She gazed down at him. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes.” He tongued each nipple until she gasped. “You like that, my wanton wife-to-be?”
“Yes,” she choked out, and clasped his head. “Though I don’t remember . . . agreeing to marry you after my . . . most recent refusal.”
He paused to stare up into her face. “Don’t tease me about that. I thought I’d lost you forever. And I had no one to blame for it but myself. So take pity on me. I won’t survive the loss of you again, my love.”
“You . . . you love me?” she stammered.
“More than you can imagine.” He worked loose the buttons of his fall and then his drawers and pulled them down and open in front to expose his very aroused flesh. “Shall I explain it some more?”
“Definitely.” She smiled. “I fear your wife-to-be is a slow learner.”
Lifting her skirts, he urged her to straddle him. She noticed he was careful to spread his coat on the bench on either side so she didn’t have to kneel on the cold stone as he guided her onto his member. That small gentlemanly bit of concern warmed her heart.
As she slid down atop him, he groaned. “You feel like heaven, sweeting.”
“So do you,” she whispered, surprised to find that the discomfort from their first time was gone, replaced by the pleasing feeling of his thickness inside her. “My heaven. My love.”
“Mine,” he growled possessively as he teased and sucked her breast. “Forever.”
Using his hands to urge her to move up, he finally made her realize what she was supposed to do. “Oh!” she said. “How interesting.”
“An experiment, if you will,” he rasped. “In driving me to distraction.”
She gave a choked laugh. “I could get used . . . to such experiments. As long as they don’t lead to . . . sudden fires.”
“Oh, trust me, this will lead to sudden fires.” With his eyes gleaming, he licked her nipple. “Just not the chemical kind.”
Then he thrust up against her, and she took his instruction and began to move. Between his thrusts and her urge for more, they fell into a rhythm that made her feel like a queen mastering her subject. Except he was far too big and masterful to be a mere subject.
“I love you,” she murmured as her blood began to heat. “I love you even more than chemistry.”
His face lit up at those words. “I love you . . . even more than the theater.” He was driving up into her now with a glorious excess that made her ache and moan and shimmy atop him. “I love you,” he said hoarsely, “as the ocean loves the shore.”
“As phosphorus loves the air.” She came down on him faster now in response to his frenzied motions. He was rousing her own need, drawing her ever closer to the edge . . . to where she would find . . . her match . . . and light them both.
“For all time.” He pounded into her. “In all places. Mine. My love.”
And just as her body erupted and she clutched him to her with a cry, he thrust up into her with a cry of his own, her cascade of echoing eruptions milking him. Then she collapsed on top of him, spent and satisfied.
Some time passed while they held each other close and basked in the warmth of their joined bodies.
Then Thorn stirred beneath her. “I take it that your parents are not home?”
That brought her back to herself rather abruptly. “Oh, Lord, Mama will be here any minute. She’ll come looking for us once she hears from the butler that you’re here in the garden. With me.” Feeling a bit panicked, she slid off him and began setting her clothing to rights.
“What can she do?” he said, a hint of laughter in his voice. “Force us to marry?”
Casting her gaze heavenward, she grabbed the pages of his play and swatted him with them. “You won’t find it humorous when she demands that we hurry to London and marry right away. Especially after all the travel you’ve been doing.”
“Ah, but after that we can be together in the master suite at Rosethorn by tonight. Sounds perfect to me.”
“Doesn’t it, though?” She paused to imagine that and smiled. Then she imagined Papa chasing Thorn around with his hunting gun, and she went over to pull on Thorn. “You have to get up and button up your clothes!”
With a laugh, he rose and buttoned his few buttons, then pulled her into his arms. “Calm down, will you? While I was waiting for you, I told your butler I was your fiancé and paid him to leave us be. I also paid him to warn us if he saw either of your parents arriving.”
“You were rather sure of yourself,” she said, fighting a smile.
