by Lenora Bell
He twisted away from the doorway and Alice heard more urgent whispered conversation with someone she couldn’t see.
The butler turned back to Alice. “My friend Mr. March says you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad. I’m Lady Hatherly.”
“No you’re not.”
Alice was beginning to be quite irritated with this conversation. She was about to grasp hold of the door and fling it open when a loud, rumbling roar emerged from inside the house.
“Wh-what was that?” squeaked Hodgins.
It had sounded rather like a . . .
“Lion,” shouted the butler, dancing about on his long, thin legs like a praying mantis. “Lion on the loose!”
The door crashed open and the butler ran down the steps, shortly followed by an enormous golden blur.
Her parents and maid leapt out of the way and Alice gaped at the giant beast streaking across the drive. Surely it must be a large dog. Lord Hatherly couldn’t keep lions in his house, could he?
Sir Alfred caught hold of his quivering wife.
The normally unflappable Hodgins promptly dropped the basket on its side and Kali was off like a shot, racing across the garden lawn after the lion.
“Kali—no!” Alice called.
Kali had been a fearless huntress back in Pudsey, bringing Alice a daily offering from the fields. A severed robin’s head. A poor, stiff little mouse.
She’d named her cat after a Hindu goddess of war.
Kali wasn’t dainty and refined . . . and she wasn’t afraid of anything.
And neither was Alice.
Setting down her valise and lifting her skirts, she plunged down the steps after her very brave and very foolish cat.
“Alice—no!” her mother yelled.
But there was nothing for it but to join the chase.
Nick swore under his breath as he chased his escaped lioness, Gertrude. She was being chased by a small streak of gray-and-brown striped fur, and the streak of fur was in turn being pursued by his very disheveled and cross-looking bride.
He drew alongside Alice. “Fall back,” he shouted. “Gertrude’s not dangerous but I want to secure her as a precaution.”
The only response was a narrowing of turquoise eyes as she increased her pace despite the silk skirts wrapped around her long limbs.
Nick sighed and burst past her. “Gertrude,” he yelled. “Stop, girl.”
Gertrude skidded to a halt, glancing behind warily at the hissing gray-and-brown cat.
“Easy now,” he said to Gertrude.
She plopped down on the lawn, lowering her head. She was a very old, very decrepit lioness.
He clipped the chain he held to her collar and fixed it to a nearby fence post.
The ferocious ball of fur, which he could now see was a small, tiger-striped cat, hissed and spat at Gertrude until Alice scooped it into her arms.
“Kali,” Alice scolded, stroking her cat under the chin and breathing heavily. “You naughty thing. You can’t go chasing after lions. They’re much bigger than you. Why, you could have been eaten.”
At least she wasn’t screaming hysterically, as most females would have done at the sight of Gertrude.
Perhaps she’d adapt to life at Sunderland, after all.
She glanced at Nick from beneath her lashes. Her bonnet had fallen down her back and was dangling by its ribbons, and most of her hair had escaped its pins and was tumbling over her shoulders.
Her chest heaved from the exertion of running, and her pelisse had come undone, revealing plump breasts straining over the narrow, pearl-dotted bodice of her wedding gown.
Kali settled against her mistress’s chest, the excitement of the chase forgotten in the quest for more chin scratches.
Nick couldn’t help wishing he could nestle between her breasts as well.
He raised his eyes, not wanting to be caught staring at her bosom, although it was truly magnificent and would deserve his full attention later.
“You keep a menagerie, Lord Hatherly?”
“Of only one beast.”
Gertrude flicked her tail, and Kali raised her head and growled.
“Your cat is terrorizing my lioness,” Nick said.
“Your lioness terrorized my maid.” Alice glanced toward the gate where her lady’s maid had exited, probably never to be seen again.
“Gertrude’s harmless. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. She’s had all her teeth filed down by her previous owner and her claws removed. Barbaric really.”
Nick patted Gertrude’s head. “All she wants to do is sun herself and eat apples from our trees.”
