Wilde Child EPB

by James, Eloisa

At that moment Thaddeus appeared in the door of the drawing room. She jerked up her head, and he strode toward them, his eyes on Joan’s face. She didn’t know how she felt about the instant bolt of happiness she experienced when he entered the room.

  But it happened. She felt it.

  “I should practice walking,” Otis said, mischief deep in his voice. “Father dear, won’t you walk me the length of the drawing room?”

  His father snorted. “I most certainly will not!”

  “But I need practice walking,” Otis complained, getting to his feet, wobbling slightly, and then swishing his skirts. “I have to trot all around the throne room throwing flowers at people.”

  Aunt Knowe jumped to her feet. “I’ll walk with you, dear.”

  They set off, and Thaddeus took Otis’s seat beside Joan. “How are you, Lord Greywick?” she asked, ignoring the fact that they had parted a mere two hours before.

  “Very well, thank you.”

  But he wasn’t. His eyes were shadowed.

  She waited until the rest were engaged in lively conversation and then she dug an elbow into his side. “What happened?”

  He glanced down at her arm and then at her face, eyebrow raised. “Can I do something for you, Lady Joan?”

  “What’s the matter?” She watched his face closely, because it was the most fascinating puzzle she’d ever encountered.

  His thick eyelashes fluttered, and his jaw was tight.

  “It’s your father,” she breathed. She stood up. “I believe that I too should like to stroll before the meal,” she announced. “Lord Greywick, won’t you please escort me?”

  He muttered something, rose to his feet, and held out his elbow. “What did you just say?” Joan asked.

  “Bossy,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “What happened?” she repeated. She saw the moment he gave in, when the proudest, most solitary man she’d ever known decided to answer.

  “The duke’s solicitor wrote—”

  “He cannot win this ridiculous suit!” Joan interrupted. “My father will make certain of that, if no one else.”

  “Why would His Grace do that?” Thaddeus asked, his face at its most impervious.

  “Because you’re—you’re a friend of the family,” Joan said, feeling a prickling embarrassment at the back of her neck. She loathed the idea that he might think she was making some claim on him due to all that kissing.

  He was silent as they crossed paths with Otis and Aunt Knowe, heading back down the long drawing room. Thank goodness, he was looking down, because those two were bent on mortifying her; their faces were wreathed in suggestive smiles, and Otis was waggling his eyebrows like a satyr in a dress.

  Joan narrowed her eyes and warned them silently to keep their silly ideas to themselves. Just because she and Thaddeus were . . . whatever they were . . . friends, perhaps, didn’t mean her family should jump to conclusions.

  “It appears my father is dying,” Thaddeus said abruptly. “Not today, but soon.”

  Joan let out a soundless gasp. Thaddeus’s jaw was so tight that she was surprised the words made it to the open air. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she offered.

  He looked at her.

  “Or not,” she corrected herself.

  “First, he isn’t a ‘loss’ yet. But second, he will never be ‘my’ loss. He’s absented himself from my mother’s and my life long ago. On the few occasions I met him before his second son was born, he was uninterested and uncaring.”

  “A weasel,” Joan stated.

  He cast her a quick glance. “Not a loon or a fopdoodle?”

  “Shakespeare’s insults run the gamut from gentle to fierce,” Joan told him, glad to see no sorrow in his eyes. She added, cautiously, “Do you wish to visit your father before he passes away?”

  “His Grace has not issued an invitation,” Thaddeus said, a tick starting in his jaw. “In fact, my mother and I are explicitly not invited to pay him a call, not that she would care to see him.”

  “So the letter was a notification?”

  “An announcement.”

  “I’ve never heard of announcing one’s death,” Joan said.

  “He embraces the dramatic,” Thaddeus said, his dry tone making it clear that he abhorred histrionics.

  Not that she had any illusion that he enjoyed the character trait. Unfortunately, she shared it. She was it. Dramatic, that is. Theatrical.

