Joseph extracted his flask from an interior pocket and took the duke’s excellent advice. Moreland marched off to say something to the physician, while Wellington appeared at Joseph’s elbow as if… on cue.
“So you’re acquiring a wife for Christmas, Carrington.”
“Your Grace has no doubt been invited to the wedding. I won’t be offended if you decline the invitation, though.”
Wellington shook his head at the proffered flask. “Decline? And put dear Percival in one of his legendary pets? Not bloody likely. Besides, I’ll probably be able to get on Esther Windham’s dance card at the wedding ball, and one doesn’t pass up such an opportunity lightly. Does the young lady approve of your import business?”
In tone, this was a casual question from a man who could be brusque, direct, and blunt to a fault—all qualities Joseph liked about him. It was also an inquiry from a military duke who took the welfare of his officers seriously.
“The matter hasn’t come up yet, Your Grace.”
“Hmm.” Wellington looked Joseph up and down. “Ladies don’t like surprises, Carrington. My own duchess has informed me of this on several occasions.”
“This is no doubt true in the general case, sir.” But not true of certain ladies regarding certain surprises.
“When my duchess bestirs herself to offer an opinion, she is rarely wrong. Ah, yon Percy is done glowering at Grattingly. What an unworthy display the boy made. Pissed himself like the greenest recruit, I’m guessing, or he wouldn’t be keeping that coat buttoned up. See you at the wedding, Carrington!”
Wellington bustled off, while Joseph took another nip and waited for Moreland to rotate into the post of ducal nursemaid.
“Let’s be off,” Moreland said, swinging up onto his bay. “My duchess is holding breakfast for me, and I do not keep her waiting lightly.”
When they reached the Moreland mews and the grooms had taken Sonnet’s reins, His Grace gestured toward a gate in a high brick wall. “This way, unless you want to go sashaying around to the front door at this hour? Word of the duel’s outcome will be making the clubs by noon if some brave soul braces Arthur on the matter directly. Fairly will see to it if Wellington is having an inconvenient attack of discretion, and I imagine Harrison will stick his oar in if need be.”
So there was strategy even to a duke’s breakfast beefsteak. The notion was daunting.
Joseph followed Moreland past a snowy garden, through an unprepossessing door, into a dimly lit back hallway. The scent of baking bread hit Joseph’s nose like an olfactory benediction.
“Moreland.” Esther, the Duchess of Moreland, paused as she rounded the corner into the hallway. “And Sir Joseph. I hope your morning ride was pleasant?”
Their morning ride?
A footman slipped Joseph’s greatcoat from his shoulders while the duchess performed a similar service for the duke. She passed the coat off to the footman and studied His Grace, clearly awaiting an answer.
“Utterly uneventful, my dear.”
While Joseph looked on, and before the footman had withdrawn, Moreland brushed a kiss to his wife’s cheek. “We ran into Arthur in the park. You’re to save him a waltz at the wedding ball, or I’ll never hear the end of it. I expect the bride had best do likewise, or Joseph will be the one His Grace plagues with sighs aplenty and public innuendo. Fairly sends greetings, and Sir Joseph is famished.”
Her Grace’s green-eyed gaze swiveled to take in Joseph in his riding attire. “An early outing can leave one with an appetite, particularly in this brisk air. Sir Joseph, if you’d like to freshen up, Hans will show you to a guest room.”
Hans being yet another footman who’d appeared from thin air. Joseph let himself be led above stairs, though watching Their Graces had been a fascinating exercise in… marital code, Joseph decided. Her Grace knew damned good and well what had been afoot this morning, knew Wellington had been recruited to the scene…
Hell, it had probably been Her Grace’s idea to send for reinforcements.
A door opened to Joseph’s left as the footman—Hans—continued a stately progress through the house.
“Joseph.”
He turned to see Louisa silhouetted in a doorway. She was attired in a plain green velvet day dress, her dark hair in a simple bun at her nape. Her expression went from surprised to smiling—brilliantly, magnificently smiling.
“My lady, good morning.” He could not help but smile back.
