Third Son's a Charm

by Shana Galen

  Ewan looked down at the duchess whom he half feared he would step on and squash if he did not keep her in his sights when she was near. She continued to watch her daughter. Her gaze was assessing and critical, but far less calculating than that of the other mothers in the room.

  “I am happy to say that I was wrong to doubt. You have done your duty with admirable…thoroughness.”

  Ewan waited. He did not pretend to have Rafe’s understanding of women or his friend’s charm, but he knew enough of them to know the duchess had not yet said what she intended. When she did not speak, merely watched her daughter dance, he realized he would have to speak.

  “But,” he said.

  “Yes, but…” The duchess craned her neck to catch the eye of a man across the room. She smiled and then her look turned serious again. “You need only dissuade Mr. Mostyn from making any sorts of advances toward my daughter. You needn’t scare off every other potential suitor. We would like her to marry at some point, you see.”

  Ewan understood the point of this ball and the rest of the Season very well indeed. Although he’d never been part of the London social whirl, he understood how vital it was for great families to meet other great families so they might marry their sons and daughters and remain great families. The Duke of Ridlington would want to marry Lady Lorraine to one of these men she danced with, but Ewan could not picture her saddled to the pug or the lecher or even this East India man.

  “You would not want to scare off all of her prospects, would you?” the duchess asked.

  Ewan rather thought that if he scared them off so easily, they should not have been prospects at all.

  “Or perhaps you do wish to scare them away.” The duchess opened her fan and began to waft it in front of her face. “But that would serve no purpose, as Lorrie must marry, and we intend for her to marry well.” For the first time during the conversation, she looked at him directly, her hazel eyes clear and flat.

  Ewan might be a blockhead, but he understood her meaning well enough. The duke and duchess had higher hopes for their daughter than the third son of an earl. And Ewan was not even a favored third son. His father had all but disowned him, although Ewan doubted he cared so much about him to go to the trouble of officially disowning him. And of course, soon the news would emerge that the Earl of Pembroke had been swindled and his fortune—all that was not tied up in land—was gone.

  The duchess’s expression was not unkind. She was simply stating a fact, and doing so as politely as possible. He was not good enough for her daughter, and if he had forgotten that, well, she would remind him.

  He had not forgotten. Not even in the park. He was a dolt—a big lumbering brute—and his place was here in the corner of the ballroom, not in the center of it. He wasn’t good enough. He had never been good enough.

  Ewan inclined his head toward the duchess, ceding her the point, though he must clench his jaw to do it.

  “Then we are in agreement,” she said, smiling. Her smile was rather like her daughter’s, and he could almost picture what she might have looked like when she’d been a carefree girl dancing the night away. “And whatever happened in the park”—the fan fluttered in front of her face—“will not be mentioned again.” She held up her hand before he might protest. “I do not know what happened, but I do know my daughter. I have no objection to kissing. Every woman should be kissed senseless at least once in her life, but knowing my daughter’s passionate nature, once is more than enough outside the bounds of matrimony. And so, whether that kiss came from you or another man is irrelevant to me so long as it does not occur again.”

  He sucked in a long breath, feeling appropriately chastised. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Good.” She smiled again and snatched two glasses of champagne from a passing footman. To Ewan’s surprise, she handed them to him. “Drink these. They won’t have any effect on you. I suppose you would have to drink several bottles to feel the effect, but at least you will have something to do with your arms other than display those impressive muscles.”

  Leaving him with the champagne glasses, she fluttered away, across the room to the man she’d been smiling at. Ewan downed both glasses of champagne in quick succession. He would never understand women. No wonder the duke sought refuge in the card room. Ewan would have liked to go to the Draven Club and stay a week.

  Instead, he grabbed two more glasses of champagne and held them stiffly at his sides, while he attempted to watch Lady Lorraine without looking quite as menacing.

  Since the duchess did not return to chastise him, he thought he’d succeeded admirably well until about four in the morning. He was not weary in the least, although his stomach had been steadily complaining for the last hour, but the more he watched Lady Lorraine, the more he could see fatigue had overtaken her. Her smile was forced, her face pale, and her eyes a bit too large for her face.

  When the clock struck four, Ewan did what he thought any bodyguard ought, which was to down the glasses of champagne he’d held for the last two hours and march across the dance floor to take the lady’s arm. The couples parted for him without comment, and he reached her easily.

  Her back had been to him, and she hadn’t seen him coming. Her partner had, however, and instead of bowing, as the next form dictated, he darted behind the lady to his right.

  Coward.

  Lady Lorraine turned then, but it was too late. Ewan took her arm and swept her away.

  “What on earth are you doing?” she asked, struggling in vain to free herself from his grip.

  “Taking you home.” He pointed to a footman who ran over. “The Duke of Ridlington’s carriage.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I’m not a lord.”

  “Yes, sir.” The man scurried away.

  Ewan pointed to another footman, who turned pale but made haste to reach Ewan’s side. “The Duke and Duchess of Ridlington.”

  “What about them, sir?”

  Ewan stared at him. The man shrank back. “Sir?”