  “My father has apparently written a letter declaring that he had married his mistress before he was forced to marry my mother,” Thaddeus continued. “He is leaving instructions for this ‘confession’ to be published in the Morning Post, and for a petition to be presented to Parliament, overturning the laws of primogeniture, in honor of his chosen family and his beloved son.”

  “If he had a marriage certificate, he would publish it,” Joan said, coming to a halt. “Oh, Thaddeus, this means that your title is secure!”

  “I always knew that,” Thaddeus said, his voice grating. “Just as I knew that my father is a discredit to his country and family, with no more conscience than a caterpillar.”

  They reached the end of the room and turned about. From this vantage point, she could see the duchess laughing as she talked to Sir Reginald and Viola. “You must warn your mother,” Joan said.

  “She’ll never leave home again,” Thaddeus said tonelessly. “She’s shy, and while another woman might have gained confidence upon marriage, my father did his best to tear her down on every occasion, so that she wouldn’t complain about his rampant infidelity.”

  Joan bumped him with her shoulder. “I am sorry.”

  He looked at her.

  “Your father is a coward, an infinite liar, an hourly promise-breaker,” she said, quoting Shakespeare. “And an ass,” she added.

  Outside the door, Prism rang the gong for the evening meal.

  “If it was up to me,” Thaddeus said, “I’d burn the letter, laugh at the confession in the paper, and continue with my life. I agree with you: If he had a marriage certificate, he would have waved it about years ago. But my mother will be devastated. What am I going to do, Joan?” His voice grated.

  If she had been able, she would have cupped his cheek and brushed a kiss on his lips. A kiss that said, You are a good man, no matter your father.

  Which struck her as ironic, because she told herself that same thing daily.

  The party was making its way out of the drawing room door.

  “We can—we can figure it all out tomorrow afternoon,” she promised. “There’s a solution. We simply have to find it.”

  He smiled faintly. “While we’re supposedly practicing fencing?”

  “Exactly. Less kissing, more policy.”

  Thaddeus sighed. “A plan for my life, I’m afraid.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Thaddeus watched the rehearsal the following morning through unseeing eyes. He hadn’t slept well, and in the middle of the night, he’d narrowed his choices to two: He could travel to the estate where his father lived with his mistress and children, and wrench the letter from his dying hands by force. Or he could warn his mother of the announcement without mentioning her husband’s imminent demise.

  He was leaning toward the first choice. With an option for patricide, though he knew he’d never actually murder his father.

  Didn’t even want to.

  His father was an unkind, dishonorable man. But in a twisted way, Thaddeus respected the way his father had single-mindedly tried to turn over the English inheritance system in favor of the heir he preferred.

  Unfortunately for the duke, the entire estate was entailed, from the country manor house and its surrounding lands to the townhouse. Thaddeus himself paid the bills associated with his father’s second establishment. He had never wanted his mother to see those details.

  He looked back at the stage where Otis was throwing flowers around. Murgatroyd would never look like a woman, nor sound like one either, but he seemed to have the lines memorized,
helped by the fact that Miss Wooty stood to the side and prompted him whenever he looked at her.

  Which he did, frequently.

  She was a very pretty young woman.

  Not a lady.

  Thaddeus was abruptly caught by a bolt of jealousy so intense that it felt as if it cut through his gut. Otis could choose the woman he wished to marry. He knew the man well enough to be certain that he wasn’t casting looks at a woman whom he wished to make into his mistress.

  No, Otis Murgatroyd was contemplating a mésalliance. He planned to introduce Miss Madeline Wooty to Sir Reginald at dinner, which would take the question past contemplation into reality.

  If only his own father had had the courage to marry his squire’s daughter when he first fell in love with her. Now the duke’s claims to have married his beloved before making a society marriage had the hysterical edge of a man whose entire life has been predicated by regret.

  Act Five began, and Thaddeus was gratified to see that Joan’s fencing had improved. If it had been a real duel, Laertes would be in no danger, but she’d stopped wielding the sword like a battle-axe.

  Thaddeus rose to his feet when the cast hopped up from their varied deaths and descended from the stage, milling about while they waited for afternoon orders.

