The Duke's Disaster (R) (15 page)

“You resent the interruptions when the girls come calling,” Thea concluded. “I’m sorry, Erikson. We’ll keep a better eye on them.”

“I resent not the children,” he said, patting at his lips with the same serviette Thea had used on Nini. “Little girls should not wander off when they have not one but two nursery maids. I have told Anselm this, and he says he’ll put a stop to it, but nothing happens, and they wander again.”

Noah doubtless grumbled, blustered, and threatened, but when it came to the children, that was likely all he’d do.

“Wandering within the confines of the house isn’t likely to get them in much trouble,” Thea said, for the girls knew the place better than she did, “and I’m hopeful if they have more time out-of-doors, with me, with Anselm or Harlan, on their ponies and so forth, they won’t be as restless.”

“You are right.” Erikson’s smile was back, though muted. “You think like a woman. You think of ways around a problem, while we fellows try to smash it to bits. You are on the other side of it while we’re still bashing away. I would like to go on this outing, if you don’t mind.”

How often did Erikson leave his aerie to be among the flora and fauna of Wellspring’s lovely surrounds?

“I couldn’t possibly mind that you want to share the company of two loud, busy, and likely grubby little girls,” Thea said.

“And you,” Erikson said. “Your company too, Duchess.”

Thea said nothing, for Erikson was merely being Continental.

He had the great wisdom to bring butterfly nets with him to the lake, which resulted in both girls racing around madly at great length, and then napping on the blankets Thea had spread under the trees.

“You are what was needed here.” Erikson made this pronouncement from his corner of the blanket. “I shall apologize to Anselm.”

Offered with the same Teutonic resolution that had resulted in the fall of Rome.

“Apologize for what?” Thea asked.

Erikson plucked a long grass flower, folded the stem around the head, and used that to fire the head several yards off toward the water. Had Noah ever indulged in such casual botanical destruction as a small boy?

“I told the duke he was…I don’t know the word—upset in the head?—to marry a lady he had not courted, but you English, you like to do things backward.”

“Backward how?”

Another missile was sent toward the shore. “You conquer a land first, then get to know the people and the riches, if any there are. This is how you end up with places like Canada, which is full of wolves and bears and terrible winters.”

“I’ve also heard it’s very beautiful.” Thea settled back to brace herself on her arms, when she wanted to pluck at the grass to see if she could fire her projectile farther than Erikson’s. “Canada is, of course, not as pretty as the Low Countries.”

“You make families backward too,” Erikson went on, smoothing a hand over soft green grass. “First you marry, then you have the babies, and finally, sometimes, you are friends. Backward. But what do I know? I am only a Dutchman who talks to flowers.”

A big, handsome Dutchman, though Thea sensed no untoward overture from Erikson.

“You also talk to little girls, sir. Anselm and I are not strangers. I knew him for several months before he proposed. We shared many a carriage ride, strolled every park in West London, and even danced on occasion.”

Was that how a woman learned to know the man she’d marry, or did courtship have more to do with tears, cinnamon toast, and trying discussions?

“The duke is managing in Surrey. You’re managing in Kent.” Erikson affected a puzzled expression. “I do not understand the English. Shall we carry the little ones back to their beds? The footmen doubtless hover at the windows, waiting for you to crook your finger at them.”

Two footmen had taken up posts on the terrace within view of the lakeshore without Thea even asking it of them.

“We’ll manage here if you’d like to go back to work, Benjamin,” Thea said. “We’re within sight of the house, and I know you’re busy. I suspect Noah put you up to nursemaiding us, but it isn’t necessary.”

“I will stay,” Erikson said, getting to his feet. “I will take a few moments to contemplate the day, and leave you to your book.” He shook out a blanket and spread it several yards off, between the two girls, then settled himself on his back, hands folded serenely on his flat stomach.

Erikson hadn’t denied that Noah had charged him with chaperone duty. Hadn’t even tried to.

Thea stared at her book—an uncharitable treatment by Miss Austen of impoverished sisters grappling with the challenge of finding suitable mates. Nobody should be expected to focus on such a dreary tale on such a lovely day.

Perhaps Noah didn’t trust his own wife, for which Thea ought to resent him. She’d proven she hadn’t carried a child into the marriage, and still Noah could not give her even the freedom of the Wellspring grounds.

Give the marriage time, she admonished herself, setting Miss Austen’s sermonizing aside and fashioning herself a little missile of grass. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Noah Winters’s marital trust would not be restored any time soon either.

