The Duke's Disaster (R) (17 page)

“Try anyway.” He gathered her hair in his hands, mindful that he’d issued yet another order in bed. “Your silence exacerbates my manly insecurities.”

Thea snuggled onto his chest. “That is a grammatical impossibility, there being no such things where you are concerned. What would you have me say?”

“That you enjoyed it,” Noah
suggested
. He’d enjoyed it. “That next time you want to be on the top, and the time after that we’ll flip for it, or try it on our knees, or standing up with me behind you, or maybe against a stout wall, or—”

Thea put a hand over his mouth. “They must be very trying, those manly insecurities.”

“Vexing in the extreme,” Noah said against her fingers. “You’re all right?”

Now she traced his lips with a single, diabolical fingertip. “Dazed with pleasure I didn’t even know existed. Badly done of you, Noah.”

Noah.
Not my lord, or Anselm, or Husband. Here in their bed, she’d called him Noah.

“What is badly done of me?”

“You did not warn me about this part, when you listed your attributes as a husband,” Thea mused. “Marliss said you had a knowing quality to you.”

“Marliss? Who is this Marliss creature, to put such fancies in your head?”

Thea kissed his jaw and subsided with a happy little sigh, her breathing soon indicating she’d dozed off in his arms. Noah arranged them spoon-fashion in the middle of the bed, then drifted toward sleep. His last thought was that the term
marital bliss
had graduated from being one of those grammatical impossibilities to something else entirely.

* * *

Thea curled up on her side, Noah’s heat warming her back. He slept with her, a source of both comfort and confusion on this, their first night of true marital intimacy.

His kindness literally stole Thea’s breath. He was brusque, and shy, and his humor was a tad ribald, but ye gods, she’d known so little about her intimate duties, and he’d taken such care with her.

Even through a quiet dinner on the back terrace, Noah’s attention had been constant and considerate.

Doting?

Thea hadn’t known marriage could be like this, hadn’t suspected, hadn’t wanted to know. She’d hoped consummating the vows wouldn’t be too uncomfortable or take too long. God knew her experience suggested five minutes could be too long.

With Noah, years would not be long enough, and yet, Thea clung to a thread of caution. Noah had been honest about his tomcatting antecedents, and he didn’t love her. Thea wasn’t romantically enthralled with him, and she suspected Noah had chosen her in part for her unwillingness to be tempted into such follies with even her husband.

Especially with her husband.

So Thea resolved to guard her heart closely, despite these bodily pleasures she shared with Noah, despite how he’d troubled over her, and how his touch made her common sense melt. With luck, she’d conceive his heir and his spare in short order, and frequent relations wouldn’t be necessary beyond the next while. She’d enjoy her marital duties, as Noah no doubt enjoyed his, but she’d never forget they were duties—for both of them.

“Go to sleep, Wife.”

“How can you tell I’m awake?”

“You’re not stealing the covers.” Noah buried his hand in the hair at her nape and massaged gently. “You steal covers only when in the arms of Morpheus. Does something trouble you?”

Someone troubled her. “I’m sorting matters out.”

Noah’s hold shifted, to that firm, delicious squeeze that dissipated tension as if a purring cat had just curled against Thea’s belly.

“This sounds serious, madam. Perhaps you’d better have help with your sorting.”

Noah sounded serious. Even when he was teasing, even when he was poking fun at himself, he sounded serious.

“You nominate yourself to provide assistance?” Thea asked.

“Bathsheba had the good sense to abandon your bed tonight, so yes, because I am all the assistance to be had. Come here.” Noah hauled Thea over him, so she straddled his lap, then his hand was back at her nape, urging her down to his chest.

“What manner of help is this, sir?”

Noah was silent, his caresses lulling Thea to sleep, though he’d settled her such that her sex would be right over his breeding organs, did she allow it.

“If it’s any consolation,” he said softly, “I’m sorting out a few things too.”

“Such as?”

“You found pleasure,” Noah said with characteristic bluntness, “and that matters to me.”

His tone was gruff, his caresses tender.

“Pleasure. Such a tame label for a complete loss of wits, and sensation too intense for words.”

“Ah, Wife.” Noah kissed Thea’s crown.

“And you take all the credit.” She ran her nose up his sternum. “The credit belongs to a Creator who fashioned me so accommodatingly.”

“The credit goes to you,” Noah said. Thea wished she could see his face, see the exact shade of blue in his eyes, but she wasn’t about to suggest they light a candle. “You trusted me, and yourself.”