  “Dress rehearsal tomorrow morning; performance in the evening,” Mr. Wooty called. “Look sharp, all of you. Claudius, don’t forget to exit right rather than left from the prayer scene. Hamlet, you’re better on the fencing, but I’d like you to practice dying this afternoon.”

  He looked to Thaddeus, who nodded.

  “Ophelia, your grasp of the language has improved although I would suggest less simpering.” He looked at his niece. “This afternoon, let’s run Ophelia through his longer scenes. Here, where I can be of help.”

  Thaddeus smiled faintly. He wasn’t the only one to have noticed that Miss Wooty had caught Otis’s eye.

  “I can’t believe he wants me to work on dying!” Joan said indignantly, when they arrived at the island two hours later, having divested wigs, coats, waistcoats, stockings, and shoes on the bank. “I thought I died very well.”

  This time Thaddeus hadn’t hesitated; he too had stripped down to his linen shirt and breeches. “Perhaps too much moaning?”

  “Only a reasonable amount,” Joan protested. “Nothing like the exhibitions my brothers would put on in the nursery. They used to writhe all over the floor, after ‘dying’ in a duel.”

  Thaddeus tried to imagine that, and failed. The Wilde men whom he knew showed no signs of dramatic ability, and in fact, tended toward the type of man whom one would think completely practical, if anything.

  You could trust them, and their judgment, without question.

  He was still thinking about that when he carried the picnic basket up the bank, following Joan. Once in the clearing, they put down the cloth—flowered yellow cotton, instead of blue—and pinned it to the ground with rocks.

  “Are you hungry?” Joan inquired. “I’m sorry I took so long after the rehearsal, but I wanted a bath after collapsing onto the stage in death throes. It was frightfully dusty.”

  They began to pull the boxes from the picnic basket. Today’s offerings were different from yesterday’s.

  “Mmmm,” Joan said, appreciation a purr deep in her throat that made his nerves tighten. “Cook sent along pot pies, and they’re still warm. And lemon tarts!” Her delight sent flecks of sensation down his spine.

  She rooted out a corked earthenware jug and gave him a mischievous grin. “Plum jerkum!” Pulling out the cork, she poured a rosy liqueur into the tin cups.

  “How intoxicating is it?” Thaddeus asked.

  “Very,” Joan said. “Viola and I tried it neat once, and later we threw up. This, however, is Aunt Knowe’s version, which is mixed with cider and should be no stronger than wine.”

  Thaddeus looked down at the fizzing cup and saluted her with it. “To your performance of Hamlet.”

  Joan grinned at him. “Thank you.”

  Sparkling, tart liquid slid down his throat. Even though he knew perfectly well that brandy hardly affected him, he chose to interpret the heady feeling that spread through him as inebriation rather than—

  Than some sort of illicit emotion inspired by Joan’s eyes.

  And her smile.

  Joan took two small pot pies and a napkin and lay down on the opposite side of the cloth, propping up her head with a pillow.

  He started picking up the boxes that were between them and placing them to the side.

  Joan was on her back, ankle crossed over her knee, staring at the shifting leaves overhead. When she noticed what he was doing, she turned her head lazily. “I’d like more to eat, even if you don’t.”

  “I’m not packing away the food. The boxes are in the way of my pillow.”

  A smile played with the corners of Joan’s lovely mouth. “I see.”

  He placed his pillow, very precisely, next to hers. “If you don’t need a tree to lean against, neither do I.”

  When he had lain down next to her, not touching but close, Joan said, “You haven’t truly experienced a picnic until you watch the leaves.”

  Thaddeus stared up at them. They were leaves. Shifting into patterns that sorted and resorted in symmetrical patterns—mathematics had been one of his favorite subjects in university—but ultimately, just trees.

  A plump tail flicked across a branch and then scampered down the tree on Joan’s right. At the bottom of the trunk, the squirrel stopped and sat up.

  “He’d like pie,” Joan said softly.

  The young squirrel had an extraordinarily fluffy tail that curled up and over his head in an exuberance of fur.

  “Why isn’t he more afraid of us?” she asked.

