“It was to teach you a lesson. To teach that lovely stubborn head a lesson.”
“You’re not my father. I need no lessons from you.”
“I’m very glad not to be your father. No more than you are my mother concerned with my posture. Actually, you’re like that woman with your risk-taking. You’re on your way to becoming a careless rake. What if something had happened?”
“Mr. Thackery was with me and Mrs. St. Maur, too.”
“You thought enough to bring a chaperone to this folly? I don’t want to talk of you and another man.”
Her brow lifted. More of her normal warm coloring showed, not the ghastly ashy paint. “I had to go. I had to track down a man named Sullivan.”
“If you needed a man, I’m here. Patience, I’m not going anywhere.”
“What?”
“You heard me, madam. If you wanted adventure, I could give that to you. You don’t need to go out and search for it. And you don’t need any other guides to debauchery. I’m plenty capable.”
She tugged at her cravat as if the flailing thing choked her. “You think I left Hamlin because of boredom?”
“I know I seem settled or dull. I know I’m order-driven.”
“Order-driven?”
“Yes, I have a lot of rules. I like rules.”
“Rule-driven? Obsessed would be a better word, Repington.”
“I can give you what you need if you tell me what that is.”
She freed her hair from the awful wig. In the glimmer of the carriage lantern, he saw her crowning glory—wild and bushy curls of gold and brown and black. Her tresses were braided and falling upon her shoulder.
She rocked trying to fish her way out of her tailcoat.
He stretched to assist but tugged her to him.
She was kneeling on the carriage floor with her arms tangled in the coat.
He settled a palm to her chin. “Adventure, affection. I’m here for it. Use me, Patience. Test me.”
“I suppose I do like pushing limits.”
Busick lifted her even as she reached for him. He had her up in his arms before he had a chance to talk himself out of kissing her.
And why not? Why shouldn’t he prove to her he meant every inch of his challenge?
Unexpectedly compliant, she molded against him. Sweet, hot, and sticky, his fingers found her beneath her waistcoat.
Her lips were soft. Her mouth tasted of berries. And he schooled and scolded her with lips on her neck mapping the way she moved against him when he stroked here, teased there.
He checked again, tasting the soft flesh of throat hidden beneath the collar of her shirt.
A strategist needed to be sure.
Busick tore at her waistcoat buttons. He wanted Patience LaCroy Jordan out of this disguise, freed from all the pretending.
Lionel cried out.
Her fingers on Busick’s shoulders were weak, a slow, halfhearted push.
What a time for the little fellow not to share.
This crazed connection between them was more than Lionel, more than convenience, or adventure or even jealousy.
“I need to feed him. Did he drink any of the pap?”
“A little, but he’s had the good stuff.” He put a hand again to her waistcoat and finished undoing the final buttons one by one. “I’m a fan of the good stuff, too.”
She hooked his finger on the last button. “This is not as wonderful as you think. I need privacy with my son. Then we need to discuss us, everything.”
Lionel’s cries grew louder. She picked him up and held him against her shirt.
The boy seemed very hungry wiggling against her, his tongue kissing at the wet linen as if he gloated.
Busick reached and stroked Lionel’s cheek. “For you two, I’ll make a stop. Somewhere I never go.” He tapped on the roof.
The carriage stopped, and the compartment door opened.
His driver stood outside. “Yes, Your Grace?”
“Take me to Lady Bodonel’s in Mayfair. It’s not far from here.”
The driver looked stunned but nodded and shut the door.
“Lady Bodonel? Colin’s aunt. Your mother?”
“One in the same.”
She put her face in her palms. “She’s going to see me like this?”
“No one is more scandalous than my mother. Her son stopping by with a woman dressed as a man carrying a baby should be nothing to her.”
Patience didn’t look convinced.
A tiny, tiny, tiny portion of his brainbox wondered if her fretful look was for a last deception she hadn’t shared.