She’d trusted him, yes, for in his way, Noah had in the weeks of their marriage proven himself consistent, rational, and, well, trustworthy.

Thea swiped her tongue across his nipple. “That trusting part wasn’t even in the vows, was it?”

“Don’t suppose it can be compelled. Are you truly troubled, Thea?”

She had vowed that her marriage would go forth more honestly than it had begun. “Yes, a little.”

“Because?”

“That trust…” She weighed her misgivings against the sensation of Noah’s hand burrowed so gently into her hair, the tenderness of his touch, the patience in his questions, and decided to trust him in the dark one little bit more. “It’s difficult, and different, for me to trust.”

But not impossible for her to trust, not in some regards. A revelation, that.

“For me as well.”

Noah had apparently reached the limit of his husbandly tether, because he framed Thea’s face in his hands and settled a kiss on her mouth that turned into kisses and caresses and sighs and a slow, slow joining of his body to hers. He guided her in this position, and let her find her way too, and Thea took to it immediately. Noah’s hands were free, but so were hers. Thea could wrest some of the control from him, and she could kiss him or not as she pleased.

When pleasure bore down on her, Noah anchored her snugly with an arm low across her back, and let her flail and pitch and carry on until the storm broke, and she was keening against his neck, and surrendering herself completely to his mouth and hands and loving.

And again, he took care of her afterward, scolding and taking the Lord’s name in vain about wives who would need soaking baths before breakfast, and trials to his manly self-discipline.

Thea drifted into slumber on Noah’s chest, the scent of him soothing her to sleep. Her last thought was a question: What would it take to obliterate His Grace’s much vaunted manly restraint?

* * *

“They’ve escaped.”

Noah hated to wake his sleeping wife—he’d worn her out last night, bless her heart—but the thunder of little feet in the corridor above demanded immediate action.

“Tea.” Thea’s voice was a cranky mutter from the depths of the pillows.

“Dressing gown.” Noah said it very distinctly, right into her ear.

Thea mooched over to his side of the bed to appropriate the warm spot left in his absence, sighed mightily, and snuggled into the pillows, all without opening her eyes.

“Araminthea,” Noah began, “you will be found naked in bed by two innocent children if you do not open your eyes
now
.”

“No need to shout.” She opened her eyes and struggled to sit up. “And no need to take that Mean Papa tone with me before you’ve even fetched my first cup of soon-to-be-pilfered tea.”

Noah tossed Thea’s dressing gown at her head, the better to keep her from seeing his smile. She sorted herself into it as he secreted a plate of cinnamon toast in the wardrobe, and only then did he set about making her tea.

“Husband, did you hide food from our children?”

“You’ll thank me,” he said as the door to the sitting room opened, followed by a patter of feet, then a thumping on Thea’s bedroom door.

“Lady Thea! We’re out here, because Cousin is not in his bed, and we get to meet our ponies This Very Morning. Cousin Noah promised.”

Noah opened the door and stood back as Evvie and Nini bounded across the room and scrambled up onto the bed to flank Thea, one on each side.

“She hasn’t had her tea yet, my dears, so shout quietly,” Noah said.

“We can’t shout quietly,” Nini bellowed. “We’re to meet our ponies today, aren’t we?”

“We will when my duchess has had her breakfast.” Noah joined them on the bed, and even with two little girls and two adults in it, the bed wasn’t quite crowded.

“May
we
have breakfast?” Evvie was eyeing the tea cart as Wellington probably surveyed battlefields. “Maryanne and Davies weren’t about yet, so we couldn’t pinch their sweet rolls, and Nurse says we must eat only tea and porridge for breakfast.”

“I hate porridge!” Nini announced. “Unless it has honey in it. I’m hungry!”

For once, Noah let Thea finish her first cup without him filching half of it, though not until her third cup did he take pity on her and shoo the girls off to dress for their trip to the stables. When the door was safely closed behind the children, Noah retrieved the toast from the wardrobe and passed Thea a thick, buttery slice.

“They are a force of nature,” Noah said, taking the last sip of Thea’s tea. “Shall I fix you another cup?”

“Please.”

“You needn’t accompany us to the stables, Wife. The girls are only meeting their ponies today. The little beasts no doubt need to rest before taking on the challenge of training their new owners.”

“I wouldn’t miss this, Noah. When a girl meets her first horse, it’s a holy moment.”

