by Isobel Carr
Beau pushed herself up on her elbows. Viola stared her down, her expression suddenly somber.
“And you should read that little book,” Viola continued. “Most especially the sections pertaining to conception, the pleasures and duties of the marriage bed, and the prevention of moles—which serves just as well to prevent conception, as do several other techniques you might want to avail yourself of. If you have any questions, come and find me.”
CHAPTER 14
Gareth allowed the duke’s homily to crash over him unchecked. If there was one thing that his father had trained him to do over the years, it was to take a dressing down in silence. Protesting, attempting to provide excuses, or anything else that might be interpreted as whining all served to make things worse.
Besides, he’d earned this. It was a small price to pay when the prize at the end was Lady Boudicea. And he’d much prefer the duke rail at him than at Beau. She hadn’t done anything to deserve such treatment. She was the victim in all this.
“I’ve written to your father,” the duke said, changing topics with his usual facile alacrity.
“And what have you told him?”
“The same plausible lie we’ll tell everyone else: The two of you have had a long-standing affection. You applied for permission to address her and were denied. Being young and impetuous, you took my own example and eloped. No need to hide the smile, boy. I’m well aware of the irony of my lecturing anyone on the inadvisability of eloping with an heiress. So too will the world be.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
The duke harrumphed, the side curls of his wig shaking. Gareth couldn’t begin to guess if it was with rage or repressed laughter. The duke was impossible to read.
“Needless to say,” Beau’s father went on, “her mother and I have had a change of heart and are now prepared to allow Beau to have her way.” He looked sour as he said it, as though swallowing a dose of some vile sickroom potion.
“Is there anything else, Your Grace?”
The duke’s expression brightened somewhat. “Just the mercenary details. Knowing your father as I do, I assume you’re in no position to support a wife.”
Now they’d come to it, and Beau’s father seemed to understand the matter perfectly, and he clearly enjoyed pointing it out. “Certainly not one such as Lady Boudicea. I’ve nearly a thousand a year—”
“Which would barely pay for her fripperies.”
“—and I live in bachelor quarters on Halfmoon Street.”
“So no house in town, no estate in the country, and no expectation of such. Correct?”
Gareth gave a snort of laughter. “None whatsoever, Your Grace.” Not a chance. Everything was to be kept whole and inviolate for the heir. Breaking up an estate or frittering away a substantial sum on a younger son was anathema to his father. Unconscionable.
The duke grumbled under his breath and rifled through the stack of papers on his son’s desk, before setting them aside, as though he’d just remembered that he wasn’t in his own home. “Well, we’ll have to see what can be done—”
A preemptory knock presaged the sudden appearance of Gareth’s father. The earl appeared to be more than a bit perturbed. He was spewing invective at Leo’s butler and demanding to know just what his younger son’s folly was going to cost him.
Gareth grit his teeth. It was so like his father to think only of himself, the inconvenience, and the cost.
The duke greeted him far more civilly than Gareth could have managed under the same set of circumstances. The duke’s calm sangfroid stood out in sharp contrast to the earl’s agitated demeanor.
Gareth nodded to his father, even as the earl continued to ignore his presence. Gareth struggled to keep his expression impassive as the two noblemen squared off like cocks in the ring.
“Is your countess with you?” the duke asked, rounding the desk and extending a hand. “No? A pity. But I’m sure she can be fetched for the wedding.”
Gareth watched his father’s face flush from red to purple. “We shall see, Your Grace,” the earl ground out. “My wife’s very delicate, and all this bother our younger son has caused has left her quite out of twig.”
“Yes, very troublesome, our children,” the duke replied. “But I’m sure something can be contrived. We wouldn’t want the world to get the wrong idea, would we?”
Gareth’s amusement at his father’s discomfiture fled. They were both going to be raked over the coals before the duke was done with them. And the old devil looked as though he meant to enjoy it.
The earl glared at Gareth before swinging his attention back to Lochmaben. The two were political enemies of the first order, the joining of their two houses couldn’t be particularly desirable to either of them, especially when neither party to the marriage brought their prospective in-laws anything they’d value. Both families had money. All that was left was power.
“Not to disparage your daughter, Lochmaben, but it seems damn outrageous to me that she should throw herself away on a younger son. She’s an heiress, I presume? Everything locked in by settlement?”
Gareth winced inwardly as his father cut to the chase in the crudest way possible. Trust the earl to slight them all in a few short sentences. He’d all but called Beau fast and his son a worthless fortune hunter. The edge of annoyance that said the fortune wouldn’t be joining the Sandison family coffers was starkly evident.
“I think you forget, my lord—as many have before you—that my wife and I also eloped. Therefore, there are no settlements guaranteeing anything to any of our children. However, Lady Boudicea”—the duke stressed her name and title—“has a dowry of fifty thousand pounds, invested in the three-percents. I shan’t be so petty as to renege on that simply because she’s behaved poorly.”
His father’s expression flew from startled to disgusted to conniving in an instant. It would have been easy to miss, but judging by the sudden tick in the duke’s jaw, he’d seen it clearly enough.
