“Yes.”
“Do you wish to have your breakfast here, then?”
Thane shook his head. “No, just coffee will do. I will break my fast later with my aunt and the young ladies Everleigh.”
“Very well, Your Grace.”
After Culbert took his leave, Thane discarded the robe and strode to the pool, sinking to where Astrid had sat. It gave him a cool thrill to enter the water at the exact point where she’d dangled those pale sylphlike legs of hers. The glimpses of her well-turned ankles and shapely calves had made him lose his breath. He’d wanted more. Much more. A vision of her with her curls unbound and draped in soaking-wet, transparent lawn invaded his mind, doing nothing to lessen the erection he still sported. A brisk plunge would help with that.
Some hours later, after a lengthy swim, a bracing round of exercise that combined gymnastics and stretching, and Fletcher dressing and grooming him into civility, Thane descended to the breakfast room, all parts of him in compliant, civilized order.
Voices reached him as he pushed open the door and then went silent. They all rose upon his entry.
“Don’t get up on my account, please,” he said. “Sit. Continue.”
But the youngest of the trio of ladies at the dining table stared at him in wide-eyed alarm. He turned around, wondering which fiend had rode in on his heels. Was he missing some vital item of clothing? A cravat? He glanced down. His trousers? No, everything was in place.
Except for…
Hell, he’d forgotten the blasted hat.
Thane blew out a breath, feeling both relieved and irritated. Relieved that the pretense was over and everyone could move on. And irritated because it was his bloody house and he couldn’t skulk around it any more than he already had, just to avoid offending the sensibilities of some delicate debutante. He was only scarred, for God’s sake, not the devil incarnate.
“Isobel,” Astrid hissed to her sister. “Compose yourself this instant and greet the duke properly.”
The girl’s mouth immediately snapped shut and her head ducked to her plate. “G’morning,” she mumbled.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” Astrid said in a stricken voice. “Please excuse my sister’s poor manners. She’s usually not so ill-behaved.”
“No insult taken,” he said.
“Beswick,” his aunt greeted, a concerned look falling to the young lady who remained ashen, eyes downcast.
Thane filled his plate and took his place at the head of the table, half regretting his decision to join them. Already, he felt on edge. And not because of Isobel’s reaction but because of the woman who sat a few feet away. Despite her efforts to avoid him, the draw of her was magnetic. Impossible to ignore, especially after the kiss in the conservatory several evenings ago and especially after her early-morning exploration that had left him in such a sorry state.
Clad in a dove-gray morning dress, Astrid’s dark hair had been brushed off her brow into that pristine bun. He almost wished he could see it fully unbound, not just the tantalizing curls he’d viewed loose earlier in the bathing room. It would be pure chaos. A dark, wanton mess he could wind his hands in, bury his face in, do thoroughly indecent things in that would make a courtesan blush.
“Did you sleep well, Lady Astrid?” he asked in a voice like gravel.
Clear eyes lifted to his, the hint of a smudge beneath them, but then they dropped away. “Of course, Your Grace.”
“She did not,” Isobel volunteered, as if desperate to make amends for her faux pas. “She left for hours in the middle of the night.”
The duchess looked up from her toast. “Where did you go, dear?”
“I…I couldn’t sleep, so I attempted to find the kitchens for some warmed milk…and got lost,” Astrid replied, clearly flustered and peeved at her sister for mentioning her nighttime wanderings. “It took some time for me to find my way back to bed.”
Thane ignored the way that one word lit an ache in his gut. He shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “You should have rung for a servant or sent your maid to get it for you.” He paused, trying to recall her stout lady’s maid. “Aggie or Agnes?”
“Agatha.” Astrid shrugged. “She was asleep. Why wake her when I’m hale enough to fetch it myself? Honestly, the lack of resilience expected in the female nobility these days is trying.”
