“One might say that.” He discreetly indicated the smiling woman at the monarch’s side. “‘Tis the newly-built home of Lady Suffolk.”
“But you just said-” Gwynneth broke off, looking suddenly suspicious. “Thorne, are you telling me that the king…?”
Her eyes widened at her husband’s nod.
“You’re saying the Queen’s own Mistress of the Robes is the king’s paramour?” she cried.
“Hush.” Assuming a wooden smile, Thorne drew Gwynneth toward a table nearly dripping platters of meats, cheeses, pastries, exotic fruits, and confections.
“Does the queen know?” she hissed at his shoulder.
“Aye, Gwynneth, the queen and several hundred courtiers.”
She frowned. “Including yourself. Obviously I am ill-informed.”
“‘Tis not the sort of information you relish, my lady. Be grateful you were spared it for a while.” He lowered his head as they strolled, his unbound hair falling forward and blocking his face from Gwynneth’s view.
“You’re laughing, Thorne Neville, I can tell.” She shook his arm. “But I see nothing amusing about it. Do you for one moment think I would lower myself to accept an invitation to the home of such a woman?”
Pretending to nuzzle her neck, he said into her ear, “You should at least humble yourself, Gwynneth. ‘Tis no passing matter to refuse an invitation prompted by the king himself. Swallow your pride for one afternoon, and for God’s sake, do not be rude to Lady Suffolk.”
“I might have known you’d involve God in such a charade.” Gwynneth snatched her hand from his sleeve. “I wish to leave now.”
“So soon after your conquest at Court? There are several young swains casting moonstruck glances your way…won’t you let one or two spin you around the room?”
“The hour is grown late,” Gwynneth said through her teeth, smiling and nodding at the Marchioness of Kent, a friend of her father’s and a guest at her wedding. “On the morrow is Martinmas, the Feast of Saint Martin. I had hoped to attend early Mass in Saint Martin’s Church.”
“I see. Let’s be off, then, by all means,” Thorne said wryly. “I would not stand in the way of devotion.”
*
The Feast of Saint Martin came and went without any observance from Gwynneth. The only thing she could observe that morning was her empty basin, which soon contained the meager contents of her stomach.
“Bless ye, Milady…perhaps ye took a little ale or wine last eve, seeing as how you’re at Court and all?”
Gwynneth shook her head miserably. “I’d no spirits, Byrnes. It must have been the excitement of meeting His Royal Highness.”
“Likely so,” Byrnes said, keeping her voice light. She’d noticed something, but dared not broach the subject.
Nearly three fortnights had passed since she’d last disposed of her mistress’ bloody flux. If tomorrow dawned with the same ill effects as this morning had, she would feel certain that Lady Neville was with child.
TWENTY-NINE
“Ah, Monsieur Adams, bienvenue.” The sultry voice accompanied rustling silk as Madame Claire made her signature sweep into the anteroom. “What may we do for you today?” she asked, a gleam in her eye despite her demure manner.
Thorne removed his tricorne. “I’ve come to inquire after Katy’s health. I hope the illness has passed?”
The madam sobered. “Non, Monsieur Adams. Indeed it has worsened.”
“She remains in quarantine?”
“Insofar as quotidiennes affaires, oui, monsieur.”
Thorne frowned. “And what is the doctor’s diagnosis?”
Madame Claire’s eyelashes fluttered downward. “Une infection des poumons,” she said with a sigh.
Thorne’s heart skipped a beat. His father had died of diseased lungs. That someone as young and vital as Katy might waste away in such a manner seemed beyond reckoning. “I understand that she is under quarantine insofar as daily business, but might I visit her at bedside a few moments?”
“Monsieur Adams, la fièvre, though ‘tis low-grade, is yet contagious. A femme d’affaires such as I must take extreme care that none of her clients is infected. But I shall tell Katy of your visit and your souci, your concern. ‘Twill do her good to know that one of her clients has inquired after her welfare.”
Thorne winced, and the madam saw it. “If it pains you to think of Katy as a prostituée,” she said in a solicitous tone, “it might comfort you to know that she thinks quite highly of you. So much so, that she wept after your last meeting.”
