The Marriage Lesson (18 page)

She’d left the ballroom tonight on Moxley’s arm and returned on Berkley’s. How that had happened he had no idea, but from the moment she’d rejoined the festivities she’d refused to cast him so much as a casual glance. There was something different in the determined set of her chin and the gleam in her eye, apparent even from across the room. In addition, she’d made it a point to dance with Berkley, twice, and Pennington, also twice, and several other of his friends. And not once did he see her with any of the gentlemen he approved of.

He propped his hip on the desk and sipped thoughtfully.

They’d left tonight’s festivities earlier than usual and she’d been pleasant enough to him on the ride home. Unfailingly pleasant. Annoyingly pleasant. Pleasant to the point where he had to fight the urge to squirm in his seat and Becky and Jocelyn had traded wary glances. Only Lady Louella had seemed oblivious to the underlying tension in the carriage.

Thomas had always considered himself a man of both honor and courage. However, tonight discretion seemed wise, and if it was cowardly to avoid Marianne, well, he could live with that. He’d vanished the moment they’d arrived home and headed for his club to wait until it was safe to return. He hoped Marianne was fast asleep by now.

He heaved a resigned sigh and headed up the stairs. If she knew what he suspected she knew—and frankly he couldn’t think of anything else he might have done—there was little chance any amount of time would assuage her ire unless, of course, he could put off speaking to her for weeks, maybe even months. No, in this instance years would not be long enough.

He needed a plan. And it had better be smarter than his last plan. At the very least, he needed an idea of what he would say to her. A sound defense of his actions. Oh, certainly he’d already recognized that he had no legitimate defense. Still, he’d done what he thought was best. For him if not necessarily for her. Not that she’d accept that kind of thinking. Perhaps he’d grovel and beg her forgiveness.

His mood brightened. He’d never yet met a woman who did not respond well to abject apologies and sincere groveling. And if he went so far as to admit he had, perhaps, been wrong . . .  The very thought made him cringe—not merely at the idea of saying the words but at his suspicion that she’d never let him forget this little mistake.

Still, he did realize he deserved whatever it was he got.

He simply hoped he survived it.

She had hoped to meet him in the library, but his valet informed her, in response to as casual an inquiry as she could muster, that His Lordship was out for the remainder of the evening. No doubt with the express purpose of consuming a great deal of liquor. Good. He would need the false courage.

She slid her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose and got to her feet. In truth she could use a bit of false courage herself. It was a long way from her chamber to Thomas’s and there were far too many unknowns that could be flitting through the halls of an old house. At least in the mind of an imaginative woman. She pulled her robe tighter around her, grabbed the candlestick and headed for the door.

Thomas knew she was angry. She’d seen it in the wary look in his eye. She doubted he knew precisely what she had discovered, or perhaps he realized full well his crime. Or possibly there was something besides attempting to market her to the most tedious men in society he was guilty of.

She quietly opened her door and glanced up and down the hall. Starlight glowed through tall windows at either ends of the long passageway.

Marianne crept down the hall carefully and cringed with each step on a creaking floorboard. No one was about at this hour and the chances of someone waking were slim. Still, she had no desire to encounter anyone who might demand to know what she was about.

With each step down the dark passageway her anger dimmed, replaced by unease. The candle threw shadows that swelled and menaced. She drew a breath for courage and refused to consider how eerie Effington House was at night. She firmly ignored the thought in the back of her mind as to how many Effingtons, the very ones peering down at her from paintings lining the walls, had through the years died here. Peacefully and in their beds of old age, she hoped. And she absolutely refused to entertain the idea that some of them might linger still.

Her heart thudded in her chest and by the time she reached Thomas’s door she was certain something unseen was following her. She yanked opened his door without knocking, stepped inside and barely had the presence of mind not to slam it behind her. She leaned back against it and breathed hard, fighting the unreasonable terror that had gripped her in the last endless stretch of the corridor.

When her heart had finally slowed to a more natural rhythm, she glanced around. Thomas’s room was overly large, as befitted a future duke. Large, dark furnishings threw equally large, dark shadows. A huge bed dominated the space. Carved posters climbed upward to meet an ornate cornice. The bed hangings were left open. It was, as best she could tell with the light from the candle and the low glow from the fireplace, an exceedingly exotic room. No. An exceedingly
male
room.

Thomas lay sprawled on his stomach, stretched diagonally across the bed. His face was turned toward her, one arm dangling over the edge of the bed. The bedclothes were pushed down to his waist, exposing a firmly muscled back. She swallowed hard. The future duke apparently saw no need for extensive nightclothes.

“Thomas,” she said tentatively.

He blew out a long breath in response.

She studied him with detached curiosity. He was the first practically naked man she’d ever seen. And definitely the first man, with clothes or without, she’d ever seen in a bed. Even with her lack of experience, she could certainly see he was a fine specimen of the male gender. The candlelight played across the hard lines of his back and she had the most ridiculous urge to run her fingers over his skin. Her hand reached out on its own accord. His flesh would be warm and smooth and inviting and—

She jerked back and heat flushed up her face. This was not her purpose here! At least, she amended, not tonight.

