“How many other fellows were visited at school by their uncle, almost every term?”
“I was,” Noah said. “The same questions were asked, Meech gave the same wiggle of his eyebrows, and I felt the same urge to kill him slowly and painfully.”
Noah had tried to forget those memories, but like briars, they’d dug into his mind all the deeper for his efforts to reject them. Was Thea haunted by similar memories, of events she’d been powerless to influence?
“He bothered you too?” Harlan asked.
“He and Pemmie sang the same idiot songs and flirted with the barmaids, and all I wanted to do was get back to my studies.” Horticulture had appealed to Noah most strongly, and now he was doomed to revisit familiar history amid the peaceful back gardens on his favorite estate.
“Why is our family like this, Noah?” Harlan’s question conveyed a wealth of pained bewilderment.
“I don’t know.” Noah moved along at Harlan’s side when the boy began to walk toward the terrace, though Noah was torn between the desire to enfold his brother in a protective embrace and the temptation to get him drunk. “My family is not like this. Our father was, and Meech is, but you and I, Thea and the girls, we’re not.”
“What is the insult to Thea, then, that’s she’s a harlot too?”
“For God’s perishing sake…” Noah kicked a loose pebble down the path, watching it skitter and bounce before coming to a stop against a pot of geraniums. “I can’t quite promise you Meech isn’t your father, but I will cheerfully kill him if he’s allowed you to wonder about it all these years for no good reason.”
“But Thea?”
Tenacity was a Winters trait Noah had prided himself on, more fool he. Gravel crunched beneath their boots, while out of some window or other, the little girls were likely watching this tormented progress toward the house.
“Thea has not confided details to me”—Noah hadn’t earned her confidences, more like—“and I have not pried them from her. A single unfortunate incident colors her past. It apparently occurred where the meaner element of Polite Society was on hand to draw the inevitable conclusions. I tell you this in strictest familial confidence, and you are not to ask Meech about it, or James, or anybody.”
How was it the house seemed miles, not yards, away?
“You didn’t know this before you married her, Noah?”
Noah hadn’t wanted to know it. “This happened years ago, Harlan, and I gather Thea’s ignorance and innocence meant some charming bounder could take advantage of her.”
Harlan looked puzzled, but Noah couldn’t say more, because he didn’t know any more himself. He’d hoped Thea might confide in him, for he’d been loath to raise the topic when it upset her so.
“Thea would be devastated by the contents of that note,” Noah said, “for your sake and mine, but also on her own behalf. No hint of scandal has found her to this point, but somebody apparently resents her rise in the world bitterly.”
“She won’t learn of this note from me,” Harlan said. “You’d call this fellow out, whoever he is?”
“In a bloody heartbeat. When this silly house party is over, we’re going into Town and buying my duchess a handsome little pistol to carry in her reticule, and we’re showing her how to use it. Then we’ll explain bullwhips to her, and get her an archery set as well.”
Harlan took the terrace steps two at a time. “Noah, what are you going on about?”
“Marital bliss, Harlan, wooing my duchess, and the kind of family we are now.”
Twenty-one
“Come, Thea.” Patience patted the cushion beside her. “Trust your people to do their jobs for twenty consecutive minutes, and let us interrogate you.”
Patience traded a smile with her sisters that boded miserably for Thea’s composure. This was exactly what Thea had wanted to avoid: the polite wielding of feminine daggers behind closed parlor doors, the condescending innuendo, the verbal elbow to the ribs over the tea service.
The thought of a dagger fortified Thea, reminding her of the blade strapped at her knee.
“Noah has kindly distracted the menfolk before dinner,” Prudence pointed out, “so they might shriek and whoop and dunk each other and start on their libation, and we have civilized privacy for a cozy chat. Patience, shall you pour, or shall I?”
“Let me.” Patience picked up the teapot when Thea would have reached for it. “Thea has talking to do. So tell us, Duchess, how is Noah coming along?”
“Noah?”