  “I believe he wants you to fetch them,” Lady Lorraine said. While the servant made his escape, the lady finally wriggled free of Ewan’s hold. Or rather, he allowed her to free herself. “Why are you frightening the servants? And why fetch my parents? The ball is not yet over.”

  “It is over for you.”

  She went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “Not to mention you have made a spectacle of me. And of yourself, for that matter.”

  Ewan raised a brow at her.

  “How do you do that? Never mind, I understand what you are not saying. You don’t think I care if I’m made a spectacle of, but you are wrong. I do care. And now you raise the other brow, but you’ve somehow managed to lower the first one. So you are capable of raising both, then?”

  Ewan did not think this question required an answer. He spotted the footman he had sent to call the carriage and directed the lady toward the path leading back to Carlton House and the portico, which, with its hexagonal design, was rather too overdone for his taste.

  “In any case,” she continued, “I do care because whenever a spectacle is made, I must hear about it from my father, and I don’t think I can express to you how much I dislike those sorts of conversations with my father.”

  As though he’d known he was being spoken of, the duke himself appeared. “What is wrong?” he asked, his gaze focused first on his daughter and then, when she appeared unharmed, on Ewan.

  “I called for the carriage, Your Grace.”

  The duke looked in the direction of the conservatory, where music could still be heard. “Why? Is the ball over?”

  “I assure you,” the lady said, “I had nothing to do with this or with any spectacles that may or may not have been made.”

  “Spectacles?” her father said, his voice rising in volume.

  “I was dancing a country reel,” Lady Lorraine said. “Nothing mo
re.”

  “The lady is tired,” Ewan said. “I think it prudent she go home to bed.”

  The duke stared at him and then looked at his daughter. For her part, the lady appeared utterly speechless.

  “Are you tired, Lorrie?” the duke asked.

  “I…don’t know,” she stammered.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” her father demanded.

  “It’s just that no one has ever asked me that. Well, apart from my nanny, but that was when I rather small. So I don’t really know how to answer.”

  “What rubbish. Either you are tired or not.”

  “She is,” Ewan said. “Shall I escort her home?”

  “I’ll go with you,” the duke announced, signaling to the footman to hand him his greatcoat and walking stick. “I’m losing at cards anyway.”

  While Lady Lorraine was assisted into her pelisse, the other footman returned. “Sir, I couldn’t locate Her Grace. Shall I search again?”

  The duke harrumphed and shook his head. “No. We go on without her. Her Grace is quite capable of finding her own way home. When she returns to the ball, inform her we have already departed.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Well then,” he said to Ewan. “Lead on.”

  He led them to the carriage and assisted them in himself. Once inside the dark vehicle, Ewan closed his eyes, relishing the quiet. His ears still rang from the music and the din of voices. He had never appreciated silence so much, except perhaps after a battle.

  Beside him, the duke stared out the window, no doubt wondering where his wayward wife had gone. Or perhaps he was used to her disappearances and his thoughts tended in a different direction. Across from him, Lady Lorraine was in shadow and unusually quiet. Ewan knew that could not bode well.

  It wasn’t until they arrived at the duke’s residence that the men discovered the lady had fallen asleep.

  “By Jove,” the duke whispered. “She must be exhausted. She hasn’t fallen asleep in the carriage since she was about five. Bellweather,” he said to the butler. “Have a footman carry her—”

  “I’ll do it,” Ewan interrupted. As far as he could see, there was no reason to rouse more of the staff when he was perfectly capable of carrying her to bed. She weighed next to nothing.

  “Very well. Make certain Nell is waiting for her,” the duke instructed his butler.

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  Carefully, Ewan lifted the warm, limp form of Lady Lorraine and maneuvered her out of the carriage. He tried not to jostle her too much, and perhaps that was why he held her a bit too tightly.

  In any case, she did not seem to mind. She curled against him, her face pressed to his dark waistcoat and her hair spilling over his arm.

  In the flickering light of the vestibule, Ewan could see her more clearly now. The color had come back into her cheeks and her dark lashes lay against the roses and cream skin. Rafe had said she was pretty, and though Ewan did not have an extensive vocabulary, even he knew pretty did not begin to describe her. Beautiful might do, but even that seemed too trite.

  He walked up the stairs with her and turned toward her bedchamber. There her maid opened the door and motioned him to lie her on the bed. Ewan did so, placing her down gently. But when he tried to remove his hands from under her, they did not seem to want to leave her soft, pliant form. In fact, he had the urge to pull her close again, to bend down and push the wayward tresses from her forehead, to climb in bed beside her.

  Which was ridiculous because her bed was far too small for two and would probably collapse if they both occupied it. And this sort of thinking only proved he was every bit the idiot Francis always said he was, because the size of her bed was not the most compelling reason he had to release her.

  He pulled his hands away rather more roughly than he’d intended.

  “Thank you, sir,” her maid said. “Good night, sir.”

  Ewan backed out of the room. Good night. It was already bloody morning, and he’d spent better nights in Russia in the middle of winter.

