The Duke's Disaster (R) (26 page)

“She’ll be your ruined wife in a very few minutes,” Hallowell said, his voice cracking as Thea undid a button on the falls of his breeches.

“Dearest Duchess,” Noah said. “I have reading spectacles in my pocket if magnification would help.”

“For God’s sake, hush!” Hallowell screeched at Noah, then turned back to Thea, realizing a moment too late that his bound prisoner had won free, and his unbound prisoner, his intended rape victim, had melted out of his reach in the same instant.

For Thea, time took an odd, slow turn. Noah hooked an arm around Hallowell’s neck and jerked back, using his superior height for leverage. When Hallowell ceased struggling, the knife Thea had tucked into her folded drawers wasn’t held to his throat, but low, near a place Thea couldn’t convince her gaze to stray.

Thea let go with a scream, a wonderfully loud, angry sound that went on and on, even as she told herself Noah was safe and screaming wasn’t necessary.

While Hallowell bleated about the family succession and the Lords taking a dim view of mutilating a peer’s heir, Thea grabbed for the first thing that came to hand.

She brought a solid weight down on Hallowell’s head, as hard as she could, and the damned idiot jackanapes fell blessedly silent.

* * *

Thanks to one brave, clever duchess, Hallowell ceased his babbling and slumped heavily against Noah. In the next instant, the cottage door swung open so hard the hinges shook, and James, Heath, Erikson, and Wilson burst in, armed to the teeth.

About
damned
time.

“My duchess has subdued this miscreant. You may take him now.” Noah shoved Hallowell at James and Heath, and then opened his arms to Thea. She flew to Noah’s embrace with gratifying speed and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“I’ll fetch the magistrate,” Erikson said.

“You won’t have to,” Noah replied, arms around his wife. “Squire Sterling will be here in another hour or so, and tomorrow is soon enough to take statements. For now, put Hallowell in the groom’s workroom, and set two footmen to watch him at all times. He’s not to be let out even if the stables catch fire.”

The knife in Noah’s hand had been temptation itself, but the blade belonged to Thea, who shouldn’t have her weaponry tainted by Hallowell’s blood.

“Noah,” Thea said. “Where are the children?”

Of course, she’d ask about the little ones first.

“Maryanne had no idea what Hallowell had planned,” Noah said, “but she understood clearly enough that he was using her when he lured you here then dismissed her to take the children to the village, not the manor. She was more than happy to return them to the house.”

Noah was impersonating a duke now, though his husbandly heart was going like a rabbit’s, and Thea could probably feel that, so closely did they embrace.

“If we don’t get back to the house immediately,” Wilson pointed out, “the Furies will be on armed patrol. We’ll make excuses for you as long as we can.”

Into next week would do nicely.

“Come along, you.” Erikson wrapped a large hand on Hallowell’s biceps.

“Ouch, damn it!”

“You thought to trouble Anselm’s beauties,” Erikson said. “This was naughty of you, and naughty boys sometimes meet with accidents.”

“No accidents,” Thea said, untucking her nose from Noah’s throat. “His sister is our guest tonight.”

“You heard my duchess, gentlemen,” Noah said. “My thanks for your assistance. Now be off with you, lest we hold our opening waltz in the home wood.”

The men left, and the silence in their wake yawned widely. Noah was angry at Hallowell, angry at himself—Thea had been threatened on Winters land—and grateful to his bones that no harm had befallen her.

Noah held the dagger out to its rightful owner. “This belongs to you.”

Thea clasped the knife in a shaking hand, set it aside, and pitched herself back into his arms.

Brilliant woman, for she’d spared Noah having to ask her to linger in his embrace.

“Go ahead and cry.” Noah stroked Thea’s back, loving her lissome strength. “You were magnificent, Wife. I doubt Hallowell will ever function normally again, not that he deserves to. You entrusted your knife to me, when it’s you who deserved to slit Hallowell from his appetite to his aspirations.”

Noah went on in that soothing, praising—albeit slightly violent—vein until Thea regained a measure of composure, though still she clung to her husband.

Thea had apparently heard every word of Hallowell’s bile, and possibly sensed that her past was catching up with her future. Now was not the time to face that dragon, not when she’d already been through a trial.

“Wife, my sisters will fetch us and read me the Riot Act if you’re in the least disrepaired. Look at me.” Noah cupped Thea’s jaw, so she had no choice but to meet his gaze. The tears in her eyes made him hope a very bad accident befell Hallowell.