“So it is.” Thea had pleased him with that observation, just as she’d pleased him by good-naturedly sharing breakfast with a little girl on either side of her in bed. Noah had stopped allowing the girls to storm his bed a year ago, as it didn’t seem…it wasn’t appropriate. With a wife, he could again have the pleasure of warm, happy, little people wiggling right beside him like puppies at the start of the day.

A pleasure he’d missed, but missed without realizing it.

He put extra butter on his own slice of toast.

“We might need to move to my bed,” he observed. “It’s larger, and marital intimacies can eventually lead to entire hordes of children charging across the bedroom drawbridge first thing in the day.”

That thought pleased Noah too, until he realized Thea had taken his toast right off his plate.

“I’ve married a thief. Shame on you, madam.” He drained the last cup of tea in retaliation.

Seventeen

In the following days—and nights—Thea’s view of the world pivoted on new and fascinating axes. Her one experience with sexual intimacy prior to marriage had been furtive, uncomfortable, and humiliating, but mercifully brief.

With Noah, she could not imagine a furtive coupling. He strolled about as God made him, and by stealthy degrees, accustomed her to being glimpsed in her own natural state by the light of an entire branch of candles—provided they were across the room from the bed.

Noah’s lovemaking was the furthest thing from uncomfortable, at least physically. He was careful, deliberate even, sometimes to the point that Thea wanted to pull his hair, or smack him, or otherwise make clear to him the desirability of a certain urgency in conjugal relations. But he’d smile that sweet, crooked smile, admonish her to wifely restraint, and steal her very wits, slowly and thoroughly.

And as for humiliation…

Shame had become a second skin for Thea when she’d lost her virginity. In the intervening years, she’d tormented herself with a thousand lectures—she should have seen the whole matter approaching and prevented it. She should have screamed. She should have married the man who’d intruded into her body and her life, because as an earl’s daughter, she could have forced him to the altar. She should have shrugged off the whole sorry little business. She should have extorted money from the miserable scoundrel and put it aside for herself or her siblings.

She should have run away to the North and begun her life anew with some semblance of privacy and dignity. She should have, should have, should have… All the things she didn’t, wouldn’t, and couldn’t.

Moment by moment, marriage to Noah was repairing damage all Thea’s fortitude and determination hadn’t made a dent in previously. His lovemaking was part of it, a precious, curious part, but not all, or even the greatest part.

Thea puzzled on that conundrum, and puzzled on it. Her improved outlook on herself had to do with Noah and his rare, sweet smiles and his gruff scolds and his relentless devotion to his family. She resolved to study on the matter and get to the bottom of it, because it was important.

Thea was worrying at this very riddle while pretending to work at her correspondence when she felt Noah’s index finger slip down the center of her forehead.

“My duchess is vexed.”

“My duke has returned from riding with the Cossacks across the wild steppes of Kent.”

He settled beside her on the day couch in her sitting room, his sigh put-upon and weary.

“They want to gallop, the pair of them. They’ve had their ponies but two weeks, and already we’re to gallop, jump, and race about. True has been corrupted by the influence of a pair of miniature equine delinquents. Only Regent retains a hint of dignity, though one senses his resolve weakening.”

“Noah, you didn’t allow this wild behavior?” Males were different from females. Thea’s one younger brother was enough to drive home that point, if experiences with Corbett Hallowell and his ilk hadn’t. Men thought they were indestructible, and every time they survived hurt or injury merely proved to them their durability.

Women knew better.

“The girls can carry on however they please,” Noah said, “provided their ponies are on one end of the lunge line, and I am no more than eight feet away on the other.”

“Eight whole feet?”

Noah had had more sand spread in the riding arena the week before too.

“And tomorrow,” he went on, “if they are good, I will consider ten, and so forth. Negotiation is everything when you’re dealing with a Winters. What has Lady Antoinette to say for herself?”

Noah leaned forward and took a sip of Thea’s lemonade, giving her a whiff of horse, manly exertion, and the underlying fragrances of roses and lavender. An odd combination, but pleasing. Husbandly.

“Nonie is agitating to attend a house party, as is Lady Patience,” Thea said, folding up the letter and tucking it aside. “I’m not sure how to respond.”

“Patience agitates for form’s sake,” Noah said, tippling another sip. “Her spouse claims it’s a bid for attention, and one must not argue with a man on the subject of his wife.”

“You’d disagree?”