He was calculating how much of a bow his hip and knee could tolerate, when she launched herself at him. “Please tell me you are unharmed. Please tell me all is resolved and you sustained no injury.”
Footman be damned. Joseph brought his arms around his intended. “I am unharmed.” He was at risk for being suffocated and knocked on his backside, but that did not matter. It did not matter in the least.
“And all is well?”
She was asking something more, something he’d figure out just as soon as he let himself enjoy for a moment the warmth and feminine abundance of Louisa Windham in his embrace, her clove scent winding into his brain and her smile scattering his wits.
“All is—”
“You won’t have to hare off to the Continent? We won’t have to?”
“Grattingly stoved a finger, I’m told, and the demands of honor are met. There will be no hasty departure for France.” And she’d assumed if there had been a need to flee from the law, she’d be fleeing with him—an intriguing if wrongheaded notion.
“He stoved a finger?” Louisa shifted, tucking her hand into the crook of Joseph’s elbow and moving alongside of him. “How is that possible?”
Joseph did not think of prevaricating. “He fired early, and when I took my shot, I shot the gun from his hand. Your father gave me the set of pistols as a wedding present.” Louisa paused in the act of walking him down the corridor, her smile becoming, if anything, yet more incandescent.
“You shot the gun from his hand? That is, that is… famous. Brilliant. St. Just will be jealous. All of the boys will be jealous. I am jealous. You shot the gun from his hand. I am so proud of you, Joseph. Well done. Brilliantly well done.”
They resumed their progress toward soap, water, and towels—heated water, scented soap, and warm towels as it turned out—while Louisa continued to deluge Joseph with a bewildering spate of approval. She also stayed near him, if not touching, for the duration of a hearty hot breakfast and insisted on walking with him to the mews when the meal had concluded.
“I wanted to kiss you,” she said as they waited for Sonnet to be brought out. “When I saw you this morning, whole and healthy. Did you want to kiss me?”
In the bright morning sunshine, Louisa’s green eyes sparkled like spring grass wet with dew, and energy fairly crackled around her.
And this magnificent, gorgeous woman—who was to be his wife—was confessing to a thwarted urge to kiss him. The grooms were busy in the stable, and the alley was deserted enough that Joseph could be honest. “I find, Louisa Windham-soon-to-be-Carrington, that I am constantly in readiness for your kisses. This state of affairs brings me back to boyhood Christmases, to the sense of excitement and… glee that hung over my holidays. As if delightful developments were always awaiting me.”
He didn’t sound gleeful to his own ears, but seeing his fiancée’s smile, feeling her hand close around his several times under the breakfast table, he’d felt glee. Glee, relief, warmth…
And desire, of course.
Louisa smoothed a hand down his lapel. “If we were not standing in plain view of a half-dozen neighbors, Sir Joseph, I would comport myself very gleefully indeed. Did you know we’re to have a ball after our wedding breakfast?”
He’d hoped she would kiss him. Instead, he caught her fingers in his and brought them to his lips. “If you don’t want a ball, Louisa, I can probably put a stop to it. Where are your gloves?”
“Where are yours?” She made no move to retrieve her hand. “I think the ball is for Her Grace, a grand gesture t
o quiet the tabbies and gossips. Then too, Mama and Papa haven’t hosted such an event or even a house party for some time now.”
He tried to decipher her meaning. “So you want to have a wedding ball?”
Her expression dimmed. “Would you mind?”
“Come with me.” He led her by the hand—she had warm hands, even in the morning chill—to a bench outside the stable. He took the place beside her, which meant ignoring the oddest impulse to sit her on his lap. “The question is not would I mind a ball, Louisa, it’s do you want one?”
“If Mama and Papa want one, does it matter?”
“It matters to me. If we’re having a ball merely to quiet gossip, a lavish if hastily arranged ball, a ball following an equally lavish wedding breakfast and a well-attended ceremony at St. George’s, then we’re tacitly confirming all the gossip, aren’t we?”