Thane blinked, his fork arrested halfway to his mouth. Her unusual viewpoints constantly surprised him. Most aristocratic ladies wouldn’t dream of doing anything themselves. But then again, she was unlike any lady of his acquaintance. He glanced at his chortling aunt and revised his statement. Aunt Mabel had been flaunting society’s expectations since the dawn of time.
“A girl after my own heart,” Mabel said. “Though I quite agree. This place is quite a maze. Wonderful for childhood hide-and-go-seek games but not for old ladies in their dotage.”
“You’re not in your dotage, Aunt,” Thane said loyally and glanced at Astrid. “Did you find the kitchens?”
“No,” she said. “But all was not lost. I did see the sunrise.”
“Oh!” Mabel clapped her hands. “You must have been on the east side of the abbey then.” She frowned to herself. “Was it from the gallery? That’s the only floor with partial views to the east.”
Twin flags of color rose into Lady Astrid’s cheeks after a sidelong look in his direction. “No, er, it was a room with a rather large bathing pool.”
“A pool?” Isobel perked up and then instantly dropped her head.
“The sunrise was indeed spectacular this morning,” Thane murmured. He was careful not to make eye contact with Astrid, but he felt the touch of her stare nonetheless. “And yes, Lady Isobel, there is an indoor bathing pool at Beswick Park. Perhaps when you are no longer so frightened, you may allow me to show it to you and your sister.”
“I’m not afraid.” An interested gaze rose and dipped comically. “Can we go after breakfast?”
“Certainly, if Lady Astrid does not object.”
“She doesn’t!” Isobel clapped her hands, bright eyes a shade darker than her sister’s meeting his. “Do you, Astrid?”
“I do not think we should impose on the duke’s time, Isobel.”
“It’s no imposition,” he said. “I spend most of my time there.”
“Why?” Isobel burst out.
He met a second pair of ice-blue eyes, ones far more guarded than the first. “When I can’t sleep, swimming helps with insomnia.”
Thane almost grinned at the moment Astrid realized that he might have been there as well when a bright splash of color bloomed along those regal cheekbones. She dragged her eyes away on the pretext of taking a sip of her tea, but the hue of her cheeks belied her fraying composure. Thane followed the blush as it stole along her skin, only breaking concentration when his aunt cleared her throat.
The duchess stared at him with a suddenly fascinated look, and he scowled. “My poor nephew has been plagued with insomnia since he was a boy.”
Astrid replaced her teacup. “I’ve read an academic text on alternative remedies where meditation can help with sleeplessness as well. Besides exercise, I mean.”
Aunt Mabel nodded with interest. “Where did you find it?”
“Careful, Lady Astrid,” Thane said. “The color of your stockings is showing.”
Isobel gasped, and Astrid shot him a disparaging look. “The color of one’s intimate garments is inappropriate conversation, sir.”
“If I recall correctly, you called yourself a bluestocking.”
“I called myself a scholar,” she returned. “That bigoted term was yours. And you know very well it has nothing to do with women’s garments. It came from the men who attended literary salons wearing informal blue hose. You attempt only to shock, Your Grace.”
He leaned back with a slow grin. “Alas, shocking tender s
“Then, I should hate to be as bored as you,” she fired back. “And pray tell, what is so wrong about a woman who enjoys literary or intellectual pursuits? Or reading scientific texts?” She rolled her eyes. “The horror of it! No one faults the men for their education.”
“I, for one, do not see the point of a man’s education for a female,” Isobel said primly. “A young lady should be accomplished in the feminine arts. Music, singing, dancing, art, and whatnot.” She tossed her blond curls. “My erudite sister here, however, does not agree.”
“And yet you exhibit your own superior intelligence with simple word choice.” Astrid sent the girl a wink. “The mind is a muscle,” she said. “If not exercised, it will weaken. And we erudite females shouldn’t let the patriarchy rest on their laurels, should we?”
“Hear, hear!” Aunt Mabel crowed. “I always did like a chit with some spirit.”
“Says the woman who lived to scandalize the matrons of London in her hoydenish younger years and had quite a number of the patriarchy on their knees,” Thane said dryly. “And still does.”
