by Eloisa James
Mr. Brisket looked down at her with a broad smile. “You’re a right one, you know that, me lady?”
En masse, the ecclesiastics swept out of the room, Miss Pettigrew clinging to the archdeacon’s arm while Bishop Pettigrew led the way.
“Like Moses parting the Red Sea,” Devin remarked.
Viola shook her head at him; the mischievous version of the Duke of Wynter was in full sight tonight.
Caitlin asked, “Mr. Brisket, do you think something could be done about Noah before he joins the party?”
“Absolutely,” he said promptly. And: “Hello, there, Vicar!”
“Evening,” Mr. Marlowe said absentmindedly, his eyes on Caitlin.
“Reckon you’ve got something to say to this young woman,” Mr. Brisket said in a tone of high pleasure. “I’ll just have a word with Jeremiah Higgins. Reckon we’ll have to make a trip to the water pump and pour a pail of water over his head. I just don’t understand how he became that foxed on a few bottles of ale!”
“That would be most kind of you.” Mr. Marlowe extended his hand. “You made a splendid deity, Mr. Brisket. I was proud to see you play the role.”
Mr. Brisket went rosy all over his face. “That means a lot, sir. Means a lot, coming from you. Well, I’ll go and take care of Higgins.”
Viola noticed that Mr. Marlowe’s right cheek was still red.
He rubbed the spot. “Miss Pettigrew has a strong right arm.”
“I am very sorry,” Caitlin began.
But she was pulled into an embrace—and kiss—so tight, fierce, and brazen that Viola took a quick look to make sure that the bishop had left the premises.
“Caitlin,” Mr. Marlowe said hoarsely. “I love you. I want you to marry me, and put on irresponsible plays, and teach the orphans how to speak to animals.”
She opened her mouth to answer, but he pulled her close again and his mouth closed hungrily over hers, and she melted against him.
“Nearing the end of act five,” Devin said cheerfully.
“Lust is a sin, Caitlin, but this isn’t lust,” Mr. Marlowe said. “Not only lust.”
“Good thing he clarified that,” Devin commented.
“I will marry you,” Caitlin said.
Mr. Marlowe blinked and apparently thought better. “I shouldn’t ask you. I’m not worthy of you. Not at all.”
“This morning I turned down an earl,” Caitlin said, tracing his lips with her finger. “I rejected Baron Tibblesfoot last week.”
“Exactly,” Mr. Marlowe said, clearly struggling to hang on to his common sense.
Viola tugged on her husband’s arm. “We should probably allow them some privacy,” she whispered.
“Not before the curtain falls,” Devin protested, his eyes full of laughter.
“There’s only one eligible duke left on the market this year,” Caitlin said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I should marry him.”
Silence.
“Except that I want to marry you,” Caitlin stated. “I want to marry David Marlowe and live in his vicarage.”
“I don’t have the income to support you properly.” His voice was strained.
“Even if my father refuses to pay my dowry, my mother left me her jointure,” she replied cheerfully. She tipped back her head and looked into her future husband’s agonized eyes. “You haven’t any choice, darling.”
Mr. Marlowe’s jaw tightened. “One always has a choice to do right or wrong.”
“Not this time. You’ve ruined my reputation. No gentleman will ever marry me now.” She giggled again.
Mr. Marlowe gaped.
And slowly turned around.
There, looking on with enormous interest, was a good portion of the London ton. It seemed that they had glimpsed something more interesting than the refreshments offered in the next room.
“What I don’t understand,” broke in a complaining, huffing voice, “is how Higgins got hold of the vicar’s best brandy? When did he take it from the study? For that’s the situation, sir.” Mr. Brisket emerged out of the crowd, looking aggrieved. “I’m afraid that I’ve had to send Higgins home. He simply is not fit for company. He won’t be feeling any too chipper tomorrow either,” he added.
Mr. Marlowe had apparently decided that since the damage was done, he might as well continue; he started kissing Caitlin again.
