Desire stirred, despite Will’s fatigue, and despite the fact that Susannah wanted to discuss the past. They hadn’t really. Not yet. They’d referred to it, alluded to it, mentioned it.
But they hadn’t put the pain to rest.
“I’m loyal and protective by nature,” Will said. “I can’t help that. What those girls tried to do to you was unfair. My honor was offended on your behalf.”
He’d been enraged. Debutantes on the verge of marriage were not a litter of puppies, mere weeks old, picking on the runt out of blind instinct. Susannah had been singled out because she threatened those less well-placed—or those less decent.
“I was ready to give up before I’d been presented,” Susannah said. “I hadn’t realized that in addition to the hurt, fear, and bewilderment, I was also furious. You’re right—I was treated unfairly. I think all girls who are treated unfairly should be given purple parasols, and allowed to lay about with them, holding bullies accountable for their cruelty.”
That’s what Will had seen in Susannah’s eyes as she’d crept down the barn aisle. Her gaze had blazed with righteous fury, and even he had felt a frisson of uneasiness. In those moments, clutching her parasol and intent on thwarting Effington, Susannah had been without fear. She’d been pure, incandescent righteousness, and woe to him who had earned her ire.
Nonetheless, she’d restrained herself with Effington. Susannah Haddonfield had a lot of experience with restraining herself.
Her ladyship wasn’t restraining herself now.
“My dear, what are you doing?”
“Unbuttoning your falls. I’m still a mess, while you are all tidied up. I’m in the grip of a compulsion to untidy you. All of the boldness and passion I’ve kept between the pages of my Shakespeare for the past seven years is refusing to come to heel and sit quietly, Willow.”
And Susannah’s hands had gone exploring.
“I’m feeling somewhat bold and passionate myself,” Will said, kissing his beloved. “Somewhere among my treasured possessions is a lecture on dignity and gentlemanly something or other, but Susannah—”
She kissed him, a naughty, tantalizing reproof to lectures of all varieties. “We have an understanding, Willow Dorning. Right now, that entitles me to also have you.”
Will’s conscience wasn’t troubled—he and the woman peeling his clothes away had a very clear understanding—but his heart was burdened. His situation was fundamentally unchanged from when he’d awoken, unless falling more deeply in love with Susannah counted as a change.
As clothes piled up on the floor, Will sensed Susannah turning upon him all the focus she’d previously reserved for her literature, memorizing him with her touch, underlining endearments to his various attributes—his hands, his eyes, and his heart.
In bed, she offered him sonnets of tactile pleasure—caresses and kisses, her breath breezing across his chest, her legs embracing his flanks.
“I was so frightened,” Susannah whispered as Will rose above her. “I should not have followed Effington. I should have sought help instead, should have let others face him who were better equipped, but I could not.”
Will could barely make sense of Susannah’s words, he wished so badly to join with his lady, to be with her in the place beyond even the most beautiful words.
“You are brave,” Will said, finding her heat, finding his home. “You have endless courage.”
“All the way across London, I was afraid, Willow. I’ve been afraid. I feared to pay the wrong compliment, wear the wrong dress, cast the wrong glance.”
“Chained in a pit,” Will whispered, “no hope of escape.” Save her damned sonnets, written by a dead man who’d understood both captivity and freedom.
“But I thought, ‘Willow will find me, Willow will come. I’m afraid, but he will not fail me.’”
Will had been born to find her, born for this moment, when Susannah’s trust, her courage, her love poured through him and became a sharing of limitless joy and passion.
“I will never fail you, Susannah, and I will always love you.”
The room became silent, save for the gentle rustle of lavender-scented sheets, the slide of flesh on flesh, a giggle.
A sigh.
A groan.
When even those had ebbed on the tide of gratified passion, Susannah fell asleep beside Will, her breath tickling his shoulder. She had offered him everything she had, her courage, her fears, her past, her future, her love, and she deserved more than an understanding in return.
Will rose from the bed, dressed, kissed his beloved’s brow, and left her dreaming. He’d made her a promise, and he intended to keep it.