* * *

Noah stood in the doorway to his wife’s sitting room, watching Thea as she worked at her correspondence. The white feather in her hand made a slow progress in one direction, returned, and again worked its way across the page in a soothing, captivating rhythm.

The new Duchess of Anselm was pretty, and not merely in the ornamental fashion of a younger woman.

Noah had missed her.

Had Thea missed him? Was she missing some other fellow, a youthful indiscretion, a passionate interlude, a mad lapse from conventional decorum?

“Husband.”

She smiled, likely as much answer as Noah would have to that conundrum. Better not to know if Thea pined for another. Far better.

Thea rose and came to him, her smile growing shy. “You are safely returned, and after only three days.”

Noah took her in his arms, drew in a lungful of uxorial fragrance, and felt more at
home
than he had a moment ago.

“You received my notes, Wife?”

“Two of them, a husbandly number for a three-day absence,” she said, rubbing her cheek against his chest. “The ponies are secreted in the village livery, and the girls will be insensate with joy if they know you’ve returned with your booty.”

“They’re good ponies,” Noah said, nuzzling Thea’s ear. “I’ve misplaced my brother for at least the next week, though.”

A delightful state of affairs, really.

“This Greymoor fellow must be genial indeed if he sought Harlan’s company as a houseguest on such short acquaintance,” Thea said, making no move to leave Noah’s embrace. “I like Harlan, but I’ll like, as well, having you to myself.”

That pleased Noah inordinately, so he was the one to step back. A single step, only.

“Greymoor will put Harlan’s willing backside on every piece of green, unruly equine stock he has. A good use of a young man’s bravado and hard head, and Greymoor’s countess said to tell you she would feed the boy at least eight meals a day, so you’re not to fret.”

Noah would not fret either.

Thea wore small gold earrings that caught the light and emphasized the curve of her jaw. Noah could not recall seeing her wear any gold jewelry previously. Had she worn them for him?

“Harlan is a credit to his upbringing,” Thea said. “Greymoor is getting the better end of the bargain.”

Her hair was done more softly too, still tidy, but her braid was in a bun rather than a ruthlessly secured coronet.

“I am loath to ask, Wife, but are you still on speaking terms with the girls?”

She regarded him quizzically. “Of course. They’ve been delightful. They are likely one floor above us, rocketing about their rooms in anticipation of seeing you.”

Responsibility tugged Noah toward the nursery. Other sentiments kept him lounging in the doorway with his wife.

“How would they know I’ve arrived?”

“This house has a surfeit of windows, Your Grace.” Thea slipped her arm through Noah’s and tugged him into the sitting room. “You deserve to eat and perhaps wash off the dust of the road before you confront our daughters.”

Noah was hungry; he simply hadn’t realized it. “You’ll join me?”

“Teatime approaches,” Thea said, drawing Noah through their adjoining dressing rooms. “So, yes, I will join you. The tub is already set up in your sitting room, and we can send word to heat the water while you eat. Now tell me more of this Lord and Lady Greymoor, and why the grooms brought home not only two ponies, but that pair of gorgeous mares as well.”

“Because Greymoor could sell piety to the Pope,” Noah groused, though it was strangely comfortable to recount the details of his trip to Thea, to remark on the abundance of bridle paths in Surrey, and describe how Harlan had stood taller when Greymoor had asked the boy’s opinion of this or that horse.

“Harlan rejected a pair of ponies I would have been happy with,” Noah said as Thea pushed his hands away.

“I can undo this more easily than you,” she scolded as she loosened his cravat. “What didn’t Harlan like about the ponies?”

“He liked them well enough—Greymoor showed us only first-quality stock.” Noah stood docilely, hands at his sides, letting Thea undress him as if he were too tired to see to it himself. Come to that, he was tired. He’d ridden the entire distance in a single afternoon rather than send along yet another note to his duchess.

“So were these ponies the wrong colors?” Thea asked, draping Noah’s neckcloth and waistcoat over a chair, then pushing him onto the bed so she could tug off his boots and set them outside the door.

“They were dainty gray ponies, but small.” Noah lifted his chin as Thea went to work unbuttoning his shirt. “Harlan pointed out that the girls will be very attached to their first mounts, and won’t want to part with them. The ponies should thus be as large as can be safely managed, so they will have at least several years’ use before the girls outgrow them.”

Thea’s ensemble was brown with red piping, not a dress Noah recalled seeing on her before they’d married.