She nodded at Thorne’s surprised expression.
His surprise suddenly hardened to suspicion. “No doubt Katy is one of your more profitable commodities?”
Madame Claire looked taken aback, then defensive. “Your point, monsieur?”
“In your business, personal involvement is best avoided. It could prove detrimental to your profits, if one of your more lucrative ladies grew attached to a particular client and showed less attention to others. No doubt you would dissociate her from that client.” He eyed Madame Claire intently.
Her back stiffened. “Only on one occasion did I dissociez a client from one of my girls, and only then because he was too enthousiaste and injured her. So you think I have fabricated this fièvre and infection as a pénalité for Katy’s affection for you, Monsieur Adams?”
“It had occurred to me. Have I your word she is truly in need of a doctor’s care?”
“Indeed, monsieur.”
Lips pressing together, Thorne slipped a hand into his waistcoat, then said tersely, “I shall at least contribute to Katy’s medical care.” He held out two fifty-pound notes.
“Merci,” the madam whispered, taking the currency from him. “Your générosité is astounding, Monsieur Adams. With such care as this will purchase, Katy’s health can only improve!”
Thorne nodded grimly. “That is my hope, Madame. Do convey my sincere wishes for her recovery. I shall return come spring. Hopefully you will have better news then.”
Her smile turned coy. “Oui, monsieur. Spring will surely bring long-awaited news.”
*
The madam sailed through the door into her private salon. “M’lord!” she trilled softly. “Our cash cow—or should I say bull?—has just paid a visit, and left yet another generous sum.” Waving the fifty-pound notes, she smiled triumphantly into the beady, black eyes of the Earl of Whittingham.
He shrugged. “Hardly enough to stiffen my cock.”
“Not all of us possess an earldom, M’lord,” she chided, brushing her fingers under his whisker-stubbled chin as she passed to pour a drink at the sideboard. “In this business, one hundred pounds is not trifling change. And as generous as Lord Neville has been so far, will he not be utterly foolish when it comes to buying his bastard babe away from here? Especially if that babe is a boy.” She smiled dreamily at her reflection in the huge wall-mirror. “Des milliers, je devrais dire. Thousands upon thousands of pounds, all yours and mine.”
“What of the mother?” Lord Whittingham said with a grunt.
“La me’re? She is lucky to have her keep, and a doctor’s care to boot!” Madame Claire handed him a full glass, then bit her lip and frowned. “In truth, she is my cash cow—or was, and will be yet, if she recovers her figure after the birth. But she will soon see what a trial it is to have a wee babe bawling for the teat night and day.”
The earl’s squint turned lewd. “You talk too much, woman—at least in English. I’d rather be frenched.” He wagged his tongue at her.
She sashayed toward him with a sly smile. “Is there anything else you would like, cherie?” she cooed, stroking his greasy black hair.
“I’d like you,” he said in a wheedling voice, “to pretend I am a babe bawling for the teat.”
She bent over, her ample décolletage confronting his salacious gaze, her rouged lips pouting. “I thought you had eyes only for Jeanette.”
“You won’t let me see her,” he groused, looking hopeful in
spite of it.
“You were a bad boy with Jeanette. She still has the whip marks on her buttocks.”
“Well, she got cheeky with me,” he said, and laughed uproariously at his own jest. He reached for Madame Claire’s bodice; she slapped his hand.
“You are beyond reformation, M’lord, a very bad boy.” She leaned in closer. “Come to Mama, cherie,” she purred.
Lord Whittingham stared intently at her bosom. “I’ve one other request, Claire,” he muttered, breathing harder. “‘Tis in regard to the Neville matter.”
She inhaled deeply. “Oui, M’lord?”
He licked his lips, his pudgy hands pushing the madam’s breasts together inside her straining bodice. He looked up to meet her sultry gaze. “Only that you let me inform the holier-than-thou Lord Neville that his whore has borne his bastard babe.”
