The Duke's Disaster

by Grace Burrowes

  “He’s not worse,” Noah said, the corners of his mouth kicking up. “Maybe you’d better kiss him again.”

  “Husband, that is not funny.”

  The flatulence ceased as the horse hunkered and grunted like a cow, tail up. This time, he emitted a sibilant, odoriferous breeze, and then began dropping manure.

  “Praise Jesus,” Noah said, shoving the gun into the back of his waistband and taking the lead rope from Thea. “Praise Almighty Jesus.” He gave the horse a solid pat on the neck as Regent walked a couple of steps forward and continued to heed the call of nature.

  “He did this last time he colicked too,” Noah said, inhaling gustily through his nose. “I’d forgotten. Damn, but that stinks wonderfully. It was the new hay, had to be.” He kept the lead rope in one hand, slung an arm around Thea’s shoulders, and pulled her in close, kissing her cheek as the horse decisively ended a bout of horsey constipation.

  “We’ll be asphyxiated if we stay here,” he said. “God bless you, Wife. You’ll become the talk of every stable in the shire.”

  “Kissing him good-bye had nothing to do with”—Thea gestured behind them—“that.”

  “Tell it to the lads.” Noah kissed her again. “Please understand if, when I take my leave of you in future, your kisses will not be needed.”

  “Shame on you, Anselm!” Thea smacked his arm, and was still grinning like a fool when he stopped and kissed her again, this time on the mouth, with Regent, the stableboys, and all of creation looking on. Noah didn’t stop until the stableboys started hooting and cheering, and Regent gently butted the duke with his head.

  The girls’ morning ride was turned over to Erikson, who professed to need a break from his science, and Thea and Noah took successive baths, ate a huge breakfast characterized by thievery at every turn, and then collapsed into bed together for a much-needed nap.

  * * *

  Noah’s wife had kissed him good-bye, their partings already having some of the comforting predictably of a domestic ritual. The little girls had tossed him their farewells from the depths of the ponies’ stalls, which defection gave him a pang, one he suspected his duchess sensed.

  When Thea might have trundled back to the house, she instead walked Noah to the mounting block, where True waited, one hip cocked.

  “I married a nomad,” Thea groused, her arm linked with Noah’s. “You need a herd of camels, or perhaps you’re like the American natives wandering the plains in nothing but a loincloth.”

  “A loincloth. A peer of the realm attired in a loincloth. Your imagination, Wife, will give me nightmares while I tend to my business in the City.” Noah sat back onto the mounting block and pulled his duchess down beside him. “You are familiar with my schedule?”

  “Appointments this afternoon with your solicitors, dinner and breakfast with your sisters, more appointments tomorrow, and you should be back tomorrow evening. Don’t expect me to stay up late, sewing your loincloths while I await Your Grace’s return.”

  “My daughters forget I exist,” Noah informed Troubadour. “My wife would rather sleep than await my homecoming. I will be a nomad sans loincloths do I tarry too long on the business of the duchy. I am a man to be pitied.”

  Thea slipped her hand into Noah’s, her predictable mercy explaining why Noah hadn’t yet donned his riding gloves.

  “I’ll dream of you,” Thea said. “Does that help?”

  “I’m sallying forth on your errands, you know.”

  Now the dratted woman rested her head on Noah’s shoulder. “How do you conclude my errands compel you to visit the City?”

  “I’m off to Town at your behest. We need some ladies at this house party who can distract Erikson from his science. Patience must be canvassed for ideas, because you are sadly lacking in familiarity with your peers, madam.”

  Thea picked a piece of hay off his sleeve and flicked it to the ground.

  “What is it, Wife? Do not send me into battle against the weasels with that sighing glance on my conscience.” More of a glower, really.

  “Are we procuring for our botanist, then? Turning our family gathering into something else?”

  Thea was a veritable Puritan when it came to who would be allowed under the same roof as the girls. Noah liked that about his duchess, among other things.

  “You truly have no use for these sorts of gatherings, do you?” Noah cast his mind back over their several discussions of who should attend, and what the activities should be. In hindsight, he could see the tracks of Thea’s delicate heels, dragging in the conversational sand.