“You hear that boy?” the earl said, not bothering to look at Gareth. “A fortune stripped away from the main estate. Some might call it folly, especially under circumstances such as these.”
“Circumstances that her family is taking pains to hide,” Gareth said in a burst of annoyance. What would his father have done if he had daughters of his own? Would his mercenary sensibilities have been more offended by having to provide a proper dowry, or by welcoming Cits and mushrooms into the family who would be pleased enough with the noble connection?
“Just so,” Lochmaben said, his eyes flinty and trained on the earl. “Everything shall be done properly, if quietly. All speculation and scandal will wither away once they’re married, as it has with so many other couples. Though it would hurt our cause if the groom’s family were to be seen as opposing the match.”
The earl smiled, a lazy, self-satisfied expression that Gareth knew only too well. “I wouldn’t say I oppose the match, Your Grace, but I’m not sure I can condone their behavior by contributing to their support.”
And there it was. A ready excuse to avoid doing what the world would expect. They’d made their bed in haste and must now lie in it. That’s what he would say, and many would agree.
The duke raised his brows, his mouth pressed into a hard, thin line. Gareth watched the two older men glare at one another. Tension crackled between them. If they’d been younger, they’d have come to blows already.
“I’ll throw my support behind the canal project you keep proposing,” the duke said, “if you provide your son with an estate of at least five thousand a year.”
Gareth’s jaw sagged open. He snapped it shut. His father had been trying to get that canal project pushed through for several years. Cheap, easy access to market for the coal on his Newcastle estates would make them far more profitable.
“I have a small estate in Kent, gets its value from hops. The market’s volatile. Some years it’s five or even six thousand. Some years it’s nearer to two.”
“With an additional annuit
y of a thousand then,” the duke countered.
“Payable only in years when the estate’s income drops below three.”
“Done,” said the duke, slapping his hand down on the desk as though ending an auction. “We’ll have the settlements drawn up by tomorrow, and the wedding can take place just as soon as my eldest returns with the license.”
CHAPTER 15
Beau skulked at the top of the stairs until she heard the library door open. Being excluded from something that so clearly concerned her merely because of her sex was vexing in the extreme. Not even her sister-in-law’s intriguing little book had been able to fully distract her, though she now knew words for body parts that she barely even dared to think about.
Sandison’s distinct footsteps followed the shutting of the door, and she hurried down the stairs. “Well? What happened?”
Sandison’s head snapped up. He looked somewhat dazed. “I rather feel like a horse at Tattersall’s at the moment.”
“Sold you off, have they?”
“Sold us off, you mean. Your father bargains like a gypsy horse trader. I feel as though I should count my fingers and toes.”
Beau grinned. “I’ve never seen anyone get the better of the duke.”
“My father certainly thinks he did.”
“And that’s a good thing, right?” Beau gave Sandison’s arm a squeeze, the hard muscles beneath the fine wool of his coat flexed beneath her fingers. The knowledge that he was hers sang through her blood, pushing away the ever-present bubble of guilt. “Come out to the folly with me,” she whispered, tugging him toward the door.
“Do you think that wise?” Sandison’s pace slowed, and Beau pulled him along, hands encircling his wrist. She fumbled with the door and led him outside.
“We’re well past wise, don’t you think? Besides, I have something to show you.”
“I don’t trust that smile of yours, brat.”
Beau’s smile grew until her cheeks almost hurt. “Walk me to the folly and tell me what our illustrious fathers have cobbled together.”
Sandison’s thumb circled inside her palm as they wove through the garden. All around them the gardeners were busy mulching the beds and trimming the plants back for the approaching winter.
“More than I would ever have expected,” he said. “Fifty thousand pounds from your father and a small estate somewhere in Kent from mine.” A subtle smile curled up one corner of his mouth. “It must have killed my father to make such a concession.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes, brat. You’ve yet to be introduced to the feudal ways of the Earls of Roxwell. The earl himself comes first, his son and heir second, and everyone else exists only to serve them. Breaking off a profitable estate for a younger son goes quite strongly against the grain.”
“Younger sons are not allowed to marry?”
“They’re certainly not encouraged to do so. Traditionally, the earl uses a pocket borough to put them into the House of Commons.”
“Where the son is expected to support whatever views his father and brother dictate.”
“Precisely. If the eldest seems unlikely to produce an heir, then—and only then—would any of the younger sons be encouraged to marry. The fifth earl was just such a younger son, and he didn’t marry until his late fifties. I’ve no doubt that I’ll spend the rest of my life being reminded that everything I have is essentially food stolen from the mouths of my brother’s children.”
“If any of your family ever dares to express such sentiments in my presence, he’ll rue the day,” Beau said, anger flushing though her.
“Going to protect me, are you?” Sandison said with a chuckle.
“If need be, yes. Lord knows you deserve it, having already done the same for me.”
A slightly pained expression flashed across his face. No more than a pinch about the eyes and a tightening of the lips. Gone almost before Beau could recognize it.
