Wilde Child EPB

by James, Eloisa

Her aunt Knowe had the winged eyebrows of the Wilde family, and they flew up. “You surprise me, dearest.”

  “Joan will accept my proposal soon,” Thaddeus said, sounding completely unperturbed.

  “Pride goeth before a fall,” Joan remarked.

  “My father, the Duke of Eversley, proposes that I give up the dukedom in favor of my younger half brother,” Thaddeus said, pitching his voice beneath the hum of conversation.

  Aunt Knowe glanced down the table at her closest friend, the duchess.

  “My mother shares a passion for dyeing cloth with Lavinia,” he said. “They are completely absorbed.”

  “Sometimes I find myself wondering whether I have finally lost my wits,” Aunt Knowe commented. “Did you just say what I thought you said?”

  “I did,” Thaddeus replied.

  “Where on earth did Eversley get such a tomfool idea?”

  Joan reached out and took Thaddeus’s hand under the table.

  He curled his fingers around hers and smiled wryly at Aunt Knowe. “I’m afraid that it springs from this family. It was widely reported some years ago that North intended to renounce his title, when the time came.”

  “I knew we should have kept that idea to ourselves,” Aunt Knowe said with a gusty sigh.

  “My solicitors strongly feel that renunciation is not legal.”

  “Ours agree. Luckily, my brother seems remarkably healthy,” Aunt Knowe said, waving her hand. “The Wildes will make it work, if need be; the family has a knack for getting what they want, legal or no. Witness my brother’s divorce, for example. Rarely granted, but he got one.”

  Joan was rather glad that the footmen arrived with the first course. Her father’s divorce from Yvette, her mother, was indeed unusual. But so were flagrant exhibitions of adultery.

  Thaddeus edged his chair back to the table and they spooned up a delicious potage au lait d’amandes, chatting of this and that.

  Joan noticed as Prism moved unhurriedly to her father’s side and bent to murmur in his ear. That was unusual; the duke greatly disliked being interrupted during a meal. Hopefully, Lady Bumtrinket hadn’t paid them another visit or, if so, her stepmother would imprison her in a bedchamber.

  As it turned out, the duchess had no say as regards their guest.

  The great double doors to the dining room flew open. Prism straightened in outrage, his eyes bulging like a surprised frog in livery, but before he could march back and reassert his command, four men walked through the door carrying a litter.

  Thaddeus made a sudden jerky movement, but Joan didn’t turn to him; the scene before her was too fascinating. The litter bore a gentleman with a full head of unpowdered yellow curls. He was lying on his side, propped up on white velvet pillows, his face gaunt and ashen. The remnants of great beauty could be seen there too, in the jaw, the hawkish nose, the commanding, heavy-lidded eyes.

  Joan was irresistibly reminded of a performance of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra that she’d seen in London. The Egyptian queen had been carried across the stage while supposedly floating down the Nile on her pleasure boat, dressed from head to foot in cloth of gold, servants fanning her with peacock feathers.

  This entrance could definitely compete with Cleopatra’s.

  The man lay on a bed of glistening white silk, the velvet cushions nestled around his head. Despite the August heat, a magnificent white ermine robe had been thrown over his lower half, below which his toes could be seen, garbed in pointed white silk slippers adorned with pearls.

  His servants weren’t fanning him, but she recognized the livery they wore. Slowly she turned her head to Thaddeus. He was watching tight-lipped, his arms folded over his chest.

  “Thaddeus,” she breathed.

  Except for that word, the Lindow Castle dining room was completely silent, which never happened in a chamber that held more than one family member.

  The man said, “So many Wildes in one room. I am near to overcome by the brilliance of it all.” His eyes moved from person to person, as commandingly as if he were royalty. Yet there was nothing regal about his expression. He had the peevish, ripe look of a man who put his own welfare above that of all others.

  “And my wife.” His voice was melodious and deep, much larger than his wasted body suggested. To Joan, it sounded like the drone of bees.

  He was looking at the Duchess of Eversley, so Joan was right about the livery. The grooms on Thaddeus’s carriage wore the same colors.