“When one is a duchess, one can do as one pleases,” she said with a grin at Astrid.
To his surprise, the lady laughed, her eyes shining with intelligence and humor. “You are truly a shining beacon of our underestimated sex, Your Grace,” Astrid said, smiling at the duchess. “I, for one, should love to hear more of your adventures in hoydenism.”
“That is not a word, Madame Scholar,” Thane said with a laugh, drawing the surprised attention of his aunt as well as Culbert, who stared at him as if he’d grown two heads. His laughter cut off abruptly. “What?” he snapped.
“Nothing,” Mabel said with another of those fascinated stares. “I haven’t heard you laugh in some time.”
“I laugh all the time.”
“Perhaps when you’re terrorizing young children,” Astrid said and covered her mouth with a shocked giggle.
Isobel gasped. “Astrid!”
But Aunt Mabel’s guffaw simply took precedence. She laughed until tears were leaking from the corners of her eyes, uncaring of propriety or decorum. “Oh, indeed. Priceless. Terrorizing…young…children.” And off she went into gales of laughter again.
Thane rolled his eyes. “I’m glad to see I’m such a source of amusement, Aunt.”
Astrid looked as though she were torn between laughing and running from the room, while her sister had a bewildered look on her young face. The difference between the two of them was remarkable. Thane couldn’t fathom the composed and poised Lady Astrid ever being so young and green as Lady Isobel. But according to Fletcher’s notes and by her own admission, she would have had her London Season at the same age, when Cain had proposed marriage.
Had her thoughts been as eccentric as they were now? Most men of his set, including Cain, would have been appalled at the idea of a woman challenging his manly intellect or spouting revolutionary notions of female parity. Her dry, clever wit would have been lost on him or any of them. A lady of Isobel’s temperament and philosophy would have been far better-suited to the ton.
Not her…not Lady Astringent.
He bit back a grin. A man like Edmund Cain would have rejected any spark of originality. He would not have been able to handle her, which made Thane question how the engagement had come about in the first place.
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Why did you accept Cain?”
A guarded gaze met his, Astrid’s soft response equally so. “Edmund, though he wasn’t yet the Earl of Beaumont then, was a gentleman of means. I suppose to my father it would have been an acceptable match.”
The name hung in midair like a billowing red banner. Thane’s eyes panned from Astrid to Isobel and then narrowed. “Edmund Cain is the Earl of Beaumont? Since when?”
Astrid stared at him strangely but nodded. “His uncle died some years ago, and he inherited the title. When he was discharged from the war, I believe.”
Discharged? More like deserted.
“He’s the man who’s wanting to marry Isobel,” Thane said slowly. He hadn’t known the old man had passed. Then again, he hadn’t kept up with much in the ton for obvious reasons.
When Astrid nodded again, Thane felt a chill wind through him. Though many debutantes were married young, a part of him understood Astrid’s concern—a girl like Isobel in the hands of someone like Cain was unconscionable.
The official report was that Cain had been shot in Spain trying to escape the enemy, but Thane didn’t believe that for a second. A gunshot wound to his left shoulder at close range, according to the War Office’s reports he’d read years ago, reeked of a self-inflicted wound. A screen for his defection. When Thane got his hands on him, he intended to find out the truth.
Nonetheless, any man who had left his so-called brothers to die on a battlefield while claiming to be a war hero would be lacking in common decency. Missing a moral compass.
What would he do to an innocent like Isobel?
Thane loosed a breath. What did he care? Neither of the chits was his problem.
But as soon as he thought it, he knew he was lying to himself. Honor would not allow him to let either of them be at a man like Cain’s mercy. His eyes slid to Astrid, drawn to the movement of those slender long fingers, reminding him of the sinuous way her limber form had knelt at the pool. The way her mouth had clung to his…the honeyed taste of her.
A blast of tension gathered in his groin. Who was he fooling?