“Patience likes to agitate,” Noah replied, setting the empty glass down. “It’s in her nature, like Uncle Meech must flirt, and Harlan will gravitate to the beasts and the land.”

“I haven’t thought of Nonie having propensities like that. She’s drawn to books.” Or had Nonie retreated to books because Tims hadn’t provided her a proper governess?

“You didn’t raise her, not entirely,” Noah said, sitting up to wrestle off first one riding boot then the other. “I was as much papa as brother to my younger siblings, particularly with Harlan.”

“Which is why you’re so good with the girls.” Maybe even why Noah was such a conscientious duke?

“Right.” Noah snorted. “So good, the girls have me dancing around in a dusty arena on the end of an eight-foot rope in this infernal heat. You are not keen on Antoinette trying her social wings at some informal gatherings?”

Noah did this, hopped around from topic to topic, while stealing Thea’s drink, while removing his clothes. Just to be in the same room with him was sometimes dizzying, while to be in the same bed with him—

“What makes you think I disapprove of house parties?” For Thea did, utterly.

She pushed Noah’s hands aside and unknotted his cravat, which had acquired both dust and creases in his morning’s labors. His riding jacket came off next in a series of maneuvers they’d perfected a week ago.

Noah drew his finger down Thea’s forehead again. “You were frowning in thought, or maybe frustration.”

In vexation. “I’ve been to enough informal gatherings as a companion to know exactly what functions they serve for guests and hosts alike,” Thea said. “They can be perfectly wholesome, lovely occasions, or the next thing to a rural bacchanal, and one doesn’t know until one arrives which way they’ll lean.”

Though eventually, most of them turned unlovely.

“Part of their charm, to hear Meech tell it.” Noah sat back. “Why not compromise?”

“How?”

“We’ll have a house party here, a welcome to the family for you, and we’ll invite mostly family, but include Lady Nonie and a few callow swains to dance attendance on her.”

Thea’s first reaction was frustration, because Noah’s suggestion was too reasonable to be rejected. Negotiation was everything when dealing with a Winters, provided the concessions came to their side of the table.

“Where will we find these callow swains?” she asked, for they invariably caused the most trouble.

“Harlan can round up some of his more presentable friends,” Noah said, “show off his new horse, practice getting drunk and losing his allowance over cards. We’ll have some dancing to truly torment the young fellows.”

Which sounded harmless enough…except: “Won’t we have to invite a few young ladies to balance up the numbers?” Callow swains got up to their worst mischief when in proximity to drink, each other, and young ladies.

“God above, Wife, how should I know about such details? I have a duchess on hand to tend to such earthshaking matters now. I suggest you consult with her, and she will no doubt alert my sisters, and then we poor old hapless fellows will trot about on our lead lines, as usual.” Noah kissed Thea’s nose, then rose. “What does a man have to do to get some cold libation in his own home on a hot summer day?”

Thea watched Noah stomp off, poor, thirsty, put-upon, little fifteen-stone duke, and knew he was smiling—as was she. By the time the girls thundered in to regale her with tales of the day’s mounted adventures, Thea had the
family
gathering
guest list drafted in her head.

For they were
not
having a house party. Noah’s duchess had made up her mind about that.

* * *

“I’ll fetch you some punch, shall I, kitten?”

Henrietta Whitlow’s escort for the evening was an earl going thick about the middle and thin on top. Poor Melmouth had been drinking steadily enough to need every chamber pot in the men’s retiring room. He was still handsome in a blond, blue-eyed way, but losing his wife two years ago had nudged him into the grip of a firm and—Henny suspected—lonely middle age.

“Punch would be delightful,” she said, beaming at him. “Take your time, and don’t worry about me. You must allow the puppies and rakes a chance to pay me their addresses.”

Melmouth blew her a kiss—something he would never have done sober—and departed.

Henny’s head had begun to pound halfway through the overture, and when some obese Italian fellow had commenced caterwauling, she’d nearly gone home. That early in the evening, Melmouth would have been sober enough to be a problem, though, and thus Henny had endured the tenor, the mezzo, and the contralto, who appeared suspiciously masculine.

“Consoling yourself with fellows of lesser rank now that Anselm has wiggled free of your clutches?”

Ignoring Corbett Hallowell would have been like ignoring a fly circling a tray of desserts. He’d pester Henny until she swatted him away.

She mustered her public smile. “Mr. Hallowell, do come in. Melmouth has decamped, perhaps never to return. Are you enjoying the performance?”

