Elizabeth pressed her lips tightly together. She refused to weep again.
Her chin was quivering. Conor retrieved his handkerchief and put it in her hand. Elizabeth flung herself onto his chest, and burst into tears.
She was but a child, Conor told himself, as he stroked her slender back. A lovely, slim-hipped, long-limbed child. Whose bosom, fortunately, was today not exposed to view. Were the duchess tempted to snap her fingers under the nose of her spouse, there was no one better with whom to do it than himself.
Alas, Conor liked the girl too well to do her further harm. Patiently, he endured the storm. At last, she subsided into hiccoughs. “Shall I cut out St. Clair’s liver and fry it? Would you like that?”
Sniffling, Elizabeth drew back and wiped the moisture from her cheeks. “I don’t ordinarily behave like this. Pray forgive me for being such a wet goose. Oh, no! I’ve ruined your cravat.”
“My valet will cut out
your
liver and fry it!” Conor replied cheerfully as he set her bonnet to rights. “As for the other, Duchess, I will forgive you anything.”
“So you will help me?” Elizabeth hesitated, frowning. “But why?”
Conor twitched her bonnet back into its proper position. “Perhaps I am suffering an altruistic aberration. More likely, it amuses me to help you because I know Saint would hate it of all things.”
Elizabeth mistrusted this reasoning. Still, one should not look a gift horse in the mouth. “Sir Charles said I should take my clothes off.”
Sir Charles, too, was a jingle-brain. Conor marveled at the folly of his fellow man. “Eventually you must,” he said gravely. “But first you must let St. Clair know that you
want
to be kissed. Your maidservant is hovering in the shrubbery. We will let her fret a while longer while we put our heads together and I will tell you what you must do.”
Chapter 22
“Marriage makes our nation morally sound, as it encourages men to avoid certain illicit activities.”
—Lady Ratchett
The duke left his breakfast companions to the ministrations of little Katy, and settled back in the library to await the ladies’ return. At
least someone was enjoying this sojourn in Bath, he thought savagely, as he gave the globe a ferocious spin that nearly tumbled it off the desk. When the ladies did at length return, and his bride was not among them, he swore a great round oath and demanded to know what they had done with her.
“Comment ça?”
responded
Magda, to whom this query was addressed. “What do you imagine, that we have sent her to her last accounts? Elizabeth went off with her abigail. Maybe she wanted to visit the shops. Or maybe she sought to arrange a surprise.”
“A happy one, I hope.” Augusta picked up the wax jack. “You have gotten in the habit of frowning, Justin. Marriage does not appear to agree with you.”
The duke did not dignify this latter comment with a response. He had any number of things about which to frown, among them the realization his wife had not been present to rein in the other ladies. Whereas it was doubtful that Gus had sought out Catterick’s at so early an hour, the devious Magda could embark on whatever mischief she was up to at any moment of the day or night.
He gave her a suspicious look. She touched her cameo. “Sir Charles joined us. He is interested in France.”
Augusta snorted. “France, my foot. The man is interested in you. He was almost drooling. You should be ashamed.”
Justin considered warning Magda about black ants and the like; then decided she was more than capable of dealing with any gentleman who instructed her to smear camel fat on his private parts. “Lady Ratchett would not approve of Sir Charles drooling. Even on herself.”
“Ah.
The so-disapproving Maman. I would like to meet her, I think.” Magda leaned over the back of Justin’s chair, and murmured in his ear. “I am not deceived. You do not trust your bride,
mon chou.
I begin to wonder if you have bedded her yet.”
“That is none of your curst business.” Justin pushed back his chair.
Magda crossed her arms beneath her ample chest.
“Ma foi,
how the times have changed! Poor Elizabeth. Poor Saint.”
Augusta sniffed. First Magda flirted with Sir Charles, and now she was flirting with Justin. It was most unseemly. Gus must try to intervene before he throttled her. “Why is Justin poor? Has he lost his money on the ‘Change?”
“I have lost nothing. Your allowance is safe. The devil take the pair of you!” The duke left his cousin gaping, and his ex-wife chuckling, as he stalked out of the library, mounted the stairs, and pushed open the bedroom door.
The chamber was empty. No duchess sat in front of the dressing table mirror, no abigail brushed her hair. No jealous Thornaby peered in the drawers of the tallboy or inspected Her Grace’s wardrobe, or bent to search beneath the bedstead for an errant ball of dust.
