Read Duke of Deception (Wentworth Trilogy) Online
Authors: Stephie Smith
Tags: #historical romance, #romantic mystery, #England, #duke, #Regency, #Romance
Duke of Deception (Wentworth Trilogy) (31 page)
Tears flowed freely down Lucy’s face and Derek drew her into his arms, holding her gently, soothing her as she sobbed against his chest. After some time, her sobs faded away and she took a deep, shivering breath.
She lifted her eyes and stared wonderingly into the aching gentleness of gray eyes dark with emotion as she sought to put voice to her feelings.
She understood exactly what her father meant. Derek would never know how terrified she’d been in the cottage when she saw Isabelle rising up after that final gunshot, and she thought Derek had been shot instead. Until that moment, she hadn’t truly understood the depth of her love for him, and she wanted to tell him how she felt, wanted to tell him she had fulfilled her father’s wish before she had even known of it.
But no words could convey the magnitude of her feelings, and so she simply whispered, “I love you,” her heart filling with more joy than she could ever have imagined when he crushed her to him and whispered back, “My one true love.”
“Y
our Grace, I am afraid we have received yet another gift. Where shall we put this one?” The butler’s face bore a pained expression as he gestured to the large rectangular object that could only be a painting.
Lucy hid her smile. The prankish gifts, which began arriving four days earlier with the delivery of a tiny treasure chest, had become more and more outrageous as time drew nearer to the masquerade ball, and Gibbons, the staid butler at Wentworth House, had endured about as much as he could.
There was nothing
she
could do about the gifts, however. There had been much speculation that the Duke and Duchess of Dorrington would don pirate costumes for their ball, and Derek’s friends couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease him about his privateering days. With an attempt at solemnity, she directed Gibbons to take the gift to the drawing room.
A few moments later, a shrill cry came from that direction and Lucy hurried there, stopping short at the sight of the life-sized painting of a fearsome-looking pirate with chest bared and dagger raised, a pirate who looked remarkably familiar.
Her gaze moved over the rendition of Derek’s dark hair, the arresting silver eyes and strong jaw, and she felt a familiar quiver of excitement. She admired the wide chest and rippling muscles of the arm that held the dagger, the narrow waist, the slim hips and muscular thighs. Suddenly her hand flew to her mouth, and she jerked her gaze to Derek’s mother, who appeared ready to swoon.
“Jonathan! Come to the drawing room this instant!” the dowager duchess cried out as she fanned herself rapidly. “Oh, my. Oh, how disgraceful,” she said, glancing at the portrait again. “That must be covered immediately. Think of the ladies. Their sensibilities . . . ” Her voice trailed off and she collapsed onto the sofa.
Lucy looked helplessly at Eleanor, who quickly turned away, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, and a giggle tickled Lucy’s throat.
A peal of laughter floated from the hall, and a little boy with dark curls and silvery eyes charged into the room, propelling himself toward Lucy as fast as his chubby legs would go. “Mama! Mama! I sat on ’hotie! Papa held me up!” He stopped abruptly upon seeing the painting, and his eyes grew wide. “Papa!” he shrieked as he pointed at the pirate.
“Not exactly a
true
representation, is it?” said Derek drolly.
“Papa! Looks
’xactly
like you,” said little Philip.
“Do you think?” Derek teased as he tousled his son’s soft curls. His eyes met Lucy’s, she grinned, and his own laughter erupted. His gaze swept back over the life-sized painting that did look exactly like him, except for the much larger-than-life size of a certain part of the pirate’s anatomy, a part which happened to be blatantly displayed in skintight breeches.
He picked up the card that had been dropped to the floor by his shocked mother. “It says this is from Jack and Sara, though I’m not quite sure why Jack felt the need to embellish my . . .
er
. . . ”
“Jonathan!” His mother fanned herself furiously. “Oh . . . I shall swoon . . . ”
Eleanor moved discreetly away to stand at a window on the other side of the large room, her shoulders shaking with renewed laughter.
“Jack?” Lucy thought of the dark, brooding duke whom Sara had married. “He doesn’t seem the type to play practical jokes.”
“You, my dear, don’t know Jack very well yet,” said Derek, “or you’d never say that. But I still can’t figure out wh—”
“Oh!” Lucy’s hand flew to her mouth again. “Sara! It’s Sara’s joke!”