“I was sure I would say or do whatever I must to make you mine.”
“Allow me to continue as a chemist?”
“Done,” he said.
“Even if it means not always having me readily available?”
“Even if it means I have to wait on you hand and foot.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You have servants for that.”
“There are certain things I’d rather do myself,” he said, eyes gleaming. Then he turned serious. “I do have one caveat. That when you’re enceinte, you don’t perform any experiments with dangerous chemicals.”
“Done,” she said, smiling broadly. “You see how easy it is to negotiate with me?”
“You’re content as long as I ‘explain’ things, right?”
She laughed at his smug smile. “Oh, yes. I am a blank slate when it comes to those sorts of explanations, my love.”
“Well, then,” he said. “I can see a great deal of explaining in my future.”
And as he bent to kiss her, she decided there was something to be said for marrying a writer.
Epilogue
It had taken some wrangling to get his siblings and their spouses, not to mention Mother, in one place, but Thorn had them all together at last. Now if only he could stop grinning, a highly inappropriate behavior given the subject of the meeting.
But he couldn’t help it. Yesterday, he and Olivia had finally been married, although it had taken three weeks instead of the three days he’d wanted, thanks to the women clamoring that they needed time to plan the wedding, special license or not.
Now Olivia sat with the others around the large table at Rosethorn, smiling coyly as if remembering last night’s wild lovemaking. He would have to keep from looking at her. Or remembering how it felt to be inside her last night, knowing that she was his forever. Or remembering waking to the sight of her in his bed, his wife.
That, rather than the actual wedding, had been the crowning moment for him.
“What’s this about, Thorn?” Sheridan demanded.
He wiped the grin from his face. “Mother and the deaths of her husbands. A subject that has weighed heavily on our minds of late.”
“I knew you children were up to something!” Mother exclaimed. When everyone turned to look at her, she added, rather petulantly, “Well, I did. A mother knows these things.” She paused to regard them all with a quizzical gaze. “So, what are you up to, exactly?”
“Are you going to explain, Grey, or shall I?” Thorn asked.
“It’s your house,” Grey drawled. “You should do it. Besides, you and Wolfe are the only ones who know the whole story.”
“All right,” Thorn said, and turned to his mother. “As you may remember, last year we came to the conclusion that Maurice and his predecessor were both murdered.” When her eyes widened, he added hastily, “That was what got us all thinking about the fathers of Grey and us twins. We think perhaps they were both murdered, too.”
“That’s absurd.” Mother shook her head. “Thorn, your father was killed in a carriage accident!”
“Yes, but we now think Father’s was caused when the perch screws were loosened enough to send the coachman flying off and to startle the driverless horses. And if not for Wolfe’s swift intervention earlier this year, you, Gwyn, Wolfe, and I might also have been killed on our way to London for the debuts. Since both accidents involved the perch screws being loosened, both were probably also deli
berate.”
“What?” Mother said. “I—I don’t understand.”
Gwyn covered her hand. “We didn’t want to bother you with what we uncovered, Mama, until we were certain we weren’t imagining things. But it does seem as if someone has been systematically murdering the gentlemen close to you. And if not for Joshua and I seeing the fellow fooling with the carriage, you too would have been in an accident. We four might have been killed or maimed!”
“So we decided to start by investigating the death of my father,” Grey said. “We suspected he might not have died of an ague because I, who supposedly infected him, did not perish, but Father did. That’s why I asked Thorn’s wife to use her extensive knowledge of chemistry to test my father’s remains. That’s the real reason Thorn and Olivia traveled to Carymont with me and Beatrice.”
“That was all a sham?” Mother sat back with a huff. “You four ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
“We didn’t want to worry you,” Beatrice said hastily.
“Hmph,” Mother said.