“You know him,” Penelope said as she started arranging tea cakes on plates. “Tall, dark, grouchy, unless you’re his horse or a small child? You seem to have made some progress with that part of it.”
“James said Noah reached for your hand when you greeted your first guest.” Patience calmly poured the tea as she fired that Congreve rocket into a curious silence.
“I didn’t notice,” Thea said. “Noah’s affectionate by nature, and one grows used to it.” Except one didn’t. One treasured each and every gesture, each manly insecurity and minor incident of doting.
“Heath is the same way,” Penelope said. “Lately he’s worse.”
“Pats your tummy?” Prudence asked, her smile feline and knowing.
“Pats everywhere,” Penelope said, putting a chocolate cake on each of four plates, “but perhaps we embarrass our hostess? Some husbands limit their affections to several nights a month, behind closed doors, with the candles out.”
Patience passed Thea a cup of tea. “If Noah’s being a dunderhead, we’ll thrash him for you—gently, of course.”
“Of course,” Pen and Pru chorused and looked a little too happy, anticipating this gentle thrashing.
“Noah is…” Thea glanced from one face to another, seeing only sororal concern—for her. “Noah is patient, kind, and good-humored, and he steals my breakfast, and accuses me of felonies, and lends me his cat, and prays a lot, and I just d-don’t know what to d-do…”
Patience shook her head, Prudence offered her handkerchief, and Penelope wrapped an arm around Thea’s shoulders.
“He’s being a dunderhead,” Penelope surmised. “Heath was no better, but he eventually found his way. Noah will too.”
“What if I’m the one who can’t find my way?” Thea wailed into her borrowed handkerchief. “What if I can’t become the duchess Noah needs?”
The duchess he could trust and respect, the one he could ask anything and not cringe to hear the answer?
The sisters exchanged another look, this one more thoughtful. Penelope put three more chocolate cakes on Thea’s plate, and the ladies settled in for a long listen. When Thea’s eyes were finally dry, and nothing had been resolved except that Noah wasn’t a dunderhead and he had lovely sisters, she suggested they look in on the little girls.
They found their quarry with Erikson, because the windows in his laboratory overlooked the driveway and stable yard. He’d scheduled a dissection of fragrant orchid to compete with the great excitement of company coming up the drive, and was succeeding modestly now that most of the guests were accounted for.
When the ladies joined him, he put down his knife.
“My laboratory is overrun with beauties.” He greeted each sister with a kiss on the cheek, then had to kiss the little girls and Thea for good measure.
“We have to bury the flower,” Nini announced. “Mr. Erikson says science should always be respectful.”
“Then come.” Thea held out a hand. “We were going for a walk among the flowers anyway. We can bury the orchid with its cousins in the back gardens.”
“Evvie, c’mon!”
“We have to tell Maryanne and Davies where we’re going,” Evvie said, scrambling off her stool.
“I will tell the nursery maids,” Erikson volunteered. “Here.” He wrapped the flower’s remains in a handkerchief, and passed it to Thea. “My thanks.”
Prudence linked arms with Penelope when the ladies reached the back terrace, the little girls having already run
ahead.
“Do you ever regret that you let him get away?” Prudence asked her younger sister.
“Erikson? Not now I don’t.” Penelope’s look became wistful. “When it comes to kissing, he’s a virtuoso, but as a husband? You’d always be competing with his beauties, and he’d talk longingly about protracted trips to faraway jungles and not even realize he was breaking your heart.”
Thea was fascinated with these confidences, and kept her mouth shut accordingly.
“I suspect he knew,” Penelope went on. “I think he gallantly indulged me in my first tendresse, kissed the hell out of me for a few weeks, and then said the very things necessary to let me get over him. He’s a true gentleman.”
Erikson had kissed the hell out of Penelope? For weeks?
“Or he truly respects the business end of Noah’s bullwhip,” Patience suggested. “Don’t look so horrified, Thea. Noah likely knew of the entire business.”
“Noah said Erikson gets lonely,” Thea ventured. Did Noah grow lonely?