  The Duke of Eversley—dying or not—had arrived at Lindow Castle.

  “Along with my inestimable elder son,” Eversley rumbled, his eyes moving to Thaddeus. “Trying to wrangle a permanent berth in Lindow Castle? Third time’s the charm, eh? Good thing that Lindow has so many daughters.”

  Thaddeus stared back at him, utterly expressionless.

  With a scrape of his chair, Joan’s father rose from the head of the table. “Eversley,” the Duke of Lindow acknowledged, strolling forward. “Your dramatic arrival irresistibly reminds me of theatricals at Oxford.”

  “How would you know? You never took part in them, and I cannot recall seeing you in the audience,” Eversley retorted.

  “It’s true that I generally found better things to do. You seem to have taken those days to heart,” Lindow said agreeably. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

  “Necessity,” Eversley said, running a hand through his curls. “The castle housed two people whom I need to see before I die, so I made the journey. A good thing too, because my doctor tells me I have little time.”

  Joan would have thought it pure dramatics, but the hand he had languidly raised into the air was faintly blue. As were his lips, when she squinted.

  “I cannot imagine that you wish to see me, Eversley,” his duchess said, rising from her chair. “You have made no such request in over a decade or more. We have nothing to discuss.”

  “To be truthful, you weren’t on my list,” the duke said nonchalantly. “Didn’t even recognize you at first, but I guessed when I saw a fat rosebush sitting up at the dinner table.”

  Joan registered that comment with a shock of rage that went right down her back. The sweet, shy duchess didn’t deserve this from her adulterous husband.

  Sir Reginald, seated next to the Duchess of Eversley, looked as if he were on the verge of stabbing Eversley in the heart.

  Thaddeus was on his feet. “I would gather that the pleasure of speaking to you is to be mine.” His voice was hard and dry, without a shade of other emotion. “Would you prefer to retire and speak in private?”

  “Don’t see any reason for that,” Eversley replied. “The world will shortly know everything, so we might as well begin with the Wildes.”

  His duchess walked around the end of the table and approached the bier. “This has been such an unexpected pleasure, yet I believe I shall retire for the evening. Farewell, Eversley.” Her voice was courteous, as if her husband had done no more than greet her. As if he were no more than a passing acquaintance.

  The duke opened his mouth, undoubtedly to say something unkind, but his wife was too quick for him. Joan hadn’t noticed that the duchess had brought a glass of red wine with her—until she threw the contents of her glass just below her husband’s face.

  The liquid, a deep, rich color, red as blood, hit his chest and splashed outward, staining all that snowy, rumpled silk, the white ermine, the white velvet.

  “Bloody hell!” the duke bellowed.

  Joan jumped to her feet and began to clap. “Brava!” she called. “A fitting close to a melodrama!” Beside her, Joan heard a choke, a suppressed laugh, from Thaddeus.

  The duchess turned back to the table. Joan grinned at her; Lavinia jumped to her feet and clapped wildly as well; along the table the women rose and applauded, Aunt Knowe adding another “Brava!” for good measure. The duchess blushed, and smiled directly at Sir Reginald.

  Behind her, the duke was clutching his chest and wheezing a demand for smelling salts. “You! Butler!”
he shrilled.

  Prism walked, very slowly, toward the door, ignoring him.

  Joan was happy to see the smile on the Duchess of Eversley’s face.

  “If you would all please excuse me,” she said, nodding.

  “Of course!” Aunt Knowe said, bounding around the end of the table. “I shall retire with you.” She paused by the bier. “You always were a numbskull, Eversley. Now you’ve become a raving lunatic, and you don’t even have old age as an excuse.”

  The duke gave a crack of laughter that was more breath than sound. “If you think I care for the opinion of an unsightly, overgrown shrew—”

  The Duke of Lindow cut him off. “Insult my sister at your peril, Eversley. I will not hesitate to put a rapier through what’s left of your withered heart.”

  Joan met Lavinia’s eyes, both of them full of glee. Joan’s father never lost his temper, but it was thoroughly entertaining to see him transform into a menacing duke, every inch of him outraged.

