The Duke's Disaster

by Grace Burrowes

  “The girls and I managed,” she said. “I told you we would.”

  Noah sighed as if the fate of the kingdom weighted his spirit, then shifted so he half reclined right next to Thea. He gave off heat and weariness, and Thea let herself rest against him.

  “I saw Grantley, at some length and on several occasions,” he said.

  The pair of them had probably gone out on the town of an evening or two or three. Disappointment joined the fatigue and weepiness plaguing Thea. “I suppose Tim enjoyed that.”

  Noah nipped another tot of Thea’s brandy. “Grantley will hate me before it’s all over. The man needs to stop drinking and grow up.”

  The very same conclusion Thea had come to several years ago, but it applied equally to most young men of title and wealth.

  “Why should Tims hate you?”

  Noah was positively bundled against Thea—or she against him—and the warmth and bulk of him felt…wonderful. They shared a concern for Tim, and they shared the weariness common to day’s end.

  Tonight, they also shared a roof.

  “I’ve put the fear of God into his solicitors,” Noah said. “I wasn’t sure you’d approve, but they need to know somebody will look over their shoulders if they abuse the trust placed in them.”

  “They’re the same firm Papa used,” Thea said, giving in to the need to close her eyes. “They also have a small trust for Nonie.” Smaller, after Lady Patience had taken Nonie’s wardrobe in hand.

  “What about for you, Thea?”

  “I haven’t a trust.”

  Noah grasped her neck from behind, between his fingers and thumb, and exerted the slightest warm pressure.

  “That feels divine, Husband.”

  He shifted his grip and repeated the pressure higher up her neck. “The girls adore you, Wife. I leave them in your hands for less than a week, and they’ve forgotten their old cousin entirely.”

  Their cousin who was “really like their papa.” Thea batted that thought aside.

  “You don’t always have to change the subject when I offer you a compliment,” she said, stifling a yawn. “The girls won’t adore me so much when I hire them a governess, a drawing master, a piano teacher, and so on.”

  Thea should thank Noah for intimidating the solicitors, for that task had been beyond her.

  The hand on her neck went still. “You’d involve the girls in all that folderol so soon?”

  A young lady’s life included nothing more than folderol, if she were fortunate.

  “I told you I would see to them, Husband. You were gone for days, and—”

  A finger on her lips silenced her.

  “You are testy tonight, Duchess. One might think you missed me. What I meant was so soon, because they are so young yet.”

  Sitting beside Noah in the dim, cozy library, Thea’s heart suffered a small fissure. Noah would be a loving and conscientious papa to their children. He’d be—contrary to how he was likely raised—a noticing and attentive parent.

  To Nini and Evvie, he was a noticing, attentive, even doting parent.

  Why hadn’t Thea confided in him before she’d spoken her vows? Why hadn’t he shown the least hint of approachability, of sentiment, when proposing?

  Pointless questions. Nonie’s future was assured, and that was what mattered. “Girls younger than Evvie start as apprentices, Anselm. Both children can already read, and they both have an ear for languages. It’s time.”

  Noah gently brought Thea’s head to his shoulder, whether for his own comfort or Thea’s, she did not know.

  Noah likely hadn’t gone carousing with Tim, not if he was bent on setting a sober example for her brother. Taking Tim in hand was beyond decent of him.

  “The girls were very glad to see you.” As much as Thea could admit. Beside her, Noah seemed to relax a little.

  A log settled on the andirons, the ducal budget allowing for wood fires in the library and the bedrooms.

  “I’m always glad to see them, to be home,” he said, stroking Thea’s shoulder. “You’re yawning, and the bath I ordered for you is no doubt ready. Let me light you up.”

  Noah drew Thea to her feet, but rather than slip her arm through his, he stood before her, his expression serious.

  “What, Husband?”

  “You’re tired.” He led her by the hand from the library, taking a carrying candle from the sideboard. “You have my thanks for your efforts with the girls, Thea.”

  Noah’s thanks satisfied some need in Thea his apologies hadn’t touched. He cared for those girls, and Thea could look after them in ways even a duke could not.

