“I never knew this was here,” Thea said, though clearly, the servants kept the tall windows clean and the room free of dust. The sconces had been lit, as if the staff knew family might want to pay a call on this less public collection.
“These are the most recent additions to the family tree,” Patience said, stopping before a portrait of three young men, all handsome, two dark, one blond, and all sporting dashing smiles and the exquisite, colorful tailoring of the previous century.
“They look like Harlan and Noah,” Thea observed, focusing on the darker men. “Though Noah’s and Harlan’s looks are more refined.”
“You think Noah’s appearance refined?”
“Compared to these three,” Thea said, but then she inspected the third man in the portrait, the blond, and her insides went abruptly queasy.
“These three are the previous generation,” Patience said. “The former Duke of Anselm on the right, Noah’s father, who was duke only briefly before his death, and Lord Earnest Meecham Winters Dunholm, known to one and all as Meech. This was probably done right before Meech married the lady who appended her name to his.”
“Meech?” Thea’s ears were roaring, her own voice sounding far, far away.
Meech? This was Uncle Meech?
She stared hard at the portrait, hoping she’d find some detail of eye color, a birthmark, a quirk of the lips, anything to suggest she was wrong. But no, this was the same man, the one who’d offered her pitying expressions over breakfast, and fine manners—when anybody was looking on. He’d flirted with her shamefully—she’d thought nothing of it at the time—and then he’d disported with her more shamefully still.
“Thea, are you well?”
“A little light-headed for skimping at luncheon,” Thea said, easing her grip on Patience’s arm. “Shall we move on?”
“Let’s. We can order an early tea. I always seem to be hungry these days.”
They ambled to the door, spending a particularly long time before a portrait done as Noah had approached his majority. His sisters were still girls, and Harlan a babe in his brother’s arms. Noah might have been a particularly youthful papa with his brood around him, except for the absence of a wife.
“He did very well, I think,” Patience said, studying the portrait. “I never felt deprived of both mother and father, not in any real sense. Noah was there, and he found us the best tutors and governesses, and kept a close eye on all of us.”
“You’re saying he’ll make a conscientious papa?”
“I’m saying he’s a good man. Let’s find that tea.”
Thea went along, but in her head, she was standing before the portrait of Lord Earnest Dunholm, a man she’d never wanted to see again, never wanted to hear of again, and God help her, he was now dear old Uncle Meech.
Noah was not the sort of duke to believe in chance, fate, and vile coincidences. His world was an orderly, rational place, unlike Thea’s.
Noah would have every reason to think Thea had known that the charming, blond Earnest Dunholm was in fact a male of the Winters line. Most daughters of earls knew Debrett’s page by page, but then most daughters of earls were focused on making a fine match, while Thea hadn’t had that luxury.
Noah could easily believe she’d kept her connection with his uncle secret, and Thea wouldn’t blame her husband for his mistrust. Still, had Thea’s dagger been plunged into her own heart, it could not have brought any more pain than she already felt.
* * *
“You women have all day to visit and plot and sneak off to the parlors together, and then after dinner, it’s more of the same,” Noah grumbled to his wife. “I thought the ladies would never turn you loose.”
Thea looked positively peaked, and all the lascivious, husbandly thoughts Noah had been harboring went scampering off to some mental parlor of their own, there to plague him all the worse for being banished yet again.
“Your sisters haven’t had a family ball before,” Thea said. “They each had their come-outs and engagements and so forth, but not a ball for family. They’re very excited.”
“While you just want it over with?” Noah came up behind Thea as she stood at their bedroom window and began taking pins from her hair. He’d be a properly credentialed lady’s maid soon, at the rate his marriage was going. “What can you possibly see on such a dreary, damp night?”
“The moon’s up,” Thea said. “The sky is clearing off, and the roads will have a day to dry out.”
Noah put his stash of pins on the vanity and came back to stand behind Thea, slipping his arms around her waist.
