With this, Justin could hardly argue. He raised his brandy glass. “I assume Lady Ratchett doesn’t know that you’ve come here.”
Lady Ratchett didn’t know a great many of the places her spouse ventured, nor the people with whom he met. Sir Charles had a wide knowledge of London life, from the Court to the alleyways of Covent Garden and Drury Lane. “Not bloody likely,” he retorted. “Had she got that letter, she’d probably have keeled over on the spot. Or maybe not; there is the title. She was determined to settle for no less than an earl. I’ve been a sad disappointment to her along those lines, but I was the best she could do. Wretched temper, you know, and an adder’s tongue. Not to mention that she’s already nagged one man to death. Anyway, Lady Ratchett don’t like Bath, not that she’s ever been here. Where is Elizabeth? Have you got her locked away?”
Justin recalled his wife’s reaction to the bedroom key. “I do not. Was your idea to lock Elizabeth in her room?”
Sir Charles contemplated his brandy glass. Had his own temperament been less interfering and Lady Ratchett less choleric— But there was no use crying over spilt milk. “Lady Ratchett said it was to cure her of thinking for herself. Mayhap I can talk some sense into her. Elizabeth, that is. I’ll tell you this much, Charnwood: if I didn’t know Lady Ratchett would fly into the rafters, I’d be of a mind to fetch the girl home myself.”
Justin took this to mean that Sir Charles had some fondness for his stepdaughter. A pity the man had the backbone of a slug. He rang for the butler. “You will take Elizabeth nowhere, Sir Charles. At the moment, she is not in the house. Chislett, inform Mrs. Papplewick that we have another houseguest, and have her prepare a room.”
Only by the flicker of an eyelash did the butler react to this announcement. “Very good, Your Grace.”
Sir Charles set down his empty brandy glass on the writing desk. “Generous of you, Charnwood. No need, you know.”
The duke smiled, somewhat ferociously. “Oh, but there is. My wife has been writing worrisome letters. You will want to see for yourself that all is well with her.” How dare Elizabeth involve an outsider in this rumpus? Not that several outsiders weren’t already involved. Outsiders who were at least partly responsible for the rumpus. Which did not absolve him of his own part.
If all was well with the duchess, the same couldn’t be said for the duke, who was exhibiting all the symptoms of an aggravated spouse. Sir Charles was all too familiar with those symptoms. He backed toward the door. “Good of you, I’m sure! Since I’m in Bath, I might as well have visit the Pump Room. Take a glass of the waters. Good for what ails one, what? And when I come back here, Elizabeth and I will have a chat.”
Justin glanced at his stoic butler. “Show Sir Charles out. When the duchess returns, pray inform her that I require to speak with her at once.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Chislett, and Sir Charles, withdrew.
Left alone at last, Justin had further recourse to his brandy decanter. It would be shocking in him to drink himself into a stupor so early in the day. Although he might as well do so, since he was obviously destined to have no peace ever again. It had seemed such a reasonable notion, this taking of a bride. People did it all the time. Especially people with titles and estates in trust for future generations. He had titles and estates and now a new bride. So how had it come about that instead of setting up his nursery, he was barking at the moon?
Birdie stretched out her wings. “Biscuit,” she observed.
Justin rose from his chair. “We need to expand your vocabulary. Perhaps Magda can teach you to curse in French.” Again, he rang the servants’ bell. A footman appeared. “When the duchess returns, I wish to speak with her at once.” The footman withdrew. Justin sat down again, Birdie on his shoulder, and prepared to wait.
* * * *
No little time had elapsed when the duchess arrived at the house in the Royal Crescent, along with the two footmen and Madame de Chavannes. Once the rain had let up, the little party reunited easily enough. Magda said nothing about Elizabeth’s têtê-à-têtê, though she eyed the kitten with approval, remarked that St. Clair disliked felines, and suggested that Elizabeth smuggle it into the house hidden in her pelisse. As a result, both women were laughing when they entered the front hall. Chislett imparted the information that the duke awaited his duchess in the library. Magda winked. “Allons, hop, ma petite!”
Elizabeth did not feel like hopping. Slowly, she walked down the hallway. She had done nothing wrong, she told herself. And if she had briefly contemplated doing something wrong, that could remain her secret, could it not? She knocked on the library door.