“She won’t harm Kali?”
“I promise.”
Alice set Kali down and the cat hissed at the lion. Gertrude cowered away from the ferocious little beast.
Kali advanced and sniffed Gertrude’s enormous paw. Gertrude regarded Kali with a funny expression, almost a smile.
The cat decided she wasn’t a threat, and promptly curled up next to Gertrude.
“Oh, so now you’re best friends, are you?” Alice asked.
“I told you there was nothing to worry about.”
“But how can you be certain? She’s a wild beast.”
“Have you ever visited Tombwell’s Menagerie? They were pitting her against dogs who savaged her cruelly. They took away her claws and she only has a few teeth left, and no fight to speak of. You saw how terrified she was of Kali.”
Alice smiled. “Kali’s very brave.”
And so was his new bride.
A brave, independent lady who went chasing after lions and who would chase her dreams to India.
A fellow had to admire that much spirit in a woman.
It almost made him sorry that she couldn’t have found a more worthy opponent with which to spar.
Instead she’d pledged herself to him. A man who would most likely go insane one day and forget not only their wedding ceremony but her name . . . her very existence. His father rarely remembered he was married. His forgetfulness and delusions were periodic, but this latest bout had lasted so long that Nick feared he would never regain his grasp on reality.
“Your parents are distraught,” Nick commented. “We should rejoin them.”
Sir Alfred was fanning his wife with her bonnet.
Alice lifted Kali from the ground and they walked together back to her parents.
“This won’t do, Hatherly,” Sir Alfred sputtered as they approached. “I won’t have my daughter’s life endangered. If I had my hunting guns I’d shoot that lion dead.”
“Is it gone?” Lady Tombs asked, her shoulders trembling.
“All’s clear, my dear,” said the baronet.
Lady Tombs raised her head. “Alice. My dear child. You cannot live with a lion.”
“Lioness, Mother. And she’s harmless. Old and feeble with all her teeth and claws filed to bluntness. Why, she was frightened of little Kali.” Alice placed her cat back in its basket and fastened the lid more securely.
Sir Alfred cleared his throat. “Is that true, Hatherly?”
“All true. I rescued her from a traveling menagerie. She’s very old, and very feeble. I can’t believe she escaped from her enclosure. I’ll make sure it’s repaired today.”
“See that you do,” grumbled Sir Alfred.
“Oh,” moaned Lady Tombs. “My nerves. I’m all aquiver.”
“Lady Tombs,” Nick said smoothly, “a small brandy, perhaps? It would have a calming effect.”
She drew herself up regally. “I never imbibe spirits, my lord, and neither does Alice.”
March, Nick’s footman, emerged from the house. “Oh, you’re still here?” He glared at Alice and her parents.
“Found them skulking about the door,” March whispered to Nick, his mouth turned down. “Highly suspicious. We must be vigilant, what with Mr. Stubbs turning traitor, and all.” He waved in Alice’s direction. “Says she’s your wife, but I know you haven’t got a wife.”
“I am his wife,” Alic
e said.
He had a wife.
It was still an entirely foreign concept to Nick.
A temporary wife, he reminded himself.
“That’s enough, March,” Nick warned. “Go back inside.”
He didn’t mind March’s incivility—the man had been born with enough disadvantages to give him the right to grouse—but Lady Tombs was about to have an attack of nerves on his front steps.
“My heavens,” Lady Tombs sputtered. “That is the rudest servant I’ve ever had the misfortune of coming in contact with.”
“My sincere apologies,” Nick said. “We don’t often entertain polite company.”
And he wasn’t about to entertain them further.
When Nick invited guests to Sunderland they always arrived after dark and left before the dawn. They saw only what he wanted them to see—the spectacle, the illusions.
His new in-laws would have to become accustomed to the idea that he didn’t follow society’s rules.
Before Nick could send them away, the duke hobbled through the doorway with Berthold lumbering close behind. “Hello there, who’s this?” He eyed Lady Tombs. “Madam, you are a vision most welcome. An angel come to earth.”
