a dress, a coat and fresh stockings that she fastened with garters.

  Nigel waited for her. With his hand at her lower back, he propelled her outdoors onto the steps of the police station. Reporters had found them somehow.

  “The press in America is as irritating as in England,” Nigel growled. He pushed his way through. There was something about a tall, irate duke that made people move aside.

  When they drove through the gates of her home, she looked to him and finally asked, “What are you going to do? Leave? I suppose you are furious again.” She took a deep breath. “If we were divorced, you would not have to be scandalized by me being in jail.”

  “No, Zoe, I am not leaving.”

  What did that mean? Was he staying because he wanted her? She couldn’t believe that—she wanted to believe it, but she couldn’t risk her heart for him again.

  The front door opened to her, and she walked in—

  Her foyer and living room were filled with white roses. And Jack, the artist, stood in entrance to her living room, with two battered suitcases. “Afternoon, Duke. I was just going.” To her, Jack said, “A dozen deliverymen came with them. They poured in the house, dumped roses everywhere and marched out. Left a card. I put it over there.”

  Zoe picked up a white card.

  “Who are these from?” Nigel stared, his face pale. He didn’t look angry. He looked lost.

  “Mr. Howard Cornelius Randolph,” Jack said, looking glum. “Made millions in oil fields. Fills the house with roses every second day.”

  She had encouraged flirtations with Jack and with Howard. Flirting kept her from thinking.

  But the pain in Nigel’s eyes hit her like a knife in her heart.

  “He’s in love with you. I cannot blame him for that. But are you in love with him?” She saw his shoulders shake. His hands fisted as he fought it.

  She’d thought he had closed his heart to her after they’d lost the babies. But maybe his heart had been raw and open—just like hers was.

  “I’m not. But I am supposed to go to his party tonight.” She had to know. She had to test Nigel. “His parties are wild and thrilling and exciting. There’s jazz, dancing and wild and crazy games, and the liquor flows like water.”

  “May I escort you?” her husband asked, very formally.

  “I don’t think it’s your kind of party. You won’t enjoy yourself.”

  “I want to take you, Zoe. I want to experience one of your wild parties with you. Even just once.” Nigel took her hand and lifted it to his lips.

  His kiss made more shivers go down her spine. But good, exciting ones.

  “Goodbye, Zoe. I can accept defeat gracefully.”

  She barely heard Jack’s parting words. She had told Nigel she could collect all the artists she wanted, but she had done that to tease him. Her knees quaked as her husband kissed the palm of her hand.

  * * *

  Mr. Howard Cornelius Randolph’s mansion was about half the size of Brideswell, built of gray stone to look as if it had been there for two hundred years, and it blazed with light like an amusement park. Vibrant jazz music poured out of it—Nigel could hear the music from blocks away. It looked as if the world and its brother had been invited to the party. Cars filled the circular drive. There had been a collision between a Model T and a flashy cream-colored car covered in gleaming chrome, and a fight had broken out between the drivers.

  Zoe pulled her car up to the curb. “We’ll get out here.”

  She swung her shapely legs out, her silver dress glittering, as a young man ran up and she tossed the keys to him. “Park it when that mess ahead is cleared up.”

  The party made the jazz club in London look like a church meeting. They passed through the crowd in the house to the gardens in the back. Fountains shot water into the sky, and a pool wound between them like an exotic lagoon, with lights glimmering on the water and turquoise-colored tiles. An entire orchestra was positioned on a stage near the house. Tables were set out under tents, laden with food. Waiters darted to and fro with trays of champagne. Over the terrace and the lawns, people drank, shrieked and danced in contorted rhythms.

  At one white-cloth-covered table, a girl lay on her cheek, asleep and snoring. At another, a man darted under the tablecloth and the girl sitting there began to squirm and squeal.

  Zoe came to places like this, alone. Without him there to protect her.

  Anger coiled in him. Anger at himself.

  Zoe was kissed and hugged by dozens of men and women—people Nigel did not know. The evidence of a life she led that had nothing to do with him stabbed his heart and his conscience like twin knives.

  He never should have let her go.

  He should have fought for her that day she walked out of Brideswell—he should have fought for her before she reached the stairs. She took out her lipstick and slowly glided the soft, red stick over her full lips. Nigel couldn’t look away from the smooth, slow motion and the way a glossy layer of cream was left on her soft mouth.

  In a heartbeat, both his tie and his trousers were too tight.

  “Dance with me,” she said. “It is a party, after all.”

  He hesitated for one moment. Then he took her hand. The memory of dancing with her hit him hard. It was one of their sweet, happy moments.