He would not fail her, not ever.
* * *
“The reward money must go to Ash and Sycamore,” Will said, stroking a hand over Georgette’s head in a gesture Worth had seen countless times before. “For I’ve been told in no uncertain terms, the rewards will be forced upon me. Even Mannering has babbled something about restitution, and Yorick—Fortinbras as he’s to be known—never suffering want in Mannering’s care.”
The evening was mild, crickets chirping on Worth’s back terrace. Upstairs, Jacaranda was tending to the baby, while Meda dozed at Worth’s feet.
Though Willow appeared a figure of quiet repose in the last of the day’s light, Worth was reminded of when he’d first made the acquaintance of the woman running his country seat more than a year ago. Jacaranda had striven mightily to present herself as a mere housekeeper, but her violet eyes had flashed lightning at Worth’s flirtation, and her muttered asides had been the first rumblings of thunderbolts.
One underestimated a Dorning at one’s peril. Reliable sources said the Mannering twins were off on an extended repairing lease in Paris, to the relief of every debutante, hostess, and bachelor in London.
“Ash Dorning will have no need of coin,” Worth said, because somebody had to speak sense to Willow. “He’ll have steady employment with me, at least. Lady Della’s association with Quimbey and his nephew will also apparently result in a sizable, if quietly conveyed, dowry.”
A trust account here, some lawyerly obfuscation there, an obliging Earl of Bellefonte nodding benignly as he appended signatures to a few documents at a private meeting or two. Worth had handled similar situations for many wealthy families, a resolution of the equities—and the requirements of honor—far from the sight of Society.
“Lady Della’s to be well dowered?” Will asked, crossing an ankle over his knee and wincing. “Then I leave to Ash what he does with his half of the rewards. He might turn the funds over to Casriel, invest them on behalf of our other brothers, or consider investing them in a venture I’m intent on beginning myself.”
Worth did not consider himself any sort of hounds and horses man. He was a pounds and pence fellow, after he was Jacaranda’s devoted swain and tireless lover. And yet, at the mention of the word “investing,” Worth knew exactly how the hounds felt when they raised the scent of old Reynard.
“Say on, Willow. I’m a papa, you know, and my precious princess likes to hear my voice as she drops off to sleep.”
Meda cast him a look at that bouncer, but kept her chin on her forepaws. She’d be up in the nursery when the child was laid in her crib, though how the dog knew when to assume guard duty was a mystery.
“Jacaranda can spare you for a few more moments,” Willow said, shifting to prop a foot on the low table before them.
Jacaranda was Worth’s queen, and their daughter the princess. Worth let the distinction pass, because Willow Dorning talked dogs, training, cheese, and rewards without ceasing, but in Worth’s experience, investments had never earned more than Will’s fleeting notice.
“You mentioned a venture involving money,” Worth said. “I know a few things about ventures involving money, and can tell you the Dorning menfolk as a tribe are sadly in want of that knowledge. You will please hound Casriel on this topic at every opportunity. My brother’s finances are finally coming right, and that�
�s after generations of neglect.”
“May I take off my boot?”
Worth exchanged a look with his dog. “I work financial miracles, and you want to take off your boot. Only the one?”
“Yes,” Willow said, tugging his footwear off and setting it out of Georgette’s sight. “I tramped too far in the wrong boots, you see.”
Georgette licked her master’s hand, as if she’d clearly heard the metaphor Worth had barely noticed rustling among the undergrowth of Willow’s usual reserve.
“Then let’s get you in the right pair, Willow. Have you a monetary scheme in mind?”
“Georgette and Caesar are likely to become parents this summer,” Willow said. “That can happen, when a dog and a bitch spend time together. If he’s the right fellow for her, he can bring her into season, despite all calendars and convenience to the contrary. Quimbey saw them in the garden, and wants to give the pick of the litter to Tresham. I want my funds to have puppies too.”
The day had been harrowing from all accounts, but Willow Dorning was a stouthearted creature.