If she wasn’t his cousin’s widow, he’d know shortly.
The question would be if a final deception would kill what he felt or if the truth would erase his guilt for wanting to seduce his cousin’s widow.
CHAPTER 26
A LAST-MINUTE STOP
Confusion twisted about my head like a vise’s grip.
Did this happen to male spies or just widowed nannies who hadn’t taken care to protect their heart?
I didn’t know what I felt or what could come of it, but I knew I was in danger once again. I fell for Colin so fast I couldn’t think straight, and now I was falling for the duke. He made me think too much about being happy and whole and not hiding any piece of myself.
Could this last? Could a thing built on deception be true?
The carriage stopped outside a large stately manner. Lots of windows and lights, but the structure was not as big as Hamlin.
Did it have ghosts, too?
From the fretful look on the duke’s face—his smile slimming to nothing—it had to.
Repington caught my hand. “My mother and I don’t have much of a relationship, good or bad, but if I had to pick, I’d describe it as mostly bad. This will be difficult.”
“I’m not delicate. I can withstand her criticisms. I weathered yours.”
He held me in place. His eyes, cloudy blue in the lantern light, seemed to plead with my soul. “If I need to know anything before we go inside, tell me now. I’d rather have it said betwixt us, just us.”
I had nothing to tell him, and I wasn’t ready to share how much I liked his kiss or how I welcomed the heat in his gaze, the strength of his arms.
I shook my head and offered my shoulder to help him from the shiny black carriage. The masterful team of horses looked ready to bolt. I didn’t want to be here, either.
The duke waved me from the opening. “Onward, then.”
I waited for him to ease from the carriage, straighten, and then secure his balance on his cane.
Lionel’s cries started up again.
My poor son’s patience had worn away, but I wasn’t ready to expose myself and be more vulnerable to the duke.
Nonetheless, hadn’t I exposed what I felt when I didn’t shy away from his kiss?
I rocked Lionel in the basket. He seemed tired of bouncing. I was pretty tired of my waffling, too.
The duke put his hand on mine along the basket handle. He smiled down at Lionel, who stretched and shoved at his blanket.
Up three steps, we arrived at the door, which opened as if it had been waiting for us.
I’d left my hat in the carriage, not that this would help our cause.
The hall was littered in portmanteaus, big ones, small ones, even bonnet-size boxes.
A woman, a little younger than Lady Shrewsbury, came halfway down a plain set of stairs. Blond, shorter than me, about Jemina’s height, Lady Bodonel threw back her head and blotted her cheeks with a handkerchief.
“Busick, you’ve come to see your mama but with no notice. Well, it’s a visit.”
He looked up to the plastered ceiling. “Mother, I don’t mean to interrupt your evening. It’s obvious you’re stealing away in the middle of the night.”
“No, silly. In the morning.”
She came all the way down the stairs. Her sheer peach-colored robe and matching mobcap were quite fine, each trimmed with satin ribbon along the he
ms. “You did pick a good day to see me before my scheduled travel.”
“So that’s where you get the tendency for schedules, Your Grace?”
He glared at me. “Bite your tongue, Patience.”
“Son, what’s wrong with you? You’re on a cane.”
He lifted the cane and hocked it in the crook of his folded arm. “A little injury, nothing to stop your travels.”
I took Lionel from the basket. I had him settled a little in my arms, but it wouldn’t last. “Lady Bodonel, may I have the use of a parlor?”
The woman wrinkled her nose, and then stepped closer. “You brought a little piece and a baby here? Are you coming from a masquerade?”
“You don’t recognize her, Mother?”
She went to a drawer on the console and pulled out something that looked like theater glasses. Moving about me, she examined me up and down, head to boots, like a foreign woman in menswear with theater paint smearing her cheeks wasn’t an everyday thing.
My chuckles came. Laughter was all I had.
This woman would pretend she’d never met me, that she hadn’t sipped tea on my silver at Hamlin.