“Anyway, Mother,” Thorn said with a smile for Olivia, “my brilliant wife found arsenic in the remains. But before she did, someone attempted to put an end to her tests by destroying her laboratory.” His voice turned steely. “She could have been killed. Thankfully, she wasn’t there. And although the lad named Elias, who did it, fled, Joshua tracked him down and arrested him. But Elias was murdered in Newgate before he could reveal who hired him.”
Everyone else gasped.
“Do we know how?” Sheridan asked.
“We know he was poisoned by arsenic,” Thorn said. “We don’t know how it ended up in his food in the prison.”
Sheridan leaned over the table. “Is it possible he was also responsible for the deaths of Uncle Armie and Father?”
“At this point, anything is possible,” Thorn said. “Well, except that Elias couldn’t have done the two earlier murders. He was too young. Still, we have a number of suspects.”
“A number of suspects?” Mother exclaimed. “Good Lord. Who would do such a thing?”
“We’re getting to that, Mother,” Grey said.
Thorn laid down two sheets of aging paper. “As you know, Mother has a tendency to store her entire past in boxes in the attic.” Everyone laughed. “So we have a list of who was present at Carymont for Grey’s christening, which is when Grey’s father died. We also have a list of who was present at Rosethorn for the birth of me and Gwyn, which is when our father died. Excluding Mother, three names appear on both lists, all female. Grey and I figured that if we’re correct and both men were murdered, someone had to have had access, which means they attended both events.”
Mother stood. “I can’t believe this . . . this conspiracy you suspect. It seems outlandish. Those people were our friends. Why would any of them kill your fathers?”
Sheridan sat back in his chair. “I don’t know, Mother, but you heard the evidence from last year about Father and Uncle Armie. So that’s three of your husbands and one of your husband’s brothers. It definitely seems to be a pattern.”
The color drained from her face. “Then why should I be excluded from the list of possible guilty parties?”
“Because you couldn’t have managed all four murders,” Thorn said gently. “In our father’s case, you would have been in labor. It’s highly unlikely you were sneaking about, unscrewing carriage perches. In Uncle Armie’s case, you were abroad. In fact, we think that’s why this villainess waited so long to kill our stepfather. Her reach didn’t extend to Prussia. We think she grew frustrated when you and Maurice stayed so long in Prussia, and so she murdered Uncle Armie to get you and Maurice, Uncle Armie’s heir, back here so she could murder Maurice, too.”
“And possibly me,” Mother said.
Grey nodded. “The truth is, we have no idea why someone would have committed so many murders. And until we understand that, we can’t unravel this conspiracy, if that’s what this is.”
Mother sank back into her chair. “So who are the three women on both lists?”
“First is Grey’s Aunt Cora, a vicious and most ambitious woman, as you well know,” Thorn said. “Then there’s Lady Norley, whom my wife assures me could not be the culprit. And there’s your friend, Lady Hornsby.”
“Surely not her,” Beatrice said. “She was so kind to me during my presentation at court.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” Thorn said, “we must treat all three as possibilities, even if my wife does claim she can vouch for her stepmother’s character.”
Grey took up the tale. “But although we’ve proved to our own satisfaction that my father was murdered by poison, it would be difficult to investigate the other components of a crime that happened thirty-four years ago. So Thorn, Gwyn, and I have agreed that our best hope of catching this fiend lies in trying to unravel the most recent murders—that of the two Armitage dukes.”
Thorn nodded to Sheridan and Heywood. “So we’ll be relying on you two for that investigation. Although I realize Heywood has only been in that area a year, and Sheridan a year more, you know the town and its residents better than the rest of us. The local populace trusts you, and you’ve shown your measure by now. Besides, the questions of a local duke and his brother will carry more weight than those lodged by any of us. And I don’t want to put any of that burden on Mother.”
“I beg your pardon.” Mother sniffed. “I am as much a member of that area as the boys, so I certainly mean to do my part. And I refuse to give the townspeople any hint that my sons are investigating a murder I might be involved in.”
Sheridan put his arm around her. “I promise Heywood and I will make it clear that we don’t suspect you.”
