The Duke's Disaster (R) (5 page)

His business associates had proven no better, nor had his sisters or his mistresses.

Plural.

That gave Thea pause, and stopped her march toward canonizing her recently acquired spouse. Anselm was far less pure than she was, far less chaste, and that perhaps was what allowed him to display such tolerance toward her.

Though for men, of course, sexual peccadilloes were just that, little indiscretions, almost humorous, and they would never be thus for women.

Anselm was absently caressing her neck, which she attributed to a somnolent habit, one he’d likely developed in the handling of his mistresses—all seventeen of them—and yet she couldn’t resent his touch. She’d disappointed her husband on their wedding night, not because she was barely experienced, shy, self-conscious, and easily embarrassed, though she was all of those.

Because she’d erred, strayed, stumbled.

Fallen.

And the duke, for entirely pragmatic reasons, would catch her. His decision boggled Thea’s tired mind, almost as much as the insidious languor radiating from the touch of a few warm, male fingers on a few inches of her bare flesh.

“Go to sleep, Wife,” he murmured. His Grace excelled at issuing orders even when stark naked. “You can fret about it all tomorrow, I promise.”

He patted her shoulder, and while Thea knew the duke graced her bed out of a desire to provide convincing appearances in the morning, she also suspected he was torturing her. If these were his casual caresses, what might it have been like to know his highest regard, his most tender intimacies?

Thea checked her unruly imagination from speculating on that theme. Bad enough she’d let matters progress as far as they had. Terrible, in fact, but also so undeniably lovely.

Who would have thought?

And because Thea would never in a hundred years have attributed such tenderness to her new spouse, it was also, despite all, the greatest kindness that he would stay with her and soothe her to sleep and smile at her as she woke in the morning.

* * *

“Arise, Wife. You are a thief as well as a liar,” Noah pronounced the minute his duchess’s eyes opened. When she merely wrinkled her nose and burrowed back into the pillows, he added a poor ability to take orders to her transgressions.

His duchess was not so dignified in the morning, and she’d slept on soundly as Noah had risen and shaved.

“Madam. Wake. Up.”

“I do not steal.” She muttered this to the pillow she clutched like a drowning sailor clutches a passing spar.

“Wake up, Duchess.” Noah sat on the edge of the bed, which meant she listed toward him. “We embark on the first day of our conjugal bliss this morning, and I cannot have you wasting the hours abed.”

“Tea?”

Noah passed her a steaming hot cup, with cream and sugar—not milk, of course. Duking had its privileges.

“Drink it all.” He rose and crossed to the sitting room, coming back into the bedroom pushing a tea cart. “You will partake of sustenance while we plan our day.”

“Hush.” Thea was at least sitting up, her cheek faintly wrinkled from passing the night in intimate congress with her pillow. Her hair was a mess, cascading down her back in a dark waterfall, and her eyes were soft. Noah saw a hint of beard burn on the side of her neck.

Well, hell, did a lying, prevaricating new wife ever look so intimately adorable?

“Butter, my lady?”

She cradled her teacup as if it held the secret to eternal life. “In quantity.”

He made her a plate with a thick slice of raisin bread, halved and slathered with butter, garnished with several sections of orange and a sprig of mint.

“You steal covers,” Noah said, putting together his own plate, which included bacon, eggs, buttered toast, and a single section of orange.

“I beg your pardon.” Thea’s voice was even as Noah settled on the bed beside her, his dressing gown gaping open when he leaned back against the headboard.

“We do breakfast so well here in England,” he remarked, munching his toast. “It sets one up for great disappointment in the remaining meals.”

“We have good desserts,” his duchess remarked between bites, “and excellent cuts of meat. So what would you have of me today?”

“Eat.” Noah put a piece of bacon on her plate. “You need some meat on your bones if you’re to keep up with your spouse, Duchess. I am not a restful presence.”

“Nor nice,” she reminded him, then looked abruptly pained. “But I must thank you for your forbearance.”

Noah shrugged and did not look at her. “I stole the covers back.”

He’d already told her they would not discuss their wedding night again. He was not forbearing, he was practical, adept at making the best of a bad bargain. “More tea, madam?”

“Please.”

“I will be your lady’s maid this morning, and you will be my valet. My sisters will likely descend this afternoon, inspecting the ravages of our night of passion. You will smile, blush, and stammer convincingly?”

“B-b-but of course, Your Grace.”

“Just so.” He smiled into his teacup, despite her impertinence. “I’ve a morning gift for you. You needn’t stammer over it, but feel free to smile.”

“That is hardly necessary.”