She worried her lower lip with her top teeth, which gave her a girlish and uncharacteristically tentative air. “There’s no good choice, is there? If we make a splash, we’re trying to face down scandal. If we don’t make a splash, a hole-in-the-corner affair practically announces a scandal.”
Seeing that Louisa fretted, seeing that gossip and scandal preyed on her peace of mind, Joseph realized something he could not say to her, though keeping it to himself didn’t quite amount to a lie.
She was marrying him to avert scandal. He was lucky to marry her, however, on any honorable terms he could find. That was why he felt like Christmas approached whenever he was near her, because she was dreams come true, unattainable wishes granted, and hope restored.
He kissed her cheek just for the chance to catch a whiff of her scent. “We will have that ball. Wellington is already angling for a place on your dance card.”
Louisa dropped her forehead to Joseph’s shoulder, her relief evident. “He’s a good dancer and something of a wit.”
They remained there on the hard, cold bench until Sonnet was led out. Joseph swung up and parted from his fiancée, thinking that when next he saw her, it would be on the occasion of their wedding.
As he rode off into the chilly morning air, he had to smile at the thought of the greatest hero in the land being referred to as “a good dancer and something of a wit.”
But then the smile died. Even Wellington’s offer to dance with Louisa was likely a tactic undertaken to scotch gossip and scandal. What on earth would the new Lady Carrington think if she learned her knight in shining armor was father to no fewer than twelve bastard children?
Ten
“This is a disaster.”
“Don’t clench your teeth, dearest.” Jenny’s pencil paused in its movement across the page. “What is a disaster?”
Louisa stomped into Jenny’s drawing room—it really was a drawing room, not a withdrawing room—and tossed herself onto the sofa beside her sister.
“I’m to be married tomorrow. What is the worst, most indelicate, inconvenient thing that could befall a woman as her wedding night approaches?”
Maggie, arrived to Town for the wedding, took a pair of reading glasses off her elegant nose. “Somebody put stewed prunes on the menu for the wedding breakfast?”
Louisa couldn’t help but smile at her oldest sister’s question. Since childhood, stewed prunes had had a predictable effect on Louisa’s digestion. “Eve made sure that wasn’t the case.”
“We’re to have chocolate,” Eve said, “lots and lots of chocolate. I put everybody’s favorites on the menu too, and Her Grace didn’t argue with any of them.” She was on a hassock near the windows, embroidering some piece of white silk. Maggie had the rocking chair near the fireplace, where a cheery blaze was throwing out enough heat to keep the small room cozy.
“It’s your monthly, isn’t it?” Sophie leaned forward from the hearth rug and lifted the teapot. “The same thing happened to me after the baby was born. Sindal looked like he wanted to cry when I told him. I was finally healed up after the birth, and the dear man had such plans for the evening.”
An admission like that from prim, proper Sophie could not go unremarked. “You told him?” Louisa accepted the cup of tea and studied her sister’s slight smile.
“Have the last cake.” Maggie pushed the tray closer to Louisa. “If you don’t tell him, then it becomes a matter of your lady’s maid telling his gentleman’s gentleman that you’re indisposed, and then your husband comes nosing about, making sure you’re not truly ill, and you have to tell him anyway.”
Louisa looked from Maggie to Sophie. Maggie was the tallest of the five sisters, and the oldest, with flame-red hair and a dignity that suited the Countess of Hazelton well. Sophie was a curvy brunette who nonetheless carried a certain reserve with her everywhere, as befit the Baroness Sindal.
They were married, and they spoke to their husbands about… things.
“Why can’t a husband just understand that indisposed is one thing and ill is another?” Louisa thought her question perfectly logical.
Sophie and Maggie exchanged a look, but it wasn’t a superior, “we’re married and we understand these things” look, or even an older-sister look. It was more of a “how does one say this?” look.
“Sindal and I share a bed,” Sophie said. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to discuss certain matters when the candles are blown out and your husband has just taken you in his arms.”
They shared a bed, the implication being they shared a bed every night. Jenny’s head bent a little closer to her sketch pad, and over by the window, Eve practically had the embroidery hoop against the end of her nose.
