Deveric groaned as he rolled over in the massive oak bed he’d had custom-made for his beloved St. James townhouse. The property was big enough to hold his entire family, but it provided much-needed respite from the constant commotion of his numerous siblings—not to mention his mother—and so he kept it to himself. There were definite advantages to wealth. He did, however, offer the house as lodging for his close friends when they were in town, though he was regretting that this morning. Arthington yelling for Emerlin was what had woken him.
They obviously hadn’t drunk as much as he last night. He held his hand over his eyes, blocking out the sunlight streaming in through the windows. They’d started with port, but what had he finished with? Brandy? Scotch? He wasn’t sure.
He’d only known he’d wanted to forget the images he’d seen that fateful night. And then on Eliza’s phone. It was all real. All too much. And Eliza. Eliza was too much, with the way she’d winnowed herself in through his defenses.
What was she doing? It’d been a week. A week since he’d fled Clarehaven. A week of trying to drown his confusion and desire in drink. It wasn’t working. The only thing he thought of was her. Eliza, her eyes aglow as she regaled him with tales of the future. Eliza, her face a mask of pain as she sang so beautifully, so hauntingly, of wanting to go home. Eliza, who’d somehow wormed her way under his skin. The unexpected desire she sparked in him was difficult enough to battle, but this ... this stirring of less base emotions was downright terrifying.
How could it be true? No one could travel through time, for Christ’s sake. It was impossible. Except she had. He had. He’d been someplace else, someplace quite different from Clarehaven, with people he’d never seen wearing clothing that was not quite right, with objects he’d never encountered. He’d been two hundred years in the future.
He’d wanted to dismiss it as a dream, a quite creative one, though he did not count a vast imagination as one of his over-arching qualities. But it wasn’t. Eliza proved that—proved it with her presence, proved it with her tele-phone. Some might have dismissed the object as some form of trick, some sort of sorcery. He knew better. It was an advanced machine, capable of things he’d never imagined. And what he’d seen on it ...
Eliza James had traveled through time. With him. To him. For him?
His mouth watered as he recollected the first time he’d seen her, in that deliciously snug gown with the purple and green embroidery. She’d looked up at him as if it were Christmas morning, and he her gift. Had any woman ever viewed him like that? As a gift, rather than a prize to be claimed? Or a monster to be avoided?
He looked over toward the letter his mother had sent, which lay folded on the table near his bed. She’d made no mention of Eliza, which he found suspicious. He’d known how upset she’d been at this stranger appearing in their home. He’d known she doubted his cousin story, though he typically told the truth to a fault.
She’d written about what needed to be done to prepare the estates for the spring sowing—tasks his estate manager had well in hand, but on which his mother always felt it necessary to comment. She’d shared tidbits about his sisters—they were, of course, all fine, but Emmeline was restless now that the house party guests had gone home, whereas Grace was relishing the quiet and solitude, spending much of her time reading and playing the piano. Becca was out every day with the horses, in spite of the cold. No surprise there. His mother had even written that Freddy was thriving; he’d had no more fevers and was showing great energy again. Thank God.
But no word on Eliza.
Surely, he needn’t worry. Surely if something had happened, if Eliza had ... disappeared, his mother would have informed him.
He wanted to know what she was doing, what she was thinking, how she was feeling. Was she okay on her own there, without him? Okay? The American was wearing off on him, her vocabulary infiltrating his, much like she’d infiltrated his quiet, staid, predictable life. And he liked it. A little too much.
He hadn’t focused so much on another person since Mirabelle died, and then his thoughts had centered on the daughter he’d never know, not the wife he’d lost, or even the son he still had. Remorse gnawed at him constantly over that.
He and Mirabelle were never a good match, especially after the first year, after Frederick was born. He’d felt a failure, not being able to build a true marital relationship with her. Not that he knew what that meant; his parents’ own relationship had been volatile. At times, they’d held great passion for each other; at others, they’d reviled each other. Samuel and Matilda Mattersley had always maintained proper decorum in the presence of others, however, just as they had taught their children.
Did any of his siblings know how contentious their parents’ marriage had been? Unlikely. It was he who’d often sneaked down to the library at night when he couldn’t sleep, seeking solace in a book, only to wander by his mother’s chamber or his father’s study and hear them arguing. Occasionally, he heard noises of an entirely different nature. As a young boy, he hadn’t understood them. As an adolescent, he’d been sure to hurry past, not wanting to acknowledge his parents were still driven by the flesh.
And then his father would disappear again, back to London, back to the city and the temptations the duke loved, but which Deveric’s mother did not. Much of their time after Chance was born had been spent apart, though three sisters had followed. Neither one of them talked of his father’s unfaithfulness, of course, although it’d been common knowledge about Town, of which Deveric and his mother were painfully aware. To acknowledge it wasn’t proper.
When once Deveric had asked his father for advice on matters of the heart, his father had shut him down.
“Focus on begetting heirs, my boy,” he’d said. “You needn’t feel anything for your wife; she’s not likely to return it. Women are fickle.” His father had eyed him under those ferocious eyebrows and commanded, “Find love where you wish. You shall be a duke. You may do as you please.”