  Graciousness was in order. Thea was Noah’s duchess, after all.

  “You have my thanks too, Noah, for the time you spent with Tim. He’s stubborn, but not without sense. Even if he doesn’t manage much of a change in the near term, you’ve planted seeds and warned him he’s being watched.”

  “He is,” Noah said as they gained the stairs. “My sisters and their husbands have been recruited to this task. Every few days, he’ll be invited to ride out with one of them, or needed to escort Lady Nonie somewhere. My spies will report if his evening activities get out of hand.”

  He pushed open the door to Thea’s rooms, and lit a few candles in her sitting room. The bedroom candles were already lit, the tub steaming before the fire.

  “I’ll leave you in peace, Wife.”

  “Will you join me later?”

  To ask that had cost Thea, cost her a great deal. She might as well have admitted she’d missed him.

  “I wouldn’t be very good company. Town was late nights and early mornings, and you steal covers.”

  Disappointment, keen and vexing, replaced the lassitude Thea had found in the library.

  “Suit yourself, Anselm.” He looked so forlorn, and tired himself, that Thea went up on her toes and kissed him. “I’m glad you’re home.” She settled back and gave him a little shove toward their connected dressing rooms. “Into bed with you. You’ve a date with Evvie and Nini in the stables tomorrow morning, and you’d best not oversleep.”

  He gave a tired, and possibly relieved, smile. “I won’t face the Vandal horde alone.”

  “No, you will not.” Thea patted his backside and started laying out the things she’d need for her bath. The door to their connected dressing rooms quietly opened and closed, and then she was alone.

  * * *

  Like the Duke of Wellington, Noah had never seen the point in having a man’s man about, a fawning toady to dress him and undress him, to brush his hair, tie his cravats, and otherwise reduce him to the level of an incompetent six-year-old.

  He’d very nearly let Thea undress him, let her lure him under the covers with her warmth, her quiet, her soft, generous curves. In his present mood, he couldn’t trust himself to behave, and truly, she’d had that fidgety, blighted look of a woman anticipating her courses.

  Another few days, he admonished his lustier inclinations, and he could exercise marital rights free from doubt regarding the patrimony of his firstborn.

  In truth, the doubts had died somewhere between Wellspring and London. Thea wasn’t a virgin, but Noah’s gut told him she wasn’t given to duplicity or false promises generally. She might have a flaming affair in a fit of temper, but she’d do her duty to the title first, and she’d have a damned good motivation for her tantrum.

  As he undressed and washed, Noah’s hand lingered over his breeding organs.

  “What the hell.”

  He brought himself to a quick, mindless release that did little to resolve the unrest inside him. He’d spent more time pleasuring himself since his marriage than any new husband in the history of new husbands.

  As he finished his ablutions, Noah thought back over his parents’ marriage, a long procession of tantrums, fits, pouts, sulks, scenes, and general misery. Matters hadn’t gone any more smoothly with his sisters’ mother, or Harlan’s. Petty drama on every hand.

  “I refuse that legacy.”

&n
bsp; He said it quietly, though Bathsheba, who’d been contemplating profundities at the foot of the bed, opened her eyes.

  “You are my witness, cat. This will remain a civilized house, no thanks to your refusal to pursue the vermin, and I will have an orderly, civilized marriage.”

  Sheba squinted at him serenely, and then rose and hopped off the bed.

  “You are not to ignore me,” Noah muttered, shrugging into a dressing gown. “I am lord and master of all I survey, including your great worthless self. Where are you off to?”

  She went exactly where she’d gone the last time she’d graced his bedroom, and pawed once—no claws—on the door to his dressing room.

  “Fraternizing with my wife?” Noah opened the door to the dressing room, knowing the cat would only scratch and yowl and wake the dead did he deny her. “She can likely use some company. See that you recall your whereabouts, and respect my carpets.”