“It’s the vicar’s best brandy, Your Grace,” Mr. Brisket said. “Someone gave a whole flask of it to Jeremiah Higgins, and it was the brandy made him bosky. Too fuddled to keep hold of the chicken, not to mention generally acting like a bufflehead during the play.”
Devin smiled and tucked his arm around Viola. “Thank you very much for your help, Mr. Brisket. As for the brandy, we’ll think no more about it.”
Viola gasped as she looked up at him. “You did it! Brandy, hmmm?” She grinned at him. “Did that come from the vicar’s private stock—or the duke’s?”
“Prudence is a cardinal virtue,” Devin announced severely. And he gave her a hard, swift kiss, to the gathered delight and shock of the audience.
Chapter Thirty-five
“We’re going to the country,” Viola sang to herself, waking up early the next morning and turning to wake Devin—
He wasn’t there.
She sat up, pushing mounds of hair out of her eyes, and discovered that her husband was seated at her desk. He was fully dressed, looking every inch a duke, from his exquisite coat to his burnished shoes.
“What on earth are you doing up already?” she asked. He didn’t smile at her, or even wish her good morning. His face was utterly composed, with a stillness that she hadn’t seen in weeks.
“Devin?”
He was rubbing his finger on the gilded sides of that silly chamber pot she kept on her desk. They’d ended up in her chamber last night because she had to change into a nightdress, and he didn’t want to separate.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I have several things to confess.” His voice was toneless.
Her heart skipped a beat, or several beats. “Could you please come here?” She was wearing one of Lavinia’s frivolous nightdresses made of silk and lace. She felt at a terrible disadvantage, faced by an aristocrat wearing a formal suit, not to mention a snowy wig.
“No.” Devin’s gaze was entirely impersonal. “I think it’s best I stay here. After telling you, I will leave, Viola. If you’d like me to return, you could send me a message. Or you could go to the country by yourself, or to your parents, and I would accept that.”
“What are you talking about?” Viola asked. Her voice rose from anxiety. “Why? Why would you leave?” She narrowed her eyes. “Do you have that disease, what’s it called?” She raked her brain. “The pox?”
“No. I am not ill. Obviously, I hope you won’t leave, but it is within your purview,” Devin said politely. He looked completely indifferent.
Viola had the sudden thought that perhaps she was still asleep. But no. The sun was coming in the window. The ribbon on her nightdress was tangled, and there was a muscle ticking in Devin’s jaw.
This was real.
“Right,” she said, her voice emerging in an irritating squeak. “Please tell me whatever you wish.” She paused and added, “It won’t make any difference to how I feel about you, Devin. I won’t leave you.”
“Please do me the courtesy of not referring to my mother,” he said. “I am no longer a child. In fact, I haven’t been a child for longer than you have been alive.”
That was a low blow. It was true that there was a decade between them, but Viola never considered it a problem. Apparently, he did, since she was about to be lectured like a child.
“Right,” she said, swinging her legs out of bed. “I will listen to your confession later. First I shall take a bath and dress.”
For the first time, she saw a flash of emotion in his eyes. Devin wanted to get it over with, whatever it was. He didn’t say anything, though, just watched as she walked across the room and pulled the
bell cord for her maid.
When he opened his mouth, she held up her hand. “No.”
“Viola.” Temper growled under the word, but he had himself well in hand.
Viola couldn’t say the same for herself. “I woke from sleep, expecting to leave for the country with my affectionate, loving husband. Instead he’s decided that he must inform me of some vague sin this very moment.”
He nodded. “Before we leave for the country.”
“I am resistant to dramatic statements before eggs and tea,” she told him, pulling on her dressing gown and tying it tightly around her waist. “I am also extremely resistant to being held hostage by my husband’s penchant for drama.”
He looked shocked, even horrified. “Penchant for drama?”