That had often been his father’s guidance: “Do as you please.” Except, of course, when that went against his father’s other myriad commandments regarding how a gentleman, or a Claremont, behaved.
Deveric stuck a leg out from under the covers. Gingerly, he sat up, trying not to move too quickly, lest he worsen the pounding in his head. Had doing whatever he wanted, sporting with all those women, made his father happy? It’d certainly made his mother miserable.
Was his mother’s sorrow over his father’s carousing the reason Deveric had no interest in it? Besides the fact he didn’t want to kill anyone else, of course.
Deveric didn’t know. He did know what he wanted to do most was go back to Clarehaven and drink in Eliza’s amazing blue eyes, run his fingers through her soft flaxen hair, kiss her luscious pink lips ... and question her all over again about the future. It fascinated him, the things she knew that he didn’t.
A knock came at the door, followed by Arthington bellowing, “Get up, lazy bones. It’s near four o’clock and I thought we might take a gander through Hyde Park. I’m wearing my newest waistcoat.”
Four o’clock? How was that possible? It’s possible, his head screamed, when you don’t set the bottle down until after the sun is up. He groaned. He wasn’t ready to face the day. He wanted to be left alone with his thoughts, his fantasies about the amazing American at Clarehaven.
The door popped open a few inches. “Don’t you know, you clot pole,” Deveric snapped, “that no one disturbs a duke?”
“Except a fellow duke, perhaps,” Arth quipped, ducking the goblet Deveric snatched from the table and lobbed at his head. It fell to the floor with a thud. “Amazing. It didn’t even shatter. That must be pricey crystal.”
“Be quiet.”
Arth sniggered. “Never could hold your drink, could you? Not that I know many who could consume an entire bottle alone. And then a second. By all rights, you should be dead.”
“I feel dead. Now leave me be. I shall be down in half an hour.”
“Wonderful,” Arthington said. “There is a certain lady I am hoping to see.”
“And you need me?” Deveric muttered as he rose slowly from the bed.
“Good God, man, warn a fellow!”
Dev looked down. Damn, he was naked. When had he ever slept naked? He grabbed the bed covering and held it around him.
“Be off,” he snarled at his friend.
The door closed, but Deveric could hear Arthington call, “Keep the rumpled hair and surly expression. I can only look better in comparison.”
Exactly half an hour later, Deveric strode into the foyer, hair carefully combed and impeccably groomed.
“My, my, one would never guess you had single-handedly tried to drink all of White’s under the table last night,” Arth joked as he examined his friend. “Except perhaps for the eyes; they’re a little on the red side.”
“Cook gave me her amazing remedy. I don’t want to know what’s in it, and Lord knows it tastes like swill, but I know of nothing better for ridding the headache.”
Emerlin sauntered into the hall, wearing a closely fitted coat of blue superfine wool enhanced with a red waistcoat.
“You look like a peacock!” Arthington poked his friend in the arm.
Emerlin’s cheeks tweaked up in a grin. “Tell me that again when all the ladies are preening for my attention,” he said in his lilting accent.
Deveric rolled his eyes. These two. He couldn’t imagine better friends, or people more perfect for plucking him out of his doldrums than Arthington and Emerlin.
The three men exited the back door and walked to the mews, where their horses were already saddled and waiting.
“Tell me why I’m doing this again?” Deveric said as he mounted his horse and they ambled off. “I’ve never enjoyed the Hyde Park parade. Too many people, too much horse dung.”
“Because, as you know, I need to marry, to produce an heir, lest my dastardly uncle get his hands on the estate,” Arthington said. “And so I must ensnare a fine filly. And because you need to get back up on the horse, as well, so to speak.”
“I prefer an actual woman,” Deveric muttered. One woman in particular. He’d like to ride her—or perhaps have her ride him. His groin pulsed just imagining it. Ludicrous.
“It’s nice to hear you prefer anything,” Em said. “I’d feared we needed to procure you monastic robes.”
The burning of his ears told Deveric they’d turned red. Great. As if these two needed more ammunition. He flicked his hat against his thigh, urging his horse forward so that he needn’t respond.
They rode in silence, his friends’ gazes on the people around him. Dev’s thoughts flitted back to the people—person—at Clarehaven. How he wished he were there.
Arthington adjusted his cravat as they turned into the park, his eyes already scouting the ladies in nearby carriages. He grinned. “Shall we drop into Watier’s for a quick bit after this?”
“A bit? Of what sort? Food? Female? Cards?” Emerlin’s dimples were out in full force as he teased his friend. A young lady strolling to their side stumbled as she saw him, her cheeks pinking. They drop like flies wherever he goes.
Deveric sighed. He’d had enough of gaming hells. Between his uncle and his brother, he was forever dragging someone away from the tables. He’d managed to satisfy the creditors this week, promising he was good for his uncle’s debts, but he wasn’t happy about it.
All he wanted to do was return to Clarehaven, return to Eliza. If his friends knew of his obsession for his American “cousin,” however, he’d never hear the end of it. He had to play his part, at least for now.
Cracking a grin, he winked at the two men. “Why limit ourselves, my friends?”