Lady Tombs, somewhat mollified by this turn of events, smiled at Nick’s father. “Your Grace?”
“Yes, ’tis I.” The duke attempted a sweeping bow and had to clutch Berthold’s arm for support. “Barrington, at your pleasure, madam. And you are . . .” He lifted his brows.
“Lady Agatha Tombs. The new Lady Hatherly’s mother. So very pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Grace. I was so very disappointed you were unable to attend the wedding. It was a most elegant affair. The very height of elegance! There are hundreds of pearls embroidered upon Lady Hatherly’s gown. Everyone pronounced the gown a triumph.”
Pearls sewn along the bodice and tiny pearl buttons marching down the back.
Nick had been imagining unfastening them for the last two hours.
Which was not an appropriate thought to have while standing in skin-tight pantaloons in front of the lady’s easily perturbed mother.
Though the father would no doubt approve, since he’d made abundantly clear in the settlement that the marriage must be legitimized before he handed over a farthing. Sir Alfred was a businessman first and foremost. And he wanted to secure his investment.
“Oh come now, you can’t be her mother,” the duke chided. “You must be her elder sister. Your satin curls have the very same luster and your cheeks the very same blush.” He reached for her hand and kissed the air above her gloved knuckles. “Beautiful, beautiful Agatha. Lovely lady. You remind me of my cher amie Marie Antoinette.”
Sir Alfred frowned. “Your Grace, we really must be going now.”
“Fie, Duke, how you flatter me,” Lady Tombs said with a delighted little giggle.
The duke grinned with a hint of his former debonair charm. “I’ll flatter you more if you come with me to my orchid conservatory where we may converse in private. The blooms have a delightful scent and their forms are quite . . . suggestive.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Lady Tombs gulped. “Er . . .”
She had the dazed look of a lady who’d been insulted by a footman and propositioned by a mad duke in the space of two minutes.
“Now see here,” Sir Alfred said. “This is my wife, Your Grace.”
Alice flung Nick a panicked look.
“Come dear,” said Sir Alfred stormily. “I shall convey you home if there is to be no breakfast.”
“No breakfast,” Nick said firmly.
He’d agreed to the public ceremony but he’d refused to host or attend a wedding breakfast.
“Be good, dear,” Lady Tombs said in a tremulous voice, darting Nick a half-terrified look, as if she’d only now realized she must relinquish her beloved daughter to the likes of him.
Alice kissed her mother on the cheek and smiled at her father. “You needn’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Come, Mama, don’t trouble yourself so.” Alice helped her mother tie the feathered and beribboned millinery back on her head.
“Your daughter will be quite safe with me,” Nick vowed.
At least she’d be safe from lions.
He couldn’t pledge her safety from marquesses.
She looked entirely too delectable with her light brown hair tumbling about her shoulders and her bodice askew.
When Sir Alfred and his wife were situated in their carriage, Nick turned to the duke.
“Well, Barrington, scared away another one.”
“I can’t think what I said to distress her.” The duke stared forlornly at the feathers bobbing in the carriage window. “Beautiful, beautiful Agatha.” He sighed and waved his handkerchief as the carriage rolled away. “I only wanted to show her my blooms.”
Nick laughed. “The ones from Captain Lear?”
“I helped plant them,” Berthold said with great pride. “I mustn’t water them too much or they’ll die.”
The duke cheered, nodding vigorously. “Lear brought one species I haven’t been able to identify yet. We’ll have to see if it will flower. Ten of the plants died but two will survive, I think. I predict the petals will be ghostly white and elongated with long trailing tails. Wait until I show Pemberton!”
That might be difficult.
His father’s explorer friend Sir Pemberton had died five years ago after being thrown from his carriage by balking horses.
Alice saw Nick’s long face and immediately smiled at the duke and took his arm. “You may show me your orchids, Your Grace.”