  “He’s too young,” Thaddeus answered, equally quietly. “He’s no more than a baby.” Cautiously, he came up on one elbow and rolled some crumbs not toward the squirrel, but off to the side.

  The baby gave them a look, scampered over, snatched up the biggest crumb, and left with a flip of his tail.

  “You like animals, don’t you?” Joan said, turning her head to look at him. A ray of sunlight caught her hair so it glowed amber.

  “Yes.”

  He couldn’t look at her any longer without kissing her, so he rolled onto his back and put an arm over his eyes.

  A rustling suggested Joan had inched closer to him, but she didn’t touch him. He could smell her, though: She smelled like sparkling plum cider, a hint of buttery pastry, a touch of something indescribable that was Joan.

  “Are you all right?” Her breath touched his ear.

  He discovered he was holding his breath as if she were a shy forest creature whom he was trying to coax closer. He let the breath out. “Of course.”

  “Your father’s unkindness must be very hurtful.”

  “I wish he had simply run away years ago, the way your mother and father did,” he said, keeping his voice even. “But he’s not brave. I realize now that he probably began to feel ill two years ago, when he started badgering me to give up the inheritance. Any courage he has is fueled by knowledge of his imminent demise.”

  “Here, have a bite.” A warm, flaky pastry touched his lips, and he took a bite without moving his arm from his eyes.

  “My father, the duke, told me that my mother’s courage came from being unloved,” Joan said. “He didn’t love her, and he said that no one in her family had cared for her either. So when she met the Prussian, her life reshaped itself around that one fact: love. At least, I hope the Prussian loves her.”

  “If she looked like you, he is probably prostrate at her feet,” Thaddeus said wryly.

  He felt her withdrawal even though she wasn’t touching him. She was on her side, head propped up on an elbow.

  “I hope for her sake that he cared for more than that,” Joan said. “Beauty is fleeting, skin-deep, etcetera.”

  “Only if you think of ‘beauty’ as encompassing merely physical traits
such as hair and skin. That squirrel had a beautiful tail, by any measure.”

  “A royal tail,” Joan said, her voice softening.

  “But his face is beautiful,” Thaddeus pointed out. “The way he turned his head slightly away and still watched us, the scrappy shine in his eyes, four long, springy whiskers on each side of his mouth.”

  “Hmm.” Pastry touched his lips again. He took another bite. “I would give you jerkum but I’m afraid to spill plum-colored liquid on your shirt. Down in the laundry, they’d have to lather it over and over.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Aunt Knowe had each of us, the boys too, work in the laundry room for a day. We did the same in the buttery—she finds new beer fascinating—and the stables, and the kitchens. We learned how to lay a fire and scrub a hearth. How else could we run our own households someday?”

  He absorbed that in silence. To him, running a household was a matter of giving orders. He learned that lesson at his mother’s knee. The Wildes obviously had a different concept. Likely a better one, he admitted.

  Everything he knew was learned by rote. A rule, memorized, like a part in a play: The Duke of Eversley.

  Something sharp poked him in the side. “Time to sit up,” Joan said cheerfully. “You can’t watch the leaves—”

  He rolled over, his mouth coming down on hers without opening his eyes. It was as if he had mapped her territory in space. He knew where her body was in relation to his. Joan’s mouth opened to him as naturally as if he were a flaky pastry, but the sound she made in the back of her throat? That raspy note of excitement? No pastry was worth that.

  Thaddeus sank into their kiss as if nothing else existed but the moment and the lady. Their tongues curled around each other, dancing in a rhythm that turned the desire in Thaddeus’s body into a thunderstorm that blotted out rules.

  All of them memorized, not learned.

  He pushed the thought away. He was drunk on Joan’s taste and smell, the sunlight, perhaps even the sparkling drops of plum liqueur.

  He finally opened his eyes, rearing back his head, and ran a hand from her waist to her ribs. “May I?” Her eyelashes fluttered open. Thaddeus’s mind reeled, trying to find names for that blue. “In the 1100s, the color blue was considered divine,” he added.