“I was stuck at home while Patience and Pru went larking about Bath with a cousin of our mother,” Penelope said. “I was growing lonely, which is probably why Noah started inviting his friends’ business associates out here for weekends, and so forth. Girls! You have to pick a spot with a bench nearby for when we pay our respects.”
Penelope strode ahead, reminding Thea of Noah in both the authority of her voice and the way she moved.
“She’ll make a wonderful mother,” Thea said. “You all will make wonderful mothers.”
“So will you,” Patience replied. “You’re bringing Noah along nicely, and these things tend to follow shortly in the ordinary course.”
“With Noah, there’s absolutely nothing short or ordinary about it.”
The admission was out of Thea’s mouth before she could stop the words, and a beat of silence followed, during which she wanted to disappear beneath the earth with the departed flower.
Patience started snickering, Prudence snorted, and before long, all three ladies were shrieking and whooping.
* * *
“Our guests are in great good spirits,” Noah said, passing Thea a cut-glass tumbler. “Your first dinner al fresco on the terrace was a rousing success, and Grantley was nearly delirious to provide Marliss an escort back to Town.”
“Marliss is engaged,” Thea said, taking a tiny sip of hazelnut liqueur, then getting to work on the pins in her hair.
“Thankfully not to me,” Noah said, hanging up his jacket on the privacy screen. “I thought she’d be married by now.”
The relief in his voice sounded genuine, as did the fatigue.
“The mothers-in-law are having too much fun planning the wedding, or so Marliss says. I think she’s having second thoughts. She’ll return for the ball next week. Perhaps she and Cowper will have set a date by then.”
Earlier that day, Marliss had been very clear that she and the overly serious duke would never have suited. Noah was overly serious, when he wasn’t teasing his cat, tickling the little girls, or thinking up insults for their ponies.
“Do you think Marliss regrets her rejection of me?” Noah’s cravat followed his coat. “Too damned bad, my duchess has me in hand now.”
Noah sounded pleased to be in his duchess’s hands. Thea watched in the mirror as he moved around her room, grateful for his response, and for his presence.
“You don’t wish even for a moment for a sweet young thing who waits patiently for your attentions?” Thea asked because the Duke of Anselm could have had any woman he wanted, and he’d chosen a lady fallen on hard times, without a fortune, without cachet, one far less virginal than he’d thought.
Noah paused with his cuffs undone and hanging over his wrists.
“I am content with my choice, madam,” he said, stalking over to the vanity. “Are you content with yours?”
Noah had not left Thea’s side for more than the requisite intervals with the fellows, and every member of the family was on their best behavior. He’d personally inspected every bouquet for Thea when she’d been too busy. He’d ordered her to take a nap and then carried her up to bed when she’d realized she was exhausted.
“I’m exceedingly pleased with my choice, Anselm.”
His frown evaporated, replaced by a piratical smile. “Exceedingly, Wife? You will give me airs.”
Thea’s braid came slipping down over her shoulder. “To replace your manly vapors.”
“Insecurities.” Noah pulled his shirt off over his head. “Not vapors, for God’s sake. Have you seen my cat? I fear the shameless baggage is getting ready to present us with more mouths to feed.”
Thea loved how Noah could express abiding fondness for even a cat.
“She likely is, tomcats having insecurities too. I think Marliss does regret the loss of you in a way.”
“Why?” Noah stepped behind the privacy screen, and Thea would have bet one of Sheba’s kittens he’d emerge naked simply to afford his duchess the pleasure of beholding him unclothed.
Thea worked at the ribbon tied at the bottom of her braid. “Marliss knew you would be too much for her, but her young baron is likely by contrast not enough.”
“Boredom is a terrible thing in a marriage.” Noah was naked, his dressing gown in his hands. “Boredom fueled a lot of the nonsense in my parents’ marriages. Meech said he was ready to howl at the end of the first month of his.”
Meech, the lone family member to cry off the gathering.
The dratted knot in Thea’s hair ribbon would not give. “We do not take your uncle Meech’s standard as our guide.”
