The Importance of Being Wicked (22 page)

“You and I go back even further, Lithgow. I've never forgotten your visit to Castleton with your father.”

“I'm flattered that fortnight made such an impression.”

“It was your sudden departure, like a pair of thieves in the night, that made it impossible to forget.”

If Lithgow had been a man of honor, he'd have called him out for such an insult, and Thomas would have been glad to oblige. Instead, he laughed. “My dearest Caro! Your new husband isn't very cordial. Is he always like this with your friends? How uncomfortable that must be for you. But I'm a man of peace, so I forgive him. I entirely understand how the green-eyed monster extends its claws when such loveliness as yours is at issue.”

Caro raised her eyes to the ceiling. “You're absurd, Marcus. That overblown compliment won't do when Robert never became jealous in six years of marriage. And nor does my dear Thomas.” She dropped Lithgow's hand and clasped Thomas's arms with both of hers. “He's much too sensible for such nonsense. Besides, we've only been wed two weeks.”

She was taking it too lightly. And “sensible” didn't sound like a compliment to him, not coming from his flighty Caro. He frowned. Flighty wasn't a compliment, either. Yet Caro all too often exhibited behavior that suited the adjective. And what did she mean by two weeks? That after the honeymoon he
would
have cause for jealousy?

“You didn't have to let that fellow hold your hand,” he said, as soon as their carriage began the journey home. “There were at least a hundred people in that ballroom, and I can imagine what conclusions they drew.”

“About Marcus? There's nothing like that between us. And I certainly don't care what's in the evil minds of a lot of tabbies.”

“I'd rather you weren't on terms of familiarity with him.”

“Why not?”

“I don't like the man, never did.”

“He's your cousin.”

“Do you like all your relations?”

That silenced her, for a moment. “He was Robert's friend since the day they went up to Oxford and shared rooms. I'm certainly not going to cut the acquaintance.”

“You're married to me now.”

She slipped her hand into his and rested her cheek against his sleeve. “Of course I am. And you have nothing to worry about.”

Somewhat comforted, he drew her against him, and they sat quietly for a minute or two.

“Why don't you like Marcus? Did something happen when he visited you? I'm surprised he never mentioned staying with a duke.”

“It was years ago. I was about thirteen, I suppose. His father invited himself and the son to Castleton, exploiting our very slight connection through his late wife. They left in a hurry, and afterward, my father discovered that a miniature of Charles II had vanished with them.”

“I'm afraid that doesn't surprise me,” she said in a resigned voice. “Lewis Lithgow was a famous scoundrel. Robert always said he'd never allow him in the house, and he wasn't at all particular. But Marcus is better than that. Considering his upbringing, it's a miracle he turned out so well. I don't see that you can blame him for his father's thievery. He was even younger than you.”

“Are you testifying to Marcus Lithgow's probity?” Thomas asked, incredulous.

“He is not a thief, of that I am certain. Not a cheat either. But he's made his own way in the world and lives off his wits and his card skills. He's not a respectable man by your standards, but that doesn't mean he's dishonest.”

“Why am I not surprised that a friend of yours is a cardsharp?”

“A cardplayer, not a sharp.” She removed her arm from his and sat up straight. “But naturally you leap to the worst conclusions about my friends. You despise me.”

“Despise you?” he said, finding her hands twisted together in her lap. “How can you believe such a thing? I married you.”

“If you don't despise me, your family does, and I know how much you cling to family tradition.”

What nonsense was this? “You've never even met my family, except Cousin Charles.”

“I'm well aware of that fact. You won't let me live under the same roof as your mother and sisters. Afraid I will pollute them with my wicked ways and immoral friends.”

“Now you're leaping to conclusions. That's not what I think.”

“Then the duchess does. You returned from Castleton, and suddenly I'm not allowed to go there until your mother and sisters are ready to leave for another house.”

It hadn't occurred to him Caro would see things that way. He considered what he could say without revealing his mother's infidelity. The discovery was too raw in his mind to feel he could speak the horrible truth aloud.

