Duchess Decadence (5 page)

She closed her eyes. Drizzle had darkened the morning, but the evening sun streamed through the windows. Warmth settled over her skin and into her heart. Her fingers began to move over the keys, first hesitantly, but with increasing strength. She played a song of her own composition. A song at once, both lullaby to her loss, and hope for her future.

Their
future.

Chapter Three

Wynchester entered his garden refuge enraged at the depth of his sentiment and simultaneously fearful he’d scared his duchess away—
again
. And, only a few scant moments after she’d returned.

What do you want
?

He should have expected her to ask such a question. Was it not her way to attack the most valuable, and most vulnerable in him? Did he need more proof she had been, and would always be, hell-bent on his destruction?

Why…
why
had he answered in truth?

His sigh hissed through his teeth. Why… Because of sentiment’s insatiable hunger, of course. He loosened his cravat and wrestled out of his confining coat. The effort colored his cheeks and belabored his breath. He scowled at his discarded jacket as if its green cotton, elaborate white stitching, and costly brass buttons were to blame for his discomfit, instead of the raven-haired sorceress whose feathers beckoned with the same force her talons bit.

The bed remains undisgraced…I could not risk a bastard duke.

The base of his fist hit the marble bench with a thud. By Saint Swithin, she did not make any sense. Interactions should be, if not always predictable, then ordered. Conversations should be as simple as checkered-surface games. Certainly, an opponent was expected to hold an opposing objective, but a rook moved straight and a bishop, along diagonals. Rules kept order. That was just
The Way Things Were
. One could not be both
loyal
and
disloyal
.

…And yet a bed
could
be empty and undisgraced. He smoothed the base of his palm over his forehead. Whoa, charging beast. Was
undisgraced
even a word?

It did not matter. He had understood her meaning. He held her image in his mind and blurred his mental vision, concentrating, for once, on
her
the way he would analyze pieces on a board. In leaving, she had acted selfishly, to be sure. But, as he held the word
selfish,
the concept broke down into other states-of-being
—
like
hurt
,
angry
, and
grieving
.

He held those sentiments, sensing but not understanding their impact while the garden’s rose-scent permeated his being and soothed the crease between his brows. Words, and the sentiments they dissected, dissipated into the midsummer air. All that remained was Thea Marie. His duchess, his wife, and the center of his troubled soul.

With a deep sigh, he pulled off his white club-wig and ran his fingers through his newly close-cropped hair. He opened his legs and rested his elbows on his knees as he studied the thorned stalks protruding from the center bed.

Thea treated him as if he were prick and menace with no expectation he would ever produce fruit. If only she could see—
really see
—past the trappings of the Worthington name and Wynchester title. Just once. But how could he expect her to see past the Wynchester title when
he
could not? Was there anything to him beyond being the Duke of Wynchester?

Would that he could understand the man he should be as clearly as he had always understood his responsibilities. Would that he could divest the mistakes of the past as easily as his valet had shorn his tangled locks.

A kind of justice had been served when his valet acted as conduit Delilah to his Sampson, since it was a conversation with his valet that had caused Thea to flee in the first place.
Will she ever cease her endless sorrow?
He had said as his valet pumped clouds of talc over his hair.
It was a pregnancy, not a child.

He hung his head. He’d never forget the horror immediately stamped into his heart after he’d spoken those words. He’d opened his eyes to see Thea Marie reflected in the mirror, the same horror manifest in her startled gaze.

He’d always known it was not only her miscarriage that had hollowed out her heart, but also the terrible terror she’d been subjected to during the riots. Later that night, when he returned from his club’s solace, he’d been unsurprised to find her dressing room hooks empty.

Empty hooks to go with Eustace’s empty bed and the stilled cradle in the Wynterhill nursery.

A striking swell of sentiment rose in his chest. The burn in his eyes could have been the urge to weep, but such was nonsense…as was the notion he wanted Thea on his right, his brother on his left and his child in his arms.

Two of these were impossible. The third, he had cursed by speaking his folly of his desire aloud. Lesson twice learned: wants and wishes were common. And, for a man of his station, weeping was absolutely out of the question, even if the royal heir was known to indulge.

A Duke is born to privilege with a responsibility to lead—he is no mere citizen to be slave to something as mercurial as sentiment
.

His mother’s words perhaps, but his motto. He would not make his father’s mistakes. His father, who had become so enraptured with his madam-mistress, he later took her to wife… And yet, here he sat, in a garden he’d planted from the cuttings of Thea’s trampled rose bushes, wiping dry salt from his eyes because he’d spoken aloud of both his grief and his desire.

He should be appalled. At the very least he should get a-
bloody
-hold of himself. He lifted his wig to shake out the disordered curls. Then, he heard music.

The song began—a low baseline, heavy with loss. Roving, resonant chords played dark as a moonless night until a soothing series of single treble notes pitter-pattered into the sound. A wispy, upper-melody began to roll over the mournful base, white froth capping murky ocean swells.

Wordless emotion danced in the air through the invisible waves of sound. The notes washed over him with power he could not deny. Called by the music, he approached the open door. Gradually, as if pulled by the hopeful melody, the darker refrain climbed into a higher octave, still sad, but no longer mournful. As if he, too, were being pulled by a similar strain, he moved forward until he came to rest against the wall, Thea just beyond his reach. He cupped the back of his neck, closed his eyes, and pressed his cheek into his arm.

The melody sunk back into darkness. She played each note hard, clear, and full. Silently, he sank down onto his haunches and remained in that position until the music’s wistful yearning pushed him to his knees. He inched closer to her back, seeking solace in her nearness. When close enough to feel her heat, he paused and bowed his head.