“Willow, can you speak English instead of Dog-gish? Coin of the realm does not have offspring.”
“Coin produces interest, Kettering. The hardest-working coin produces compound interest. I can continue to train the occasional aristocrat, two or three a Season, on how to be an ideal owner for their pets. It’s enjoyable work and helps me find deserving homes for some of my hounds. But I ought to be training others to be trainers, training the masters of foxhounds, the shepherds.”
Worth’s mind was attracted to numbers the way some women were attracted to shoes and bonnets, the way other men were fascinated by games of chance.
“You can train one Duke of Quimbey, or two dozen of his chief shepherds, in other words. One Earl of Hunterton, or all four of his masters of foxhounds.”
Compound interest, indeed.
“And I can explain to those fellows how to train their inferiors, perhaps over the course of several summers. The result will be I’ll have a volume of trained dogs to sell or otherwise distribute as a result of my students’ work with them. I will have a reputation throughout the realm as opposed to a slight cachet in one corner of Dorset and one clearing in Hyde Park. I will see more quickly and with my own eyes which puppies have great promise as working dogs, which are better suited to life as a pet.”
Willow leaned back, hands linked on his flat belly, his gaze on the stars coming into view above.
“I will operate the equivalent of Oxford University,” Will said, “for the people whose livelihood and dearest diversion is dependent on the canine. The dog has long been a best friend to many Englishmen, from King Charles’s spaniels, to an aging duchess’s companion, to the Yorkshire shepherd who may go days without hearing another human voice but is in constant conversation with his collie. Those dogs are my countrymen, Kettering, and I intend to take my place among them.”
Not the Duke of Dogs, as Will’s brothers referred to him, but king of an entire empire that could yield significant returns in a very few years.
Better still, nobody that Kettering knew of had had the vision to undertake such a project. England had world-renowned stables, and was exporting sheep and wool products, cheese…but why not export first-rate collies to go with the sheep?
“Willow Dorning, you have impressed me. Better still, I know of at least two dukes who will be similarly impressed, if you’re looking for investors.”
Please let him be looking for investors. Casriel, at least, ought to back this venture, Tresham and Quimbey had been casting around for something to undertake together, the earls of Westhaven and Hazelton were canny fellows open to unusual opportunities, and Hazelton’s seat was in the sheep-infested north.
Willow wiggled his toes inside a large wool sock. His feet were similar in their proportions to Jacaranda’s, something only family would know.
And Will and Worth were family.
“I must discuss this with Lady Susannah,” Willow said. “I wanted to discuss it with you first, though, for a commonsense assessment of its feasibility. I’ll undertake this project even if you tell me it’s doomed, because it’s all I know to do, Kettering. Lady Susannah might be willing to extend me some patience, but I cannot be so generous. I have promised I will not fail her.”
Jacaranda appeared in the French doors, the baby in her arms.
“My ears deceive me,” she said, strolling out onto the terrace. “I might have heard Willow discussing business. Good evening, Georgette.”
“Woof.” The dog apparently knew not to raise her voice around the baby.
“Willow, why is your boot off?” Jacaranda asked, passing her brother the baby. “I hope you are not setting this sort of example for Sycamore.”
The baby was perfectly happy in her uncle’s embrace, and Kettering had a premonition, then, or a vision of life as it would unfold for Willow Kettering.
“Willow wore the wrong footwear for the job,” Worth said, pulling his wife down beside him. “Haring all over London in riding boots wasn’t well advised. Willow will soon be wealthy enough to have a new pair made every day though.”
“Woof.” Even more quietly, but surely a vote of agreement?
“The rewards were that sizable?” Jacaranda asked, tucking herself beneath Worth’s arm.
“Willow’s imagination is that sizable,” Worth said. “You look entirely at home with an infant in your arms, Dorning. Shall we schedule a meeting with a few fellows I know next week?”
Worth might as well not have spoken, for Willow was nuzzling the baby, and she was cooing and waving her arms about in a manner that did queer things to Worth’s heart.