  Noah opened the door to Thea’s dressing room, Sheba strutting regally before him, then he opened the final door, to Thea’s bedroom. The cat slipped through into a chamber plunged into near darkness. Thea had finished with her bath, and banked the coals in the hearth. Her scent lingered in the air—fresh, meadowy, and clean—and Noah could see her shape under the bedcovers.

  Thea must have already been asleep, for she gave no indication she sensed Noah’s presence. Just as well, now that the cat—

  A hiccup came from the vicinity of Thea’s pillow. Not a hiccup, more of a catch in the throat, as if she’d been—

  “Thea?” Noah took a step into the room. “Wife? Are you in difficulties?”

  “Go away.”

  Her tone was miserable, reminiscent of Noah’s sisters suffering one of their countless adolescent heartbreaks. He shed his dressing gown, and climbed under the covers.

  “You’re peevish,” he said, shifting across the bed to lie beside her.

  “I asked you to leave.”

  Her back was rigid, her tone brittle.

  “I’ll leave soon,” he assured her, because no sane man lingered in the vicinity of a peevish woman. “Is it a megrim?”

  “What manner of question is that?”

  Noah stroked her nape, which had worked well enough in the library. “Take a breath, Thea. I’ve touched you more intimately than this.”

  “What are you trying to prove?”

  “Perhaps that my wife’s suffering matters to me?” Noah pulled Thea onto her back, and in the dying firelight, silvery tear tracks glinted on her cheeks. “Perhaps I’m suggesting—no orders, you will notice—that when my wife cries, I’m concerned?”

  Resentment tried to wedge itself into Noah’s heart—and failed. Thea had not conjured tears to manipulate him.

  “You are better company when you’re silent.” She tried to roll away again, so Noah caught her by the shoulder.

  “Why the tears, Wife? Have you been so miserable here, trapped on my peasant estate, having to deal with my brats and my brother?”

  “I cannot tell if you offer genuine understanding, Noah, or if you’re preparing me for a vicious set down. Your family is lovely, and well you know it. My tears are merely a passing sentiment, such as women are prone to.”

  Like a fire blazing up in a sudden gust, inspiration struck.

  “My notes,” Noah said. “They were not husbandly.”

  She brushed his hair back from his forehead. If Noah had been a cat, that caress would have provoked him to purring.

  “Your notes, Anselm?”

  “Informing you, most courteously I thought, that I was detained in Town. Hold still.”

  Noah threaded his arm under Thea’s neck, to prevent her from squirming away. This put her head resting on his shoulder, and gave him time to mentally arrange words of contrition.

  “You speak in the plural,” Thea said. “I received one note.”

  She apparently hadn’t been very impressed with it, either.

  “I sent one to you, one to Harlan,” Noah said. “I should have sent two to you, at least. I am sorry. I will be more attentive in future.”

  Apologies still weren’t easy, but Noah was getting the knack of them.

  “It isn’t the notes.” Thea sighed, though Noah heard relenting in her sigh.

  “So tell me what troubles you.” He planted an encouraging kiss on her temple. “I’m new to this marriage, in case that escaped your notice, and I would not distress you avoidably. If it wasn’t the notes, then what?”

  “Tell me about the girls’ mothers.”

  A queer start, but something Noah could work with.

  “I barely knew them,” he said. “Both women enjoy tidy stipends, and are even passing acquaintances somewhere in Dorset. I’m legal guardian to both girls, and Winters is the name they’ll be known by.”

  “You’re their guardian?”

  “Somebody had to see to it.” Noah grazed his nose along Thea’s hairline, because this—this physical closeness, this conversation in the dark—was part of what he’d missed while in London. “Evvie and Nini do not enjoy legitimacy, so their mamas could have cast them off anywhere, and had the legal authority to do so. Children are trying, and I could not have their mothers’ whims dictate their futures.”

  “I don’t know whether to hit you or commend you. Did you love them even a little?”

  “The mothers? Of course not. I love the children. You’ve pointed this out yourself.” Noah resisted the temptation to sniff Thea’s hair, though the fragrance of meadow grass was a nice addition to the lavender-scented sheets.