It could mean anything. Could be interpreted in multiple ways. She really didn’t know him well enough to be sure that she could plumb the depths of his soul, but that brief hint of unhappiness made it suddenly hard to breathe.
Beau pulled Sandison to a stop at the base of the tower folly. He leaned back against the stone wall, stooping so they were eye to eye. His hands settled about her waist, fingers overlapped in the back, thumbs only scant inches apart.
She felt almost delicate. It was an alarmingly feminine sensation. Sandison tugged her closer, hands holding her against him, arms encircling her.
Not willing to wait for him to overcome whatever gentlemanly sensibilities might constrain him, Beau tugged him to her and kissed him.
Sandison kissed her back, his mouth hot and urgent as it covered hers. His hands moved lazily down to her hips, fingers kneading her flesh through the layers of petticoats.
“Come upstairs,” Beau said, catching one of those roving hands and pulling him after her. “The view from grandmother’s folly is enchanting.”
“It certainly is,” Sandison said as he followed her up the winding stairs.
Beau grinned over her shoulder, allowing the compliment to burn through her blood. Her heart was hammering, and not with exertion from the climb. Words and ideas from her little book swirled inside her head.
The stairs ended at an artfully toppled battlement, with a sweeping view of a meadow and stream and the wooded section of Leo’s estate in the distance. Beau watched the sheep in the meadow, pretending that she hadn’t led Sandison up there with an ulterior motive thoroughly unbecoming of a daughter of the ton.
Sandison stood just behind her, his body touching hers from shoulder to hip, feet braced on either side of hers. His mouth traced a line down her neck from her ear to the edge of her bodice. Beau sagged back against him, bracing herself with her hands on his thighs.
“My brother might come looking for us.”
Sandison chuckled, one hand slowly drawing up her petticoats, fingers inching it up bit by bit. “Leo is currently enjoying his own interview with your father. The duke sent a footman to fetch him when he was done eviscerating me.”
The tips of his fingers found the bare flesh of her thigh, and Beau fought to stay upright as her knees turned watery. She put more of her weight onto her hands, letting him hold her up. The muscles in his thighs hardened under her grip.
“Besides,” he said, lips at her ear, “isn’t this why you brought me up here, little libertine?”
Beau’s yes caught in her throat as Sandison’s hand slipped between her thighs, the tip of his finger circling the peak hidden just inside. Clitoris. Seat of passion. Throne of desire. All the terms in her new book fluttered past the back of her eyelids.
Sandison’s fingers pressed harder, stroking, grinding, and then he stopped. “What did you say?” His tone was almost shocked.
Beau’s breath shuddered out of her. “Nothing. I didn’t—”
“You most certainly did, brat.” His fingers swirled, making her gasp and grind back against him. “Clitoris? Seat of passion? Just what has your sister-in-law been telling you?”
“Gave me a book.” Beau’s breath hitched as he continued his rhythmic assault. “And I’ve read Rochester—just didn’t know what the words meant.”
“No? Poor little frustrated libertine. Those poems must have made no sense at all.”
Beau’s knees gave out as her climax took her. Sandison held her up, one arm securely about her waist, his wicked hand still teasing her slick, throbbing flesh.
After a moment, she drew a shuddering breath and locked her hand about his wrist, forcing him to stop. “They make more sense now.”
“I’ll just bet they do,” Sandison said with a self-satisfied chuckle. “Now show me this book of yours.”
Gareth flipped through the small book that Beau pulled from her pocket after she shook out her skirts and caught her breath. Leo’s wife was full of surprises. As was his wife-to-be. Throne of desire, indeed.
“These amorous engagements should not b
e often repeated,” he read aloud, “And it may not be amiss to remind the bridegroom that the fair lasts all the year, and that he should be careful not to spend his stock lavishly, as women in general are better pleased in having a thing once well done than often ill done. What say you, little libertine?”
Beau gave him a wicked, coquettish smile, which did nothing to help subdue his clamoring cock. “I’d hazard that most women would be better pleased to have the thing done both well and often,” she said with a bit of a purr.
Gareth smiled back at her and handed back the book. Beau thrust it into her pocket with a conspiratorial grin. “Viola said something when she gave me the book.”
Gareth raised his brows. Lord only knew what Beau’s former courtesan sister-in-law was capable of.
“She-she-she said I might not want to fall pregnant too soon. Otherwise it might look like you had to marry me. Or that I had to marry someone, at any rate.”
“Lady Leonidas is correct. I told you much the same thing that first night.”
“But she also said there were ways to prevent conception.”
“Well,” Gareth said, feeling something of a fool for trying to explain such a thing, “there are methods to make conception far less likely, but the only sure way is for us to put off consummating the marriage.”
“No.” Beau shook her head, sending her dark curls bouncing. “To be a virginal bride for months on end? No.”
Gareth laughed and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms about her. “I’m forced to agree with you, brat. Ours may be a marriage of convenience, but there’s nothing convenient about celibacy.”
“Is that what it is?” She looked surprised and slightly crushed. “A marriage of convenience? I-I-I guess I hadn’t quite thought it through. Not in that way.”