Willow would do very well with his enterprise. Very well indeed. He cared for those around him, he paid attention, he worked hard. Worth was proud to call him a friend, prouder to call him family.
“Never underestimate a Dorning,” Jacaranda whispered, kissing Worth’s cheek.
“Schedule the meeting no later than the first of the week, please,” Will said, passing the baby over to her father. “I’d say we hold this gathering tomorrow, but I must convince Sycamore that it’s time he became at least a nominal scholar, and I’ve a few other errands to tend to.”
“What do you suppose Lady Susannah will make of this venture, Will?” A man not yet married might neglect to consider his wife’s reactions, and that man would learn to regret his oversight.
“Lady Susannah is the one who convinced me I should attempt this,” Will said, offering Georgette a gentle tug on each ear. “You should have seen her ladyship, Kettering. My prim, bookish, retiring daughter of an earl came stealing down the barn aisle armed with nothing more than a tattered parasol. She was more menacing than a Highland regiment in battle regalia, and all because Effington was threatening Georgette.”
The dog whined gently, as if she knew exactly the scene Will referred to.
“Georgette is a lovely dog,” Worth said, though a few months ago, he would have felt silly calling any dog lovely.
“She’s only a dog,” Will said, scratching the mastiff’s shoulder. “A pet, a lowly beast, and that is why Susannah was so determined to protect her. Effington was victimizing the most loyal, blameless creature in the stable. From the start, Georgette has known she could trust Lady Susannah. I can too. Whether my business succeeds or fails, my lady will be content with what we have, provided we have each other, and that, oddly enough, is what compels me to undertake this venture.”
On that profundity, Will pulled his boot back on. Georgette rose with her master, and with a final pat to Meda, and a kiss to Jacaranda’s cheek, the Emperor of Canine Enterprise went sauntering into the night.
“What sort of errands do you think he must tend to?” Jacaranda asked.
“That particular Dorning is hard to read,” Worth replied as contentment and gratitude settled around him. His wife, his daughter, his loyal hound, and all coming right for nearly half of Jacaranda’s brothers gave a lowly knigh
t of business much to be grateful for.
“Is he off to procure a special license tomorrow?”
Well, of course. “Very likely.” Or perhaps a helpful family member would see to that errand for him.
“Shall we go up to bed, Husband?”
“Never let it be said I refused my wife’s invitation to go to bed, but might we bide here for a moment first, Jacaranda? The baby’s content, the night is lovely, and I’m endlessly happy simply to spend a few minutes enjoying it with you.”
Meda rested her chin on the toe of Worth’s boot, and Jacaranda cuddled closer. “I love you,” she said. “We’ll get Willow and Susannah a hammock for a wedding present. They have everything else they need to be happy already.”
“A hammock,” Worth murmured. “Perfect.”
* * *
“Willow, you need not have done this,” Susannah said, gazing at the ring in the little box.
Will had run about like a March hare all morning, fetching the special license, choosing a ring, answering notes from Quimbey, Tresham, and Casriel, and opening a deluge of correspondence from people either congratulating him on solving the London dognapper crimes or imploring him to work with their brilliant, beautiful, tireless, et cetera, et cetera, dogs starting immediately.
Some of them had named sums too, which was damned silly. Susannah had been the one to trail the dognapper to his lair and foil his worst intentions.
“I wanted something that went with your eyes,” Will said, slipping the ring on her finger. “Something as blue as a perfect sky over a perfect Dorset summer day. I’ve always loved your eyes.”
Loved her.
“But sapphires and diamonds cost money,” Susannah wailed, collapsing against him. “You think money is important, though I know what you did, Willow Dorning.”
He’d paid his five pounds to procure a special license, the sum of the day’s important transactions.
“I fell in love with you,” Will said, holding Susannah’s hand out, so the sunlight caught the fire in her ring. “I fell in love with you years ago, like a loyal hound devotes himself to a worthy lady, but I also love you as a man loves the woman he was meant to be with. Will you marry me?”
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