Justin glanced at the library clock. It was past time the ladies returned. Birdie had fallen asleep on his shoulder, and the brandy was half drunk. “Enter!” he snarled.
Elizabeth walked into the room. She looked damp and mussed and so desirable that the duke wondered where he was to find a hair shirt in London, because if he didn’t find a hair shirt, he didn’t know how he was to continue practicing restraint, Birdie proving next to useless in the mortification of the flesh.
St. Clair was glowering. Again. As usual. Birdie opened one yellow-rimmed eye and clacked her beak. Elizabeth remembered that her husband had announced he didn’t want her. “You wished to speak with me?” she said, coolly.
He wished to sweep inkwell and papers off the writing desk and have her up on it. Justin surveyed the young woman whom he’d last seen wearing a coverlet and holding a fireplace poker in her hand. Now she was wrapped in a pale purple pelisse that covered her from throat to toe. “Where were you?” he demanded.
St. Clair was in no good humor, as was made clear by the expression on his face. Had he assumed Elizabeth would not leave the house without his permission? If so, he would not have enjoyed being made aware of his mistake. “We went to the fair,” Elizabeth responded, striving for nonchalance. Mountebanks and jugglers, equestrian performers, musicians and a puppet show. I enjoyed myself.”
Still, he scowled at her. Elizabeth knew she must look a dowd. She hoped she didn’t also look as if she had been alone in a tinker’s cart with a gentleman—or a not-gentleman—other than her spouse. She added, “It rained.”
His wife wasn’t telling him the entire truth. Justin suspected he knew what the omission was. “You went to the fair with Magda. I suppose it was always her intention. Who did you meet there?”
He was glaring at her all the harder now.
Elizabeth wondered what St. Clair would do if she suggested his face might freeze that way. “Answer me, Elizabeth!” he demanded. “Did you meet Melchers at the fair?”
Even Birdie was surveying her with suspicion. Elizabeth lifted her chin. “We did. Mr. Melchers is a particular friend of Magda’s. You were invited to come with us, if you will recall, St. Clair.”
Justin wondered what would have happened had he taken up that invitation, and if by so doing he might have thrust a spoke in Magda’s wheel. “Did you speak with him?”
Elizabeth had been mistaken. St. Clair was every bit as intimidating as Maman when he got his hackles up. “Naturally I spoke with Mr. Melchers. To do otherwise would have been rag-mannered. Despite what you say of him, Mr. Melchers has been all that is proper.” Even when she had asked him not to be.
Conor Melchers, as the world knew well, was no more likely to be proper than a pig was to lay eggs. Doubtless the scoundrel had taken advantage of the further opportunity to subject Justin’s duchess to his rakish scrutiny. At least her bosom was properly covered up today. The duke’s gaze drifted to that portion of her anatomy, which appeared more ample than he remembered, and oddly formed.
It must have been the brandy that made him think her bosom moved. “You are quick to defend him, madam.”
“And you are quick to judge me!” Elizabeth snapped. Her husband stared at her, startled, and she drew in a deep, calming breath. “I am comfortable with Mr. Melchers. He is the sole person I know who isn’t forever ripping up at me. I will not cut him eve
n though you say I should.”
The duke’s reaction to this defiance beggars description. He might well have leapt right out of his chair were Birdie’s beak not so near his ear. Justin lifted the parrot off his shoulder and set it on the desk. Maybe he should simply snatch up his wife and plop her on his lap, toss up her skirt, and—
“St. Clair!” demanded Elizabeth. “Why are you looking at me so?”
How was he looking at her? Hopefully not like a lovesick pup, for that was how Justin had felt ever since Sir Charles threatened to take her home. Naturally he would not admit such weakness, particularly when the young woman didn’t like him above half. “I am afraid,” said the duke, “that I have made a terrible mistake.”
St. Clair regretted marrying her. It was plain as the nose on her face. Had she not suspected as much all along?
Foolish to feel so forlorn. Elizabeth crossed her arms and hugged herself. In so doing, she squeezed the kitten. It protested.
