The Duke's Disaster

by Grace Burrowes

  “Does that observation have significance?”

  Noah opened one blue eye and lifted his forearm about two inches to peer at her, then closed his eye and replaced his arm.

  “The cold helps,” he said.

  “With?”

  “Christ in heaven, Wife.” Noah sat up in one smooth, feline move, and instinct prompted Thea to do likewise. They were naked, and his tone was not…cordial. “You refuse every overture I can think to make, and for the life of me, I cannot name my transgression. Answer me something.”

  “Ask.” Thea drew the towel to her and let it cover her breasts and sex while she dabbed at her damp skin.

  “Did you not know how to dissemble on our wedding night, or were you determined to be honest with me?”

  “Not know?” Thea wasn’t sure what he was asking, but sensed that in her preoccupation with her own troubles, she’d lost track of her husband. She’d been too busy battling her own demons to recall that Noah was beset by devils of doubt Thea had helped unleash.

  “Did you not know how to provide a replication of chastity?” he asked tightly. “A false replication.”

  “You have wondered about this?”

  Did Noah suppose, when Thea was deciding between hydrangeas and roses for the dratted centerpieces, that she was instead pining for some old love? That she wrestled with happy memories rather than with a budget Noah had only glanced at?

  “Any man would wonder at your motivations. You could easily have lied, and you didn’t.” Noah held Thea’s gaze, his blue eyes guarded.

  She abruptly wanted to toss him into his damned trysting pool. This blighted gathering was his idea, Thea was wearing herself to Bedlam over it, and now he wanted to revisit her past?

  “When was I supposed to learn this courtesan’s trick?” Thea asked, glaring at him. “Perhaps when I was fourteen, and Papa gave me such a nice compliment on my hair at dinner, then was dead by breakfast? Maybe I should have learned when I was sixteen, except Mama was such a wreck by then, I was too busy looking after my younger siblings as their de facto governess.”

  Thea had Noah’s attention, which saved him a dunking at least.

  “Maybe I should have acquired this sophistication when I was seventeen,” Thea went on, “and out of mourning for what felt like the first time in ages, but alas for me, I went into service lest the trustees sell me off to some well-heeled lecher. Perhaps I should have acquired such lewd and useful information from my elderly employers? But no, you think I should have acquired it when I became some flaming strumpet taking her pleasure of one man after another. Surely, then, I might have learned such a basic trick.”

  “I didn’t say any of that,” Noah replied. His gaze had gone measuring, and Thea flinched back when he brushed his thumb along her cheekbone. “You’ve been upset lately, even in your dreams, Thea. I can’t think why, and fear you have regrets about accepting my proposal.”

  Thea knocked Noah’s hand away, because she hated, hated that she was crying in front of him again, and over nothing.

  “There was one man, Noah, on one occasion, and it was…pathetic and fumbling and disgusting, do you hear me? That is the extent of my benighted experience, and of my regrets. I would not have lied to you about my chastity even if I’d known how, no more than you would have attempted the pretense of courting a woman you could not possibly be enamored of.”

  Noah regarded Thea steadily as the tears slipped down her cheeks, then he took the towel from her, slowly winding it into his hands. When Thea sat naked, mortified, and hanging on to her anger for the sake of pride more than anything else, Noah draped the towel around her shoulders and assumed the place beside her.

  Thea resisted the urge to fall upon him weeping, and that took effort, because Noah settled one long arm around her shoulders and tucked her closer. A day that had been oppressively hot now seemed chilly, and Noah’s warmth had become necessary to Thea’s continued ability to breathe.

  “I apologize for having annoyed you,” he said. “Now, tell me about these sauces that are vexing my duchess. I’ve a preference for anything made with butter, and have long believed garlic and leeks lack subtlety.”

  * * *

  “I have died, and all my tutors’ predictions have come to pass,” Grantley informed his pillow. “I am in hell.”

  “You look like hell,” Noah observed as he opened the heavy drapes. “You smell like hell, and you probably feel like hell.”

  “My own personal demon genius.” Grantley rolled into a ball. “Capable of speaking only profound truth.”

