The breeze picked up, ruffling his hair, airing his linen shirt sleeves now that he’d abandoned his coat. Why did he feel like he was waiting? What was he waiting for? A new year. A new season. His father’s death. A letter from Minette. Something. Anything. Someday things would get better and he wouldn’t feel this restless unhappiness.
The breeze died back and August heard voices in the house, in the grand main room that stretched from front to back. An older lady’s warble, and a younger lady’s bright, cheerful tones.
“Why, of course she shall be happy to be shown to her rooms,” the older lady said. “This is her home now, isn’t it?”
“But I should like to see my husband first.” Minette used the ingratiating tone she always affected around the servants. “If Lord Augustine is not terribly busy, would you tell him we’ve arrived?”
It was as if he’d conjured her with his thoughts. He took one last look at the lush serenity of the back garden and stalked through the door and into the house.
“August!” Before his eyes could adjust from the brightness outside, he was nearly bowled over by a barreling bundle of energy. Minette embraced him, all ivory skirts and blonde curls, squeezing him in her arms. He looked over her shoulder at the gargantuan hat and formidable bulk of her aunt and thought to himself, I am not dressed for company.
“Minette.” He tried not to growl the word as he disengaged himself from her. “And Lady Overbrook.” He sketched a bow toward the smiling matron before turning back to his wife. “What on earth are you doing here, darling? I thought you were to stay in Oxfordshire.” His voice strained with the displeasure he felt.
“It was too dull in Oxfordshire,” said Minette. “I went to stay with Warren and nothing was happening there, except for Josephine getting rounder and both of them mooning at each other all the livelong day.”
“Minette,” her aunt chided.
“Well, it’s true. When my auntie wrote that she was coming to London, I knew I must come along too so I might set up here at Barrymore House for the winter. You don’t mind, do you? Oh, and Warren has written a note.” She poked around in her reticule and extracted a folded page. Behind her, servants unloaded trunk after trunk of female belongings, hauling them through the foyer and to the stairs.
August flicked open the seal on the embossed notecard. I’ll make this short so I’m not tempted to go on about what a blighted coward you are, it read in Warren’s handwriting. She’s your wife. You live with her.
He closed the note and rubbed his eyes. The harried housekeeper arrived, bearing a hastily assembled tea tray.
“How wonderful,” said Minette. “I’d be delighted to take tea. Won’t you put on your coat and join us, August, and visit with Auntie before she’s off to Marlborough Square? Is your mother here? I’d love for her to join us too.”
“Mother is resting.”
Minette was already headed toward the front parlor. “Do you still take tea here on the flowered sofas? They’ve always been my favorite.”
The flowered sofas were still there, but he hadn’t taken tea with anyone the last seven days, and hadn’t planned to today. He went to the library for his coat, feeling unbalanced and stressed. By the time he met them in the parlor, Minette and her Aunt Overbrook were balancing tea cups and saucers on their laps, and asking for sandwiches. Such was her charismatic power that the overworked servants complied with nary a frown, and produced a tray of tea cakes and finger sandwiches in record time.
“I’m so glad to be out of that carriage,” said the Dowager Overbrook. “And how smart Barrymore House looks, Lord Augustine. I haven’t been to visit your mother in so long.”
“She’ll be sorry to have missed you,” he said. “She spends her afternoons at rest.”
“Of course. We’re terribly gauche to arrive at tea time and trouble you.”
“It’s no trouble at all,” August assured her, the only feasible response.
“But is your mother well?” asked the dowager. “And Lord Barrymore?”
“I told you he’s been ill, Auntie,” said Minette. “And Lord August has been here handling everything, and leaving me to my leisure in the country. But I ought to be here helping however I can.” She looked at him over the rim of her tea cup. He’d forgotten how small and delicate her hands were, and how blue her eyes. “It was nothing at all to come from Oxfordshire. Warren and Josephine would have come too, but she’s feeling awfully tired.”
“I would have liked to see your brother and his wife,” said August. So I might punch Warren right between the eyes, he added silently. What was he to do with her now that she was here? He couldn’t very well send her back, since her aunt had come to stay for some time, and he couldn’t spare the time to take her back himself. All he had in these hectic days was the predictability of his schedule and the quiet of the house, both of which Minette was already disturbing. She gave him a wide, happy smile he was hard pressed to return.
“I only wish you would have stayed in Oxfordshire a while longer,” he said.
“Is your father’s illness contagious?” asked Lady Overbrook.
“What? No.” August put down his tea. “Not contagious. Only very...unpredictable. One never knows how he’ll feel from day to day.”
“It was like that with Lord Overbrook’s gout,” said the dowager, shaking her head. “Rest his soul. Some days he was sprightly as an imp, and other days he could hardly rouse himself from bed. Does your father suffer the gout?”
Lady Overbrook scrutinized him with acute attention. She was clearly dying to know what ailed his father, being the gossipy sort. “No, he does not have gout,” said August. “He has a...progressive illness.”
“Tell me it is not the consumption!” she cried. Minette’s eyes went wide.