I didn’t care about this slight, but I did care about Repington.
The small smile he had for Lionel on the steps had been taken away. He thought I’d lied to him.
Demerara, Demerara. Demerara. The incantation needed to take me away. One of these portmanteaus needed to turn into a boat and sail me across the sea. I gave up on Agassou. No protection would come for me.
Lionel started crying. His hungry wail was too much.
“Is it allowed to use a parlor for the baby? He needs to be tended to.”
She clapped her hands and a man in an indigo livery came forward. “Take her to the close one.”
“Mother, why are you pretending not to know Mrs. Jordan, my cousin Colin’s widow?”
Lady Bodonel took out her theater glasses and stared at me again.
“Oh, yes. Mrs. Jordan, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
I looked at Repington.
But the duke wasn’t looking at me at all, and as many times I had defied him, I’d never seen his cheeks this red in anger.
Slamming his cane with a thud, he stepped in front of me. “Why haven’t you visited Colin’s widow? Why didn’t you attend her when she was grieving? You’re an expert on such.”
“Well, son, I was told that she didn’t like people. That’s what Markham said.”
“And you believed him?”
“I was busy.” She came closer. “Odd, tall creature, Mrs. Jordan.”
Lionel began to cry. I knew this yelp. There would be no placating him. “Ma’am, I need some place for privacy. I need to feed my son.”
“This is my house, Mrs. Jordan,” the duke said. “Go to any room you choose to take care of my ward, my heir.”
A footman bowed and moved his hand for me to follow.
“Oh, Colin’s boy. Such a yellowish-brown little thing. Does he look like Colin to you?”
“Mrs. Jordan, hurry. We need to leave as soon as possible.”
Opening a door to a parlor, the footman lit sconces and then pointed inside.
Once seated with the door closed, I disrobed and fed my hungry boy.
I tried to distract myself from the conversation in the hall.
The voices were low, but the duke offered many one-word answers, several of them noes.
Lionel’s suckle was strong. “Were you a good boy for the duke?”
The answer seemed obvious. His appetite was too big, too hungry.
“You didn’t eat a thing for Repington, did you? Naughty Lionel.”
Lady Bodonel’s pitch became higher. I couldn’t understand what she said, but it sounded like one long set of syllables, no spaces, no breaths.
I felt sorry for the duke.
My own mother was difficult, but I’d been able to get a few words in—angry ones, even repentant ones at times.
Not enough repentant ones.
Lionel should hurry up. I’m not sure what we’d come into, but I knew this was no place for us or the duke.
* * *
Busick stood up as straight as he could as his mother circled him in the grand hall of the house he leased for her. A nice, expensive Mayfair address was the cost to keep her from his smaller townhome in Town, where he’d convalesced these past two years.
“Son, you’ve been back from the war front for a while, and this is the first time you stop by to see me, in the middle of the night with a woman?”
“You sound as if you are shocked. Remember when you left me with Grandfather for four years? I did enjoy the letters for my birthday, though I’m surprised you found time between that string of special friends. A duke, an earl, a marquess.”
“You weren’t unhappy. The late duke enjoyed having you about.” She folded her arms and strutted about in her nightgown and robe as if auditioning for her latest paramour, complete with pouts and tearful mopping with her handkerchief. “This widower duke may decide to be a permanent friend.”
“Mother, this one is no more likely to commit than the others. They all figure out you bore easily.”
“What do you know of commitment, son? Last I heard, you were unwed without the benefit of even a bastard.”
He rubbed his skull wondering what he’d done to have such a mother. “Just when I think you can’t shock me anymore, you do.”
Her brow raised, and she offered him that devil-may-care-but-she-didn’t look. “You’re popular like me, son. If I were a man, such popularity would not draw censure.”
“When Mrs. Jordan is finished, we’ll leave you to your packing.”
“But that woman, Busick? That unusual creature with a baby. Is that what they wear, men’s tailcoats and breeches?”