“Harlan’s a thoughtful young man,” Thea said, slipping the sleeve buttons from Noah’s cuffs and drawing his shirt over his head. “You’ve done a wonderful job with him.”

Noah’s wife might soon be doing a wonderful job of unbuttoning his falls, and abruptly, his fatigue vanished. He was hot, tired, hungry, and road weary, but he was also
married
.

“I’ve yet to ask you how you fare, Wife.” Noah captured Thea’s wrist and kissed the heel of her hand. “Lady Greymoor sent a letter for you.”

“Thoughtful of her.” Thea stepped back, perhaps because she realized Noah was naked, except for his breeches. Rather than lose the last of his camouflage, he tugged her down to sit beside him on the bed, the faint scent of horse and weary summer traveler coming to his nose through her much sweeter fragrance.

Her slippers were red, also apparently fascinating, for she stared at her toes. “I am…well, since you ask.”

“Well enough to entertain your husband, should he prevail on you tonight for your company?”

Fifteen

Noah heard Thea’s swift intake of breath and the summery sort of quiet thereafter—birds singing in the oaks beyond the balcony, a groom calling the horses in from the pasture, insects faintly droning.

While color flooded up Thea’s neck. “I am that well, Husband.”

Noah looped an arm across her shoulders. “I don’t mean to rush you, but I’d like to see to this.”

What he could
see
was that his word choice had been inappropriate. His wife’s gaze was full of consternation, and then, a heartbeat later, stoic acceptance.

“It is time, I suppose.” Thea rose, and Noah let her go. “Your food is out on the balcony.” She rummaged in his wardrobe, then returned with a dark blue silk dressing gown, and held it out to him.

Noah stepped out of the last of his clothes, and accepted the dressing gown, though he took his time figuring out how to belt the thing, and in that little while, his wife watched him.

Warily.

Noah wasn’t aroused, but he was by no means uninterested, either.

“I’ll tell the footmen to fill the tub,” Thea said.

Noah was grateful for a few minutes to evaluate his options. He took his meal out on the balcony, enjoying the late-afternoon breeze, and the view of the back gardens coming into their full summer glory. The ham, cheese, and bread on the tray were more than adequate to blunt his hunger, and by the time he’d finished eating, the tub was full and gently steaming on the hearthstones.

“Wife?”

“In here.” Thea emerged from his dressing room, clothing draped over her arm. “I’ll leave you in peace. When you’re bathed and dressed, will you come up to the nursery?”

She made a production out of arranging Noah’s clothes on the bed, though in what she didn’t say, in how she wouldn’t meet Noah’s gaze, he detected something amiss.

“Are you nervous regarding our evening, Thea?”

“No.” She fussed at his blue paisley waistcoat—one of his favorites—when she laid it over his shirt. “Well, yes. Are you?”

Valid question.

“Suppose I were to admit to some trepidation.” Noah shrugged out of his dressing gown, once again sensing his wife’s surreptitious perusal while he rearranged soap, flannel, brush, and shaving gear by the bed. “If I were nervous of this evening, what reassurances might you offer me?”

Thea twitched at his clothing and turned to sit on his bed. “Assurances. For you.”

She studied her hands while Noah lowered himself into the soothing bliss of the tub.

“Regarding the proper consummation of our vows,” he added helpfully. “You’ve had this water scented.”

“With lavender. It’s blooming all around the laundry. I could tell you I’m not missish, and you need not worry overmuch about my sensibilities.”

“I have your leave to simply fall upon you and start rutting?” Noah worked up a lather—more lavender—while Thea regarded him as if he sharpened an assassin’s blade. “For God’s sake, Wife, I am not serious. I would not fall upon you had we been parted for weeks. Will you be so kind as to scrub my back?”

The duchess remained across the room on the bed. “Your back?”

Noah had been an idiot to tease her. This looming consummation was not a detail to Thea, not merely the next thing on the list of duties. For the first time, Noah wished he might have elicited a few specifics from her regarding her earlier experiences.

Except those specifics might not have been altogether pleasant, and what was he to do then?

He held out the soap and a wet flannel to his wife.

“My back.” Noah gestured over his shoulder, and Thea approached the tub as if it held a quantity of snakes.

Noah sat forward, passed her the soap and cloth, and hunched his shoulders. Tentatively at first, then more confidently, Thea set about scrubbing his back.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said. “You have to know that much already.” He offered what he expected was the most basic of assurances while Thea bent over his back, the slide of the soap and the cloth kneading muscles beat to soreness by miles in the saddle.

