A new beginning.
The lure had been potent.
For a man who had been born on the wrong side of the blanket and who had spent his life with little more than the clothing on his back, the opportunity to find his freedom from the stain of his illegitimacy had proven an undeniable lure. He was not a lord. Never would be.Hell, he had not even been a welcomed guest within Coddington Hall until a fortnight ago when the man who had sired him had extended an invitation.
How could Adrian have known that lone meeting could have the power to change his life so significantly and irrevocably?
He knocked at the door at one quarter past two, as he had been instructed. Longleigh and his duchess were having tea, and the duke was going to leave at Adrian’s knock, returning to London. The rest of the month’s schedule was Adrian’s choice.
He hoped he could do this.
He hoped he could bed a woman to whom he felt no attraction.
And he hoped Longleigh would never discover that he’d had no intention of ever getting the duchess with child. There were means of preventing such an outcome. Having been born a bastard to a life of suffering, Adrian knew them quite well, and he intended to employ them all.
That was the thing about hiring one’s bastard son to fuck one’s wife. Unless the man who sired him wished to act as audience, the Duke of Longleigh would never know he had been double-crossed. And Adrian would go on to his new life in America, ten thousand pounds wealthier.
The door opened to reveal the duke. Adrian liked to believe he did not favor the bastard in the slightest. Longleigh’s hair was white, his face broad and ruddy, his nose an aquiline protrusion, his stature tall but his shoulders small. Adrian’s hair was light brown and golden when in the sun, his face proudly did not resemble his father’s but instead his mother’s quiet, black-haired beauty. The sole traits he and the duke mutually possessed were the divots in their chins and their impressive height.
Mayhap also the derision with which they regarded each other could be added as an additional shared characteristic, he thought as the duke closed the door at his back and faced him. Here was the man who had refused to acknowledge him until several weeks ago. The man who had never spoken to him, the man who had never sent his mother a ha’penny to aid in his rearing, the man who had only condescended to address him when it had become an absolute necessity.
How fitting a punishment for a man who’d ignored his bastard son for eight-and-twenty years to be incapable of producing an heir with his duchess.
“The duchess will see you now,” Longleigh announced, his eyes and voice as cold as his heart. “I am returning to London, but rest assured that Her Grace will send for me if anything is amiss. If I hear a word of this arrangement breathed beyond the walls of this house, I will destroy you.”
The threat was not an idle one from a man capable of the sins Longleigh had committed, not the least of which had been seeing Adrian’s mother committed to Broadmoor when he had been a lad. Still, for ten thousand pounds and a steamer ticket for New York City, Adrian was willing to take any risk.
“You have my word,” he said.
“Such as it is.” The duke’s lip curled in distaste.
“Such as it is,” Adrian repeated, holding Longleigh’s stare without flinching. “The ten thousand pounds will be placed in my name on first July, as discussed, yes?”
The hell of his youth had prepared him for this moment. For this ignoble deed. For what he must do now. One month was all he needed. The money was his after the month concluded, regardless of whether or not the duchess conceived. All he was required to do was engage inamorous congresswith her.
“Yes,” Longleigh hissed. “Do what you are being paid for, hold your tongue, and do not think I will hesitate to retaliate swiftly should word of our arrangement go beyond the three of us. Above all else, you are not to tell her your true name or relation to me. Do you understand?”
Oh, he did. Quite.
Adrian could not resist needling the duke, though he knew it was unwise. “How sordid, Father.”
The duke’s nostrils flared. “Never refer to me thus.”
Adrian sent Longleigh a mocking smile, his only response, and then made his way into the drawing room. In for a penny and all that. Best to jump into the freezing water rather than fret over its temperature.
But he had scarcely crossed the threshold, the door closing behind him, when he faltered. The duchess was not at all as he had imagined her to be.
First, she was young.
Of an age with him, he had no doubt.
However, her youth was not the only arresting feature which had him stopping on the thick, detailed carpets. It was also simplyher. The Duchess of Longleigh was an undeniable beauty.
He had anticipated a woman who was older than he, not necessarily of an age with the duke for she would have had to be capable of producing an heir. He had anticipated someone dull. Someone plain. Someone for whom he felt nary a shred of attraction, nor a spark of passion.
Emerald eyes clashed with his. The color of her gaze was stunning, heightened by the dress she wore, a handsome pink day gown that clung to her figure and emphasized her bosom. She wore jewels at her throat and ears, her golden hair styled in an elaborate braid with curls framing her heart-shaped face. She held a teacup and saucer in her elegant hands. Her full lips were wide, parted.
The sort of lips that tempted a man to sin.