A sound caught the duke’s attention. He froze, listening. Again came a slight wheezing breath. Did Elizabeth lay waiting for him upon the green and white counterpane? Had she only pretended to leave the house? He pulled back the bed hangings.
No lovely lady reclined upon the counterpane, but a small well-fed black cat. Minou was sleeping, and wheezing, on the pillow that should by rights have been his. Justin eyed the kitten with disfavor. Conor Melchers, for God’s sake. Minou opened one green eye, sneezed at his visitor, yawned hugely, rolled over on his back, and went back to sleep. How comfortable the wretched creature looked, curled up his pillow.
It looked like a comfortable pillow, moreover, if damp from kitten drool. As did the bed appear much more comfortable than the bed in his own room.
Dukes should not sleep without comfort. Duchesses should not sleep with cats. While Justin lay awake in his infernal cold and lonely bed, the duchess cuddled up with her infernal pet. Minou would stretch out against her slender body. Lick her soft warm skin. Crawl beneath the coverlet. Good Lord, now he was jealous of a cat.
Justin turned, kicked the tapestry footstool out of his pathway, strode purposefully out of the bedchamber. Bath was not so large a city that a man could not, with perseverance, track down an errant wife. And if he found her with Conor Melchers, which he half expected that he would, Justin would have no choice but to call the cur out.
The duke had never fought a duel. He thought he might enjoy it very well. Ignoring all those who attempted to speak with him—Chislett, Thornaby, and a footman known inexplicably as Knobs—Lord Charnwood flung open his front door, stepped through it, and slammed it shut. The skies were gray and overcast, which perfectly fit his mood.
A pity Beau Nash had forbidden the wearing of swords in the city. If Justin was wearing a sword, which of course he wasn’t—he wasn’t even wearing a hat—he could skewer Melchers with the pig-sticker and watch his life’s blood puddle on the pavement. Elizabeth would doubtless swoon. Justin would throw her over his shoulder, take her into the nearest semi-deserted alleyway, do his manly duty, and be done with it. The duke paused in his musings, shocked by his hitherto-unsuspected blood lust. All the same, if anyone ever deserved skewering it was Melchers. As for Elizabeth—
It had seemed so simple, this choosing of a bride. One picked out a suitable young woman, contracted a marriage, settled down in matrimony with a minimum of fuss, and set about the production of the requisite offspring. It was not an undertaking of such magnitude as to upset the easy tenor of one’s days. Yet it had done exactly that. Justin would never have anticipated, a mere week ago, that this day would find him wandering around Bath in search of an errant wife. A wife whom he hadn’t bedded, but wished to, very much. A wife whom he had come to care for, even though she threatened to bring his comfortable world tumbling down around his ears. He must be mad as Bedlam. Prolonged abstinence had unhinged his brain.
Through the heart of Bath, Lord Charnwood walked, past the Abbey and the Pump Room. Numerous fine shops tempted him to exploration no more than did a certain public garden, which is fortunate for a certain rakish gentleman’s unskewered state.
Had
St. Clair gone into the gardens, visitors there might have enjoyed fireworks considerably more spectacular than Pigeons and Chinese Tea, Maroons and Pots de Brin.
Steps near Pulteney Bridge led down to the river, where the duke paused briefly to gaze upon the water in search of inspiration or enlightenment. When neither was forthcoming, he followed the riverside pathway around the city to the south, where before him rose a hill as steep as any in Bath. At least this feat he might accomplish, and in the process walk off some of his irritability.
Alas, it did not serve. From the top of Beechen Cliff, Justin viewed the city, an enchanting vista of golden buildings spread out below him, with green hills all around.
He was not enchanted. Somewhere in that city, his wife was hiding from him. When he found her, he would wring her neck. So caught up was the duke in his musings that he did not notice the darkening sky. He did notice, however, when the gray clouds opened and rain poured down on him.
It was in a dampened frame of mind that St. Clair returned to the city. Thornaby would fly into hysterics over the condition of his jacket and boots. Justin was none too pleased himself. He felt like a drowned rat.
He climbed the steps that led to the street. Pulteney Bridge was crowded with pedestrians and vehicles, inclement weather being no deterrent to the visitors who were determined to see and be seen. Carriage wheels rattled, hooves clattered, pattens clinked on the pavement stones. Voices filled the air.