  “I have no use for Polite Society in general,” Thea said.

  The Duchess of Anselm was dodging. Noah sought for a compromise, for something to say that wouldn’t have them parting on a bad note.

  “I will find some errands for Erikson to do in Town when I get back,” he suggested. “He can attend to his manly urges when he’s on the duchy’s business, how’s that?”

  “I will leave his biology to you,” Thea said, though Noah’s suggestion appeared to have her approval. “And thank you. I really would like this to be more of a family gathering than anything else.”

  She’d all but insisted, and Thea was a mostly agreeable sort of female.

  “Then that’s how it shall be, but, Thea?”

  “Husband?”

  “I vote my seat, more than occasionally. If we need to do some entertaining later this year, in Town, I’ll expect your assistance.”

  “You’ll have it.” She kissed his cheek. “Give me plenty of warning, so I can interrogate you on the pressing political questions of the day.”

  Much more of her farewell affections, and she’d have Noah in such a muddle, he wouldn’t know the Lords from the Commons.

  “Take Erikson with you if you’re to wander the property with the girls.” Noah phrased the order—request, really—as casually as he could, checked True’s girth and bridle, then looped the reins over his wrist and took his wife in his arms.

  “You’ll dream of me as I slay the dragons of commerce?”

  “Weasels, you called them. I might dream of you.”

  Noah kissed the daylights out of Thea—not as if the lads hadn’t seen them kissing before—and then Thea kissed the daylights out of him, which really wasn’t very helpful when a hapless duke was spending the next little while in the saddle.

  “Safe journey, Your Grace,” she said, stepping back.

  Somebody had patted the ducal bottom. Noah hadn’t a clue who that might have been, but he patted the duchess’s fundament, for the lads knew better than to gawk.

  He mounted up, saluted with his crop, and let True lope down the driveway, but not before he caught the head lad smirking at him from the yard.

  In truth, Noah didn’t want to head for Town again, but his last will and testament needed revision, and such tedious tasks never saw to themselves. Then too, he had to invite his family out to Wellspring, and that meant taking personal notice of the state of Thea’s brother.

  When Noah had dispensed with the legal business, he dropped in on Meech for tea and found his uncle not only in, but without other callers, which suited Noah perfectly.

  Meech ordered the tea tray, shooed the butler off, and smiled a knowing and not entirely attractive smile.

  “Is married life going well?”

  Noah took a wing chair uninvited, for he technically owned the damned chair.

  “Married life goes splendidly. You haven’t acquired your customary dusting of summer sunshine. Didn’t the Harting house party get you out into the fresh air?”

  “Sometimes, the routine grows tedious,” Meech said, pouring out for them both.

  “You could hie out to Wellspring. You’re always welcome.” Meech was always family, anyway. Welcome in theory, at least.

  “Wouldn’t want to intrude.” Meech passed Noah his tea, though when Noah took a sip, he found Meech had forgotten to sugar it. The oversight was unlike him. Meech was as comfortable being a host as he was
being a guest, and Meech wasn’t Henny Whitlow, to whom tea preferences were a detail.

  “You’re invited to intrude,” Noah said, stirring in his sugar. “The duchess and I are having a family gathering, and I know a pair of little girls who will drag you bodily to the stables to show you their new ponies.”

  “Ponies for the girls?” Meech dumped a quantity of sugar into his own drink. “Aren’t they a bit young for that?”

  “Nini is two years older than I was when you and Papa first put me aboard Charger.”

  “That fat little miscreant? Haven’t thought of him in ages. Do they groom their beasts eight times a day, stuff them with apples, tell them all manner of nonsense?”

  “Those girls are your family, Meech.” Now Noah’s tea was too sweet. “You should put in the occasional appearance for form’s sake, and we’ll have Harlan underfoot again soon too. You missed the wedding, and he has a new pony to show you as well.”

  Meech chose a biscuit from a Sevres bowl, biscuits being the only sustenance on the tray. “Harlan’s been larking around in Surrey, hasn’t he?”

  “News travels, apparently.”