“We have a ball to get through,” he went on, “unless you’d rather plead indisposition. I won’t leave your side, I won’t travel more than six feet from you the entire night, and we’ll end the dancing promptly at two of the clock. The moon will set at four, and people won’t linger long if they want to get home safely. What say you?”

Noah offered her vows of companionship and protection, small comfort but sincere, for he needed to remain near his wife if he was to avoid doing permanent violence to Hallowell.

Thea tucked her nose against Noah’s evening jacket. He wanted no gossip to touch her—no more gossip—particularly regarding the sordid doings in this little cottage, but more than that, he wanted Thea to once again feel safe and content.

Always to feel safe and content.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, more a resolution than an assurance. “Stay with me, though, or keep the family near me.”

As if Noah could bear to let her out of his sight. “You are my duchess. Of course I’ll remain by your side, and you will dance with no one save your own dear, devoted duke.”

Twenty-five

Noah guided Thea through the cottage door, and kept an arm over her shoulders the whole way back to the house. They didn’t speak, and that silent proximity set the pattern for the entire evening.

What
was
Noah
thinking? What was he feeling?

He remained immediately at Thea’s side until the receiving line was finished, then he swept her into the opening waltz.

Thea looked up at him in surprise as he drew her close in a turn. “This is the tune from my music box.”

Her ruined music box, though the sacrifice had been for a good cause. In the corner of her mind not absorbed with remaining composed and coherent, she fretted about what Noah had heard in that cottage, and whether he believed Hallowell’s taunts.

“Erikson recognized this tune when I played it for him,” Noah said. “Some old German fellow wrote it as a minuet. I thought you’d like it.”

Thea bundled herself close to her duke, despite neighbors, family, and servants looking on, and despite the disclosures yet to be made. If she hadn’t loved Noah earlier, she’d be enthralled with him now and for the rest of her days.

He
had
spectacles
in
his
pocket
, indeed.

“Have I pleased you with this tune, Wife? You never say, and a fellow is left to wonder without mercy.”

“I love y—it,” she said. “I simply love it.”

“I love it too.” Noah rested his cheek against her hair. “I’ll love it more when it’s the good-night waltz.”

An hour after the opening waltz, late arrivals were still coming down the stairs, and the evening showed every sign of being an unmitigated success. The neighbors were gracious, the gentlemen making their bows to the new duchess, and the ladies admiring the splendor of the ballroom and terraces. Through it all, Thea felt Noah’s hand in hers, his arm supporting her, or his fingers toying with her sash, her glove, or a lock of her hair.

Almost as if she and Noah were a loving couple, no scandals lurking in Thea’s past, no near occasions of violence having marred the evening. Noah hovered like a shadow of foreboding at Thea’s side, though if he went a mere five yards away to the punch bowl, her breath grew short, and her heart sped up.

The same miseries befell her when Lord Earnest Meecham Winters Dunholm stood before them, offering a terse greeting.

Why
him, why now, and when would this awful night
end?

Thea’s nemesis had aged twenty years in less than ten, and he looked more nervous than any family member ought, given the occasion. Those realizations slid away as Noah’s hand dropped from Thea’s side, the emotional equivalent of a door banging open, allowing a bitter cold emotional wind to obliterate the meager calm Thea had gathered as the evening wore on.

“If you’ve a minute, Anselm,” Lord Earnest—Uncle Meech—said, “I’d like to discuss a certain matter with you, er, privately.”

He’d bowed over Thea’s gloved hand upon his arrival, and Thea’s throat filled with bile.

“I will not leave my duchess’s side tonight, Uncle,” Noah said, the soul of proper manners. “The ball is in her honor, and you’d assured me of your regrets—though of course we’re pleased to include you as our guest.”

No, they were not.

“Yes, well, sorry for the confusion,” Lord Earnest replied, “but I’d truly like a minute of your time, Anselm.”

Thea saw the man’s nervousness and knew exactly what poison he’d spew if he got Noah alone. Her head hurt, her belly was queasy, her heart ached, and she’d had enough.

The Duchess of Anselm had finally, finally had enough.

“We’ll both join you in the library,” Thea said, slipping her arm through Noah’s.

Noah patted her knuckles. “You’re sure, my love?”

Gracious saints. She
was
Noah’s love, though he’d never called her that before. Thea raised her chin.

“I am sure, Anselm.”

“So be it,” Meech muttered. He held his peace until the library door was closed, then turned to face his host and hostess. “I bring you a message from our mutual acquaintance, er, Whitlow, Noah. Whitlow has picked up talk from a certain Mr. Hallowell, claiming he’ll attempt to right a wrong you did him, and your duchess will be the means by which he effects his revenge. Talk of a young man in his cups, possibly, but Whitlow says Hallowell’s a snake, and not to turn your back on him or leave your duchess without protection.”