“We’ve been married more than a month.” Noah slid into his robe. “I howl occasionally, but not with boredom.”
Such a naughty, lovely man. “Why haven’t you exercised your conjugal rights lately, Husband?”
Noah looked up sharply. Thea caught the movement in the mirror as she slid the knotted ribbon off the end of her braid.
“Being around my sisters has made you forthright,” Noah said, coming over to take the brush from Thea’s hand.
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“My brothers-in-law are surpassingly, disgustingly happy in their marriages. I am beginning to sense why this might be.”
Thea let Noah brush her hair—she’d missed having him do this for her, but hadn’t thought to ask him. He was busy, and lately he came to bed later and later.
“They had the good sense to marry your sisters,” Thea suggested, closing her eyes.
“Who are very forthright women. Do you want me in your bed, Thea? I come to you each night, and we cuddle up and talk a bit, but you never say what you want.”
Thea opened her eyes, wondering what Noah was really asking.
“You never ask me to your bed,” she said, because she could tell her husband almost anything. “We’ve been married nearly two months, and I’ve never slept with my husband in his bed.”
The brush stopped midstroke, and Thea was certain she’d offended him. That great expanse in the other room was the duke’s bed, not their bed, and it wasn’t as if Noah neglected—
He scooped Thea against his chest before her thought could complete itself.
“Get the doors,” Noah said, pausing before Thea’s dressing-room door. She lifted the latch, and the next, and the next, until she was flung—yes, flung—onto Noah’s enormous raised four-poster.
He unbelted his robe and covered Thea with his naked body. “Wife, would you be so kind as to join me in my bed tonight?”
Thea didn’t get to answer with words, only with her kisses, her body, her hands, her eager responses, and the way she fell directly asleep on Noah’s chest after the lovemaking. She heard him get up in the middle of the night, thinking he was off to heed nature’s call, but when he came back to bed, he pushed his hand under Thea’s pillow, then wrapped her in his embrace.
Thea went exploring under the pillow, felt her little dagger there, and knew she’d fallen absolutely and irrevo
cably in love with her husband.
* * *
“Corbett, you do not look at all well,” Marliss observed, whisking her serviette onto her lap.
Corbett Hallowell crossed the breakfast parlor to the sideboard and gestured at the serving maid to pour him a cup of a coffee. His bad luck, to have a sister who rose early, though at least his parents remained abed.
“Use that tone on your husband and see how well he tolerates it,” Corbett said, though Marliss wasn’t married yet, and perhaps never would be. The notion pleased him, for the expense of Marliss’s damned Season was partly to blame for his troubles.
“Use that tone on your wife,” Marliss shot back, “if a wife you can catch, and see what luck you have securing the succession. At least eat something, Corbett.”
For that comment alone, Corbett would see that his sister did not speak her vows with Cowper. The baron was a fastidious sort, and none too bright, after all.
Corbett took a swallow of hot, strong coffee and nearly retched when it hit his empty belly.
“Corbett, do sit down. You’re pale as a corpse, you look as if you haven’t eaten for days, and I’ll lose my own appetite if you loom over me much longer.”
Corbett would lose any breakfast he attempted to ingest, though Marliss was right—he ought to eat something to help with the shakes.
He took a seat at the head of the table. “How was your visit with your friend, the new Duchess of Anselm?” Another swallow of coffee burned its way down his gullet, though it at least helped clear his head.
“Thea is quite happy with her duke,” Marliss said, sipping her tea with the smug contentment of a woman whose schemes have come to fruition. “I believe Anselm is very happy with her as well.”
Anselm wouldn’t be very happy for long; nor would Thea Collins know much more contentment.
“Ever heard of a woman named Violette Cartier?” Corbett asked.
Marliss set her teacup down precisely in the center of its saucer. “Corbett, what sort of question is that? A proper lady doesn’t admit knowledge of such creatures.”
A proper sister just had, for dear Violette—Violet Carter, not too long ago—had once flown the flag of a paid companion, and had thus been an invaluable source of information about Anselm’s new duchess.
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