“I appreciate that you’ve orchestrated our first family gathering in years, Thea.” He squeezed her shoulders gently, for a great weight rested upon them. “You’re unhappy, Wife, and I know not how to repair it.”
“I’m preoccupied,” she said, turning and sliding her arms around him. “Hold me.”
“With pleasure.”
Except, hell and damnation, Thea must have really meant she wanted mere holding, because she tucked in close and held Noah for so long he was almost sure she was crying again.
“Wife? Shall you plead an indisposition tomorrow? The Furies would take over, I’m sure.”
Thea shook her head and gripped Noah more tightly.
“You’re tired,” he said, hoping that was a safe bet. “Let’s get you into bed and off your feet.”
Even more alarming than Thea’s fatigue was her docility. She let Noah take down her hair without even once treating him to that brisk visual inspection that had him on mental alert. She stood still while he divested her of every stitch, stood even more still while he used the wash water on her, a liberty he hadn’t taken previously. When he deposited her on the bed, she rolled to her side and merely watched as he went through his own nighttime routine.
“You must be exhausted,” Noah said, climbing into bed. He pulled Thea into the curve of his body. “Wife, some fool forgot to put you into a nightgown.”
“Not a fool.” Thea angled a leg up over Noah’s hip and an arm over his shoulders. “My dearest husband.”
Dearest?
Noah began to count days and weeks, because such excesses of sentiment from his duchess might suggest she was breeding already. That ought to please him—it did please him, vain, shallow, insecure ducal beast that he was—but it didn’t seem to be pleasing Thea, and that…
Noah made love to her, slowly, tenderly, without regard for her exhaustion or her odd bout of quiet, and to his endless relief, Thea made love to him too. She met him caress for caress, sigh for sigh, pleasure for pleasure.
In the few weeks of their marriage, Thea had already learned what to listen for, where to touch, how much pressure or speed or subtlety sent Noah ’round the bend in the shortest, most glorious time.
As he plied Thea with long, languid strokes, Noah realized that as much as he wanted to bring Thea pleasure, he wanted more to bring her joy, to ease whatever was clouding her heart.
When had his ducal priorities shifted from endless duty to marital joy?
This was not husbandly insecurity or a manly whatever.
This was a husband falling in love with his brand-new wife.
This was a man, for the first and only time in his busy, self-important, and oddly beleaguered and lonely life, falling in love with a woman.
And hoping like hell she could someday love him back.
* * *
“We’re to gather for a family buffet in the library when we’re dressed,” Noah said. “My duchess has commanded it.”
“The little girls have seconded the notion?” James asked, holding out a wrist for Noah to insert a sleeve button in his cuff.
“The girls are bouncing about the third floor as if Father Christmas were coming to stay.” Noah smiled at the recollection. “I have ordered that they are to be sneaked to the musicians’ gallery for the opening waltz and gorge themselves on snitches from the main buffet, but only one dessert apiece.”
“Sporting of y
ou.”
“If we keep the girls up half the night, there’s a chance I might have a cup of tea with my duchess in peace tomorrow morning. There.” Noah stepped back. “You’ll do, Heckendorn, but why isn’t your wife valeting you?”
James surveyed himself in the mirror. “For the same reason yours has cast you into the darkness of my company. The ladies are driving the maids to Bedlam, dressing each other’s hair, putting the last touches on hems and gloves and corsages and all that female whatnot.”
“Tending to the feminine mysteries, Meech used to call it.” Noah considered pouring them each a drink, but decided against it when they’d be swilling punch and champagne for hours.
“Will Meech join us tonight?” James asked, fluffing the lace of his cravat.
“He will not.” Noah almost changed his mind about that drink. “Meecham is up to something, James, and I know not what.”
Outside the window of the guest bedroom, the gardeners were setting the last of the potted flowers around the drive, making Wellspring not only stately, but cheerful.
Noah’s mother would have approved, but did his duchess approve?
