by Fiona Miers
John’s world had tilted on its axis and it was all Hannah’s fault. Those few precious moments in the library had changed everything for him. She’d been passionate and beautiful, and all woman. Yet he also knew her to be intelligent and gutsy, at home on a horse and in a stable. The opposite of everything an English lady was usually.
But the thing that was confusing him the most was her passion and what it could mean for his future. If one lady could enjoy his bed, give him comfort and companionship; was a monogamous marriage truly possible?
Looking at his parent’s union, he’d grown to loathe the very idea of marriage. But since watching his friends fall under the spell of their women, he’d begun to see that a new possibility was available.
Even when he’d seen Rupert fall, John had never believed it was possible for himself to feel that way about a woman. So smitten, so content. And yet, here he sat, unable to think about anything other than how incredibly beautiful Hannah was.
John felt a hand rest on his shoulder and he looked up to see Oliver’s kind eyes glowing down at him. They were visiting Oliver and Sarah for an evening and he’d been lost in thought for most of it.
“Join us in the card room for a brandy?” Oliver invited, giving John’s shoulder a squeeze.
John took a deep breath and dragged himself up by the bootstraps. His soul felt heavy today, and with it came a bone-deep tiredness. However, when he walked into the card room he saw a pair of familiar blue eyes that made him smile.
“Rupert,” John greeted his friend. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you much the other night.”
Mostly because I spent half of it finding out how beautifully passionate Hannah is.
Rupert grabbed him up into a big bear hug, squeezing him tightly. John laughed and stepped out of his friends embrace. When had Rupert ever hugged him? In fifteen years he couldn’t think of a single moment.
“You never can at those dinners,” Rupert said offhandedly, shrugging. They’d had a small amount of time together after the dinner, but Rupert, being the host, had been mostly engaged in conversation with other men that John didn’t know well.
They all sat down around the card table.
“The new house is to your liking?” Oliver asked Rupert.
“Yes, though it needs updating, we’re happy enough. I’ve ordered us a new bed too,” Rupert winked at John, his message clear.
John couldn’t help smiling. Rupert may have recently married, but he seemed to be the same man as before, which was strangely comforting.
“Married life as boring as they say?” John asked Rupert, leaning forward in his chair and attempting to connect with the man that once upon a time had been as cynical as him.
Rupert, Oliver, and Archie all burst out laughing and he could tell it was at him, not at his question. John couldn’t stop the flush that spread across his face. He lifted his hand and called for more brandy.
“I was serious,” John whispered, staring down at his empty glass.
“Not for me,” Rupert answered with a laugh.
John poured all four of them large glasses of brandy and held his up.
“Then I’m happy for you, all of you,” he choked before drinking the glass down in one gulp.
Archie, who rarely drank, did the same thing, disguising his gasp with a cough. Oliver was next. Rupert waited a moment, looking at John. Weighing up the situation correctly, he downed his drink and filled their glasses again.
John looked at the three men who had been his universe, his family, and his saving grace for more than half his life.
“What’s wrong John?” Archie asked gently, reaching out and laying a hand on John’s sleeve. He removed it after a moment, but the heat of his hand remained, giving John strength.
“All my life, I didn’t want to be my father. Loving the wrong woman and making my family suffer for it.” John reached for his brandy glass but Rupert pushed a glass of water at him.
John looked up, startled by his friend’s gesture and stared into Rupert’s eyes. They were startlingly blue, but they were clear.
“Just alternate, it stops a headache,” Rupert suggested, smiling and leaning back in his chair.
John took a sip of water and grimaced, yuck.
He took another breath and forced himself to keep going with his declaration.
“But I look at you three and I can’t imagine you doing that to your wives. So I want to know more. Tell me how and why you ended up, like… you know…” John couldn’t say it, he stumbled over the sentence. Surely his friends would know what he needed to ask, and more importantly, what he needed answered.
“You go first, you were the first to fall,” Rupert indicated to Oliver and took a long drink of his own water.
“Well…” Oliver laughed, “I don’t know what to say.”
John just stared at his friend; he didn’t know how to ask for what he needed. He wasn’t even sure exactly what he wanted to hear.
Olive tapped his fingers on the rim of his brandy glass and stared at the empty crystal with unfocused eyes.
“Sarah was a surprise for me. When I inherited the title I assumed I would have to marry someone like my sister in law,” Oliver stopped to shudder.