A bosom that not only moved about but made mewling noises? Impossible! Gone now, any impulse to explain that the mistake he had made was not in taking Elizabeth to wife, but in not taking his bride straight into his bed. Justin demanded, “What the deuce is that?”
Elizabeth unbuttoned her pelisse, pulled out the bedraggled kitten, and snuggled it against her cheek. The kitten purred and licked her nose. Birdie waddled to the edge of the desk and cocked her head.
“Not a biscuit,” Elizabeth said sternly. “This is a kitten. Its name is Minou. I’m told you have no great liking for felines, St. Clair. That is a pity, because I mean to keep him. We are fond of each other already, this little fellow and I.”
Had the duke the benefit of modern psychiatry, he might have realized that his bride harbored a degree of resentment toward him. Lacking that benefit, he recalled the Taking of a Notion so recently discussed. He heartily disliked the way Elizabeth was cuddling that feline. Justin moved out from behind the desk, snatched the kitten from her, and held it at arm’s length. Birdie waddled even closer. The kitten squirmed and spat.
Justin’s chill gaze rested on his startled wife. “Sir Charles has come to Bath, apparently in response to some message that you sent. He will want to see you as soon as he returns to the house. Yes, he is also staying here. I seem to be running a hotel for annoying people. I must ask Chislett how many bedrooms I have left.”
Elizabeth stared blankly, then her cheeks turned red. “But I didn’t post it— Oh, blast!” She picked up her skirts and ran out of the room.
Chapter 18
“Wherein you reprove another be unblamable yourself for example is more prevalent than precept.”
—Lady Ratchett
The duchess burst into her bedroom, where her abigail was dozing by the fire. Elizabeth hurried toward the writing desk and rummaged frantically through its contents. Daphne jumped to her feet and barely caught the inkpot before it hit the rug. Elizabeth swung on her. “The letter isn’t here! Did you put it out to go into the post?”
The only letter Daphne knew of was the recent letter to Lady Ratchett. The extremely angry letter in which Her Grace had denounced His Grace as ‘the most unamiable person of her acquaintance.’ “I would never, mum!”
“Someone did.” Elizabeth sank down in a chair. “Don’t look so horrified. Not Maman but Sir Charles is here. Maman must be prostrate with aggravation. I wish I could remember exactly what I wrote.”
Her abigail remembered all too clearly. Also mentioned had been ‘the greatest beast in nature’ and ‘worst scoundrel unhung.’ Speculating upon how long Milady would remain prostrated, if indeed Milady was prostrated, Daphne set about tidying up the desk. Sympathy below-stairs in the Ratchett household was with Sir Charles. Milady was notoriously picksome and persnickety and no little bit of a shrew.
From the desk, Daphne moved on to tidy up her mistress, divested her of bonnet and pelisse. She was restoring order to the duchessly coiffure when a footman knocked on the door to announce that Sir Charles awaited Her Grace in the drawing room.
“Is Lord Charnwood also present?” Elizabeth inquired. The footman allowed that His Grace had left the house. Her Grace hoped His Grace hadn’t gone in search of Conor Melchers. “Fetch Birdie to the drawing room,” she said and walked to the door.
Alone in the bedroom, Daphne sank back down into her chair. A sultan had the power of life and death over his harem, and could have a wife who displeased him tied up in a sack and tossed into the sea. Saints have mercy on them all.
Sir Charles was pacing the perimeter of the Moorfield carpet when his stepdaughter entered the drawing room. It was his habit to pace about when in the grip of some strong feeling, Elizabeth recalled. “Hello, Sir Charles. I have been to a fair. It was most agreeable.” Two footmen entered, carrying the parrot’s cage, and placed it by the pianoforte. “This is Birdie,” she explained, as she opened the cage door. The macaw hopped down on the floor.
Sir Charles doubted it was enjoyment that caused Elizabeth to be so pale. He turned his attention to the parrot. Birdie ruffled her neck feathers and fanned out her tail. “I have been to take the waters. I can’t say I think much of them. Whatever possessed you to write such stuff to your mama? Don’t pucker up! I’m not here to scold.”
Elizabeth was fond of Sir Charles, although he remained something of an enigma, even after all the years he had been married to Maman. “I never intended that letter to be sent.”