  Julia said Zoe had changed him, and he hadn’t even seen it happen. If he wanted Zoe, he had to change even more—and do it himself.

  He led her to the terrace. Under twinkling lights, her silver dress sparked as if she had bathed in stars.

  S
he danced with him, her graceful hand on his shoulder, her other hand in his. They moved in a flowing fox-trot. Around them was an explosion of sound and light and wild people—like people in a riot—but he didn’t see or hear any of it.

  They went to the buffet after that, and a tall, handsome blond man in a pink suit suddenly materialized out of the crowd or the ether. He lifted Zoe’s hand and kissed her gloved fingertips. “My darling. I thought you might wear one of my roses as a token. You’re a pure white rose yourself.”

  Nigel stepped forward, but Zoe smiled. “Howard, this is my husband, the Duke of Langford. Unfortunately, I couldn’t wear one of your roses. There were so many and they were so lovely, I had them all donated to local hospitals and convalescence homes.”

  Randolph looked startled. But then he said smoothly, “A very lovely gesture made by a very beautiful woman.”

  For all his good looks, Randolph had a ruthless, mean look about him. If Nigel had met him in London, he would peg him as a street tough—the type to slit your throat for your purse. The man stuck out his hand. “I should be honored, having a real live duke at my party.”

  “But you’re not,” Nigel muttered. He moved closer to Randolph. “Do not send flowers to my wife anymore,” he said softly.

  “You might be out of your league, Your Grace,” Randolph sneered. “We do things differently in America. When you’re passionate about something, you take it.”

  “I am passionate about my wife. And I spent four years in trenches in Europe. I know how to protect what I love.”

  Maybe something of the scorching-hot anger inside him showed on his face. Randolph stepped back. “All right. I concede. No hard feelings. Right?”

  “Agreed—if you leave her alone.” Nigel turned to find Zoe. She had moved away from them. She stood near a tent with her hand on the arm of a tall, thin, dark-haired man. She smiled at the man, a sweet smile one gave a good friend.

  “That man,” he said to Randolph. “Do you know him?”

  Randolph had pulled out a long, thin cigar and was lighting it. “Lynton Bailey,” he said through clenched teeth. “Bailey is an American flying ace. A very good friend of Zoe’s.”

  She was in rapt conversation with the dark-haired, handsome Bailey. She had been in love with an aviator before—DeVille. And she had been entranced by Major Quigley’s plan to fly around the world.

  Nigel’s heart stuttered. She had found another kindred spirit. Had he already lost her?

  No—hell. He wasn’t going to let her go that easily.

  He walked up to them, stopping a few feet away. “Zoe, I came to ask if you wanted to dance.”

  “You want to dance again now?” She turned to him.

  Then Nigel registered the music being played. A wild, flamboyant jazz tune. He had to try to change for her. It was the only way he was going to keep her. He had to do what she did—forget about the past and look to the future. “Teach me how,” he said.

  Bailey took out a lighter, held it to his cigarette. The flame shook. Nigel hadn’t noticed it before—the tremble in the pilot’s hand.

  Waving to Bailey, Zoe took Nigel’s hand and led him into the crowd of flailing people. He tried to follow Zoe’s movements—waving his arms and kicking his legs forward. Certain he looked like a fool, he laughed. At himself.

  Zoe stopped for a moment, as if struck dumb. Then she shouted, “I dare you!”

  Next thing he knew, she jumped into the fountain and began dancing in it.

  Madness. But she’d dared him. And if he wanted to win her back, he couldn’t refuse.

  He strode to the fountain with ducal determination and hopped over the stone wall, submerging his shoes and half his trouser legs. Water flew around him as his legs flew up and his arms waved. Zoe put her hands in the water and splashed him. He splashed her right back, moving faster, drenching her from head to foot.

  He was laughing so hard his chest hurt.

  He got close to her, determined to get her completely soaked, when she leaped up, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him so hard and so passionately he was sure the water on his face and hair turned to steam.

  Lifting her in his arms, he carried her out of the fountain, wove through the crowd and got her to the front door.

  After he ordered her car brought round, he demanded a towel. A bevy of servants—men in livery of white tie and black tailcoats, along with maids in black with crisp white aprons and caps—brought armloads of them for her. Fluffy, folded and white.

  He took a large one and wrapped it around Zoe, used a smaller one to dry her bobbed hair. He quickly rubbed his own hair.

  Then they were alone, sitting on the front steps of the mansion, waiting for her car. He had danced with Zoe. Kissed her in a fountain. But what would he do if she was in love with someone else?