The hairs on John’s own neck prickled at the thought, what a horrible woman.
“But I just… fell in love with her. She was kind and beautiful. She made me think that I could be happy.” Oliver finished with a sheepish smile and a shrug.
John swallowed, was it really that simple?
John turned to Archie, his brother in law, the man who had seduced his sister right out from under his nose. That fact still rankled.
Archie smiled a similar smile to Oliver.
“For myself, I had always thought that I would never marry because of my brother’s illness. Or if I did I would have to marry a woman who would be happy to be in a castigated family.” Archie shrugged and Rupert reached over and squeezed his shoulder.
John swallowed uncomfortably and reached out to take another drink of his water. It went down much easier the second time and he didn’t wince.
“But Charlotte was exactly what I needed.”
“No details please,” John held up his hand with a grin, lightening the mood considerably.
The other men chuckled and Archie smiled.
“She was my opposite, my balance. She was fire and determination when I was cold and polite. She made me feel all the things I didn’t want to. She made me believe I had a right to love someone like her.” Archie seemed to want to say more, but his throat choked the words off.
He motioned to Rupert and John realized Archie was done sharing. That was a pity. He should learn more about his sister’s marriage.
Rupert grinned, “I married the best sex I ever had.”
The four of them laughed at that, always the joker.
“Seriously John. I was very similar to these two. I thought that because I was to inherit, I had to marry an appropriate lady. Which meant a marriage like my parents, with fighting and different beds and…”
“Hold on,” John stated, holding a hand up to stop his friend.
A memory of Oliver saying that he and Sarah shared the same bed every night swam up in his memory.
“Do you share the same bed? Every night?” He asked with shock. Rupert couldn’t possibly do that.
Rupert shrugged and grinned slyly. “It has its advantages.”
John blinked.
“But what about that time when you can’t...” He trailed off, this was not discussed within gentlemen circles.
Rupert flushed, good god, he blushed!
“I sleep better with her.” He said gruffly.
John turned surprised eyes to his other friends.
“Always,” Archie nodded.
“Always,” Oliver declared. “I would be sent to Scotland if I denied her that.”
Oliver chuckled as though he was joking but John knew that he was being serious. Sarah had left Oliver to go to
Scotland early on in their marriage. There was obviously a story there.
John turned back to his biggest, most rakish friend. He didn’t want to be distracted again.
“Finish what you were saying, Rupert.”
Rupert took a drink of his brandy and gasped. “John, I married the woman who I wanted above all others. Who had a heart to love. It really was that easy.”
John compiled the thoughts in his head much quicker than usual. Drinking water helped with all sorts of things it seemed.
In summary, his friends had married women who were ladies, but not the typical ton lady. The women were all different to their men, but who complimented them. They were ladies with good hearts and were very beautiful. If Rupert was to be believed, they were also wonderful in bed. It sounded to John that his friends felt about their wives, how he felt about Hannah.
“Thank you,” John told his friends, drinking the rest of his water.
“I have a new investment in an Indian shipping company that you all may find interesting,” Archie began and John forgot his problems for a little while. He could think about them later. They weren’t ever far away.
****
“Please come into my library, John.”
John cringed to hear the tone in his brother’s voice.
He followed Edward into his darkened study and sat down at the mahogany desk. A bottle of port sat on the surface, two crystal glasses accompanying the full decanter.
“Port?”
Did he really need to ask?
“Yes. Thank you.”
He accepted the glass once poured and sat down in the chair. His skin was prickling in awareness and he was trying not to fidget as his raised stress dictated he should.
“How have you been, John? How was your off Season?”
John gulped down some of his port. In thirty years of being alive, he didn’t think he’d ever been asked about his well-fare by his brother.
Edward must be worried.
“It was a touch tiresome if I can be honest. Watching our sister and her husband fawning all over each other for several weeks, but at least I had somewhere to stay.”
His brother stared at him for a moment as they both seemed to feel the tension their father brought to their lives by the presence of his mistress at the country manor.
“I enjoy going to Scotland in the off-season. The estate affords many homes over there and if you wanted to spend time with one through the year, you only need ask, John.”
John nodded his thanks at the same time as he wondered where his brother stashed his mistress through those months with his wife.
But he daren't ask.
He finished his port and reached for the bottle. He had the feeling he was going to need fortification for this conversation.
“John, we need to discuss the Dukedom.”