She was adept at taking charge of difficult situations. He’d notice that about her immediately.
“Splendid my dear,” the duke said. “And who are you?”
As Alice led his father into the house, and listened patiently to his meanderings, Nick hoped she wouldn’t run screaming when she encountered the madhouse of his life.
Her shoulders were held high but her neck drooped from the weight of all the pearls sewn into the heavy silk of her gown.
She should remove the gown as soon as possible.
He would remove it for her.
If there was one thing Nick was good at, it was divesting beautiful women of troublesome articles of clothing.
Chapter 8
Vātsyāyana says that the man should begin to win her over, and to create confidence in her, but should abstain at first from carnal pleasures. Women being of a tender nature, want tender beginnings.
The Kama Sutra of Vātsyāyana
Alice followed the duke and the hulking manservant with the pockmarked cheeks and kind blue eyes, whom Hatherly had called Berthold, down a long, cavernous entrance hall, through heavy wood-paneled doors, and up a flight of stairs.
Hatherly walked beside her, a huge, looming presence carrying her small valise.
The Mad Duke didn’t seem too terribly mad. He had a courtly manner and a bewildered air. Every now and then he glanced up as if he heard voices calling from afar.
He had thick white hair that was probably meant to be tamed into submission but stuck up every which way, and his nose was very grand, and made grander by the frailty and thinness of his frame.
Kali yowled when Alice accidentally jostled the wicker basket against the stair railing. “Hush my sweet,” Alice whispered. “We’re nearly there.”
“Is that a cat I hear, my dear?” The duke called over his shoulder.
“Yes. And she doesn’t like being cooped up in baskets.”
The duke stumbled at the top of the stairs, and Hatherly passed Alice and threw an arm around the duke’s shoulders, propping him up against his broad chest to help him walk.
“Go with Berthold now,” Hatherly said gently, giving his father’s shoulders a squeeze.
Berthold and the duke disappeared down a branching corridor.
The short footman who had been so rude to Alice and her parents earlier popped his head out of a nearby doorway. “She won’t be staying long, will she?” he
asked Hatherly, wrinkling his snub nose. “I don’t trust the look of her, or that furry rodent in the basket. If she’d only mind her own business, our world could go on as before.”
“I don’t think your footman likes me very much,” Alice whispered to Hatherly.
“Go on with you,” Hatherly said to his servant. “Go about your duties.”
The servant made a disgusted noise and slammed the door.
“Don’t mind March,” said Hatherly, offering her his arm. “He’s sometimes a bit too loyal.”
“I can see that. I think he believes I mean to have my devious way with you and your household.”
Hatherly flexed his arm beneath her hand, and muscles played enticingly under his coat. “I mean to have my devious way with you tonight, Dimples.”
Tonight, tonight, her slippers pattered as they traversed the narrow corridor carpeted in a deep, rich purple color.
“You were kind to my father,” said Hatherly. “His company can be trying at times.”
“I do want to see his orchid collection. I heard about his conservatory from Charlene—from the Duchess of Harland.”
Charlene had become rather intimately acquainted with the duke’s orchid conservatory when she’d held a romantic tryst there with her future husband, the Duke of Harland.
If Alice remembered the story correctly, he’d thrown her over his shoulder like a sack of flour and carried her to the conservatory.
She wondered if Hatherly was the throw-a-lady-over-his-shoulder kind. She rather thought he might be, and she rather thought she might enjoy it.
“Here we are,” he said, pausing in front of an open door halfway down the corridor. “We have adjoining chambers.”
He pushed the door open, indicating Alice should enter the room first.
Once inside, she turned in a slow circle. “This is for me?”
“All for you.”
She hadn’t expected much after the oppressive atmosphere of the entrance hall, but the large chamber was light-filled and airy, with a matched set of elegant pale pine furniture upholstered in rose-colored satin.
Domed, mullioned windows set at intervals along the walls commanded a pleasing view of the pink and white flowering apple trees in the gardens below.