  Eversley fell back on the wine-stained velvet, panting. “Trying to kill me, I see. I see. I see the light!”

  “I only wish that was the case,” Joan whispered, sitting down and pulling Thaddeus down beside her. She turned her head to find him staring at her incredulously. “What?” she asked.

  “How can you find this wretched scene funny?”

  “I’m a Wilde,” she said, shrugging. “Madmen are two for tuppence around here, and we are absurdly dramatic by nature. Miraculous saves and brushes with death were practically a daily occurrence when I was growing up.”

  Thaddeus shook his head as if to wake himself up. Down the table, everyone was seating themselves again, chattering as they did so. Only Sir Reginald still looked murderous.

  “I told you that I wouldn’t make a good duchess,” Joan said, feeling that she had to vanquish the bleak look in his eyes. “I might as well say now, Thaddeus, that when I am near death, I shall want a bier as well, and eight servants fanning me with peacock feathers.”

  “Fitzy’s, I suppose?” he asked dryly.

  “A nice touch,” she said. She poked him. “Handsome young men, mind you.”

  His eyes lightened. “Pillows made from a woolly goat?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I hate to think of Gully and Fitzy not being with us any longer.”

  Thaddeus leaned toward her, and before she could stop him, he kissed her. A chaste kiss, but on the lips. At the table, where anyone could see them and undoubtedly did. She didn’t dare glance around. Instead she frowned at him.

  “We said—”

  “Until matters are resolved with my father,” he shot back, nodding. “I have a strong feeling that will happen before the next course arrives. Meanwhile, I’m bent on being as dramatic and scandalous as my future wife.”

  The bleak look in his eyes was gone, though it hadn’t been her silliness that chased it away. She had the feeling that was due to the prospect of marriage. Marriage to her. The thought gave her a prickle of nerves, but Aunt Knowe hadn’t raised a numbskull, to use her aunt’s word.

  From the moment she allowed Thaddeus through her bedchamber window, the die had been cast.

  “The dukedom,” she reminded him.

  He smiled faintly, one of his hands closing around her thigh under the table.

  Almost all the women had reseated themselves, but Joan’s stepmother remained on her feet. Now she walked toward the bier. The Duchess of Lindow was a quiet woman, but with great strength of character.

  “Duke,” she said to Eversley. “I must ask you to leave. You have insulted one of our dearest friends, as well as my beloved sister-in-law.”

  “I’m not leaving until I get what I came for,” Eversley said, with all the fury of Hamlet’s ghost. A drop of red wine was slowly rolling down his cheek to his jaw, and he had a manic gleam in his eyes.

  “What do you want from us?” the Duke of Lindow inquired, moving to put his arm around his duchess. “We have no miracle cures; you profess to have no interest in speaking to your wife.”

  “I need to talk to your eldest son,” Eversley said. “As well as my own,” he added.

  Prism glided back into the room and offered smelling salts, which Eversley waved away. “Too slow, too late,” he sighed.

  “May I bring you something else, Your Grace?” Prism inquired.

  “Invalid’s jelly,” Eversley said. “I like it made with sweet herbs and just a touch of mace.”

  Prism raised a finger. A footman slipped from the room.

  “You’ll have to get off that bed if you want to eat,” the Duke of Lindow said. “Prism, have one of the brocade chairs from the library brought here.”

  Prism nodded and left the room.

  “Sitting is difficult,” Eversley said plaintively. “My lungs . . .”

  “We can put you to bed; your son can visit you there.”

  “No, no, I don’t have time,” Eversley said. For the first time, Joan thought she heard a real emotion in his voice. She glanced at Thaddeus and he nodded, just the slightest move of his chin.

  Eversley was dying, or believed himself to be dying.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Thaddeus could feel his heart thudding behind his chest wall. Thankfully, his mother had left, and Lady Knowe would ply her with brandy and make fun of Eversley, histrionically lying in his bier, until his mother found herself giggling, despite herself.

  The foolish thing was that some ragged, small part of his soul still loved this absurd man.

  The boy who thought that if he won at cricket, excelled in mathematics, took a first in astronomy and philosophy . . . that boy was still under his skin, straining to make his father love him.