  “Up you go.” Noah whacked him smartly on the backside with a riding crop. He’d come prepared, for Grantley responded to the crop—typical English schoolboy. “You’ve reparations to make.”

  “Haven’t you a wife to keep you out of mischief?” Grantley rubbed his fundament and managed to sit up, hair sticking out in all directions, eyes bloodshot and ringed with shadows.

  “My dear duchess needs her rest,” Noah said, which was the truth, particularly lately. Thea might also need a respite from the company of her ham-handed duke. “You need to get back on the horse, so to speak.”

  “Was on him last night.” Grantley studied his own bare feet. “He’s probably in the mews, still under saddle. Unless somebody stole him. I shouldn’t like that.”

  “He’s enjoying his morning oats, or his noon oats,” Noah said, tossing Grantley a dressing gown. “Your help is more honorable than you are.”

  “My help?”

  “It now being July, and thus the third quarter, your help has resumed their posts in hopes of earning the occasional wage. Now, what have you to say for yourself, Grantley?”

  Thea would be heartbroken to see her brother in such a condition, though she wouldn’t like him sporting black eyes and a split lip any better.

  Ah, the frustrations of married life.

  “Myself?” Grantley scrubbed a hand over a thin, sallow face sporting an uneven crop of bristles. “Myself could use a little hair of the dog, or a lot of hair of the dog, but as myself’s brother-in-law is once again impersonating God’s Governess, I suppose I’d best wash and shave.”

  “You stood up your sister,” Noah said quietly, the better to torment the damned, “and Thea can take that up with you, but you stood up my sister as well.”

  “Confusing,” Grantley said, rising carefully, then hanging on to the bedpost. “All these sisters. It’s like this, Anselm, I either kept drinking, or I would have called the blighter out.”

  “Sit.”

  Grantley dropped like a brick back to the mattress, then looked green.

  “Eyes open,” Noah ordered, passing over the empty washbasin. Thanks to a merciful Deity, Grantley did not cast up his accounts.

  “Now what is this talk about calling somebody out?” Noah used his older-brother-knows-all voice, with satisfying results.

  “Eggerdon,” Grantley said, setting the basin aside. “He kept insinuating my sister was not fit for a title, and if she must marry, then who better than a Winters, because whores will congregate on any corner, and so forth.”

  Old rage washed through Noah, and old regret, along with a bracing dose of new rage, for Thea had no part in the unfortunate Winters legacy.

  “So forth?” Noah growled.

  “So forth.” Grantley started to nod, then apparently thought better of it. “Eggerdon’s a crony of Hallowell’s, and Hallowell was there too, I think.”

  “You didn’t call anybody out?” Somebody needed calling out, badly.

  “Drunk.” Grantley waved a hand. “Even I know you don’t call a man out when you’re both in your cups. Not sporting, things said in the dregs, and so forth.”

  “No more so-forthing,” Noah said as calmly as he could. His guts were churning, and not with anything as easily cured as an excess of gin. Thea’s good name had been called into question, likely by Hallowell, who would have cheerfully taken advantage of her himself.

  If Hallowell was behind this disrespe
ct toward Thea, his accusations made little sense. Noah had watched Thea for most of the Season, and at every turn, her behavior had been exemplary. Propriety could be faked, but not decency.

  Not goodness, and yet, on their wedding night, Noah had been disappointed in Thea. Shame tried to intrude on Noah’s temper, but he hadn’t time for it.

  “You’re removing to Wellspring come the week after next,” Noah said.

  “The country?” Grantley grimaced. “Don’t think you have the authority to banish me, Anselm, though I likely deserve it.”

  “I’m not banishing you, I’m inviting you,” Noah said, going to the corridor and bellowing for the bath just as two footmen wheeled it around the corner.

  “Inviting me to what?” Grantley rose and ran a hand through his hair, which did nothing to tame it.

  “A gathering to welcome your sister to the ducal family. Thea wasn’t about to put up with a ball here in Town.” Smart woman, the duchess. A ball in July would be stifling at best.