She shivered as the earl slid the tip of his tongue into her cleavage. “Oui, mon cherie,” she said in a throaty voice, then lifted her skirts to straddle the bulge in his lap.
Grasping her silk frock at one shoulder, he worked it down roughly with her shift. He shoved her breasts together again and, covering both nipples with his mouth, suckled like a starveling.
Madame Claire’s laugh was soft and husky. “You are avide un garcon, a greedy boy, as well,” she murmured, reaching between her thighs to unbutton his breeches. She gave him a conspiratorial wink. “Though perhaps no greedier than I.”
*
“Do come up,” Caroline said to Thorne, her face beautifully flushed. “I’m sorry for your wait, Marsh is confoundedly slow today.”
“‘Tis I who should apologize. You weren’t expecting me.”
Her laugh seemed strained. “No, but you’re welcome, nonetheless…come!” She halted outside the open drawing-room door. “Let’s visit in the library today, shall we?” She pulled Thorne back toward the stairs, but not before an odor from the drawing room had reached his nose.
His eye lit on a dark-brown smear on the otherwise spotless carpet runner. Mud? Dung? Caroline was moving too swiftly for him to decide.
A meager fire burned in the library. Caroline called for Marsh.
“Never mind, I’ll see to it.” Over her protests, Thorne stirred the embers and added more coals, buying time as he stared into the reviving fire, his mind racing.
She is anything but a lady, Neville. Lord Whittingham’s insult after invading Caroline’s chambers suddenly took on a whole new meaning.
Henry said the lady was a guest in your very house, sir. Clayton Carmody’s voice rang clear in his head. The stable master called her his sister.
He thought of the night in Duncan’s tavern, when Caroline had referred to Hobbs as Toby—and then denied any previous acquaintance with him.
By her own account she’d worked in a tavern on Fleet Street while on the run from Lord Whittingham. It had sounded reasonable at the time she explained it. It seemed reasonable even now, knowing the earl for what he was…still, a wealthy merchant’s daughter should be ill-suited for such employment.
Thorne slowly stood up from the hearth. Reluctant to turn and face her yet, he feigned interest in bric-a-brac on the mantel, eyeing a polished ivory tusk drilled with holes and stuck with little ivory pegs.
“I see my cribbage recorder has caught your eye,” Caroline said in a bright voice. “Horace bought it in Morocco, I think. But come sit down, and tell me what brings you here. Is Gwynneth well?”
“Not entirely.” He took a seat. “Some chronic stomach ailment.”
Caroline’s polite smile faltered. “Perhaps she’s with child.”
“Not likely,” Thorne muttered, and then stiffened. Would Caroline let it pass?
Of course she wouldn’t. Her voice was very soft. “Thorne?”
He rose abruptly and strolled to a window, then frowned resentfully at the garden, which looked as lush and exotic as its owner. “What I tell you goes no further than this room,” he heard himself say, even as his inner voice warned against it.
Behind him, Caroline gave soft agreement.
“Gwynneth,” he said, “will never bear a child.”
“Oh, Thorne…she is barren?”
“She is unbroken. And will remain so.”
He heard Caroline’s stifled little gasp. He paced about the room, pausing to examine art de objects and moving on after each cursory perusal.
“Perhaps she needs more time,” Caroline said cautiously. “Surely she will change her mind.”
“There is no changing her mind—do you think I haven’t tried?” Thorne stopped pacing, then held up a hand. “Sorry. Her father,” he said more evenly, “removed her from the convent against her wishes. She wanted only to take their vows.”
“Then why…”
“…did she agree to marry me? For her father, of course. Radleigh has a terrible weakness for wagering. His estate was dwindling away, and Gwynneth knew it.”
“And you didn’t?”
He stared out the window again. “Someone tried to tell me, but I refused to listen…mostly out of loyalty to my father.” His tone turned wry. “And once I saw that Gwynneth seemed enamored of me, I was all the more determined.”
“And now?”
“Now?” He turned an expression of irony to Caroline. “Now she lives the life of a nun. Wycliffe Hall is her convent. She has a shrine to the Virgin in her chambers, says her Rosary daily at dawn. Attends Mass at every opportunity, studies the lives of the saints, tends her roses, and stitches her tapestry. Eats, though lately not much. Rises and retires early.