“The smiling? You must do as you see fit, of course. I am not ordering you to smile.”

“Gracious of you, Anselm.” She
was
smiling into her teacup as well.

They could be civil with each other, they could communicate effectively, and they could share a meal companionably.

Noah bit off another piece of warm, buttered toast, mostly in charity with the world, because despite odds to the contrary, there was hope.

* * *

“This is hopeless.” The duke scowled at Thea’s hair, such condemnation in three words, Thea wanted to snatch the brush from his hands.

“It isn’t hopeless.” She held her hand up over her shoulder. “My hair is merely thick and a bit disheveled. Give me the brush, and I’ll set it to rights.”

Anselm passed her the brush and stomped off toward the dressing room. Despite the peevish look in his icy blue eyes, Thea had the sense her husband had been angling for that surrender. He’d actually made significant progress on the briar patch that was her unbound hair in the morning, and it had felt good, so good, to have somebody else tend to her at the start of her day.

The start of her married life.

“Given recent developments,” the duke’s voice rang out from their connected dressing rooms, “I’ll send a note into Town and wave off the Furies.”

“Beg pardon?”

“My dear sisters.” Anselm emerged, clothing over his arm. “My brother was up at university doing some end-of-term studies of flora and fauna, which is likely an excuse to gape at women and swill hops. He’ll join us the day after tomorrow, which can’t be helped. What do you think, the white or the cream?”

“White,” Thea said as in her mirror she saw him hold first one then the other shirt against a blue waistcoat embroidered with silver paisley designs.

“White it shall be.” The duke laid his clothing over a chair and disappeared again, only to emerge bearing a shining pair of black tall boots. “There wasn’t time to ask to whom you’d like a wedding announcement sent, but I suppose you have a list?”

Anselm was brusque, imperious, and oddly thoughtful. Thea could get used to the combination when he topped it off by asking her opinion of his wardrobe.

“I have a very short list,” Thea said, a miserable comment on her circumstances. Since her parents’ deaths, her circle of acquaintances had dwindled and dwindled, until her brother’s unsavory cronies had kept all but the oldest associations from withering.

“Doesn’t a certain gentleman need to have his face rubbed in your successful marriage?” Anselm asked, ever so casually.

Well, damn, this again. That gentleman—who hardly qualified for the name—would be the ruin of their marriage.

“There is no such gentleman, Your Grace.”

He regarded Thea steadily, then whisked off his dressing gown.

“Your Grace!”

“Hmm?” Anselm disappeared behind a privacy screen, and Thea realized he’d just deliberately unnerved her with his nudity, a retaliation for disappointing him so badly the night before. He wouldn’t speak of it, oh no, but he wouldn’t leave her any peace over it, either.

Which was only fair, she supposed, plaiting her hair into one thick skein and pinning it to her head in a coronet. Anselm was raised to observe certain standards of behavior, and she must not allow herself to mistake civility for friendship.

Ever again.

“I had the maids brush out your habit,” he said from behind his screen. “It will do for present purposes, but you’ll need a wardrobe.”

“I have a wardrobe.” Thea rose and poured herself another cup of tea. The blend had to be private, because the taste was rich, smooth, spiced with jasmine, and altogether delectable. The quality of the tea had Thea wondering just how wealthy her new husband was.

And how self-indulgent. Unbidden, she recalled the smooth play of his fingers on her nape, the way his body had covered and warmed hers, the…

“That has to be the most unapproachable hair style on earth.” Anselm frowned at her coiffure as he came around the privacy screen, shooting his cuffs like some actor making an entrance from stage right.

“This serves to keep my hair where it won’t cause trouble.”

He peered at himself in her vanity mirror, and appropriated her hairbrush. From the scent of him, he’d made use of the tooth powder and some fancy French soap as well. Not lavender and roses today, but something summery and softly floral. As he dragged the brush over his hair, his gaze followed Thea in the mirror while she took her turn behind the dressing screen.

“You aren’t complaining about being up so early,” he remarked a few moments later.

“It would hardly matter, would it?”

“Not in the least.” Thea heard him set the brush down. She did not hear him cross the room, and so when he folded his arms over the top of the screen, she tried not to let her discomfiture show.

“You intend to watch me dress, Your Grace?”

“Such pleasures are a husband’s privilege. At least that color is becoming.”

And at least Thea had her chemise on, and the riding habit’s bodice secured too, though it gaped completely at the back. She hadn’t wrapped the skirt into the folds designed for riding either.