  “Thea’s stubborn.”

  “As am I,” Noah said, appropriating the tea service from the maid who’d followed the footmen into the room. “We’re having a family gathering, with a few acquaintances thrown in to even up the numbers. Your bath awaits.”

  With the ponderous dignity of the inebriated and hurting, Grantley passed Noah the robe and lowered himself into the steaming water.

  “Reprieve from my sentence,” Grantley murmured. “How are the girls?”

  A glimmer of gentlemanly instinct, at last. “You’ll see Lady Antoinette later this afternoon when you take her driving in the park. You will travel out to Wellspring with her, James, and Patience. You weren’t gambling these past few evenings, were you?”

  “Don’t believe I was.” Grantley began to scrub. “Mostly drinking.”

  “And not calling out this Eggerdon person.”

  “He’s a smarmy little blighter who usually has his nose—or some other part—up somebody’s arse, knows all the gossip, but never has any coin. Smells of pomade and resentment.”

  “Younger son?”

  “Of course.” Grantley sank down to rinse, then rose back up. “I ran into your uncle too, I think.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  Grantley squinted at the soap. “I think he’s the one who put me on my horse when Eggerdon started casting aspersions. I’m almost sure of it.”

  “Then you’re in his debt,” Noah said. “Time to shave. You’ve lollygagged long enough.”

  “The hell you say, Anselm. The water’s still hot.” Grantley’s indignation was laughable, when he was wet, pale, the worse for drink, and sitting on his bare arse in a tub of bubbles. “My beard hasn’t softened, and my valet isn’t on hand.”

  “Your beard has barely sprouted,” Noah said, pulling over a stool and rolling out Grantley’s shaving kit. “See to yourself, Grantley, and I might allow you a cup of tea.”

  “Serve you right if I cut my throat,” Grantley muttered, but Noah held the mirror, and Grantley’s hands shook only a little, so the job was passably done. When Grantley was dressed, dosed with strong tea, and more effectively impersonating a sentient human being, Noah dragged him to the library.

  “You’ve staff on hand now and for the next few weeks,” Noah said. “Summon Mrs. Wren.”

  Grantley looked nonplussed but intrigued as Noah laid out with Mrs. Wren a course of tasks for the maids and footmen, including a deal of cleaning, dusting, airing, and polishing.

  “Now we get out the ledgers,” Noah informed the earl.

  “Ledgers?” Grantley ran a finger around his collar. “Hirschman sees to the ledgers.”

  “Hirschman is your man of all work,” Noah chided. “He isn’t your house steward. You don’t pay him a house steward’s wages, and a house steward doesn’t get up in the dark of night to see to the horse you neglected. You look over Hirschman’s work for two reasons: First, you might find an error, because every man can make a mistake. Second, you want him to know what he does for you matters, and your supervision is a way to do that.”

  “You don’t mention he could be cheating.” Grantley offered this, slouched in his chair across the desk from Noah, gaze roaming the room.

  “He’s a fool not to be,” Noah countered. “You are a pigeon waiting to be plucked, Grantley, and then you’ll have to marry for money, if anyone will have you. If you think Hirschman would cheat you, you should let him go.”

  “Without proof?”

  “Would he cheat you?”

  “Of course not.” Grantley looked increasingly uncomfortable. “Mrs. Wren would bash him with her rolling pin.”

  “Grantley…” Noah flipped the ledger around and settled into the other chair. “I came into my title when I was still a minor. I mucked up the works, royally and often. Nobody expects you to be perfect, but neither will you be forgiven if you give up without a fight.”

  “Give up what?”

  God help the boy, for Noah wasn’t sure he could.

  “Your honor.” Noah pulled his chair closer to Grantley’s, and pointed at the most recent ledger entry. “Who is this Harold person, and why did you spend your coin on him?”

  An hour and a half later, Noah admitted to a grudging respect for Grantley’s grasp of numbers. The earl’s appreciation for household practicalities was sadly lacking, though his aptitude for accounting was excellent.

  “You see the way of it now?” Noah asked. “At any point, you should be able to open this journal and know how much cash you have about.”