The duke was not interested in shoemakers, or plumasseurs, or linen drapers’ shops. Neither ribbon nor silk netting, the multifarious articles for sale in a bazaar, nor a fan made of chicken skin caught his eye. What did attract his attention was Mr. Slyte emerging from a bookseller’s shop with a paper-wrapped parcel tucked under one arm. Nigel resembled a coachman in his many-caped greatcoat. He wore a tall crowned hat and top boots, and carried a lime green silk umbrella in one yellow-gloved hand. “Hallo, Saint. I ate
la matelote au vin de Bourdeaux
today. You resemble a drowned rat.”
The duke was not in the mood for pleasant conversation. “Thank you so much for pointing it out. What are you doing here? You have an antipathy to rain.”
“Not so great an antipathy as I have to being disinherited.” Nigel unfurled the umbrella as they strolled through the crowd. “Aunt Syb has been racketing about too much. The quacksalver has dosed her with steel and angostura bark in flannel next to the skin, and ordered her to stay in bed. She ain’t happy about it. Threatened to cut me off without a groat again.”
Justin stepped away from his friend. Between sharing Nigel’s garish umbrella or becoming even wetter, he preferred the damp. “I’m sorry to hear Lady Syb is ill. She won’t dispossess you, you know that.”
“To tell truth, I’d rather have Aunt Syb than all her blunt. You will not tell her so; it would spoil all her fun. I have been dispatched to fetch a copy of
The World As It Is,
which
I am expected to read aloud. She tells me I will enjoy the tale. The heroine foils a rape attempt by strangling a weakling lord, and an evil woman contracts a sexual disease.” The rain increased and Justin abandoned his aesthetic scruples to duck under the umbrella. Nigel added, “What are
you
so thunder-faced about?”
It was a good thing the duke wasn’t wearing a cheese toaster, else he might have spitted his oldest friend. “Melchers gave that wretched kitten to Elizabeth. It is sleeping in my bed.”
Nigel tilted his golden head. “Clearly the duchess wants company. Why are you here and not there? Don’t tell me, let me guess. You rang a peal over her. Now she’s in her tantrums, and you’ve taken a miff.”
Perhaps, in lieu of a sword stick, Jason might spit Nigel on his own umbrella. “I didn’t ring a peal over her, and I don’t know whether she is in her tantrums because I can’t find her. And I am not in a miff.”
“Very well, a dudgeon, then! All in all, reading to Aunt Syb about strangled lordlings and diseased women ain’t a terrible fate. It’s no use to scowl at me. Aunt Syb says I am incorrigible. Whereas
you
are turning into a curmudgeon. It was just a kitten, Saint.”
Justin wondered if it was better to be a curmudgeon or a coxcomb. “The fact remains that Elizabeth is playing least-in-sight.”
“A
churlish
curmudgeon,” Nigel amended. “Next you will say she goes beyond the line of being pleasing. What claptrap, Saint. Why should the duchess try to please you? You ain’t exactly been lavishing attendance on her. I don’t suppose it occurred to you that she learned to dance for your sake.”
“My
sake?” Justin turned to stare at his companion. “What makes you say that?”
“It certainly wasn’t to please herself! She’s no good at it, you know. And if you don’t, I do! She practically broke my toe. As to why she did it, Gus told her it would cause comment if she didn’t dance.” The downpour had abated. Nigel folded up his umbrella and carried it by the golden ring at its tip. “If you can’t see what’s right under your nose, others can. Even Aunt Syb said you was a slowtop.”
Had no one a kind word to say of him? Justin bared his teeth. “Was that before or after she disinherited you?” he asked.
Nigel twirled his umbrella. “Don’t go getting your hackles up. You
have
been
acting like a slowtop. It’s hardly remarkable if the duchess prefers Melchers, you’re so bloody high in the instep.”
If he couldn’t impale his oldest friend on his umbrella, Justin might strangle him instead. “You’re
the one who said I should leave her wanting more. It doesn’t seem to have worked.”
Nigel shrugged. His greatcoat settled about him like a hen upon her nest. “I don’t see any indication you’ve given her anything at all, so my advice don’t count. Damned if I like to see the duchess made unhappy. I hold her in high esteem, even if you don’t.”
Justin gazed woodenly into the distance. “I didn’t say I don’t hold her in high esteem.”