“Hazelton and I share a bed, as well. Always have,” Maggie said. “The issue of monthlies hasn’t come up yet, but carrying a child has indelicate consequences of its own.”
“And you discuss these things with him?”
“Our parents share a bed.” Eve spoke quietly, her mouth screwed up as if she puzzled over some complicated stitch. “I know they have adjoining chambers, but have you noticed the maids almost never change the linen in the duchess’s bedroom?”
“It’s the same at Morelands,” Jenny said, glancing up from her tablet. “One can’t help but notice when every other bedroom gets fresh sheets so regularly, but not that one.”
Louisa hadn’t noticed the sheets, but she had noticed that whenever her parents retired, they used the door that led to the duke’s sitting room, never the duchess’s. She’d noticed the duchess’s hairbrush beside the ducal bed of a morning, and she’d noticed that her mother’s reading glasses could often be retrieved from the duke’s nightstand.
“There are eight of us born to them,” Louisa observed. “Mama and Papa could hardly have arranged that without spending some time in the same bed.”
“Bed.” Maggie snorted the word and stroked a hand over her rounded belly. “Our firstborn child was conceived on a picnic blanket. Benjamin gets adventurous notions with wonderful frequency.”
“In coaches?” Sophie asked, sounding as if this was merely a husbandly peccadillo.
Maggie waved a hand. “Coaches, saddle rooms, gazebos… I dare not close the door to the billiards room or find myself in a private pantry with the earl. His creativity on short notice is truly astounding.”
The billiards room?
“We have a piano that is just the perfect height,” Sophie mused. “Valentine would be scandalized. And Sindal claims the term ‘folly’ originates in the most appropriate use for a secluded little building.”
Valentine would be scandalized? Louisa was scandalized—also intrigued.
“So you do not attempt to gainsay your husbands when they become… creative?”
Maggie started the chair rocking slowly. “Amorous, you mean? Oh, maybe in the first few weeks after the wedding. I had some fool notion propriety entered into things.”
“It doesn’t,” Sophie said simply, firmly. “If Sir Joseph can’t bring some imagination to that part of the marriage, then it’s up to you to inspire him. Sindal positively goggles at me when I’m in the mood to
inspire him. I love to make him goggle too.”
Louisa goggled. She’d known these women all her life; she loved them and would have said they were her best friends in the entire world.
In the context of this discussion, they’d become complete strangers to her.
“If propriety has no place in these matters, then how do you know how to go on?” Jenny asked the question Louisa had been burning to voice.
Maggie stopped rocking. “You love your husband. He loves you. You puzzle it out together, and that’s half the fun.”
“Half the pleasure,” Sophie added softly.
They were smiling secret, dreamy, thoroughly female, married smiles, leaving Louisa to wonder two things.
How did one go on if love were not a factor for either husband or wife, and how on earth was she to explain her indisposition to Sir Joseph?
***
“Your brother should hire out as a toastmaster,” Joseph said, shifting the skirts of Louisa’s wedding dress to tuck himself beside her on the coach’s front-facing seat. “Westhaven has the gift of a light, warm touch with his sentiments.”
Louisa got up and switched to Joseph’s right side, which necessitated more arranging of frothy forest-green skirts. “He also has the gift of brevity, though I’m sure Valentine and St. Just were hoping to get a word in, as well.”
“And Sindal and Hazelton, and His Grace Your Papa, and His Grace My Former Senior Commanding Officer, and old Quimbey, His Grace At Large.”
She grinned at him as Joseph rapped hard on the roof. “We were lucky to escape our own wedding breakfast before spring. We’re expected to call on my parents ere we leave for Kent tomorrow morning.”
“Does your mama need to make sure you survive the wedding night?”
Her smile died, but she didn’t move away. “Perhaps it’s your survival they’re concerned for, Sir Joseph.”
There was something different in the way she addressed him as “Sir Joseph” now that they were married. As if he were her Sir Joseph, knighted by his wife rather than the Regent. She stripped off her gloves with a similarly self-possessed air and turned a little toward him.
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