“Not good enough,” Mother said. “Put me to work.”
“We’ll talk about that later, Mother,” Heywood said.
“One last thing,” Thorn said. “Our other reason for this meeting is to advise caution. Thus far, our villainess hasn’t tried to kill any of us, except for Elias’s bungled attempt to damage the carriage, but that may change. After engineering the murders of so many, she may not stop at those. So every one of us must be on our guard. At the same time, we think it prudent not to share these suspicions with anyone unless it’s necessary. We don’t want to paint targets on our backs.”
“So don’t tell Vanessa that we suspect her mother, Grey,” Sheridan said. “Because that woman will drive us all mad trying to find out why.”
Heywood laughed. “You’re the only one she drives mad, brother. Especially her infatuation with that Juncker poet friend of Thorn’s.”
“That’s the poet my cousin has been talking about all this time?” Grey scowled at Thorn. “Did you know?”
“I . . . er . . . only found out a short time ago. And I wasn’t about to mention it to you. I knew you wouldn’t be happy about it.”
“Vanessa and Juncker,” Grey muttered. “God help us all.”
“Before the conversation degenerates further into gossip irrelevant to the subject at hand,” Thorn said dryly, “I have one more piece of business to mention. Wolfe has agreed to be in charge of gathering and documenting our efforts. He has powerful friends in London, including Bow Street runners and others who investigate crimes. So if you need a bit of information you can’t uncover, turn to him.”
“We should enlist Mr. Bonham,” Mother said. “He was a solicitor before he became Maurice’s man of affairs, so he knows something about the law.”
Thorn had to stifle a curse. “We’re not bringing in people outside the family except to gain bits of information from them, Mother. I doubt that anyone would put together those isolated bits, but if we involve Bonham, he’ll see them altogether and know what we’re up to. We can’t be sure that your suitor won’t gossip to the wrong person.”
Mother was blushing. “He’s not my suitor,” she said.
Gwyn and Beatrice exchanged a knowing smile.
“No matter what he is, he can’t be part of this, Mother. Do you unde
rstand?”
She thrust out her chin. “Whatever you say, Thorn. God forbid I should have a male friend. Or female friends, for that matter, without having my children suspect them as criminals.” She rose. “I’ll see about ordering us some tea.”
“I’ll help you,” Olivia said, jumping up to follow Mother, with a chiding glance for Thorn.
Then he caught Gwyn and Beatrice glaring at him. “What?” he asked.
“Couldn’t you have put it more delicately?” Gwyn said. “Mother just heard the news that practically all of her friends are suspects. She’s still taking it all in. You could have been more tactful in telling her not to reveal what we know to her friend Bonham.”
“Thorn?” Grey said. “Tact isn’t his forte. I mean, he was right about Bonham, but he doesn’t have a tactful bone in his body.”
“Do you remember the time when the king came to visit our stepfather—” Sheridan began.
“Meeting adjourned!” Thorn said and marched out the door. He was done dealing with his family for the moment. He wanted his wife.
His wife. And duchess and bed partner and the woman who knew him better than anyone. He smiled in spite of himself. She made everything better. He must have been daft not to fight harder for her nine years ago.
He found her talking to his mother in the drawing room and stood back to listen.
“You have to understand,” Olivia said. “Thorn is a typical bullheaded man when it comes to ordering his mother around. He thinks he has every right to tell you what to do.”
Mother said something he couldn’t hear.
Olivia laughed. “Exactly.”
Mother said something else, and not being able to hear it frustrated him, so there was no point in eavesdropping. Besides, Olivia would tell him later.
He entered the room. “Mother, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
His mother rose and came over to give him a kiss on the cheek. “It’s all right. Olivia explained how you were just being a man.”
“And you agree with her?”
“I do, actually.” She smiled faintly, then leaned up to whisper, “I like your wife a great deal. And she seems to love you quite a bit, too.”
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