“Mother, Mrs. Jordan . . . It was a masquerade. I cared for the baby while she was away. I should tell her there are fresh napkins in the basket.”
Lady Bodonel held out her hand. “Wait, she made my military son, a commander of English forces, a nursemaid? What has come over you?”
What had indeed?
Busick didn’t want to admit to the thoughts he had in his head about Patience. He retreated and leaned more on his cane, balancing becoming more difficult, his back aching. “She’s under my protection. Markham is a threat to her.”
“Does that mean you are in possession of Hamlin Hall again?”
Oh no. No. He could see the cogs in her head turning, stopping on bad. He put a hand to his neck, the strain of standing and his mother’s scheming becoming impossible to bear.
“Lionel Jordan is in possession of Hamlin. I’ll see that his interests are best served. That does not include your parties.”
“Hamlin was a place for such lovely gatherings. It should be yours. It should never have gone to Colin.”
“But it did. I wonder why Grandfather would do such with you constantly trying to sway him?”
Her ageless face pinched up. “The man was spiteful. He taught you to be spiteful.”
At this, Busick chuckled. “I’ve been told that I’m very much like him.”
“So what are you going to do, Busick?”
“What?”
“This is the first person you dare bring to see me. You must have taken a fancy to her.”
“My ward was hungry. It’s a two-hour ride to Hamlin. The woman is not going to undress in front of me to feed him.”
“Son, you should think about regaining Hamlin. Colin’s widow is a little brown but not bad on the eyes. I’m sure she looks quite well, dressed in a gown, and that hair done up in a proper chignon.”
“What?”
“Marry her. Return Hamlin back to the Strathmore line.”
Marriage wasn’t a bad notion, one that popped into his head more and more when he thought of rearing Lionel with Patience, but he’d never admit that to his mother.
“Think about it, son.”
He gripped his cane tighter. “When have you ever cared
for the Strathmore line? I thought you were angling to be on another family tree. You never change, always scheming.”
“And you’re just like me. You lust for adventure, going from bullets on the battlefield or bonbons in your bed. Why else would you take up with this exotic creature, your cousin’s Demeraran wife?”
Perspiring, he lost the grip on his cane and slipped. He grasped the console to keep from falling.
“Are you hurt, son?”
“I need to leave.”
He navigated through the litany of portmanteaus. “I’ve been in your presence for twenty minutes, and you’ve already tried to marry me off for a house, one you never cared about when you lived there, when my father lived.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind on a great many things. Maybe I’ve been waiting for you to come show your old mother some care. I want to start anew.”
She came close and put her hand to Busick’s arm, but he jerked free and tripped over a trunk.
He hit the floor hard with his back going one direction, legs in another.
The amputee stump stayed on, but the strap dug into his flesh.
Patience ran out of the parlor, Lionel’s basket swinging in her hand. “What has happened? Repington!”
She knelt at his side in seconds. “Are you much hurt?”
“No, I just like making faces. Help me up.”
“I’ll call for a physician. You don’t look well, son.”
He knew the signs since the chandelier fell. His back was going to go out, but this couldn’t be the time. “Patience, help me up. I’ve enough strength to stand if you help.”
“Duke, maybe we should stay for a doctor.”
His mother hovered over him. “Let me take care of you, son.”
She clapped her hands for servants, but Busick wouldn’t be here a moment longer.
He grabbed Patience’s cravat and drew her close. “Get me out of here.” This second part of his order, he set at a whisper. “I beg of you.”
Her eyes grew big.
Did she understand? Or would she defy him, thinking she knew better? Better was not here.
“No, Mrs. Jordan. I’ll get a footman and put him in a room. He’s too hurt to leave.”
He flopped back. He was about to be trapped with his mother.
“Sir, on the count of three.” She’d put Lionel’s basket down and had Busick’s arm. “One, two, three.”
A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby Page 22