She must have sensed him; the music faded. His weight was on his knees, but his heart was in her hands and their future locked inside the sudden silence.

“Please,” he whispered.

She resumed playing, aching and perfect—music for the words he wished he could speak, if only they would not clog in his throat. He remained bowed, forehead near-touching her spine, both of them together on an island surrounded by sound. The music churned until the hopeful melody returned. More hesitant this time—unsure. Afraid to disturb the outpour, he placed his hands on the bench at her sides. In her musical weave of hopeful notes, he heard the answer to his desire.

Our life?
Yes. Please
.

But her plea was not directed at him. Her plea was spoken to the dark, and followed by questions,
is it possible? And, can it be?
She finished her piece with a dissonant chord—a musical question which could not be answered.

Years of solitude kept him from gathering her waist and weeping into her skirts. He cleared his throat.

“You still play like an angel.”

“I have not…” A subtle shiver. “I have not played in some time. And…and I must say I have never played on a creation so beautiful.”

Her hand hovered over his before coming to rest on his knuckles. He parsed the sight with fascination. A few weeks prior, at the foot of her friend Lavinia’s stairs, he’d kissed her with a desperate thirst. Last night, he’d held her in a drunken embrace. But this…this was her
voluntary
touch. And her gentleness slashed him to pieces. Her gentleness was all he ever wanted and everything he needed to deny.

“Wyn?” she queried.

Beads of sweat cooled his brow. He dared not look up, or else she’d catch sight of water in his eyes.

“Excess of sentiment,” he whispered, “leads to disaster.”

She sighed. “Sometimes disaster lays in wait, laughing at our preparation.”

She’d left a door cracked. He took a deep breath and followed.

“I should never have left you alone.”

“Some awkwardness is to be expected.” She hesitated. “I must learn the house and Bates showed me—”

“I was not speaking of today.” His words tumbled out. “I was speaking of the riots. The Gordon Riots.”

Her breath stopped. She stood. He settled his hands on the quickly dissipating warmth she’d left behind. Her skirts brushed his arm as she sunk into the floor, so they faced the bench as if kneeling at an altar.

Again, she covered his hands with hers. “You should have been with me. But it does not follow…” her voice wavered, “…that my pregnancy would have come to term? Perhaps…perhaps I would have lost you both.”

He exhaled more deeply than he had in years. He leaned until his shoulder touched hers. She brought her head temple to temple with his. He caught one of her hands and brought her fingers to his lips.

“I regret…” he faded, transfixed by the dampness he left on her skin.

“As do I,” she answered with a halting sigh.

Within the prayer-like silence an image formed—the two of them, packing away the nursery at Wynterhill, readying what remained to give to a family in need. In his mind’s eye, they would stand in the empty room when finished, and he’d take her hand in his. Shared touch would lift them, as her light melody had lifted him, to a place above the loss.

“I’d like…” he started. “That is to say…” He blinked, squinted, and glanced upward for courage. “I’d like,” he angled his head to bring her into view. Her raven hair blurred with another damp rush, “good to come from the bad.”

She frowned, puzzling out his meaning.

“I have,” he swallowed, “left the nursery—the clothes and the cradle—untouched. They could be of use,” he blinked, “to someone less fortunate.”

Her silence stretched out for an interminable moment. “But the Worthington cradle is an heirloom.”

“The Worthington cradle is wood. Its good use would honor the memory of the—” he sniffed, “of
our
child.” He brushed back her hair, feeling stronger. “There are cradles to be bought. Cradles that have never witnessed the burden of loss.”

Her lower lip quivered and her beautiful blue orbs glistened to match his own.

“Thank you, Wynchester,” she said.

…

Impossible
. Thea slid off her knees and toward her husband. Her thigh came to rest on the floor and her torso, his chest. They huddled together like common urchins and he rested his cheek on the pin-piled mess of her hair.

For the first time in years, she felt truly comforted, and by the man she had blamed for her loss.
Impossible
.

He cupped the back of her neck with tender fingers and lightly kissed her hair. A funny sort of warmth slid down through her spine and pooled in her belly. She knew this man better than any man alive, and yet he was a stranger. He cradled her in his arms in a way he’d never held her before.

Just be still
. Something she’d never been able to do. Be still.

She thought of Wynterhill’s forbidding sand-brown stone, standing half in ruin and half in modern magnificence. She thought of the quiet in what remained of former cloisters and let that quiet settle into her heart. Wynchester had loved Wynterhill so much. So had she. That love was one of the few things they’d shared.

Could she return to the room with the empty cradle? She could, if Wynchester was by her side.

“Have you been,” she turned to look into his eyes, “to Wynterhill?”

“I have gone.” He said solemnly, rawness in his gaze. “But I always find I cannot stay.” His throat moved as he swallowed. “Not without you and not without my brother.”

The mention of Eustace trickled into her feeble consciousness like cold rain.

How
could
she have forgotten about Eustace? About the very reason she was here?

She reached up and touched Wynchester’s cheek. Emma had asked if he’d been told. Now, Thea knew the terrible answer.
Wyn did not know Eustace was alive.

But of course. Would he be here, cradling her to comfort the loss of an unborn child if he had known his brother was alive?
No.
He would be seeking the living. And, if Eustace had been another kind of man, she would deem his actions correct—no matter how sacred the moment they just shared.

Merciful heavens,
what should she do?

This moment felt like Eden, new terrain never explored. She thought of Eustace and frowned—Eden indeed, but
after
the fruit had been eaten with the serpent very much alive and still on the hunt.