“Let me do that.” Anselm stepped close, and Thea stopped breathing as he hooked her habit together at the back. His breath brushed her shoulder, so near did he stand, but she didn’t dare step away. To him, veteran of thirty-four mistresses, these little intimacies were likely routine, not even worth remarking. To Thea, they were…

Overwhelming, and not in a good way. A good way would have been if their marriage were not tainted with her deceit, and her past. A good way would have been if Anselm had bothered to court her for even a few socially visible weeks. A good way would be…

“Turn.”

Thea obeyed, and let him—
him!
—adjust the skirts of her habit so they fell properly.

“There.” Anselm stepped back and turned the ducal scowl upon her hair.

“It’s just hair,” she said repressively. “If you like, I can cut it into fashionable little curls, but I warn you, I will look a fright when it rains, which is most of the time.”

“You will not cut your hair.” Anselm winged his arm at her. “And that is not a request, Duchess. Now, chin up—you’re good at that—and feel free to adorn your countenance with your secretive, cat-in-the-cream-pot smile.”

“Right.” Thea lifted her chin. “Conjugal bliss, smile, stammer, and all that.”

“Just so.”

Anselm smiled at her then, that almost-charming smile of the evening before, the one that momentarily banished the shadows in his blue eyes, made the corners crinkle with impending mirth—the smile that nearly stole Thea’s breath with the sheer dearness of it.

Mercy.

She laced her arm through the duke’s, and let him escort her downstairs, past the beaming maids, the smiling footmen, the giggling tweenie, and the silently nodding butler. All the while, Anselm remained quiet, inviting no comment from his staff, and Thea wondered why no one else had ever accused her of having a cat-in-the-cream-pot smile.

For that matter, what
was
a cat-in-the-cream-pot smile?

Five

Bloody double infernally dire damn.

Noah made it through the house, his duchess swanning along beside him, and knew a profound relief when they reached the out-of-doors. Perhaps if he put a shire or two between his wife and himself, he might not feel so strongly the need for the pleasures he’d been denied the night before.

He was used to waking in a state conducive to procreation, and had tended to himself before Thea had even opened her eyes.

Tended to himself
again
.

Rather than ease the ache, he’d only shortened the fuse on his ever-obliging lust, such that simply brushing Thea’s hair was enough to put him back into a state. Two states, actually, for he was still unhappy with his new duchess, even as he inconveniently desired her.

When had brushing a woman’s hair become arousing; when had it graduated from a step in a well-planned seduction to a step in a man’s own downfall?

The trouble was, Noah wasn’t used to sleeping with females. Occasionally, his house cat might steal into his bedchamber, but other than her, he knew better than to sleep with his passing fancies. They got Ideas if a fellow allowed that type of nonsense, especially a wealthy, titled fellow. Thank all the gods, wives were a more sensible breed.

“You have lovely grounds,” his duchess observed, stopping to sniff a bloodred rose. “Not a subtle fragrance, but very pretty.”

Thea’s comment reminded Noah of Henny Whitlow, to whom he’d sent more than one bouquet of showy red roses with their cloying fragrance. This peculiar marriage of his was bringing out all the less worthy qualities of the typical Winters adult male, and he liked that not one bit.

“You’re free to do with the grounds as you wish,” Noah said. “We’ll assemble the outside staff when we return later this morning, and I’ll introduce you to our head gardener. He’s a temperamental Dutchman who insists on being referred to as a botanist. I like him, because he doesn’t bow and scrape, except before his flowers.”

Thea made no reply, for they were approaching the stables. Although Wellspring was one of Noah’s smallest holdings, it was also one of his favorites. Every detail, every building, flower bed, and window trim was finely wrought and well maintained. Wellspring was a retreat of sorts, though Noah doubted his associations with the place would be quite as restful in future.

“I haven’t ridden to speak of since I was much younger,” Thea said. “Papa had a weakness for horses and ended up letting out the estate houses by the time I was twelve to generate income for the sake of his hunters.”

“So you’ll need a gentle mount.” Noah would not allow himself to be disappointed—not over such a detail, not again, not with her, so soon.

Thea smiled the very cat-in-the-cream-pot smile he’d dreamed of.

“Let’s see what you have in here, Your Grace, and I’m sure we can find someone with whom I’ll get along.”

Someone other than
him
, Noah supposed, but had Thea been cowering and obsequious this morning, he’d have disliked that more than her serene equanimity and tidily braided hair.

Noah escorted his duchess down the barn aisle, introducing her to this hunter, that hack, these coach horses, and even a pair of enormous draft horses, visiting from the home farm because the roof to their stable was being repaired.

