Loved by a Duke (The Heart of a Duke #4)(72)

Daisy resumed walking down the corridor to the library. With the towering shelves and massive collection, it had long been one of her favorite rooms in the Duke and Duchess of Crawford’s home. She paused outside the closed door and a thrill of awareness ran through her. She pressed the handle. The door swung open silently. “Auric?” she called quietly. She blinked several time as her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit space. Empty. A swell of disappointment filled her. Daisy cast a glance over her shoulder, considering seeking him out. Except, she’d not be the bride who hunted for her just-wedded husband in the dead of night. Faced with the alternative of running abovestairs to her infuriatingly quiet chambers, she opted for the still of this room full of cheerful memories.

Daisy stepped inside the room and wandered a path about the perimeter. She trailed her embroidery frame over the volumes of leather books. Perhaps he had business to see to. Important business. All evening. Business that would preclude him from dining with her. His wife. “Bloody unlikely,” she muttered. Daisy turned on a huff and marched over to the leather button sofa then sank into the aged fabric. She eyed the pathetic attempt at a heart upon the stark, white cloth in her hands. The crimson blob served as a taunting reminder of a certain duke’s heart.

She drew the needle through the fabric. No matter how she turned Auric’s actions this past fortnight over in her mind, she could not sort through his conflicting moods. One moment he spoke to her of love and kissed her until she couldn’t so much as remember her name. The next he hid from her with an ease that would have impressed their younger selves all those years ago. She continued to work her needle through the embroidery fabric with a speed borne of the need for distraction. There was a somberness to him and had been for the past seven years. She paused and studied the red distorted heart a moment while reflecting on Marcus’ words at the wedding breakfast. At the time, she’d been insulted that he should suggest she was innocent and na?ve of all that had come to pass in Auric’s life—shaping him into that somber man.

She knew better than most how life and its tragedies changed a person. Yet, now in the quiet of the library with no one but her own thoughts for company, she acknowledged the obvious truth—she’d not truly considered how Auric had been forever changed by that dark night. Daisy ran the pad of her thumb over the fabric. Both Auric and Marcus had been with Lionel that last night, and when she’d been a young girl of thirteen, listening outside her father’s office, her ear pressed to the wood panel of the door, she’d heard enough of the muffled words to know they had discovered Lionel’s body. Her heart wrenched. How that would forever shape a person. Is it a wonder that Auric had become the stern, aloof, oft-bitter seeming man seen by Society?

Daisy slowly tugged her needle through the fabric once more. Only, she’d allowed herself to hold onto the glimpses of the teasing, devoted, and caring boy she’d once known. Until Marcus’ words, she’d not realized the immaturity in relegating him to an unchanged man.

Regardless of what life had made of him, she’d love him. He’d always had her heart. And he always would.



Seated at the edge of the leather, winged back chair in his office, Auric glanced across the dimly lit room to the long-case clock. Midnight. He dropped his head into his hands and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

She should be sleeping now. She, as in Daisy. His wife and duchess. Not that he preferred her to be sleeping. He didn’t. He preferred her awake. In his arms, under him, beside him. He braced for the familiar rush of terror that such an admission had wrought mere days ago when he’d acknowledged that he’d fallen in love with Daisy. Except, the terror did not come. Nor did the guilt or regret for all the wrongs he’d committed. Oh, in time he suspected the familiar sentiments would slap at his conscience once more. Today, he could only see and feel his love for her.

That, as well as his own damned nervousness. He felt that, as well. It twisted his stomach into viselike knots and had made movement difficult for the better part of the day. Since the moment he’d spied Daisy across the street in Gipsy Hill, with the wind whipping at her russet curls, he’d ached with a desire to know her in all the ways a man could know a woman.

And he, who’d prided himself on his unwavering courage and confidence sat alone in his office, on his wedding night, forced to acknowledge the truth to himself—he was bloody terrified to make love to his wife. After he’d been rash in seeking out his pleasures in that notorious hell with his friends as his companions that long ago evening, he’d never taken another woman to his bed. It had been a small sacrifice to make for the sins of his youth. Now, he wished he knew more so that he could be, even in this physical union of him and Daisy, all she deserved.

With a growl of frustration, Auric surged to his feet and began to pace. Yet, even in wishing he could come to her as one of those proficient lovers, part of this felt somehow right—the knowing that, but for a one exchange born of a young man’s lust seven years ago, Daisy would forever be the only woman he’d take to his bed. He paused mid-stride and glanced at the closed door. That is, if he sought out her bed.

The blade of guilt twisted all the deeper. He’d little doubt that the ever inquisitive, always bold Daisy would have waited for him and, with each passing moment, had surely had questions for her largely inexperienced, in matters of the bedroom, husband. If he knew Daisy, even now she’d be filled with a burning annoyance that he’d not come for her.