“Whitlow?” Thea murmured. The name was familiar.

“A mutual acquaintance,” Meech said again. “Nothing more.”

A look passed between Noah and his uncle, while Thea tried to place the name.

Noah brought Thea’s hand to his lips. “May I share the developments of the evening with Meech, my dearest?”

My
dearest?

“Developments?” Meech crossed to the sideboard. “I’m not sure I want to know of any developments.”

“Hallowell paid us a call,” Noah said, leaving Thea’s side to appropriate the decanter from his uncle’s grasp. “Duchess, libation for you?”

Meech’s presumption was thus subtly chastised. What was Noah up to?

“None for me,” Thea said.

“I won’t be so shy,” Meech said, accepting a drink from Noah.

Noah explained in a few pithy sentences what Hallowell had been about, threatening to ruin Thea with vicious gossip unless Noah forgave all the man’s debts. Noah managed this recitation without alluding to Thea’s past, and she’d never loved him more.

Meech tugged on his cravat, the result being that it remained askew. “I’m sorry, Duchess. I hope you’ll turn Hallowell over to the authorities.”

“You do?” Why would Meech expect Thea to pursue severe penalties for Hallowell’s bungled threats, but no consequences at all for the man who’d taken her virginity?

“Yes, well…” Meech stared at his drink.

Noah took the glass from his uncle’s hand and set it on the sideboard. “Something troubling you, my lord?”

“Nothing,” Meecham said. “How are the girls?”

“Your daughters are fine,” Noah said. “Being young ladies of discernment, they’ve started to call Thea Mama.”

An unexpected and bittersweet bit of news. “They have?” Thea asked, then the first part of Noah’s reply registered in her tired, anxious brain. “What do you mean,
his
daughters? They’re our daughters.”

“I checked on them,” Noah said, tugging off his white evening gloves and laying them beside Meecham’s half-empty glass. “While the Furies redid your hair, my ears rang with Mama-this and Mama-that, and when did Mama cosh him, and why didn’t Mama stab him dead?” Noah smiled at Thea sweetly. “Quite taken with you, they are.”

Was Noah quite taken with her? Would he remain taken with her when Meecham had said his piece?

“I was no kind of parent,” Meech said, perusing a bookshelf as if literary scholarship was his new passion. “You know that, Anselm. They were girls, little girls. I hadn’t a clue how to go on with them.”

Thea felt as if she’d had too much wine, or was coming down with an ailment that affected her balance.

“Noah?”

“We’ll discuss it later,” Noah said. “For now, you have my apologies, Duchess.”

“You haven’t any children?” Thea pressed.

Noah’s smile went from sweet to wicked. “Not yet. Perhaps soon.”

“I’ll just be going, then,” Meech said, striding off toward the door.

Yes, please. Leave with all haste and never return.
Lord Earnest had acted silently mortified the morning after taking advantage of Thea; perhaps his shame was great enough to guarantee his silence.

“You shall not leave just yet, Meecham,” Noah said. “You’ll apologize to my duchess first, then take leave of your children. Thea has an excellent point. I’m guardian to those little girls, and they are legally ours, not yours. Then you’ll do as you said, and leave for an indefinite journey in the north, and perhaps points beyond.”

“He’ll what?” Thea glanced from uncle to nephew. From beyond the library came the sound of a hundred feet pounding on the ballroom floor in unison, and a twelve-piece orchestra lilting along to the strains of a happy reel.

Meech was being sent away—that was good—but not quite yet.

That was very bad. Fatigue and strained nerves had Thea sinking into Noah’s reading chair, a capacious seat angled near the fire.

“He knows, Duchess,” Meech said, hand on the door latch. “Somehow, your duke has parsed out the details, but it’s not what you think, Noah. Maybe not even what your duchess has told you.”

Thea had told Noah next to nothing. Now she wished that she’d told him she loved him—for she did.

“Then you tell me,” Noah said, coming to stand beside Thea’s chair. “My duchess should not be burdened with this retelling, for none of it was her fault.”

Thea comprehended Noah’s words on an intellectual level, but all her body knew was that he wasn’t touching her.

“May I sit?” Meech asked, turning loose of the door latch. “This isn’t a simple tale.”

“Thea?”

She was nominally the hostess, though did that matter?

“Please, do sit, both of you.”