“No,” he assured them. “It’s not consumption, although some of the symptoms are the same. The physicians tell us my father cannot be cured. It’s been very difficult for my mother.”
Beneath Minette’s sympathies and Lady Overbrook’s continuing questions, August could hear the distant strains of his father’s ravings. He looked toward the door. In the bustle of bringing the tea trays, someone had left it open.
“I’m going out,” his father shouted in a ragged voice. “You’ll not keep me prisoner here.”
A footman ran by, and then his father in his invalid’s clothes, night gown and stockings, since he ripped off anything proper they dressed him in. His features were grossly disfigured by the telltale ulcers of advanced syphilis.
“I’ve a horse to ride. And a tree,” the man cried, flailing his arms.
“Yes, my lord,” came an attendant’s weary voice. Countess Overbrook and Minette had both gone very still. There was a great pounding from the area of the front door.
“My horse,” said his father. “Bring my horse. I’m going to the theater. Fairies. There are fairies, what? On stage. I have a tree. I’m under the tree, I tell you, and they’re all around. You don’t believe me!”
“To bed, my lord, please,” another attendant pleaded.
His father howled a string of lewd oaths. This at last propelled August to rise and shut the door, but a footman shut it first from outside, so August was left stranded halfway across the parlor. He flushed red, his hands in fists. On the other side of the door, he could still hear his father cursing and railing as they corralled him back to his private wing of the house.
“Well,” he said, turning back to the women. “This is obviously one of my father’s worse days. I apologize.”
The dowager fingered her fan. “I am so sorry, Lord Augustine. I am sorry for his...inquietude.”
August nodded to acknowledge her sympathies. Minette looked pale. She touched her cup, picked it up and put it down again. “Yes, I’m sorry too. It’s terrible to feel so agitated and out of sorts when one is sick. I remember smacking my nurse once when I had a fever. Well, I don’t remember, I was very young, but apparently she tried to make me take some broth and I was not at all
in the mood for it. I hit her and upended the bowl all over the poor woman. I was the very worst handful as a child.”
You are still the very worst handful, August thought. She’d come here against his express wishes, dragging along her aunt so that the society maven might see and hear his father’s demented ravings. Doubtless the woman would tell everyone she knew that the vaunted Marquess of Barrymore was dying of the pox.
“I ought to go and be sure my father is all right,” he said.
The dowager stood very quickly for a woman of her age. “Then I shall thank you for your hospitality before I take my leave. I promised Lady Metcalfe I would dine with her and her family this evening, and I know my niece wishes to settle in to her new home.”
Hands were squeezed and air kisses were exchanged. Lady Overbrook sailed out and climbed into her waiting carriage, now emptied of Minette’s things. He half considered ordering them repacked, and sending her off with her aunt. It would serve her right for defying his wishes. She’s your wife. You live with her.
Yes, Minette was his wife now, and as such, obliged to obey his commands.
*** *** ***
Minette focused on unpacking and arranging her things, rather than the edge in August’s voice when he’d instructed her to await his company in her rooms. Why, there was so much to be done. Her private sitting room wasn’t aired, the bed wasn’t made, and the dressing room was rather smaller than the one back home.
But then, she hadn’t brought all her things. Some were coming behind, in a hired baggage coach. Oh, it was all very sudden and disorganized, but when her aunt said she was coming to town, Minette knew she must seize the opportunity or resign herself to being stuck in the country for a tiresome amount of time. Her husband wasn’t happy about it. Yet. She would soon show him that she wouldn’t be any sort of nuisance at all, that, in fact, she could make his life much more pleasant with her company.
Yes, even pleasant in that way. She’d had some enlightening talks with Josephine over the past week, about men and their desires, and how to keep them happy. Josie hadn’t been terribly explicit—and Minette was grateful for that, since the lady was married to her brother—but she had given her advice about tenderness and courage, and allowing men to express themselves, and being willing to give oneself up to their deepest desires, even if those desires seemed strange or frightening on the surface.
Minette didn’t intend to be frightened. She would do whatever she must to develop a closeness with August, and she certainly couldn’t develop this closeness unless she was living in the same household with him.
So she would not fret about his reproachful looks or that disquieting edge to his voice, because she was exactly where she ought to be, and if he didn’t know it now, he would know it soon enough. He was probably only at ends due to his father’s illness, which was not the sort of illness she had envisioned. She had pictured Lord Barrymore sniffling and sick in bed, not stalking about the house in bed clothes, raving about trees and fairies and being kept prisoner. Poor August. Lord Barrymore had clearly lost his mind, and her husband must have thought such outbursts would trouble her.
But the only thing that troubled her was the idea of August bearing these burdens alone, without his caring and supportive wife by his side. And in his bed. My goodness, she really couldn’t stop thinking about bedroom things now that she’d been confronted with him again, now that she’d remembered anew how large and masculine and handsome he was, with his thick, tousled ebony hair and those dark hazel eyes that held her gaze with such intense focus.
She shivered and arranged her primping things upon the vanity table with her maid’s help. The best way to calm her nerves was to settle in and remember her purpose here—to provide companionship to her husband in his time of need.