“They’re happy to laze about.” Noah stroked a bare hand over a large, velvety nose. “Planting only recently ended, and haying will start at the end of the week, then comes the clearing of ditches, and cleaning up the home wood. If we’ve time, we might dig a new irrigation ditch or dredge the ponds, and then the harvests start, and the wood hauling, and sometimes they must scrape snow off the drive, and life is endless work, isn’t it?”

The gelding weighed easily a ton, likely nineteen hands plus at the withers, but his big lips nibbled delicately at Noah’s hand, while his mate watched intently from the next stall.

“Shameless little beggar.” Noah produced a lump of sugar purloined from breakfast, and let it disappear, then fed another to the second gelding.

His wife was watching him, no evidence of her smile to be found.

“Come, Duchess,” Noah said, dusting grains of sugar from his palms. “Your morning gift awaits.”
Please
will
you
come, rather.
He’d have to practice that.

He took Thea’s hand and towed her past a couple more stalls, stopping before a loose box housing a sleek chestnut with four matching white socks.

“This is your idea of a token offering?” Thea asked.

“Her name is Heart’s Delight, though the lads call her Della.”

At the sound of her name, the mare gave up her hay and came to hang her head over the half door. Big brown eyes peered at them with a combination of reserve and curiosity that put Noah in mind of his wife. The selfsame wife who just hours before had shyly let her tongue—

“She’s not without spirit, but I found her quite sensible too,” Noah said. The mare had also already dropped a foal, a handsome colt.

“She’s lovely.” Thea turned to him, her gaze so warm Noah nearly forgot to breathe, and then she stepped closer, and he could not divine her intent until she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him hard.

Not a seductive embrace, a long, tight hug.

Noah might have been about to hug her back when she stepped away and ran her fingers softly over the mare’s jaw. Rather than watch that and suffer the resulting torments—what was
wrong
with him this morning?—Noah marched off, leaving the ladies to get acquainted while he bellowed for grooms and tack, and where in the hell was everybody this morning?

This was just another morning, after all.

His wife, however, was not just another lady in a faded habit perched on a horse for display. Thea rode with the natural seat of one who’d taken to the saddle early and often, and she delighted in her mare, the both of them game for any log, ditch, stream, or bank Noah led them over.

Who would have thought?

“You are a hoyden,” he concluded. “The pair of you are hoydens, and what am I to do with you? Troubadour and I will never hack out in peace again.”

“Troubadour has been a perfect gentleman,” Thea said, her smile careless and quietly stunning as she patted her mare. “I cannot thank you enough for Della, Your Grace. She is perfect, and had I chosen a gift myself, I could not have picked out anything lovelier or more appreciated. I humbly and sincerely thank you.”

Damn.
Noah did not want Thea’s thanks, he wanted
her
, and her smiles and pats and teasing.

Which would not do. “Race you to the end of the field.”

He waited one gentlemanly heartbeat for Thea to tap her heel against the mare’s side, then let True bound after them, holding back until the last minute so the finish was honestly in question.

“You let me win!” she accused breathlessly. “I know your scheme, Anselm. You’re bent on destroying my coiffure, and it’s not very subtle of you.”

Her braid had indeed come free of its pins to hang in a shiny sable rope over her shoulder.

“We’ll not be racing anymore with you in such disarray,” Noah said. “Besides, the horses have to walk out, and our outdoor staff requires introductions forthwith.” He turned his big gelding to amble along beside her mare. “What do you think of this little holding?”

“Little?” Thea blew a strand of hair off her forehead. “Wellspring must be several thousand acres, with the tenant farms, the home farms, and the woods.”

Noah gave his horse, who was still puffing, a loose rein. True had endured months of Town life prior to this remove to Kent and was in want of conditioning.

“Wellspring is small,” Noah said, “but I like it. My mother was fond of this place too, and I have good memories of summers spent here as a boy. By mutual consent, my parents never opened this estate for house parties or shooting parties or the like.”

A shadow crossed Thea’s face as she took up the reins. “A refuge, then. We all need a place of refuge.”

She had needed a place of refuge, else she might not be married to Noah—lowering thought.

“We can change before you review the troops,” he said, “or we can greet them in riding attire. They’ll be assembled outside.”

“How many?”

What did that matter? “Two dozen or so, I should think. It’s summer, so more people are about than in winter.”

“We’ll stay here for haying?”

“That depends.” True minced around a puddle, an affectation he’d never indulge in on the streets of London. “The duration of our stay here depends on when your courses start.”

Thea fussed with her skirts, adjusted her whip, petted the mare, and glanced off toward the stables in the distance.

“Well?” Noah prompted, for they’d soon have grooms hanging on their every word.

“This is the tenth,” she said very softly. “Likely by the twenty-second.”