  Failing.

  But now, looking at his father posed on that bier like a battered version of the god Dionysius, splattered in wine, self-indulgent lines carved into his face . . . Thaddeus realized that he’d never understood the truth of it.

  He had felt he was in a competition with his father’s other family. That they must be more lovable, more perfect than he.

  Not true.

  Eversley had never loved him, and never would.

  “You indicated that you do not wish to speak to your son in private,” the Duchess of Lindow said, startling Thaddeus back to the present.

  “Now that my wife has made her departure, I find it easier to voice my wishes,” Eversley said.

  “Get on with it,” the Duke of Lindow advised. “I’m hungry.”

  “Ah, hunger,” Eversley said, sighing again. “The desires of the living are beyond me. The doctors say I will die within a day or two. I likely shall not wake from my next sleep.”

  “You traveled here in your condition in order to see your son?” the duke inquired. “Or my son, who doesn’t know you from Adam?”

  “Not I,” Thaddeus intervened, putting an arm on the back of Joan’s chair. “My father and I said our farewells through a series of communications between our solicitors.”

  “I find myself unsurprised,” the Duke of Lindow told Thaddeus. He turned back to the dying man. “Well?”

  “Your oldest son told the whole country he was going to renounce the title,” Eversley began.

  North, the duke of Lindow’s oldest living son, cleared his throat. “I did say as much.”

  “My solicitors insist it is illegal,” Eversley countered.

  North shrugged. “More to the point, I believe your oldest son has no intention of indulging you.”

  “Indulging?” The duke’s voice went up an entire octave.

  Thaddeus took a sip of wine. As he put it down, Joan reached out and interlaced her fingers with his. “I’m sorry about this,” he said, glancing at her.

  She laughed. “Why? You know I love the theater. He’s a brilliant Dionysius, Thaddeus. The god of wine, remember? And indulgence?”

  “I thought the same thing.” Despite the situation, he felt one side of his mouth curling into a smile.

  “Are you laughing at me?” his father raged at
him.

  Thaddeus looked away from Joan toward his father, feeling her fingers lock even more tightly with his. He didn’t answer. He had no more words for the old man who had spurned him within a week of his birth. Eversley had made periodic visits to inspect his heir, but Thaddeus had never seen him after his thirteenth birthday when the boy he considered his “real” son had been born.

  “Look at you,” Eversley said, apparently following the same train of thought. “You were as rigid as a starched collar as a boy, and now you look as harsh as a damned prison wall.”

  Jeremy slid over into the seat next to Thaddeus that had been vacated by Aunt Knowe. Thaddeus gave him a questioning glance.

  “I don’t want to miss anything,” his friend said, chuckling. “I’ve always enjoyed storms, and you’re the focus of this one.”

  “Was that your final comment?” the Duke of Lindow asked irritably from the head of the table.

  The door opened and Prism entered, followed by three footmen grunting as they bore in an enormous stuffed chair. Thaddeus saw the butler hesitate for a second. The table was full.

  “He can stay where he is,” his master instructed.

  Next to the door. The Duke of Lindow had taken a true dislike to Eversley.

  “Prism, do I smell mutton? Serve the next course, if you please,” the Duke of Lindow ordered.

  It took most of that course for Eversley to arrange himself in the chair. The stained ermine and velvet pillows were cast to the ground; Prism directed footmen to carry them from the room. His Grace’s bier was lowered carefully to the ground, and then he was drawn to his feet, groaning horribly.

  Everyone at the table ate cheerfully, ignoring the performance. “Did you try the deviled lobster?” Sir Reginald asked Lavinia.

  “Excellent!” she answered, raising her voice to be heard above the moaning as Eversley was hoisted into the chair. “The ragout of duck is one of the best I’ve ever tasted. Prism, do give my compliments to the cook.”

  “I shall do so, my lady,” Prism said, turning from where he was supervising the tucking of a blanket around Eversley’s knees.

  “This is not invalid’s jelly!” Eversley squeaked, recoiling from the steaming cup that Prism handed him.