Still, she jumped when the strident knock came at the sitting room door. She passed through the comfortably appointed room to open it, hiding any misgivings behind a brilliant smile.
“There you are, August. I’m just helping Mercer put away the last of my things.”
Bother, that frown. And he always looked so formidable when he wore dark clothes. “Send Mercer away,” he said brusquely. “You and I are going to have a talk.”
Oh, no. She did not believe this would be the sort of talk she’d enjoy. The sort of talk, for instance, where he might thank her for coming to London against his wishes because he really hadn’t known best, and because she belonged here and might help him, and all of that. It looked more like the sort of talk where he might scold her and turn her over his knee for being disobedient and stubborn.
There was really only one practical way to handle such a discussion. Minette ducked and slipped past him, and broke into a run down the hall.
She heard his outraged gasp, his order that she stop and return to him immediately, but she was not so foolish a woman as that. Barrymore House was a great big domicile, and there must be plenty of places to hide when one was in crisis. She must go downstairs, to the kitchens or the stables, where lots of people were around, and where August would not want to seem an insensitive husband before the staff. She took the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping on the landing, for she heard his steps right behind her.
Why, it wasn’t dignified for a husband to chase his wife when she clearly didn’t wish to be caught. She ought to have made Aunt Overbrook stay until she knew August’s feelings on her unexpected arrival. He would have behaved in front of her aunt, she was sure of it.
Goodness, he could really run fast.
He caught her arm and drew her to a halt, and tossed her, without so much as a by-your-leave, over his shoulder. “What a capital idea,” he said, only slightly winded. “Let’s have this discussion in my study, since I happen to have your paddle stowed in the desk.”
Minette froze in the midst of her squirming. “You brought the paddle from Oxfordshire?”
“Indeed I brought it, so you wouldn’t be tempted to dispose of it in my absence.” He took hold of her legs to arrest her kicking. “I’m glad I thought of it. If you ever deserved a paddling, it’s now.”
“But what have I done? I’ve only come to be with you,” she pleaded. “I was lonely.”
He strode into the study, hauling her past a duo of footmen with her bottom and skirts flailing in the air. It was not well done of him. When he set her down, she faced him with her hands on her hips.
“Do you know what? You are terribly confused about how to be a husband. You’re not doing anything right. You’re not being kind or warm, or caring. You decide that you ought to leave me in Oxfordshire when everyone knows husbands and wives should be together. Now you’re dragging me about your home in front of all the servants in this humiliating and ignoble way.”
Rather than see her side of things, his frown only deepened. “Are you finished?”
“No, I’m not finished,” she said, tossing her head. “I can go on another twenty minutes or so about all the things you’re doing wrong in this marriage, not that I think you’ll listen, since you seem a very stubborn person indeed.”
His brows rose. “I’m a stubborn person? I told you in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want you to come to London, and here you are. You brought your aunt with you to be sure that gossip of my father’s illness spreads to the greatest group of society possible.”
“I brought my aunt with me so I wouldn’t have to travel alone. And she is not a gossip.”
“I beg to differ. Every one of her friends is going to learn in short order that the Marquess of Barrymore has gone mad, and it’s your fault. Not only are you stubborn, Minette, but you don’t consider anyone else’s wishes, only your own. You wanted to come to London and so you came, completely disregarding my instructions to the contrary.” He took her arm and marched her over to the desk, and jerked open a drawer to withdraw the horrid paddle. “As a consequence, you’re going to receive a very harsh spanking.”
“But it’s not fair.” She began to tremble out of shock, out of fear, out of dr
ead that she wouldn’t survive an entire spanking with that painful implement.
“Not fair? Did you disobey me, Minette?”
“I disobeyed you, but only because—”
“I don’t care why. I only care that you learn not to disobey again. Bend over the desk.”
“Please, no,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to be paddled.”
“And I didn’t want you to appear here this afternoon with your Aunt Overbrook. You see how these things work.” He pressed her down over the desk and drew her skirts up, holding her in place with one firm palm. “If you don’t want to be punished, don’t countermand my orders. Now be still,” he barked as she kicked at him. “You’re getting a dozen smart cracks with this paddle.”
“Why don’t you just give me a stern lecture about things? Owww!” She jumped and cried out as the first stinging stroke landed upon her bottom. “Husbands shouldn’t spank wives. A scolding would work just as—”
Her voice cut off with the hot explosion of the second stroke. She reached back to impede him; she knew it wouldn’t be allowed but it hurt so badly she couldn’t help it. He took her hand and pushed it back down to the desk. “Place your hands beneath you and keep your feet on the floor. I’ll add more strokes each time you impede me.”
His strident tone left no question that she must obey. A dozen strokes to bear, and she was dying after only two. She mustn’t earn any more. The next smack landed, sharp and crisp. She kicked her legs, but put her feet right back on the floor again before he decided to make good on his threat.
“Oh, no,” she whispered as the fourth one landed, harder than any of the three before. “I can’t bear this.”
My Naughty Minette (Properly Spanked Book 3) Page 7