Honor was the least of his motives.
Chapter Ten
“We should not be going near the village, Isobel,” Astrid said, pulling the cowl of her cloak low over her brow as they cantered along the grassy paths toward the outer edges of the village of Southend. Agatha and a young groom accompanied them. Isobel must have been desperate if she’d actually climbed on top of a horse—albeit a very placid one—to escape Beswick Park. “It’s not safe.”
Her sister tossed her head. “This is Southend, Astrid, and it’s perfectly safe. We’ve come here for years, and no one bats an eyelash at anything. You may enjoy being cooped up with your books and papers all day long, but I do not. I need some fresh air. And normal people who don’t…”
She trailed off, but Astrid knew what she meant to say: normal people who don’t frighten the living daylights out of their guests.
Despite thawing toward the duke, Isobel continued to be at odds around him. It wasn’t difficult to grasp the whys and wherefores. She was a sheltered, sweet girl, and Beswick was an imposing, terrifying presence whose constant fractious attitude didn’t help matters. In truth, his scars were the least of it. If the duke worked at being less of a bear with a thorn in its paw, he could actually be quite…nice.
Isobel dismounted and walked over to an oak growing atop a knoll that looked down over the village, her expression longing. Astrid did the same and followed her, letting Brutus graze under the watchful eye of their groom.
“I thought you liked the duke.”
Isobel goggled at Astrid. “Like him? Just this morning, Cook said he’d been in one of his rages and not to go anywhere near the east tower if I didn’t wish to be frightened. By all accounts, the man is a beast with a temper to match.”
“A man who is providing us his protection, Isobel, and we will do best to remember that. Uncle Reginald hasn’t given up in his search. Money is a powerful motivator for even those we think are on our side.” She let out a breath. “Has the duke ever hurt you or given any indication that he would?”
“No.” The admission was soft.
Astrid sighed. “I’m doing the best I can, Isobel. For both of us. Until I come into my inheritance, we don’t have much choice in the matter, and we must prevail upon His Grace’s generosity.”
“I know. I’m just lonely, and I miss my friends.”
It was true that Astrid had been busy, and as a result, Isobel had been left to her own devices. She had not inherited their father’s love for horses, and she preferred dancing and needlepoint to more intellectual pursuits, with the exception of reading Ackermann’s Repository for needlework patterns. To which the duke did not have a subscription.
In the absence of social pursuits, it meant that Isobel had spent more time than she normally would in the company of an embroidery hoop, thread, and needle. Perhaps Astrid should have recognized the signs of her sister’s isolation earlier, but she’d been so wrapped up in her work and keeping Beswick at a distance that she simply hadn’t noticed Isobel’s growing unhappiness.
“Is it truly that bad?” Astrid asked, softening. “It’s only been a few weeks.”
Isobel bit her lip. “No, you’re right, it’s not. After all you’re doing and what you’ve done to keep us safe, it’s nothing. I don’t know what’s come over me.”
Astrid blinked, taking in her sister’s wan coloring and pinched smile with fresh eyes. She was trying so hard to grin and bear it, but Astrid could see the lines bracketing her mouth and the tightness of her pale face.
“I’m sorry, Izzy. I wish things were different.”
Her sister’s shoulders slumped. “Don’t be. You’re doing the best you can. And I feel like I’m doing nothing. That I’m a burden and you wouldn’t be in this position because of me.” She swallowed hard, a tear tracking down her face. “Sometimes, I feel so lost. Maybe it would be better if I just married Beaumont, and then you wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Never say that.” She grasped her sister’s shoulders and pulled her close. “We’re in this together, Izzy. Do you hear me?”
“I do,” she mumbled into Astrid’s neck, hugging tight. “I love you, you know.”
“I love you, too.”
Astrid pulled away and glanced down to the deserted streets of the village. It was Sunday, and it was quiet. Most people would be at church, and it was unlikely that Beaumont would even venture into town. Surely a few moments couldn’t hurt.
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