“You're talking nonsense,” he blustered. “The facts are exactly as I stated. I believe it will be more comfortable for all if you enter Castleton as its undisputed mistress. My mother is not an easy woman.”

She pulled away from him, folded her arms, and stuck her nose in the air with the look of an infuriated bird. “I don't believe you.”

He conceived a different tactic to placate her. “I want Castleton to be all yours. You're going to be a wonderful duchess, Caro. I saw tonight at the ball how much you charmed everyone. A few more events like that, and any scandal in your past will be forgotten.”

“Oh please! I've never been so bored in my life. Those people barely tolerated me. I will not give up any of the people who love me and accept me as I am.”

“I love you and accept you as you are.” He was so intent on his argument, he missed the significance of uttering those words for the first time.

So did she. “Love me, love my friends.”

“Townsend's friends!”

“Yes, his too. We were married for six years.”

Thomas released the reins on his temper. “As though I could possibly forget that, with every shiftless artist and loose woman in London crammed into your drawing room. And the men—I won't say gentlemen. Denford is bad enough but now Lithgow!”

“Loose women? Loose women!” she shrieked. “Name one!”

“Lady Windermere lives apart from her husband and is being escorted all over town by a man like Denford. I don't know your definition of
loose,
but it meets mine.”

“Cynthia lives apart from Windermere because he left her to go abroad a month after their marriage. You have no idea how badly he has treated her. It would serve him right if she cuckolded him with half of London though, as it happens, she has not. With Denford or anyone else. If she chooses to do so, she will have my full support.”

“You count marriage vows of little importance, I see.”

“I believe vows go both ways,” she replied, equally angry.

For the first time since their wedding, they didn't immediately make love upon returning home. Thomas considered retiring to the narrow bed in his small dressing room. When he dismissed Minchin and returned to the bedchamber, his unformed hope that Caro would have transformed back into his welcoming bride, ready for any pleasure, was dashed. She lay with her back to the middle of the bed, a hedgehog on the farthest edge of the mattress.

As he stood beside the bed in the shadowy light, he replayed their quarrel. There were things she'd exaggerated to be sure, but playing variations on the literal truth was Caro's habit and part of her charm. He admitted to himself his reaction to the appearance of Marcus Lithgow was based only partly on past knowledge. He couldn't be sure the son had participated in the father's crimes.

His brain sought to untangle the emotions the evening had raised: dislike, jealousy, fear. Lithgow and his father were both part of it, with Caro in the middle. His father had wed for love, and the marriage had ended in disaster and betrayal. In choosing Caro over all logic and sensible worldly considerations, he feared he'd made his father's mistake.

For love Caro he did. He acknowledged he'd been madly in love with her almost from the start. And was afraid
madly
was the correct word.

Every second he was aware of her bundled form, the cropped head a dark shadow on the lace-trimmed white pillow, physically close and mentally estranged. Her scent, a kind of particular warmth more than an identifiable perfume, tickled his nostrils. He wondered if she was asleep. He rather thought not. He'd listened a few times while she slept, but not often enough to recognize the rhythm of her breathing with certainty.

His heart swelled to match the growing desire of his body. Kneeling on the mattress, he reached across the chasm that was the center of the bed and touched her shoulder. “Caro,” he whispered. “My love.”

Caro had been lying in bed, tense and miserable. Thomas's touch, his whispered endearment, saved her from succumbing to sobs. She hated serious quarreling, preferring to laugh her way out of disputes. But tonight had raised issues between herself and her husband that couldn't be resolved with a jest.

“What?” She forced the word from a throat thick with tears.

“My darling Caro. Let's not quarrel.”

She rolled over to face him, rocking the mattress and making a mess of the covers. “I don't want to. But how could you say such things? I won't abandon a friend because of an unsubstantiated, decades-old rumor.”

“I don't expect you to,” he said. “But is it too much to expect that your husband will come first?”

How could she resist such a plea? She rose to face him, straddling his knees with her own and winding her arms around his neck, her head on his chest, enjoying the springy hair under her wet cheek, the steady beat of his heart. “I would never put anyone before my husband.” Her voice broke on the words.

“I love you, Caro. I love you. I want you to be happy.”