“Exactly. Apparently you woke in a foul mood and decided, for whatever reason, to share a secret you’d been nurturing. You can save that secret until I feel ready to hear it. Which will not be until I’ve had breakfast and at least a pot of tea, and likely two.”
Devin was giving her a look that might have sent chills down the back of a constable, but Viola was unmoved. He loved her. He was overlooking that fact at the moment, too caught up in glaring at her to remember.
He loved her.
This sort of thing would probably happen every now and again in their marriage, she decided, given his unhappy childhood.
Her maid opened the door and curtsied. “Your Graces.”
“The duke is just leaving,” Viola said, not looking at him. “I wish to dress. His Grace will wait for me and we shall breakfast together. I shall put on a traveling gown, obviously, since we are leaving for the country after the meal.”
She flicked a glance at Devin’s shoes, meant for London and not for travel.
Her husband walked out with his icy veneer intact, which probably made him feel more comfortable. Her maid retired into her dressing room and began gathering her garments.
Viola’s eyes rested on the chamber pot, gently glowing in the morning sunshine.
She walked over and plucked off the top. Inside was a crumpled sheet of paper. “Crickets!” she exclaimed.
“Your Grace?” her maid called from the dressing room. “Did you say something?”
“No. Thank you,” she replied.
Smoothing out her silly letter, she actually found herself smiling. What a little fool she’d been, with no idea at all about what she was talking about with regard to marital harmony. Marlowe didn’t know much either, though presumably Caitlin would teach him about spousal pleasure.
She ripped the paper into shreds and threw it down on the desk. She should have done that the moment she realized that the unfinished letter had been moved with her belongings from the Lindow townhouse to her new home. Instead, she had stuck it in the chamber pot with the vague idea of making Devin laugh by showing him that her ignorance of marital beds extended to more than male nipples.
Devin had been holding the chamber pot. Could he have read that foolish letter?
It seemed unlikely. He was angry about something related to a confession he wanted to make. No marriage foundered on a girl’s silly scribblings to a vicar.
Her traveling costume was made from green striped bombazine, worked around the hem with a border of exuberant flowers and trimmed in cherry. The exquisite lace at the neck was cleverly gathered, enabling the wearer to tighten the bow in front and cover her cleavage.
Or not.
Viola pulled the ribbon out entirely. She moved in front of the mirror to adjust the cherry-colored ribbons in her hair, and glanced down to see that her nipples were covered.
Barely.
She leaned forward and rubbed another layer of lip salve on her lips and tucked the case in her pocket for good measure.
“I’m ready.”
“You are exquisite,” her maid cried, hands clasped.
“Good,” Viola said, smiling at her.
She took a deep breath, calmed the sparks of nervousness in her stomach, and walked down the stairs. She meant to eat everything on her plate because she’d be damned before she’d let Devin think that fear of him had gone to her stomach.
That was crucial.
No matter what he was about to confess, he was her husband, and she had no fear of him.
After breakfast, eaten in polite and punctilious silence, they repaired to Devin’s library. Without the forest of Greek statues, it had turned into a looming room that desperately needed refurbishing. Like the rest of the house.
Viola deliberately reapplied her lip salve at the mirror in the corner over the fireplace, sauntered back to the settee opposite Devin, and sat down, making certain to discreetly tweak her bodice to reveal the maximum amount of bosom.
He leaned against his desk, managing to look twice as tall as he usually was. But there wasn’t even a twinkle of fear in Viola’s heart and she waved her hand at him carelessly. “I am ready.”
A moment later, she found herself staring at him, her mouth open.
Incredulity was her primary response.
“You? That was you? I wondered . . . But you said you hadn’t been to Lindow Castle in years!”
“That was years ago.”
“Who was the woman in yellow shoes?”
His brows furrowed. “Her name was Annabel. She was my mistress and I’m afraid that I misjudged her. As you will recall, at the time I chided her, thinking that you were assigned the role of witness, allowing Annabel to try to force me into marriage. I say ‘try’ because I would never have married her.”