“Then you shouldn’t have written it.” Sir Charles allowed his cheek to be kissed. “We must be grateful that I opened it rather than leaving it for your mother to read.”
Was her stepfather, like herself, grown tired of being bullied? Intriguing thought. “I am more grateful than I can say—but how odd of you.”
Sir Charles did not inform his stepdaughter that he was in the habit of reading mail not addressed to him. “I had a premonition. Which is fair and far off, miss! I have been speaking with your husband. Charnwood tells me you have been rubbing shoulders with rakehells.”
St. Clair had been tale-pitching, and Sir Charles seemed all too ready to take the duke’s part. Elizabeth perched on the edge of a chair. Birdie waddled around the room, inspecting various items of interest, and treating others to an application of her sharp beak.
In that particular moment, Elizabeth wouldn’t mind if the parrot pecked the house down around them. “I am acquainted with but one rakehell, and he is all that is kind. Moreover, I don’t see why I shouldn’t rub shoulders with Mr. Melchers when St. Clair is rubbing shoulders with his former wife.”
Elizabeth had Taken a Notion. It was as Sir Charles had feared. Unfortunately, her logic was difficult to refute. “No need to fly into the boughs! We’ll straighten out this tangle. The thing is, you’ve been kept too well wrapped in lamb’s wool. A man of Charnwood’s elevated station—though I’ve never heard he was addicted to wenching—still, a lady doesn’t mind a gentleman’s little, er, peccadilloes—and even if you think he shouldn’t, erm, it is the way of the world!”
“I asked the duke why he had married me,” Elizabeth informed him. “He said it didn’t signify. And then he said he had made a terrible mistake.”
This didn’t sound encouraging. Sir Charles wrinkled his brow. “Charnwood married you because you’re a good biddable girl with a proper way of thinking, who will behave just as she should. Or so he was told.”
His stepdaughter wore an unreadable expression. “In other words, I am expected to accept whatever my husband may choose to do with good grace.”
Intensely, Sir Charles disliked these father-daughter chats. Not that he had ever had such a chat before, because he wasn’t Elizabeth’s real papa, but he disliked this one, at any rate. “I said I wasn’t going to scold and so I shan’t, because it’s not my place, but from what I can learn of this business, your behavior merits the sternest reproof, and you may be glad your mama isn’t here. If it seems a trifle queer to have his previous wife along on his honeymoon—and I will admit it does seem a trifl
e queer!—I am nonetheless mystified as to why you must make such a piece of work of it.”
Elizabeth was mystified as to why anyone should believe she wouldn’t make a piece of work of it. Mr. Melchers was supposed to be the rakehell, not St. Clair. Perhaps she had not made the situation clear. “I was not talking about previous wives, but ladybirds.”
“You were talking about previous wives in your letter! I have it right here.” Sir Charles patted his pocket. “Or I did until I threw it in the fire. However, I perfectly remember what you said. You were in the fidgets because Charnwood’s previous wife was in the house. You were also in the fidgets because no one informed you Charnwood had a previous wife. You may thank your mama for that. I told her you wouldn’t like it above half.”
Elizabeth would have liked to hear what Maman told Sir Charles in return. “Matters have progressed. I find I can tolerate Magda. I can even tolerate Augusta. I am not entirely certain, however, that I feel as charitable toward ladybirds.”
For a horrified moment, Sir Charles thought Elizabeth referred to his own tendency to dally elsewhere than in his own home. Then he realized with relief that she referred not to himself, but to the duke. “Good Lord, what matters the occasional ladybird? Everyone has one!” he said.
Did Sir Charles speak from experience? “Fifty-six of them?” Elizabeth inquired.
Fifty-six ladybirds! A man would think he’d died and gone to heaven. Sir Charles collected his scattered wits. “Think no more on it, Elizabeth. Ladybirds don’t signify. It’s you who are his wife.”
Ladybirds didn’t signify? On certain matters the sexes felt far differently, it seemed. “As to that,” Elizabeth responded, with a certain relish, “I’m not so sure I am.”
Sir Charles experienced a frisson of foreboding. “Certainly you’re married. I saw you wed myself. True, it wasn’t the ceremony Lady Ratchett would have liked, but it was legal all the same. ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here ...’ ”
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