  She shifted, so her weight lay more heavily against his side. “Didn’t you care even a little, Noah? They are the mothers of children whom you love.”

  Noah abruptly realized that Thea wasn’t asking about the girls’ mothers, so much as she was asking about their father. Noah ought to clarify the situation for her, explain exactly who was father to both girls, but Thea’s voice had grown sleepy, and her hand rested distractingly at Noah’s waist.

  Best to end this entire discussion rather and save the sordid family history for a more opportune occasion.

  “I will always esteem both women greatly for their maternal status, Thea. They could have ended their pregnancies, could have left the children in foundling homes, could have attempted blackmail, or worse. When I contacted the ladies, they agreed to terms, and each is kept informed regarding her daughter’s welfare. Should the girls wish it, when they are older, their mothers will know them. I respect their mothers. Is that what you’re asking?”

  “I hardly know. I can’t keep my eyes open.”

  Thank God. “Go to sleep, Thea.”

  Angels defend him, Noah had just ordered his duchess to sleep. A charged silence ensued, during which Noah fumbled about mentally for some other way to phrase his suggestion.

  “My courses started. At my bath.”

  Then Thea turned her face against Noah’s neck, and her tears seeped hotly against his skin. Had he made her cry? Did she miss her first love, though she denied having feelings for him?

  Talk of the girls had called forth Noah’s protective nature. Surely that was why he gathered Thea in his arms and held her close until sleep claimed them both.

  * * *

  “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

  Giles Pemberton flicked a dismissive glance up from the Times, then returned to the society pages.

  “Hallowell.”

  The younger man pulled up a second wing chair, a poor reflection on the boy’s upbringing. These days, a youngster took his papa’s title for a license to run roughshod over manners, decorum, and common sense. A fellow couldn’t even read his paper in his own club in peace.

  Hallowell, eyes sunken, cravat wrinkled, settled back into the chair. “Tell me, Pemmie, what sort of fellow does nothing to aid a friend in trouble?”

  Pemberton lowered the paper, leveled a flat stare at Hallowell, then raised the paper back up.

  “And mind,” Hallowell went on, shooting dingy cuffs, �
�I’m not talking about a passing acquaintance whose off wheeler looks a trifle uneven. I’m not talking about a chap one knew at school who’s playing a tad deep.”

  “You are talking at tiresome length, however,” Pemberton said, “when you ought to be stumbling home after a night of raking, and leaving me to read my paper in peace.”

  “What if I’m talking about a friend of yours, old man?” Hallowell’s smile was perfectly nasty, and Pemberton’s breakfast beefsteak threatened to rebel. Nobody else graced the reading room this early except the aging Duke of Quimbey who was poring over the financial pages as if they were the Regent’s tea leaves.

  Pemberton gave the social pages a shake. “You’re choosing a deuced rude time and place to do it, young man.”

  “Suit yourself.” Hallowell rose, a slight stench of gin and cheap perfume wafting from him. “If one of my castoffs had just married into the family, I’d hope my friends were seeking a way to address the situation on my behalf. While there’s still time.”

  Pemberton folded his newspaper but remained sitting, lest Quimbey take notice. The most recent marriage in Pemberton’s circle was Anselm’s surprise courting raid among the ranks of the lady’s companions.

  Unease congealed into dread. Companions could be a troublesome lot. Meech quite agreed—now.

  “If I had a friend in that unfortunate situation, Hallowell, then the very last thing I’d do is bruit my friend’s troubles about where all might overhear the gossip, overreact to it, and give my friend cause to sue for slander. Good day.”

  Pemberton rose and left at a dignified pace, making sure to greet Quimbey genially on his way out.

  Old man, indeed. Fifty wasn’t old, and it wasn’t stupid either. Pemberton still had his teeth, his hair, and his brains, by God, and a few other noteworthy parts in working order.

  But as he left the peaceful confines of his club for the damp heat of a June morning, Pemberton realized if Hallowell knew of the situation with Anselm’s wife, then others likely knew as well.

  Something would have to be done. Pemberton owed it to Meech to see that something was done.