Viola’s gut twisted for the first time and she noted that there was one thing that still frightened her. “Did you love her?”
“God, no,” Devin said impatiently.
Viola smiled.
“I was unfair to her. I misjudged her. She wrote to me several times, and I tossed her letters in the fire. I would offer her an apology now, except she married and moved abroad.”
“I would take extreme exception to your contacting her for any reason,” Viola told him.
“I’m not interested in her,” Devin said harshly. “What I am telling you is that I was the man who terrified you to the point of causing you to hide in a cowshed rather than debut at the proper age.” He was obviously wedded to the idea that he had to drag out every detail of her embarrassing shyness. “I bellowed at Annabel, threatening her with—”
“But she did mean to trap you,” Viola interrupted.
He froze.
“A matron came in directly after you left, and Annabel screamed at both me and the woman, saying her witness had ruined everything by being late. I threw up.”
She was watching him closely and she saw that his veneer was cracking. He was coming back to himself.
“Some of the vomit splashed on Annabel,” she added.
His eyes frosted over again. “I am still the man who terrified you.”
Viola crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him. “I suppose you’re telling me, because you’re afraid that someday you’ll lose control and shout at me, and I’ll vomit on your shoes.”
“I’m not afraid you’ll throw up on me!”
She smiled at him. “Let me ask you this. Did you read the letter that I wrote to the vicar about the marriage bed? Which, by the way, he would have known absolutely nothing about.”
He nodded. “It was inexcusable of me, but inadvertent, I promise you.”
“I wrote it months ago, back when I was trying to respond to Marlowe’s sermons in a failed effort to convince him that I’d be a good vicar’s wife. I couldn’t think of a thing to say about that one, for good reason.”
She saw a lightening in his expression. “You wouldn’t have been a good vicar’s wife.”
She didn’t get up, because he had to come to her.
“I don’t know,” she said meditatively. “Mr. Higgins said that he’s ready to take on The Second Shepherd’s Play next year. The Fall of Lucifer would surely collect a large audience.”
Their eyes
met.
“I love you,” Devin said. His voice was quiet. It wasn’t an excuse or a justification; it was simply the truth.
She grinned at him. “I know.”
“I’m jealous of Marlowe.”
She nodded.
“I want a different vicar.”
She shook her head. “What I felt for Mr. Marlowe was as empty as my reaction to a sermon about marital intercourse when I didn’t even know that men had nipples. My love for you is in every part of my being. It will never go away. If you do lose your temper and threaten me with life in the country, I’ll laugh at you, Devin.”
He started making his way toward her now, slowly. “You would?”
“There’s no country house in which I might sleep, where you wouldn’t sleep next to me. You are my safety, and you’re my life. I know you, Devin. And I know you love me.”
He was close enough that she heard his shaky breath. “You aren’t leaving me, are you?”
She shook her head. “Never.”
“We’re going to the country together.” He sat down beside her.
“Daisy and Cleopatra are waiting,” she reminded him.
“How can you so easily forgive me, when I was the man who terrified you?” He sounded truly mystified.
Viola leaned toward him. “You are the man whom I inadvertently interrupted in an intimate moment when I was a young and callow girl. You are also the man who makes me feel safe wherever I am. Who makes me feel as beautiful as any Wilde, and more important than any duke’s daughter. Who has taught me what it means to love a man and to be married.”
Devin cupped her face in his hands, and his dark eyes searched her face. He kissed her, and both of them knew that he didn’t need any more lessons in tenderness.
“I love you,” he said a while later, his voice raw with the truth of it.
“And I love you,” Viola promised him. “Always.”
Epilogue
Viola was coming down the corridor to the nursery when she heard her son’s voice floating out the open door.
“I’m sorry I did it,” five-year-old Otis said earnestly. “I shouldn’t have done it, I know that.”