James raised his chin and repositioned the emerald-and-gold cravat pin Noah had expertly placed not five minutes earlier.
“Perhaps Meech has been playing a little too deep and trying to keep it from you?”
Noah hoped Meech’s problem was that easy to address. “He’s learned his lesson in that regard. I am pleased to report Grantley seems to have as well. Not so, Hallowell.”
James patted the lace cascading from his neckcloth, then turned to admire his reflection in profile.
“Hallowell who?” he asked.
“You recall Marliss’s older brother,” Noah said. “He was bullying Thea when I’d decided to offer for her. Once I married her, it became apparent that somebody had bullied her rather awfully, so I bought up Hallowell’s gambling markers, and a few other debts as well.”
“How much?”
Noah named a figure that had James’s blond eyebrows rising.
“Does Hallowell’s papa know?”
“His papa is so overwhelmed by the challenges of dealing with the viscountess as Marliss is launched that, no, Hallowell has not had the benefit of mature guidance of late.”
“He’s not an infant, Noah.” James slipped a signet ring onto his left hand, more gold and emeralds. “If he bullies his sister’s companion, Hallowell’s enough to make a man dread the prospect of sons.”
“Now, now.” Noah offered a crooked smile. “You will be having sons with Patience Winters Heckendorn. No need to fret. All will be in hand.”
James brightened on some note of marital mischief. “There is that.”
A knock on the door heralded the arrival of Heath and Wilson, but not Grantley, Harlan, or Erikson.
“You’ll give them their orders,” Noah said to James. “In the library for inspection by the little girls, twenty minutes, no more.”
“Oui, mon capitaine duc.” Heath saluted, Wilson passed James a small purple boutonniere, and James bowed with ridiculous ceremony while Noah went to find his daughters.
Evvie and Nini were in their bedroom, bouncing on the beds, literally, while Davies tried to tie sashes and fix hair ribbons.
“Ladies.” Noah knew better than to raise his voice. “How will I offer you my tokens if you insist on comporting yourselves like dropped gum rubbers?”
“We’re excited!” Nini bellowed.
“Very,” her sister added solemnly, then dissolved into unprovoked giggles.
“I’m excited too,” Noah said. “I get to dance with my duchess tonight. As we swirl through the opening waltz, my form will be subject to stern criticism, won’t it?”
“He means we’ll get to watch,” Evvie translated. “We’ll be spying. Davies said we had permission, but we must be very, very”—she dropped her voice as her eyes grew round—“quiet!”
The last was shrieked amid peals of laughter. Noah endured a pang of sweetness to see Evvie, his most serious little lady, so overcome with glee and excitement.
Thea had done this. Having Thea here to provide consistency and warmth in the children’s days, to monitor what they studied and with whom, and to get them up on their new ponies regularly as Noah came and went on the King’s business.
Thea had allowed Evvie to be more of a little girl, and the results were stunning. Lovely, dear, and precious. Noah grabbed Evvie out of the air, mid-bounce, and hugged her carefully.
“You’ll crush my dress!”
“Heaven forfend!” He set her on her feet. “Will you allow me to offer you a small complement to your beauty?”
“He’s got flowers,” Nini put in helpfully. “They’re pretty, and they smell good.”
“Like us.” Evvie grinned, holding still so Noah could affix a miniature corsage to her wrist. “Does Nini get one?”
“Of course.” Noah sat on the bed, did the honors for Nini, and then drew them together on his lap. They were getting too big to share his lap, too big to even be on his lap—damn it.
“Listen, you two.” He cadged a whiff of little-girl fragrance from each silky head of hair. “Take pity on Davies and Maryanne tonight. We’re all supposed to have fun, not spend our evening watching the two of you cast up your accounts, or deal with bruises you earned pelting down the steps. If Erikson asks you to dance, you must gently decline, because you’re not quite out yet. If I ask you to dance, you must oblige me, because I am your cousin and will be completely heartbroken if you refuse me.”