“You are disappointed in me,” Thea said, sitting back on the stool beside the tub. “I cannot expect intimate consideration from you beyond a certain point. I’ll rinse your back if you hold still.”

“No need.” Noah slouched down into the water, effectively rinsing. “Might I prevail upon you to wash the rest of me? Sitting here, I’ve grown prodigiously comfortable, if tired.”

“You want me to touch you.”

Noah wanted her to
enjoy
touching him.

He leaned back against the tub, took the hand in which she held the soap, and put it against his chest.

“Why wouldn’t you expect every courtesy of me under intimate conditions, Wife?”

Thea muttered something as she set to scrubbing his chest, but all Noah heard was “…typical man,” in tones not suggestive of respect.

“Thea, stop.”

Her hand went still, and she stared at his knees where they formed wet, bony islands of male flesh in the water.

Noah leaned forward the few necessary inches, and kissed Thea’s cheek. “Hello. I’m glad to be home.”

Thea dropped the soap into the water and regarded Noah’s right knee. “Hello, Husband.”

Now what? Noah took a wild shot. “I missed you.”

“You don’t need to do this.” Thea sat back again, a line of dampness across her chest.

“What don’t I need to do?”

She waved a hand. “Turn up sweet. Put on airs and graces, as if we’re enthralled with each other. I know my duty.”

“Your duty?” The situation was growing more complicated, not less, which was a road to marital disaster. “Lock the door, Thea, and start undressing. We might as well clarify this dreadful duty of yours sooner rather than later.”

Noah had considered this option while he’d had solitude on the balcony, and saw now that it would be the kinder choice for them both.

Thea rose, for once doing as he bid.

Noah made short work of the rest of his bath, kneeling up so Thea could rinse his hair, then rising from the tub and accepting a towel from her. He didn’t bother with the dressing gown, but stood behind her, naked and damp, and saw to the hooks of her dress. The cut was high-waisted, a summery fabric that wafted around her gracefully but did little to hint at her curves.

Thea took the dress off over her head, and passed it to him, then stood still while he unlaced her stays. She let out a great sigh when she stepped free of the corset, then rubbed at her waist.

“Why do you wear it so bloody tight?” Noah asked. Thea’s belly would bear the imprint of the chemise’s wrinkles.

“The intent of the corset is to preserve modesty.”

A true duchess could lecture on propriety when wearing only her chemise.

“Modesty, bah. Torment, by another name.” Noah studied the abundance of Thea’s unbound breasts beneath her chemise, the sweet, soft taper of her unconfined waist. “If I forbid you to wear that corset, would you abide by my guidance?”

Thea nodded, once, watching him the way a mouse would watch a visiting hawk. “At least at home, I would. That corset is hot, and…constricting of the lungs.”

“Get rid of it.”

When Thea started untying the bows of her summer-length chemise, Noah stepped closer and stilled her hands with his own.

“I meant the corset, Wife. You can wear country stays or jumps, or three chemises instead. We will discuss this other business.” Noah gestured at her chemise, the plainest piece of sacking ever to conceal a man’s dearest fantasies.

Without benefit of his clothing, he led Thea by the wrist up to the bed. A breeze came in from the balcony, the house and grounds had the profound quiet of a lazy summer afternoon, and the room was redolent of the lavender scenting the tub.

Such ordinary domestic circumstances, and such an extraordinary moment in their marriage.

Noah sat with Thea on the bed. “You are willing, Wife?”

“You are kind to ask,” she said, her gaze brushing over him. “I am willing.”

“So am I, were you inclined to inquire. How would you like to proceed?”

“I don’t know what you’re asking.”

Clearly, she did not. Thea’s shoulders were hunched as if to ward off blows or blushes; Noah knew not which. That she should be so unknowing pleased him, that she worried, made conversation rather challenging.

“I’m asking how to pleasure you,” he said, which was masterfully delicate of him, if he did say so himself. “I’m asking what you like, and what you don’t like.”

“I like it when you kiss me.”

Noah delighted in her kisses too. “Fortunate for me I used the tooth powder then. What else?”

“Your hands…” Thea looked away, as if her words had gone leaping over the balcony in pursuit of a dip in the lake.

“These.” Noah held up the requisite appendages, one of which was wrapped in one of hers. “What about them?”

“When you touch me, you’re not in a hurry.”

Noah was barely in his right mind half the time he touched her. “Interesting. Where do I touch you when I’m dawdling so reprehensibly?”