“Thomas,” she said in a low, sharp voice.

He snorted.

She stepped closer and shoved tentatively at his shoulder. “Thomas.”

He murmured.

She set the candle on a table by his bed, next to a nearly full glass of brandy. She sniffed in disdain. No wonder she couldn’t wake him.

False courage.

Why not? She shrugged, picked up the glass, took a healthy swallow and replaced it on the table.

She pulled in a deep breath, placed both hands firmly on his shoulder, his flesh every bit as warm as she thought it would be, and pushed hard.

He muttered something unintelligible and rolled onto his back. He flung his forearm over his eyes, the covers slipping lower to hang on his hips.

For a moment she could do nothing more than stare. His shoulders were broader than she’d realized. His chest, an intriguing landscape of firm planes and shallow valleys, glowed in the candlelight. A smattering of dark hair trailed from his chest to disappear beneath the sheets.

She grabbed for the brandy and took a bracing swallow. And one more just for good measure. Regardless of the man’s obvious charms—and at this moment they were extremely obvious—she was not in his room for a lesson in life or in anything else. No, he was the one who needed to be taught a lesson. He was the one who needed to learn that even the son of a duke couldn’t bend people’s lives to suit his own purposes, to make his own life more convenient.

She’d laugh if she wasn’t so vexed with him. Still, she stifled a smile; it was rather amusing. He could drink even in his sleep. There was probably not a great call for a skill like that, yet she supposed it could come in useful. She snickered, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

Stop it this minute!

She had to pull herself together. She was angry with him, deservedly, justifiably angry, and it would not do for him to wake up to find her laughing. If she could get him to wake up at all. There had to be a way short of screaming in his ear and jumping up and down on his bed. And while that had a certain amount of appeal, it probably wasn’t the best idea.

If there’d only been more brandy left in the glass. She looked around the room. It was really rather spartan, at least when it came to the kind of decorative bits and pieces found in a woman’s room. She spotted several things she could probably drop on his head, but she’d prefer not to seriously injure him. At least not while he slept. There were a couple of books on the dresser—poetry, no doubt—but she’d hate to damage a book, and God knows what a heavy tome would do to the sleeping marquess. There were a few other items—matching silver candlesticks on the mantel, an Argand lamp on the dresser next to a pitcher. None of which she could drop on his head.

She strolled over to the dresser in a casual manner, as if to convince anyone who might be watching her intentions were completely innocent, and giggled at the idea. At once it struck her that this really was something of an adventure. Oh, not as grand an adventure as searching for ancient treasure in Egypt or even drifting down a canal in Venice, but a minor adventure nonetheless.

She picked up the pitcher and hefted it in her hand. A respectable amount of water sloshed in a satisfactory manner. She grinned. This would do nicely.

She stepped back to the bed and held the pitcher over Thomas’s face. That would wake him. She moved the pitcher to hover over his stomach. That would wake him as well. She shifted the pitcher once again. Of course, if a cool splash of water hit him on that part of his anatomy—from what she’d heard through the years, anyway—he would not only awaken but probably be quite alert. On further thought, she hadn’t had that much false courage. She repositioned the pitcher once more, aimed for his head and poured.

Maybe her previous attempts had already partially awakened him. Or perhaps he’d been dreaming of shipwrecks and was primed to struggle for air. Or the water could have been a bit cooler than she’d anticipated, but Thomas came to life with a roar. His arms flailed, striking the pitcher. It flew toward the foot of the bed, effectively dousing him from head to toe. He leapt out of bed, his eyes wide with confusion.

“What . . .  what . . . ” he sputtered.

The future duke apparently saw no need for nightclothes at all.

Marianne stammered. “You’re . . .  you’re . . . ”

“I’m soaked.” He glared at her.

“You’re naked.” She gasped. As much as she knew she shouldn’t—and she did try not to, but she’d never seen a naked man before, wet or dry—her gaze slipped lower to take in the full sight of him. And a rather startling, although not unpleasant, sight he was.

“Turn around,” he said through clenched teeth.

Her gaze jerked back to his. Heat flushed her cheeks. “Oh. Certainly. Of course.”

She didn’t move. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face away from him. “Stay.”

At once the commanding tone of his voice reminded her precisely why she’d come to his room in the middle of the night. “Do not speak to me like that, Thomas. I am not a dog to be ordered about.”

“What are you doing here?” She sensed him moving behind her.

“I have a matter of some importance to discuss with you.”

“Now?” He paused and she could practically hear him thinking. His tone was guarded and considerably calmer. “It couldn’t wait until morning?”

“It most certainly could not.” She huffed. “If you have sufficiently recovered your modesty, I should like to turn around now.”

“Fine,” he snapped.

She turned to face him. He’d donned a dressing gown and stood leaning against one of the bedposts, his arms crossed over his chest.