“You’re silly,” Nini said, sniffing at her wrist corsage.
“A cousin’s prerogative.” While a duke, poor sod, would know little of silliness. “You’ll listen to your nursemaids and spy for only one waltz, right?”
“Yes, Cousin,” they chorused.
“And you’ll come inspect the uncles in a few minutes. They’re very nervous, hoping they measure up.”
“That’s what the Furies said when they came to visit us after tea with Lady Thea.” Nini exchanged a look of devilment with her sister. “We’ll be good.”
Noah set them down and rose. “You will. Ladies who do not comport themselves as such will be twelve years old before they’re invited to spy on another ball.”
Noah had made his point, all teasing aside, so he winked at Davies and took his leave, thinking to find Erikson either in his chambers or possibly among the beauties in the laboratory.
He did not find Erikson in either location, and concluded his resident botanist was likely in the library, researching the possibilities on the buffet table. Noah had just turned to leave the upstairs conservatory and go below stairs himself when his gaze landed on a small mechanism sitting on the sill of a closed window.
All thoughts of the evening’s festivities were shoved aside by a single, unhappy question: Why were the guts of Thea’s music box here in Erikson’s laboratory and left on display, where anyone might happen by?
Twenty-four
Thea shooed her sisters-in-law on their way and went into the dressing room to make sure a spare shirt had been ironed for Noah. There would be sufficient champagne, punch, and spirits on hand tonight that somebody was likely to grow clumsy enough to spill a drink.
Thea wished they’d spill it on her, that she might hide rather than serve as hostess.
The thought that somebody might whisper into Noah’s ear what Thea herself dreaded disclosing to him had cindered her composure. She’d tell him, tell him exactly with whom she’d transgressed—who had transgressed against her—but not until this ball was behind them.
And then…
Then she’d cope, as she always coped, and be grateful she’d had at least a few weeks to dream of a happy future with a man who deserved a loving wife…a wife he might someday love in return.
Thea hadn’t spent much time in her own chamber since Noah had decreed they’d share his bed, but thinking she’d soon be moving back there—assuming he didn’t banish her altogether—s
he opened the door to her bedroom.
The room might be a guest chamber, so thoroughly had Noah divested it of her effects. Empty, like her.
“You are being ridiculous.” She repeated her father’s admonition aloud, wrinkled her nose at the very sound of it. She wasn’t ridiculous to mourn the loss of a budding romance with her spouse, and she wasn’t ridiculous to dread what lay ahead of her.
Thea knew that now, at least.
Intent on giving herself one last perusal before joining the family in the library, Thea glared at herself in the vanity mirror. Noah had talked her into this gown, a shimmery bronze silk that swayed beautifully with each step and looked beautiful by candlelight. The French modiste had even insisted on matching silk drawers, which completed Thea’s first experience of elegance from the skin out.
Thea hated the dress now; hated the memory of Noah coaxing her to wear it, claiming the unusual color meant he’d be able to spot her among their guests without having to hunt endlessly for his own wife.
She blinked back tears and inspected herself in the mirror.
Something caught her eye, a piece of paper folded and left half-exposed, caught in the lid of her music box. Her empty music box. She extracted the note, knowing it hadn’t been there while the Furies were in the room.
If you want to see your husband’s bastards again in this life, come to the gamekeeper’s cottage immediately, and bring something of yours Anselm will recognize. Warn no one.
The first thought to register was that Evvie and Nini were in peril and defenseless.
Thea knew that helplessness, knew the crushing weight of hopelessness and fear. The second thought was that half the village had been employed at Wellspring for tonight’s ball, and any one of dozens of temporary footmen, maids, or pages might have delivered the note without anybody the wiser.
Taking the time to interrogate staff and consider options was out of the question.
What possession of Thea’s would Noah recognize? Her combs were nondescript, and she wasn’t about to part with her knife. Not tonight of all nights.
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