He loved her. His admission touched and terrified her. She wanted to love again. She wanted to love her husband. But to open her heart to Thomas seemed fraught with peril. She'd have to step through a door and confront memories better avoided, truths that would cause her pain. She didn't have the courage. Even thinking about it made her a little panicked.

“Oh, Thomas!” she whispered. “Let's not quarrel. Let's be happy.” She found his lips for a deep kiss, putting all her confused feelings into the one that was unambiguous: desire.

His hands on her back, traveling from shoulders to waist to buttocks made her yearn for skin against skin. Frustrated by the intervention of her cotton nightgown, she pulled it over her head and tossed it aside, then pushed his banyan from his shoulders.

His touch always thrilled her, and now he knew how to intensify and prolong her bliss. Their position was ideal for him to play with her breasts, then take one nipple after the other into his mouth. Each one peaked under the play of his tongue, sending arrows of desire straight to her quim. His cock, already hard, leaped joyously into her waiting hand.

She didn't need the play of his now-practiced fingers to arouse her. Brushing them aside, she lowered herself onto his staff with a happy shudder. Never had she so longed for—and relished—the sense of fullness provided by their physical union. He let her lead for a while, offered only caresses and wordless murmurs and deep kisses as he kept pace with her in the long, slow, delirious ride to her apex.

When she collapsed, panting against his chest, he gathered her up and held back his own climax until the ripples of her inner passage subsided. Then he turned her over, still united, and recommenced deep, slow thrusts. He'd learned to postpone his own fulfillment. Only when she cried out again did he join her, and she felt the powerful heaves of his release, the heat of his seed within her.

Thomas didn't know if he shouted out his love as he spent, but the sentiment flooded his heart. Taking his weight on his elbows, he covered her face with kisses and clasped her tight against him. Never, he swore, would he let her go. Anyone who tried to take Caro away from him would rue the day.

“Thank you, Thomas,” she whispered. “For being so good.” She snuggled into the shelter of his body, tucked her head into his neck and fell asleep.

She hadn't returned his declaration, but for now it was enough that their desire was shared. He listened to her sleeping breath and smiled at the ceiling. She thought him good. That was a good start.

One thing pricked his conscience, marred his satisfied glow. Keeping the real reason for their absence from Castleton was unfair. Far from any shortcoming of hers, it was his mother's sins that prevented them from sharing a house.

He loved Caro, but he wasn't sure he could trust her with this secret. Their relationship was still too new. His wife was the one person he should be able to take into his confidence. What if he revealed his mother's illicit affair, and she took the duchess's part? As for his sisters, though he didn't think she'd tell Anne, or Lady Windermere, or Oliver Bream or—perish the thought—Denford or Lithgow, he couldn't be certain.

While this was hardly the first time a cuckoo—or a brace of them—ended up in a noble nest, it wasn't the kind of thing that happened in the Fitzcharles aviary. Since their beginnings in royal bastardy, they'd eschewed any irregularity or scandal. Thomas was determined to keep it that way.

Chapter 21

T
he Duke of Castleton, so controlled in his wakened state, was not a tidy sleeper. In the morning, the sheets were tangled, one of his powerful legs hung over the side of the bed, and his back and shoulders were open to view. Caro, who had risen to deal with her ablutions and draw the curtains, hesitated to cover him against the chill. She didn't want him catching a cold, but she loved to look at his body.

Her anger of the night before had evaporated with Thomas's apology. Except against her mother, she never found it easy to hold a grudge. Especially when forgiveness came with such benefits. Their union last night, coming after a quarrel, had been especially satisfying. And Thomas had told her he loved her.

Dear Thomas. He was much braver than she. A surge of affection made her want to do something for him. The only thing she could offer was a determination to be the kind of wife he deserved. She was going to be good.

She hoped she could manage it. Being good had never been one of her talents. You only had to ask her mother. All her life, she'd relished the little thrill of defiance that came with misbehavior. But for the sake of the man she'd married, the man whose rigid principles competed with a sweet and loving nature, she would try.