  “If a fellow his age is invited to be a guest at Greymoor’s place, he tends to send around notes to his chums, because a little gloating is in order. One of Pemmie’s nephews passed along the word.”

  Meech bit into his biscuit, crumbs sprinkling his cravat as he munched.

  Pemmie had nephews on both sides of the family and both sides of the blanket, some as rackety as their uncle.

  “The gloating tendency, Harlan gets from you,” Noah said, though Harlan at least knew better than to scatter crumbs in the parlor. “Aren’t you offering cakes and sandwiches and whatnot with your tea these days?”

  Meech needed a wife, was the trouble, somebody to look after the hospitality and after Meech himself, who looked a bit peaky.

  “You expect me to set out all that?” Meech scoffed. “When it’s hotter than blazes? Even tea’s a stretch in this weather.”

  Meech had a collection of porcelain teapots, probably the only items he valued more highly than toothsome, willing chambermaids.

  “Meecham, am I keeping you from an assignation, perhaps? You’re twitchy, your cravat is wrinkled, and you haven’t insulted me even once yet. A newly married man likes to know he can depend on some aspects of his life to remain reliably fixed—some uncles, that is.”

  Noah had only the one living.

  Meech took a sip of his tea and set it aside. “How fares your duchess?”

  Noah wanted desperately to brush the crumbs from his uncle’s linen. The elderly could be untidy at table, and the very young, though Meech qualified as neither.

  “So you’re preoccupied with a woman,” Noah muttered. “Well, best of luck with that. My duchess is settling in nicely. The girls adore her, and she is taking them in hand.”

  Meech had no reaction to that pronouncement, other than to fuss the crease of his trousers.

  “They’re to have governesses and dancing masters and piano lessons and heaven only knows what,” Noah went on. “Seems to me they already know everything they need to know to go on in life.”

  Meech started on another biscuit. “Which would be?”

  “How to read, write, and negotiate. How to sit a horse, and how to get along with each other. The rest will come from sheer curiosity.”

  Meech rose and rearranged the half-dozen gold snuffboxes displayed on his mantel. Noah was plagued by the notion that these had been parting gifts to Meech from fond inamoratas.

  “Stuffing the female head with figures, ancient cultures, and foreign languages never struck me as useful,” Meech said, opening a pearl-encrusted snuffbox and sniffing at it. “A bluestocking is a sad sight. Pemmie agrees with me.”

  “Come stay with us for a few days,” Noah said, rising, because clearly Meech had no time to spare for ducal nephews. “We haven’t all been together in an age, and your visit will make Thea feel welcome.”

  Noah tossed a written invitation onto the tea tray—Thea had made him write out half of them.

  Meech went on to the next snuffbox—silver and lapis—rather than open the sealed epistle.

  “I’ll consult the schedule, Noah. Summer is a busy time when you’re as much in demand as I am, and then too, one likes to head north well in advance of the hordes, or the best grouse moors will be taken.”

  “You can shoot birds at Wellspring, for God’s sake,” Noah said. “You must suit yourself, and we will muddle along with or without you.”

  “That you will.”

  Noah took his leave, unsatisfied with the exchange. Meech liked his victuals, and Meech liked a good gossip. Maybe he was pining for Henny Whitlow; maybe he was expecting a lady to discreetly call upon him. Maybe a lady awaited Meech in his very bedroom.

  Noah had nearly reached the mews when a voice stopped him.

  “Anselm.”

  “Pemberton.” Noah extended a hand to the man who could have been his uncle’s twin. “I left Meech brooding over his teapot and inventorying his snuffboxes. If you’re expecting to linger, I don’t think he’ll be in the mood.”

  “He’ll perk up when the sun drops,” Pemberton said, handing his horse off to a groom. “I understand good wishes are in order. Felicitations on the nuptials and all that.”

  “My thanks,” Noah said as True was led out. “Will you head north with Meech here directly?”

  “Head north?” Pemberton paused, one riding glove on, one peeled off. “Gracious, no. Never did fancy alcohol and firearms mixed in any quantity. A bumper of nonsense, if you ask me, sitting about in the damp and fog just to scratch and reminisce with a bunch of fellows you can see in any ballroom. Then you have to eat the hapless fowl and pretend you’re not picking buckshot from your teeth between courses.”