“The servants avoid her at all cost, and tiptoe about when I am home, which is as little as possible. Arthur looks solemn as a judge but holds his tongue.” Thorne scowled. “My cook has the audacity to eye me as if I were one of the pitiful stray cats she’s always feeding, even offered me warm milk one evening to help me sleep! I shouldn’t be surprised if she takes up patting my head and scratching behind my ears.”
Caroline’s eyes twinkled, but her tone was sober. “Are you resigned, then, to a life without a true wife, and without children? Tell me if I misspeak, Thorne, but I am concerned.”
“You needn’t be.” He sat down again, settling back and crossing his ankles on a needlepoint stool. “I’d no intention of making confession today. There is just something about you…” He smiled crookedly. “Shall we close the book on my sorry tale for the moment? I’ve just had a revelation, and I’d sooner share it with you than anyone.”
“Indeed.” Caroline tilted her head, looking pleased. “So that was the reason for your visit.”
“Initially, no.” Thorne watched her grow restless under his scrutiny—fiddling with a curl at her temple, touching the fan folded in her sleeve but resisting the urge to pull it out. “You once told me you’d a half-brother, but that you seldom hear from him.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes. What of it?”
“I think you said that the two of you aren’t the best of friends, or something to that effect.”
“I might have said that, yes.” She sat up straighter by the moment.
“Did you not think,” Thorne said casually, “I’d care to know that your brother and my stable master are one and the same?”
It was a shot in the dark, but there was no mistaking its accuracy. Caroline’s eyes turned to flint, her cheeks to bright copper. “Were you born rude, Thorne, or is it something you’ve cultivated? I seem often to be the whetstone for your razor-sharp repartee.”
“Bollocks, Caroline. You give as good as you get. Does Gwynneth know of this kinship?”
She sprang from her chair, and for a moment he thought banishment was in the offing. Instead she used his favorite ploy, crossing swiftly to the window to escape his perusal. “No one knows of it,” she said in a stony voice. “At least, no one did. I’ve taken great pains to see to it.”
“Why?” He took his feet off the stool, rose from the chair.
“Do you really think,” Caroline scoffed, her back to him, “that I co
uld possibly have made the two marriages I have, were it known to Whittingham and Horace that I was sibling to a stableman?”
“You might have been spared some suffering, had Lord Whittingham known,” Thorne observed, slowly approaching her. “And Horace eventually learned the truth. Still, I doubt it would have mattered.” He stopped just behind Caroline.
She moved to the next casement. “Indeed. And what makes you so certain they’d have married me despite my humble beginnings?”
Thorne stared at the silky tendrils grazing her nape. “I cannot be certain,” he said quietly. “I only know it would not have stopped me.”
*
Caroline drew a long breath to slow her rapid pulse. “How did you find me out?”
“There were clues all along. I just today put them together.”
She turned to face him. “Why today?”
Thorne smiled. “I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the stables. The odor is unmistakable—and it lingers. I’d wager my stableman was let out the back entrance as I was let in the front.”
Caroline tossed her head. “I should boot you out the back, this very minute, right on your bum.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I, though?”
“And what would the servants say, seeing their mistress cast a nobleman out into the alley?”
“They would say ‘good riddance’ if they knew how you torment and abuse me!”
Thorne chuckled. “There are two sides to that coin, Mistress Sutherland.” He sobered. “I’m told you and Hobbs had a heated discussion in the stables just before my wedding…that he struck you.”
“I struck him first. Who told you?”
“Why did you strike him?”
“He insulted me.”
“I see. And for that you paid him cash?”
She scowled. “Who the deuce was spying on me? Never mind, you won’t tell. I paid him to pretend he and I were strangers.”
“Yet today he was in your drawing-room.”
“He was here to plead his case for my maid,” she lied, her thoughts racing. How would Thorne react if she told him Toby had come to beg her help making peace with Gwynneth? For what reason, Caroline hadn’t a clue.
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