Sighing with that lovely relaxed glow of the morning after lovemaking, she admired her husband. His stature and power never failed to delight her. Robert had been a slender man, still boyish when they met. He never gained a man's physique, a consequence of a small appetite—for food. Wine and late nights apparently kept a man from filling out. By the time he died, he was pitifully thin.

In this, her new husband showed to advantage. His broad upper body, narrowing to the waist, was a feast for greedy eyes. He snuffled into the pillow, sending ripples through muscles she itched to explore with her hands. A rumpled sheet scarcely disguised the outline of taut buttocks. With a shrug, she approached the bed and stripped it off, leaving him splayed on the mattress in all his glory.

She extended her forefinger and very slowly, beginning at the nape of his neck, traced the length of his torso, along the bumps of his backbone, and down into the crease of his behind. And because his legs lay wide apart, she reached down her hand and found his sac.

The response was gratifying. In a flash, he turned over, seized her by the waist, and tossed her onto the bed beside him. “Don't move,” he ordered as he jumped out of bed and stalked naked to the dressing room before her shameless gaze. She grinned happily at the evidence of morning lust. Time for an early breakfast.

“Lie down,” she commanded when he returned, patting the pillows she'd banked at the head of the bed. He arched an eyebrow but followed orders, his hands clasped behind his neck, endless legs stretched out. “Not like that. Bend your knees. That's right.” She knelt between them. “Now, leave this to me.”

He peered down at her through his eyelashes. Rough hair on his legs tickled her hips. She took his hard cock between her hands and pushed down, exposing the dark red head glistening with a spot of liquid. Then she settled back on her heels, leaned forward, forming her mouth into an O and licking her lips.

His eyes startled. “Really? You'd do this for me?” She could tell he wasn't comfortable with the idea.

“If you'd enjoy it. I think you will. I'm
good
at it.” There was more than one way of being good.

“I'm sure I will, though I've never experienced such a thing.”

Really! Thomas had the most incompetent mistresses.

“Do you mind?” he asked.

“I enjoy it. There's pleasure in giving pleasure.”

He nodded.

She gave a low chuckle. “And there's pleasure in being in command. I'd think a duke would appreciate that.”

Not surprisingly, any argument came to an end. “I am Your Grace's most humble servant,” he said.

“L
et's ride in the park this morning,” Thomas said later. He longed for a good gallop, but that couldn't happen in Hyde Park. Besides, the saddle horses available for hire weren't up to much. The lack of a large house with stabling—and a large income to meet the considerable expense of maintaining a stable in London—irked him. If he sent for a couple of horses from Castleton, he wondered how Caro would feel about housing them and their attendants in her carriage house. Since it would entail evicting Oliver Bream, he decided not to raise the subject when the day had started so well.

Damn, he felt good. Shocked, a little guilty, but flooded with well-being.

“All right. I have an old habit in the wardrobe.” She sounded game but less than confident.

“Don't you ride?”

“I learned as a child, but my mother thought it necessary only for a young lady not to fall off. After that, we lived in London, and Robert didn't care much for riding.”

He shrugged on his banyan, went out onto the landing, and yelled for their attendants. A lack of bells was one of the eccentricities of the house that needed investment.

Caro's seat on a horse was adequate but not elegant. He teased her about resembling a sack of coal and kept a careful eye on her, not that there was much chance of the hired slug bolting. “When we get to Castleton, I'll give you lessons on a decent horse.”

“Will you let me ride Grey Flyer?”

“If you do, I'll have to beat you for your own good.”

“That's a wicked suggestion.”

“I'm joking, of course. I'd never lay a hand on you that way.”

She cast him a naughty look that suggested she might have some ideas for his further education. His imagination boiled over. “I'll race you to the farthest oak tree.”

He caught her rein. “Joking is one thing. Playing with your safety quite another. We'll keep to a sedate trot.”

He dropped her at home and took his horse on to Fleet Street, to the offices of his man of business. He felt an urgency to get his finances in order so he could be master of his own house. The news wasn't good. The tangle of his father's investments had got worse rather than better, and he returned to Conduit Street in a poor mood, ready for some wifely soothing.