  “Like a bank does,” Grantley said. “Not complicated, but who showed it to you?”

  “The bookkeeping part of it, my tutor explained. He was a younger son, and they tend to take money seriously,” Noah said, rising. “The legalities, my land stewards and solicitors imparted, and some of the rest of it, James’s stepfather shared with us when we came down from university.”

  “The rest of it? There’s more?”

  “The don’t-call-a-fellow-out-when-he’s-drunk parts,” Noah said. “Which mostly amounts to decency and common sense.”

  “Thea has common sense,” Grantley observed, peering up at Noah owlishly. “She married you.”

  “And I married her,” Noah said, withdrawing a vellum envelope. “That’s your invitation, Grantley. See that you join us, and try to cut back on the drinking.”

  The gin would kill him, or lead him into deadly stupid situations. Thea would mourn, and she didn’t deserve that.

  Grantley got to his feet and walked with Noah toward the door, pausing before they left the privacy of the library.

  “Why’d you come by, really, Anselm?”

  Because Thea had asked this of Noah, once, weeks ago, when in all the weeks of their marriage she’d asked nothing for herself.

  “You are family,” Noah said. “That means I have an obligation to you, Grantley, but it also obligates you to others. Besides, you’re free entertainment, and there’s little enough of that in life.”

  Grantley opened his mouth, then shut it abruptly and smiled a smile that reminded Noah of something he hadn’t seen in a while: Thea in a good mood.

  Twenty

  Thea’s husband had run off again, or she’d run him off. This time, he’d disappeared like a thief in the night—or the morning—stealing away before Thea had even risen. She had a vague memory of him kissing her cheek in the first gray light of day, but couldn’t be sure it was from that morning or any of several other mornings.

  Noah was put off by her moods; that much was obvious. They hadn’t made love since he’d gone swimming with her days ago. Thea told herself she should be grateful he’d not pestered her.

  Except it wasn’t pestering from Noah, and she wasn’t grateful.

  He’d left her a note this time, claiming he’d be back before nightfall, but full dark had fallen, and despite preferring to feel neglected, what Thea felt was worried. Men with as much wealth and influence as the Duke of Anselm had enemies. They stepped on toes, ina
dvertently or otherwise, and ill will found them.

  Thea set down her brush, and opened the music box she kept on her vanity. The little minuet had soothed her through the loss of her mother, her home, her virginity, and her innocence. It could soothe her into marriage as well.

  “You should be in bed, madam.”

  Relief washed through Thea. “You’ve taken to lurking in doorways, Your Grace.” She finished winding the key and set the music box down.

  “What must I do to break you of the habit of Your Gracing your own wedded husband in the very privacy of our chambers?” Noah grumbled.

  He ambled into the room, freshly shaven, his hair still damp, and Thea realized she’d been so lost in her brown study she hadn’t heard him in his rooms. He was in a dressing gown and bare feet, and fatigue lurked around his eyes and his mouth.

  “This is a pretty little tune,” he said. “An old-fashioned waltz.”

  “More likely a minuet. The music box was my grandmother’s and then my mother’s.”

  The melody left Thea unaccountably weepy, for which she blamed her husband. She’d been worried about him, and he’d been not three doors away.

  “You want to give this to our daughter?” he asked.

  Yes. No. Thea still needed the music herself. “We have two daughters. I could not choose between them.”

  Noah came up behind Thea, put both hands on her shoulders, then wrapped his arms around her. “This upcoming gathering has you discommoded. Shall we cancel it?”

  Thea rested her cheek on Noah’s muscular forearm and let herself feel his warmth and strength. How had he known, and what should she say?

  The truth, of course. She was getting better at trusting him with the truth. “I’ll feel like a coward if we cancel it.”

  “Which would leave you worse than discommoded. I’ve checked with the staff. Your troops are in place, their orders in hand. The house is spotless, the invitations delivered, and all is in readiness. What is it that yet bothers you, Thea?”

  The music wound down, and Noah twisted the key again while Thea fashioned an honest answer to his question.