Derek raised a brow, and a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “I’m almost afraid to ask . . . ”
Lucy lowered her voice, but couldn’t stop her giggle. “Well, you see, we had a conversation about that particular
appendage
once, and I may have implied . . . Hmm. Never mind.”
Derek burst into deep, throaty laughter. “I think Jack and Sara are well suited. I also think we’ll have to hide this away. I’d hate for the ladies to be disappointed to see me in my pirate’s costume after they’ve seen this picture. I’d never hear the end of it from the men, either.”
Philip tugged at Lucy’s skirt. “Mama, I want to be a pirate just like Papa,” he said.
Lucy scooped him up and kissed his soft, pink cheek as she breathed in his still-babyish scent. She looked from the portrait to Derek to Philip and smiled.
T
he carriages were backed up for miles in each direction, even though forty footmen, splendidly attired in burgundy and gold livery, hurriedly escorted guests from their carriages to Wentworth House. Not all of the carriages that lined the street brought guests. Many contained curiosity seekers, people without invitations who simply wanted to catch a glimpse of anything having to do with the ball that had been anticipated by all of London for weeks.
Inside, there was already a crush of guests, the orchestra was playing, and servants carried platters of food to and from rooms adjoining the ballroom. Lucy stood quietly near the balustrade of the main staircase, hidden from view, watching her costumed guests as they flirted and danced. She felt oddly at peace, considering that before the evening was over, five hundred guests would have passed through her home, and tomorrow would report on even the tiniest detail of the arrangements.
Her eyes lit on Derek’s mother, gorgeously gowned as Cleopatra, standing beside Jonathan Summerfield, her husband of four years, who was, of course, a very handsome Anthony. Even from this distance Lucy could sense the love in the gaze that passed between them. So many years they had waited to be together, so many years Jonathan Summerfield had loved his son from afar. Derek finally knew the true love of a father and what it was like to give that kind of love as well. Her heart swelled for Derek and for herself. They had so much to be thankful for.
Movement near the end of the hall drew her gaze and she saw Derek coming quietly toward her. He was so handsome and rakish in his pirate’s costume that it brought back memories of another ball, the ball where they first met.
“Is he asleep?”
Derek nodded. “It took some doing, though. He was quite upset that he can’t attend the ball.”
Lucy gave him a knowing smile. “He’s not nearly as upset as he would have been if you hadn’t sneaked him down the servants’ stairs and through the kitchen to get a glimpse of the dancers.”
“I can’t sneak anything past you, can I?” Derek asked with a chuckle. He slid his arms around her and pulled her to him, closing his eyes at his body’s response to hers. He remembered the first time he’d held her this way, that first night when he’d drawn her out onto the terrace at the Grantham ball, that first night of his masquerade. “I’ll have to claim the costume made me do it,” he murmured against her lavender-scented hair.
Lucy sighed as she leaned into him. “I do like your costume, my lord pirate, even if you don’t.”
“Hmmm. It’s not the costume I don’t like, and I don’t even mind all the gossip that will probably start up again,” Derek mused as he continued to hold her. “I suppose I don’t like to be reminded of the masquerade because it represents the extreme arrogance and foolishness of a man who should have known better.”
Lucy pressed a warm kiss to his neck. “If it hadn’t been for your masquerade, we would never have met and both our lives would be so very different now.” She tipped her head back to look into his gray eyes and tried to imagine a life without Derek and Philip, but she couldn’t. She would never be able to imagine such a thing again.
“Then there’s only one thing I can say to that,” Derek said as he lowered his lips to hers. “Thank God for the masquerade.”
THE END
************
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S
tephie Smith was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the fifth of six girls. Early years were spent making mischief and, in general, driving her parents crazy while the family migrated between Ohio, West Virginia, and Florida. In fact, her family moved so often—18 times before Stephie finished sixth grade—that some people suspected they were running from the law.
Stephie left home at 14, finished high school at 16, and enlisted in the Air Force at 18, graduating with honors from the USAF Schools of Electronics and Instrumentation. After attending several colleges and universities around the country (switching majors from Chemistry to Art to English to Psychology but never figuring out what she wanted to be when she grew up), she followed her sisters to east central Florida and settled there. She remains there today writing historical romance, humorous women’s fiction, and computer how-to books. You can contact her through her website
StephieSmith.com
. She loves to hear from readers.