Thea closed her eyes and shook her head. “It isn’t reprehensible, when you take your time with me.”

Her neck betrayed a tension, and the corners of her mouth and eyes did too. This interrogation would have to end soon if she wasn’t to expire of mortification.

“Not reprehensible?” Noah mused. “Tell me what it is, then, when I’m lazy and indulgent, touching you wherever I please, however I please? A fellow can grow confused, dealing with women.”

“It’s…” Thea dashed the back of her free hand against her cheeks, suggesting to Noah she was near tears, if not crying. “Irresistible. You leave me no dignity, Husband. None. When your hands are on me, I don’t want you to stop, and I can’t imagine who this shameless woman is, to want a man so badly who can hardly want her.”

What on God’s earth was Noah to say to that? Entire realms of mystery, confusion, and female unfathomables lay in those few sentences, and Noah was but a man who couldn’t bear to see his duchess cry on this of all occasions.

He kissed her gently, in answer to the insecurities Thea had only alluded to. That she wasn’t attractive, that she wasn’t attractive
to
him
, that she could not be of interest to her own husband. Noah’s tongue went on to reassure the soft, damp bounty of her mouth, to trace her lips.

He brought his free hand up to cradle Thea’s jaw, then slipped it back to bury his fingers in her hair.

“This has to come down,” he muttered against her mouth. “Your hair, down.”

Thea rested her forehead against his. “If you like.”

Noah sat back enough to tug the pins from her braid, piling them indiscriminately on the nightstand. Her hair ribbons came off next, and then he was combing his fingers through the dark silky river of her unbound hair.

Noah brought a strand to his nose. “More lavender. It’s so long.” Long enough that he could wrap her hair several times around his wrist, long enough that he could pull Thea in for another kiss and anchor both hands in her hair while he did.

Slowly, she warmed to this kiss, not merely waiting for Noah to explore and taste and suggest, but making shy forays into his mouth on her own initiative.

Thea tasted sweet, like mint tea and cool morning breezes, and her hair was long enough to pool in Noah’s lap, the silk and scent of it driving lazy arousal to blazing desire.

“I want you,” Noah whispered as his mouth opened over the soft spot beneath Thea’s ear. He moved her hand to his arousal. “This is proof of wanting.”

Thea tried to jerk her hand away, but Noah had closed his fingers around hers, and held her grip snugly about him.

“Thea, I want you to touch me.” He kept his voice low, kept the longing and lust threatening to swamp him from his words—mostly. “In time, you’ll find that if you’re patient and willing to try—”

His duchess wasn’t listening to him; she was frankly eyeing his arousal, her hair pooling softly around the base. She used her free hand to brush her hair away.

“Take your time,” Noah managed. “The broad light of day has many advantages for a woman bent on appeasing her curiosity.”

Thea was curious; Noah saw that in her eyes, in her furrowed brow. Felt her curiosity as she ran her fingers all over him, then traced the vein running the length of his shaft. His most intimate parts were terra incognita for her.

What in the hell had her previous affair consisted of? Hasty couplings in broom closets? A literal roll in the hay?

Thea deserved better, for God’s sake. Whoever took her virginity should at least have shown her pleasure and given her some confidence.

She had none. None. Her touch could not have been more tentative, or more curious.

“Araminthea.” Noah brushed her long hair over her shoulder as she regarded him gravely. “I won’t gobble you whole, or castigate you, or heaven knows what, not in bed.”

A delicate circling with her finger sent lightning straight up Noah’s spine.

“And out of bed, Noah?”

“If I thought you were taking chances with the girls’ safety, or abusing the help, then perhaps we’d argue. For God’s sake, we won’t fight.”

“What does that mean?” Thea sat back, her chemise gaping, and Noah had to concentrate mightily to decipher her question when he could see her breasts, unfettered and gently moving under the material.

He shifted to rest against the headboard, for he needed the distance if he was to speak in coherent sentences.

“When we have a difference of opinion,” he said, “we’ll discuss it, hopefully in private if strong feelings are to be aired. I won’t beat you, for Christ’s sake, and when we’re in bed…”

“When we’re in bed?”

They
were
in bed, and Noah was naked, aroused,
and
lecturing
his
wife
.

“Come here.” He closed his hands around Thea’s arms and lifted her to straddle him. She curled down to his chest, which was obliging of her, when Noah wasn’t entirely sure what they were discussing. Nonetheless, this was the most personal conversation he’d ever had, and cradling Thea against his naked length provided him an odd increment of privacy.