  “Excellent point,” Noah said, snugging up True’s girth. “See if you can’t talk Meech into visiting out at Wellspring, then. You’re welcome to tag along, but be warned my sisters will attend our gathering, and they’re all in a delicate condition.”

  “The three of ’em?” Pemberton shuddered. “Thank you, but I will pass. Not that your sisters aren’t lovely, but to see their husbands brought to billing and cooing in public… My bachelor constitution can’t take it.”

  “One becomes inured,” Noah said, though he rather looked forward to the day when he and his duchess added billing and cooing to their doting moments.

  * * *

  The nightmare began as the reality had, with man-scents of bay rum, stale pipe smoke, and starched linen blended with the sweat resulting from a summer night’s dancing.

  And pressure, as a weight bore down on Thea’s body. Male weight, followed by sounds, whispering, then grunting, and the sensation of Thea’s nightgown being hiked up over her thighs.

  “You just relax, my dear, this won’t take but a lovely little moment.”

  Bed ropes creaking, while in Thea’s mind, panic tried to beat away a touch of the poppy and an overindulgence of punch.

  Wake up, for God’s sake, wake up now!

  An intrusion, and discomfort, low in Thea’s body, where a chaste woman wouldn’t hurt. More weight, enough to bring her struggling to awareness.

  Scream, Thea, scream now!

  “Almost there, almost…stop that, my dear, unless you’d like a bit of the rougher…”

  Thea had managed to thrash, and tried to wiggle aside, but he was big, and just as she’d perceived the true nature of his intent, she’d also recalled two ducal heirs were at that house party, and neither one would be brought to account should she scream.

  Her hands were pinned on either side of her head as he began thrusting in earnest.

  “Damn but you’re wonderfully snug, my dear… God in heaven!” He went still, but Thea was too dazed to seize the moment, and then a dreadful sensation—his hand brushing gently over her forehead. “My dear, you should have told me. I might have gone about things differently. Suppose you’d like me to fini
sh now, eh?”

  He began to move again, more slowly, almost carefully, and Thea didn’t hurt so much now, not physically.

  She cried in silence while he finished, and then he lay on her, panting, while her tears seeped into the pillow.

  “I don’t know why you chose me, my dear, and I’m honored and all that, but you know how the game is played from here, don’t you? We bow and curtsy like perfect strangers over breakfast, and wish each other well?”

  In the dark, his voice was barely above a whisper, but he sounded anxious.

  Not panicked, not ashamed and horrified and all muddled.

  “Get off me,” Thea managed, though all she knew was that she’d just been ruined, and by a man she couldn’t even properly see. Her breath was growing short, as if a pent-up scream were blocking her airway. She wanted to breathe, to shove him away, whoever he was, to get up and wash and wash and wash.

  Though she had a very good notion who’d ruined her.

  “I’ll just be going then.” He kissed her forehead, climbed off her, and then Thea was alone.

  The only mercy in the entire five minutes had been the darkness. He hadn’t been able to see her, and she hadn’t been able to see him, though the scent and feel and sound and shame of what he’d done would plague her for years to come.

  Wake up, for God’s sake, wake up now!

  As always, Thea couldn’t wake up, not fast enough, not soon enough.

  Thea, Wife. Wake up, now, for the love of God.

  Nobody called Thea wife, or used her name in those gruff irascible tones except—

  “Noah.” Thea pitched into him hard, clinging to him like the welcome reality he was. In a shaft of moonshine, she caught the concern tightening the corners of his eyes, and wanted to weep with relief. “Husband.”

  “One hopes I’m not unexpected. I said I’d be back tonight.” He’d already disrobed, for moonshine gilded bare, muscular shoulders, and Noah smelled of flowers and herbs, as if he’d recently completed his evening ablutions.

  “I didn’t sew you any loincloths.” All Thea could think to say, an inanity. She was rewarded with the sensation of Noah chuckling as she stayed plastered against him.