  He should resign this position and return to Langley’s. Francis wasn’t worth the tedium of hours in a ballroom, and Ewan didn’t care about the money. He should just make a clean break from Ridlington and his daughter now.

  But he knew he wouldn’t.

  Eight

  He was there when she stepped into her bedchamber. Susan didn’t have to see her husband. She could feel his presence, and the duke radiated anger. Without turning, she took a deep breath and quietly closed her door. Outside the inky sky was streaked with gray as dawn crept like a specter over the fog-shrouded city. Not even the servants had been awake when she’d used her key to open the town house door. The footman seated in the vestibule had snored softly in his chair. Susan had tiptoed past so as not to disturb the poor boy’s slumber.

  “You are up early,” she said calmly, her voice betraying none of the fluttering in her belly at her husband’s presence in her bedchamber. Twice in a week. That was unheard of. She turned and her breath caught.

  “I haven’t gone to bed and you know it,” he said, not bothering to rise from the chair beside her bed. His long legs stretched out before him, making him appear deceptively relaxed. His cravat was undone, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and his shirt open at the throat. In the hand resting on the armchair, he held a snifter of what she thought was brandy, though the amber liquid looked untouched. His dark hair, streaked with silver, was uncharacteristically disheveled, as though he’d run his hands through it over and over again. Susan’s fingers itched to smooth the thick locks back into place, though it had been years since she’d touched him so intimately.

  “That makes two of us.” She loosed the ties of the dark mantle she wore and removed it with a bit of a flourish, laying it on the longue at the foot of her bed. She felt an uncomfortable prickle on the back of her neck at his nearness to her.

  At his nearness to her bed.

  Too late she wished she had kept the mantle in place. Underneath she wore a dress of black organza with cotton warp and silk weft. The heavily embroidered hem was of gold silk and metal in the shape of flowers and curlicues. Now she wished the dress was more substantial. She adored the lightweight organza but would have felt more protected in wool—she glanced at her fuming husband—or perhaps a suit of armor.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded.

  The prickle of awareness burned hotter, turning to annoyance.

  “I beg your pardon.” She cut him a look from under her lashes. “But I do not have to answer to you.”

  He began to rise, then seemed to think better of it.

  “You left Lorrie unchaperoned. We could not find you when she was ready to depart.” His tone held a note of accusation, but she was not fooled. He knew their daughter was in capable hands.

  “She was hardly unchaperoned.” She crossed to her dressing table and began to remove her heavy gold necklace and earbobs. “Mr. Mostyn played the part of the hawk quite well.”

  Charles rose and moved to stand behind her. Sitting in his presence had been a mistake. Now she was at a disadvantage. She might have risen, but he placed his large warm hands on her shoulders. Instead of relaxing her, his touch made her tense, her breathing quickened.

  “He is a man and not a relation,” the duke said, his voice so low she had to strain. “He is her protector, not a chaperone.”

  “Well, he was protecting her very well tonight out in the park,” Susan said, then winced. She hadn’t meant to speak of her suspicions about what had transpired outside the conservatory. But Charles’s hands on her were making it difficult for her to think. She’d missed his touch, so tender and patient. She hadn’t known how much she missed his hands on her until now, when he was touching her again. “But you needn’t worry,” she added hastily. “I spoke to him.”

  “I see. You think he is attracted to
Lorraine?” In the mirror, his green eyes, so much like his daughter’s, met hers.

  “I think he kissed her.”

  “Interesting.” The duke reached up and slid a hairpin from Susan’s coiffure. She watched as a section fell down around her shoulders, the silky tresses making her shiver. Charles reached for another.

  “Do you want him to kiss her? He’s not one of the men we agreed upon. Not one of the men we placed on the list.” Another section of hair fell, tickling her bare shoulders. Charles’s gaze was hot as it held hers.

  “That was your list.” He gathered the fallen hair, slid his hand through it, smoothing it.

  “You agreed to it.” She could barely keep the tremor out of her voice, could barely keep her body from shivering. She wanted to tell him to stop, but he had every right to touch her this way. She was his wife. And truth be told, she rather liked it. It had been some time since a man had touched her, despite what the gossipmongers of the ton speculated. She had missed a man’s touch, her husband’s touch.

  “I still agree to the list, but if the Protector takes Lorrie’s mind off that idiot Francis Mostyn, I am all for it. Besides”—he bent and placed his lips on her bare shoulder—“a kiss is harmless, is it not?”

  Oh, this was no harmless kiss. Her entire body seemed to come alive, a fire of awareness shooting through her. “Yes,” she breathed.

  He moved his mouth up, kissing her neck. Susan closed her eyes.

  “Where were you?” the duke asked.

  Susan opened her eyes, met his glittering green ones in the mirror. She could lie. She could rouse his jealousy, tell him she was with a lover. She could hurt him, as she had in the past. Hurt him in recompense for all the times he’d hurt her. Yes, he had begun to pursue her, as promised. He’d had flowers sent on her breakfast tray this morning, sought her out in the parlor as she went through correspondence, and then joined her for dinner at the prince’s ball. Yes, he had pursued her, but that did not mean he would continue to do so. Who was to say he would not grow tired of her again?