Noah perched on the arm of Thea’s chair, and she wanted to weep.

“So unburden yourself, Meecham,” Noah said, “but if Her Grace tells you to hush, you shut your mouth mid-syllable, are we clear?”

Thea resisted the urge to lay her cheek against Noah’s thigh, for what was to come offered only cold comfort.

She’d have a chance to hear from the perpetrator the circumstances of the crime against her person. At the time, she’d medicated a foul headache and wine-soured stomach with a touch of the poppy. Her room had been in nearly complete darkness, and her memories were fogged by the drug, and by her own revulsion.

Now Thea would revisit the plain facts of her ruin, and the prospect was a backhanded relief.

A duchess did not cower before the truth, no matter how her heart might be breaking.

Meech took the couch, flipped out his evening tails, then linked his hands before him and kept his gaze on his hands.

“It was just another infernally tedious summer house party,” Meech began. “Stodgier than most, with the likes of Joanna Newcomer and Annabelle Handley on the guest list. An evening or two of whist with that pair, and my store of civilities was exhausted. Pemberton felt the same way, and so he went prowling, as he usually does.”

“And you do too,” Noah added. His hand settled on Thea’s shoulder, the warmth of his touch an endless comfort.

“Pemberton doesn’t misbehave as often as you’d think.” Meech ran another finger under his collar though the library had no fire, and the room was far from warm. “Not in recent years.”

Pemberton had been a guest at that dreadful house party. Thea recalled meeting him, for he and Lord Earnest Dunholm had been peas in a pod, twin specimens of blond, mature male charm, neither of whom Thea had seen as any threat.

She’d been so innocent, and so ignorant.

Meech went back to studying his hands. “Where there are dowagers and older ladies, though, there are companions, and those ladies range the gamut from bona fide spinsters to strumpets who haven’t been caught. I struck up a flirtation with such a one, a Violet Carter, though she’s going by Violette Cartier now, and it was likely from her Hallowell learned of things he shouldn’t.”

Thea’s hand went to her throat, for she hadn’t heard that name since leaving the house party, and still it had the power to unnerve her. Noah’s fingers glossed over Thea’s, and her upset receded.

“Miss Carter was a dreadful little baggage,” Meech said. “I didn’t know that then.”

“Go on,” Noah said, taking Thea’s hand in his, bowing to kiss her knuckles, and keeping hold of her fingers.

“I was bored witless,” Meech said, “and after the usual round of flirtations, I agreed to an assignation with this creature. She seemed exactly my sort—lively, knowledgeable, and without sentiment of any bothersome degree. We set a time, she gave me directions to her room, and that was supposed to be that.”

“She lied,” Thea said, closing her eyes as Noah’s thumb brushed over her knuckles. Violet Carter had lied to Meecham, and one woman’s mendacity had caused Thea years of nightmares.

Meecham yanked on his cravat again, as if it were too tight. “She gave me directions to her room, except her room was across the hall from the duchess’s. Miss Carter told me to use the door on the left, though her room lay to the right. Had I gone to the room she directed me to, I would have ended up not in her room, but in Her Grace’s.”

Thea did not want to be cast back into the role of the bewildered and ignorant young woman, and so she asked the next question.

“What do you mean, had you gone to the room she directed you to? Somebody came to my room, and you appeared guilty as mortal sin at breakfast.”

Meech looked that guilty now, also fearful. Thea had felt fearful in some blighted corner of her soul since that night.

“Go on,” she said, “and be quick about it. His Grace and I have a house full of guests.”

Among whom, Meech did not number.

“Pemberton overheard me arranging this assignation,” Meech said, “and as he and I occasionally did as younger men, he decided to step in. He fancied the girl, and didn’t think she was the type to take offense.”

“Dear God.” Thea unwrapped her fingers from Noah’s grip. “
Pemberton
was…in my room?” In her nightmares, in her very body. She leaned into Noah, wanting to weep, to throw things, to kill Pemberton slowly and painfully, and Violet Carter along with him.

“I’m afraid so,” Meech said. “Pemberton found me afterward, shaking so badly he about cast up his accounts. He’d been played for a fool by that Carter woman and by his own idiot idea of a joke on me. Both Joanna Newcomber and Annabelle Handley had complained in open company of Violet Carter’s flirtatiousness, and Pemmie never dreamed their companion would be the object of Miss Carter’s retaliation. He was sure somebody would call him out for his behavior. I nearly did.”

“
Nearly?
” Noah spat. “Your stupid old boy’s prank saw my wife violated, and you think it doesn’t merit redress?”