“Why? Is father unwell?”
They both knew their father was in excellent health. He was barely around their mother at all, spending most of his time with his mistress in her home. He attended ton events of course but did little else to stress himself.
“No. This is about his succession. I have now listed you as my heir. The doctor does not believe Margaret will ever provide me with a legitimate heir and I have no wish to try to divorce her and bring such a scandal down on our family.”
“Agreed.” The last thing he wanted was such a thing. “But there is still hope, I am sure.”
Margaret, being married off to Edward right out of the school room, was barely twenty and four.
“The doctor does not think so. I have sired four children now. Margaret must be barren. I have long since stopped going to her bedroom.”
John grimaced at the evidence that their father’s choices had impressed on them both in an obviously harmful way. John couldn’t love anyone, and Edward was happy to love anyone who wasn’t his wife.
“I didn’t realise I had any other nephew’s or niece's.”
“I have two of each. Beautiful children.”
Edward didn’t address the fact that John would have liked to know his brother’s children. Edward was certainly following in his father’s footsteps.
“Do you know if we have any brothers or sisters from Father?” He’d never thought about it before, hadn’t cared. But seeing the scene unfolding as it was now, he wondered if he had missed out on something.
“I believe he has several on his mistress. They all live out in the country with her.”
“Have you met them?”
“No.”
John wanted to scream at his brother’s lack of emotion. For men that enjoyed spreading their seed and their love around, they certainly didn’t appear to have any real emotions.
“Is that all Edward? I am to bed.”
To dream more about Hannah’s beautiful body and the empty house in cheap side.
“No. That is not all. Now that you are my heir, it is your duty to provide the Dukedom with an heir. Preferably an heir and a spare as father did. So, I am going to ask you to marry as soon as possible. I have someone in mind if you have no preference.”
Hell no.
He was not being auctioned off to the highest bidder as all of the men before him.
“I do have a preference. And that is not to marry.”
“You must. You have no choice.”
A wave of hot nausea flowed over John and he closed his eyes as not to scream right in his brother’s face.
When he opened his eyes, he had clamped down a little on his anger.
“Edward. I do have a choice. Who inherits after me?”
Edward’s face tightened and screwed up in an ugly grimace. “Cousin Harold.”
It was John’s turn to cringe. Cousin Harold was a simpleton and a gambler. He would run the estate into the ground in a matter of months.
“You only have to provide an heir, John. Not a hard job with a fertile woman. I will rent you a handsome home in town, you can keep as many mistresses on the side as you want. Just marry a ton lady and you can have anything your heart desires.”
John’s memory flashed back to that horrible night he’d seen what sort of marriage his parents had, and he never wanted that. An arranged marriage was the last thing he's agreed to.
He stood up and began to pace the room. He would not be like his father and brother. He had sworn an oath to himself that he never would, but did that mean he was damned to that fate? Could he perhaps be like Oliver? Like Rupert and Archie?
Was a good, solid marriage possible for a man like him?
“I will not marry someone of your choosing.”
He’d be lumped with a cold, young thing that he’d toss aside in a year, just as his brother had done to Margaret.
“You have one year, John.”
That should be ample, but he wanted more than that. If he was going to offer a home to a woman who could compete with Lizzie, Sarah, and Charlotte, he needed to be worthy of it.
“Rent me a town house on Oxford street. I want to be in within the month.”
His brother’s eyes widened at the demand.
“Do this Edward, and I will marry a woman worthy of being the next Duchess of Arrow.”
His brother stood up and extended his hand.
John stepped forward and shook his brother's hand in agreement. “Done.”
Chapter 9.
Hannah tapped her foot against the furniture, bored out of her mind. She wanted to be doing something other than taking tea with ladies that could do nothing but talk about the latest fashions.
Luckily, occasionally Charlotte was visited by Sarah and Lizzie. They had a decent conversation, most of the time.
“Lord John is here.” The butler announced, stepping into the room.
“Oh good, God.” Hannah jumped to her feet. What was she going to do now?
“What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked her, putting down her needlework.
It was pretty, but Hannah would rather be making a dress if she had to sew. At least that was useful.
>
“Ah. I…” How could she explain to Charlotte how she currently felt about John?
Charlotte must have seen her agitation and turned towards the butler.
“Chalmers, can you direct Lord John to visit with Archie for a while. We ladies need half an hour to finish what we are doing.”