The timing could be worse. Three weeks instead of two. Thea could have been one of those vexing women who pretended not to know, or not to be able to predict her cycles, one of those women who sought the title Duchess of Anselm and were never invited to Noah’s bed.

“Then, yes.” Noah nudged his horse around a turn in the lane. “We will be here through haying, likely through the end of the month, and possibly longer.”

Though when they left, they’d be man and wife in every possible sense.

“When will Nonie join us?” Thea asked.

“Lady Nonie will remain in Town for at least the rest of the month,” Noah said slowly, “possibly longer.”

Gone were her soft smiles and blushes, and her expression became mulish. “The entire reason I consented to marry you was for the sake of my sister, to keep her safe, and spend—”

Noah shortened his reins, curb and snaffle both. “The entire reason, Thea?”

Her chin came up, predictably. He knew that for the battle flag it was, and they’d been married less than a day.

“Entire,” she said, very pleasantly. “I was content not to marry, but Nonie’s circumstances demanded attention.”

“You were content to be preyed on by the likes of Corbett?” Noah’s question was unkind, but Thea was being prodigiously stubborn. Every couple adjusting to married life deserved some time to themselves.

“I’d rather have been left alone,” she muttered.

Thea eased her mare up into a rocking canter, and Noah let her lead him over the lanes back to the stables. They still weren’t speaking as he helped her off her mare, but rather than give up the fight, he stood beside the mare, his hands on Thea’s waist, holding her immobile for long moments in the stable yard, looking down at her until she took his point.

For better or for worse, she was not
alone
now.

Thea lifted her chin and without benefit of her husband’s escort, swished off in the direction of the gardens.

* * *

The duke had held Thea so closely through the night.

He’d been companionable over breakfast.

He’d given her that gorgeous mare for her very own.

And Thea had foolishly, foolishly
hoped
her taciturn, sardonic husband had been showing a well-hidden tendency toward forgiveness.

She’d known a gathering sense of relief as Anselm had toured his land with her, acting like any new husband might. They’d conversed, they’d even laughed, and then like waking from a pleasant dream to a harsh reality, the pretense of civility had been abruptly dropped.

Thea was hurt, but she couldn’t fault Anselm. The error had been hers, to think this gentleman who was her husband could ever be her friend. He’d told her he wasn’t nice.

Why hadn’t she listened?

While her heart was fracturing along a thousand old lines of pain and disappointment, Anselm was doing the pretty before his outdoor staff.

“And this little fellow”—Noah nodded at a lanky blond man wearing wire-rimmed glasses—“is my botanist, Benjamin Erikson, whom we must commend for tearing himself away from his workbench long enough to greet you.”

“Your Grace.” Erikson bowed over Thea’s hand. “I am charmed.” Brown eyes twinkled at her, and he held her hand a moment too long.

“Having met Erikson,” Anselm said repressively, “we have concluded the reviewing of the troops, and a proper breakfast awaits us inside. Erikson, if you’ve some time, I’d like to meet with you later this morning.”

“I’ll be propagating,” Erikson said. “Best not bother me until this afternoon.”

At least somebody was propagating, for Thea wasn’t sure she ever would.

“Be about your botany. I’ll find you. Duchess?”

Anselm winged his elbow, and Thea obediently accompanied him to the house.

“Gardeners are to be drab little men in shabby coats whose eyes light up only when they can present a perfect red rose to a blushing young lady,” Thea said. “Erikson is not a gardener.”

“No, he’s a botanist, but he’d better not be offering any roses to you, Thea.”

She paused on the front steps and untangled her arm from the duke’s. Perhaps a proper duchess would hold her fire until she was private with her husband. Thea would work on that skill—later.

“I understand you are furious with me, Your Grace, and disappointed and entitled to exact revenge in all manner of small and nasty ways. I accept this, as long as you provide a safe home for my sister, but please do not attribute to me a cavalier disregard for fidelity because of actions occurring before we even met. I am your wife, and I will not shame you,
or
myself
, by flirting with your help.”

“Our help,” he said, frowning down at her from one step up.

They processed in silence toward their chambers, but as Anselm ushered Thea inside her sitting room, he stood for a moment by the door.

“I am furious,” he said, “and disappointed, but not as much at you as I am with myself.”

A ducal olive branch, the only variety of the species that came with thorns.

“Can you explain yourself, Your Grace?” Thea regarded him levelly, which was an effort when his blue, blue eyes had gone more bleak than usual.

“I should have seen you coming,” Anselm said. “In this family, my job is to see disaster on the horizon and steer us clear of it.”