Hallowell was exactly the kind of man who’d drive any sensible courtesan to retire. He was not particular about his hygiene, the company he kept, or his manners. Before he joined Henny in her box, he glanced out into the passage, probably to make sure his mama wasn’t spying on him.

“Your performances are always enjoyable,” Hallowell said. “I’d heard rumors you were moving to Paris.”

Exactly what Henny intended for people to believe, though in truth, Yorkshire was calling her home more loudly with each passing month.

“Paris is lovely,” she said, “particularly for people of taste and refinement. Surely you’d agree?”

Hallowell remained leaning against the wall near the door, in shadow, where he wouldn’t be seen, but plenty close enough to conduct an insolent visual inspection of Henny’s person.

“Some say you’re carrying Anselm’s bastard, Miss Whitlow, and that’s why he threw you over. Maybe you got rid of it.”

Had Henny been lucky enough to conceive Anselm’s bastard, she’d have been set up for life.

“Have a care, sir. His Grace takes a dim view of slander.”

Henny missed Anselm, but had been relieved he’d gone wife hunting. No self-respecting courtesan permitted herself to become attached to her protector. Loyal to him for the duration, of course, and discreet forever after. Fond of him, protective, attracted to him, friends with him, even.

But a wise courtesan kept her heart to herself. Anselm had threatened Henny’s professional reserve, and his marriage to a sensible earl’s daughter was good news all around.

Especially for the earl’s daughter.

“His Grace can go bugger himself,” Hallowell said. “He tossed you over for mutton dressed up as lamb, and I’ll bet you had your sights set on a tiara. Devonshire married his mistress. Berwick married his before she was even of age.”

Henny rose, because in her heeled evening slippers, she was taller than Hallowell, and the scent of his rotten gin-breath was threatening to turn her headache into a megrim.

“Why does every titled man think every woman, regardless of her means or her station, longs to marry him?” Henny tipped her chin up, the better to peer down her nose at this reeking embarrassment to manhood. “Do you know how hard Anselm’s duchess will work? How much entertaining she’ll have to do? How many households and charities she’ll have to oversee? In what world could I ever be accepted in those roles, Hallowell?”

Hallowell puffed up like a bantam rooster preparing to take on a mongrel in the barnyard.

“Thea Collins is no better suited to be a duchess than you are,” he spat. “Anselm will rue the day he married her, and I’ll be the one to see to it.”

Hallowell would have maundered on as long as the tenor and the soprano both, making vague threats that probably had to do with Anselm snatching the morsel Hallowell had coveted.

Well
done, Anselm
, if he’d preserved a decent woman from Hallowell’s advances.

“I say, don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” Melmouth, bearing two cups of dreadful punch, stood in the doorway to the box.

“Melmouth, may I make known to you Corbett Hallowell, Endmon’s heir. Hallowell, the Earl of Melmouth has the pleasure of my company tonight.”

Melmouth, who was no fool even drunk, passed Henny her punch. “Miss Whitlow is too expensive for you, my boy. Don’t tell anybody, but she’s too expensive for me as well.”

The earl had struck the right note, between confiding and condescending—though being referred to as expensive would ever grate on Henny’s nerves. Had Hallowell half a brain, he might have left on some quip, or even a graceful bow.

“Anselm might take you back,” Hallowell said. “Just you wait and see. He’s married the wrong duchess, and soon everybody will know it.”

Hallowell marched off, a boy in men’s tailoring.

“Was he bothering you, kitten?”

Being called kitten bothered Henny. The scent of the chandeliers bothered her. The weight of her earrings bothered her.

Henny put her lips to the rim of the cup but did not sip. “Yes, Dickie, he was. Nothing is so vile as a gin-soaked little bully in anticipation of a title. Anselm will probably be forced to call him out.”

Melmouth emptied the contents of his flask into his punch. “Anselm’s an excellent shot, and I hear he’s besotted with his new bride. Bought her a prime little filly at Tatt’s, has barely been seen in Town since the vows were spoken.”

Good
for
you, Anselm. Good for your duchess.

“If Anselm’s ruralizing with his new duchess, then Hallowell’s lack of couth will likely go unpunished,” Henny said. “Would you mind very much if we left, Dickie?”

Henny’s feet hurt, her head hurt, her eyes hurt, her earlobes hurt; most of all, her heart hurt. Anselm was deserving of every happiness, but that didn’t mean Henny had to sit about, like a streetwalker on her preferred corner, and troll for custom.