He found her in the little-used ground-floor morning room, sitting at her desk with pen in hand and frowning at papers scattered over the surface.

“Oh good,” she said. “I can't make head nor tail of my accounts. Now you're back, and I can give up.” She pushed the papers into an untidy pile.

Even across the room, he could tell they were bills that bedeviled her. “I can wait,” he said, drawing a chair up beside her. “Better still, I can help. I'm good at reckoning.” Had he been a betting man, he'd have wagered a large sum against Caro's ability to add a column of figures correctly.

She'd made a list of the sums outstanding against her, and he quickly perceived she owed more than could be paid by two quarters of the fair, if not overly generous, pin money he'd settled on her. And that was only her personal expenditure, not including the household bills, some of which were months old.

He tried to stay calm. “How have you spent so much in such a short time?”

“I needed new clothes. That was all right, wasn't it?” She sounded anxious, as well she might when he saw the size of the bills from modistes, milliners, and haberdashers from the best London addresses. More interested in seeing her out of them, he hadn't paid much attention to her gowns. She'd given up her white muslins. Today, in yellow silk, she looked like a jaunty daffodil with her red curls. He was in no position to criticize, having just paid some hefty tailor's bills of his own. He recalled with amusement that he'd ordered his new wardrobe with Caro in mind, though at the time he'd fooled himself that impressing Anne was his purpose.

“You must buy what you need, of course,” he said. “But you should live within your means.” He perused an invoice from a silk warehouse for yards and yards of ruinously costly cloth. “Such a lot of material to cover a small lady,” he said with a ponderous attempt at humor he was far from feeling.

“That's for the drapery in our bedchamber. I've ordered new curtains for the whole house. They are shabby, and many of them are stained.”

Stained by drunken artists spilling wine, no doubt.

“My love, we may not remain in this house much longer. I wish you'd consulted me.”

She clasped her hands to her breast, the picture of contrition. “I'm sorry, Thomas. Can't you afford it? I thought you were rich.”

His pride was pricked by his situation, being unable to let his new bride indulge herself. He'd like to indulge her, let her buy whatever took her fancy, shower her with gifts. Damn his father.

“My income is large,” he said, “but my father made some poor investments. I still have to provide for my sisters.” That he allowed himself to admit.

“Why didn't you tell me? I would have been more careful.”

“To tell you the truth,” he said, risking a measure of frankness, “I thought you might not keep the matter to yourself. I prefer not to have my financial affairs discussed by your friends and the news spread around London.”

Her mouth gained the stubborn set she sometimes wore, just for a moment. Then she appeared thoughtful and nodded. “I'm afraid you're right. Oliver, in particular, is not always discreet.”

“I can rely on you, then?”

“I won't breathe a word.”

As long as it didn't put his sisters' reputations in jeopardy, he could enjoy making his wife a confidante. “I just learned that a trading ship went down at the loss of a large capital sum.”

Caro put her arms around his neck. “Poor Thomas, I understand. It's like a bad night at the tables. I'm quite used to that.”

“No it isn't,” he said. “There's a difference between an unlucky investment and throwing away money on the fall of the dice. A little care and economy, and we shall come about.”

“That's all right then. Your credit is good, and there isn't the slightest need to pay any of these horrid bills until things are in order again. I'm quite used to fighting off the duns.”

“I trust no merchant will have the temerity to dun
me
,” he said, appalled at the vision of bill collectors and bailiffs disturbing the dignity of his household.

“It's my experience that one's creditors possess unlimited temerity. But I know just the way to stop them. Order something else.” She smiled at her brilliant idea. “It's a lovely day, and I saw a lovely bonnet in the window, just around the corner. Why don't you come with me?”

With such a philosophy, it was little wonder she'd got herself into such straits. “The idea is to lessen one's debts, not increase them.”

“You are quite right, Thomas. I certainly don't need that bonnet.”

On the other hand, shopping with her sounded fun. “I daresay one hat won't make much difference,” he said, against his better judgment. “Let's go.”

For the moment, he would ignore the fact that marriage, instead of solving his financial problems, threatened to make them worse.