  “He has shell shock. The aviator. Bailey,” he said, watching her expression.

  There had been a dreamy look in her eyes that dropped away. “Yes,” she said. “That’s why I’ve been talking to him. I wanted to know what affected him so badly. I thought it would help me understand what you went through. He said there were a lot of things that shocked him. He witnessed one horrible, gruesome thing after another. But there was one incident that affected him so badly he couldn’t fly anymore. It was terribly sad.”

  She took a deep breath and Nigel held his. He began to understand. She hadn’t been falling in love with Bailey—she had been searching for a connection to him.

  “A young friend of his was also a pilot, and he was shot down.” Her voice was soft with sorrow. “Lynton went to help, but the young man burned alive. He heard the screams—they still haunt him.” Zoe looked at him, and her violet eyes glowed more than the acres of stars above them. “I know there was something for you. There is something that haunts you. Lynton could tell me, and look—it didn’t horrify me. It didn’t make me faint in shock. We cannot go forward unless you finally tell me what is holding you back to the past.”

  He never dreamed he would tell her here, sitting on a set of stairs in front of a California mansion, soaking wet.

  He couldn’t keep it from her anymore. If she hated him—if he lost her for good, he would have to accept it.

  This was what he had traveled thousands of miles to do—put his sins in front of Zoe and find out if she could ever love him in spite of what he’d done.

  He let out a hoarse groan. “The first man I saw die...a shell burst in front of him. I can’t describe what it did to him, but I still see it in my mind—” His voice cracked. “But that was battle. I could understand loss there. What I couldn’t understand was when we killed our own men. I was ordered to have men shot for cowardice. I objected, but my superiors insisted. They wanted to make examples. Dear God, one of them—he was wrapped head to foot so he could not move, before he was taken and shot.”

  He stopped, took a deep breath. “I have never spoken about this to anyone. I vowed I never would. They were just boys, Zoe. Not men. Boys who were shot for cowardice. They were young and frightened. And the soldiers holding the rifles were just boys. Shaking like leaves. My superiors were afraid they would be unable to pull the triggers. I was to ensure they did. I refused. I was threatened with court-martial. I doubted the commanders would have me shot—one of the privileges of being the son of a duke. But the order was carried out while I was on patrol. When I could do nothing to stop it. Then, when I returned from war, I began to receive letters from a young woman. She had learned that I was her brother’s commanding officer. He was one of the young men shot. She wrote me letters filled with hatred, called me a murderer. It is the truth of it.”

  “That was the letter you would not let me see.”

  Looking ahead, Nigel nodded.

  She moved closer to him, rested her hand on his arm. “But you tried to stop it happening—”
r />   “I suspect you would have risked getting shot to stop something so wrong.”

  She frowned. “You think—you think I would be that noble a person?”

  “Of course I do. It’s in your heart.”

  “But you had to follow orders.”

  “Duty. Bloody duty.” Nigel shot up from the step and paced in front of her. “When I finally realized how damned wrong it was to blindly follow duty, I was too late. One night we were in the trench—we’d been waiting there for days for something to happen. That night, the Germans started shelling. Suddenly, a man was shouting from out on the field. One of our men. He was the only living soul out there and the explosions of the shells illuminated him. He stood upright with his arms stretched out and yelled, ‘Look at me! Do I look like a tree?’”

  Her hand went to her mouth. A red stain formed on the fingertips of her glove.

  Not blood. Just lipstick.

  “I realized it was Private Long. He was twenty, and before he volunteered, he helped in his father’s green-grocer business. He had lost his mind, and I went out to him to haul him to the ground and get him to crawl back. Then he was hit, so I scrambled to get to him. The next shell exploded close to me, threw my body back twenty feet—that gave me the scars I have on my face. I crawled back toward Long again. I was bloody fed up and willing to risk my own life—no one else’s, just mine—for Long. But one of my other young men, an eighteen-year-old named Archie Cromwell, came out to help me. He was shot to pieces by machine-gun fire. He lingered in the mud for minutes, screaming in agony. I survived, but he died because I decided to do something bloody stupid. I went out to Long because I didn’t care if I died—” He stopped and shook his head, as if he could shake off the emotions gripping him.

  He had to go on. He had one more thing to tell her. “I don’t know if I truly welcomed death, but I kept thinking it wouldn’t be so bad. It would have to be quiet, for one thing. I wouldn’t hear any more screams. After the executions of my boys, that’s what I dreamed of every night. Their pleas and their screams. When I crawled out to Long, I was damned tired of worrying about survival, and I thought getting death over with might not be so bad.”