The Duke's Disaster (R) (19 page)

“Those girls are your family, Meech.” Now Noah’s tea was too sweet. “You should put in the occasional appearance for form’s sake, and we’ll have Harlan underfoot again soon too. You missed the wedding, and he has a new pony to show you as well.”

Meech chose a biscuit from a Sevres bowl, biscuits being the only sustenance on the tray. “Harlan’s been larking around in Surrey, hasn’t he?”

“News travels, apparently.”

“If a fellow his age is invited to be a guest at Greymoor’s place, he tends to send around notes to his chums, because a little gloating is in order. One of Pemmie’s nephews passed along the word.”

Meech bit into his biscuit, crumbs sprinkling his cravat as he munched.

Pemmie had nephews on both sides of the family and both sides of the blanket, some as rackety as their uncle.

“The gloating tendency, Harlan gets from you,” Noah said, though Harlan at least knew better than to scatter crumbs in the parlor. “Aren’t you offering cakes and sandwiches and whatnot with your tea these days?”

Meech needed a wife, was the trouble, somebody to look after the hospitality and after Meech himself, who looked a bit peaky.

“You expect me to set out all that?” Meech scoffed. “When it’s hotter than blazes? Even tea’s a stretch in this weather.”

Meech had a collection of porcelain teapots, probably the only items he valued more highly than toothsome, willing chambermaids.

“Meecham, am I keeping you from an assignation, perhaps? You’re twitchy, your cravat is wrinkled, and you haven’t insulted me even once yet. A newly married man likes to know he can depend on some aspects of his life to remain reliably fixed—some uncles, that is.”

Noah had only the one living.

Meech took a sip of his tea and set it aside. “How fares your duchess?”

Noah wanted desperately to brush the crumbs from his uncle’s linen. The elderly could be untidy at table, and the very young, though Meech qualified as neither.

“So you’re preoccupied with a woman,” Noah muttered. “Well, best of luck with that. My duchess is settling in nicely. The girls adore her, and she is taking them in hand.”

Meech had no reaction to that pronouncement, other than to fuss the crease of his trousers.

“They’re to have governesses and dancing masters and piano lessons and heaven only knows what,” Noah went on. “Seems to me they already know everything they need to know to go on in life.”

Meech started on another biscuit. “Which would be?”

“How to read, write, and negotiate. How to sit a horse, and how to get along with each other. The rest will come from sheer curiosity.”

Meech rose and rearranged the half-dozen gold snuffboxes displayed on his mantel. Noah was plagued by the notion that these had been parting gifts to Meech from fond inamoratas.

“Stuffing the female head with figures, ancient cultures, and foreign languages never struck me as useful,” Meech said, opening a pearl-encrusted snuffbox and sniffing at it. “A bluestocking is a sad sight. Pemmie agrees with me.”

“Come stay with us for a few days,” Noah said, rising, because clearly Meech had no time to spare for ducal nephews. “We haven’t all been together in an age, and your visit will make Thea feel welcome.”

Noah tossed a written invitation onto the tea tray—Thea had made him write out half of them.

Meech went on to the next snuffbox—silver and lapis—rather than open the sealed epistle.

“I’ll consult the schedule, Noah. Summer is a busy time when you’re as much in demand as I am, and then too, one likes to head north well in advance of the hordes, or the best grouse moors will be taken.”

“You can shoot birds at Wellspring, for God’s sake,” Noah said. “You must suit yourself, and we will muddle along with or without you.”

“That you will.”

Noah took his leave, unsatisfied with the exchange. Meech liked his victuals, and Meech liked a good gossip. Maybe he was pining for Henny Whitlow; maybe he was expecting a lady to discreetly call upon him. Maybe a lady awaited Meech in his very bedroom.

Noah had nearly reached the mews when a voice stopped him.

“Anselm.”

“Pemberton.” Noah extended a hand to the man who could have been his uncle’s twin. “I left Meech brooding over his teapot and inventorying his snuffboxes. If you’re expecting to linger, I don’t think he’ll be in the mood.”

“He’ll perk up when the sun drops,” Pemberton said, handing his horse off to a groom. “I understand good wishes are in order. Felicitations on the nuptials and all that.”

“My thanks,” Noah said as True was led out. “Will you head north with Meech here directly?”

“Head north?” Pemberton paused, one riding glove on, one peeled off. “Gracious, no. Never did fancy alcohol and firearms mixed in any quantity. A bumper of nonsense, if you ask me, sitting about in the damp and fog just to scratch and reminisce with a bunch of fellows you can see in any ballroom. Then you have to eat the hapless fowl and pretend you’re not picking buckshot from your teeth between courses.”

“Excellent point,” Noah said, snugging up True’s girth. “See if you can’t talk Meech into visiting out at Wellspring, then. You’re welcome to tag along, but be warned my sisters will attend our gathering, and they’re all in a delicate condition.”

“The three of ’em?” Pemberton shuddered. “Thank you, but I will pass. Not that your sisters aren’t lovely, but to see their husbands brought to billing and cooing in public… My bachelor constitution can’t take it.”

“One becomes inured,” Noah said, though he rather looked forward to the day when he and his duchess added billing and cooing to their doting moments.

* * *

The nightmare began as the reality had, with man-scents of bay rum, stale pipe smoke, and starched linen blended with the sweat resulting from a summer night’s dancing.

And pressure, as a weight bore down on Thea’s body. Male weight, followed by sounds, whispering, then grunting, and the sensation of Thea’s nightgown being hiked up over her thighs.

“You just relax, my dear, this won’t take but a lovely little moment.”

Bed ropes creaking, while in Thea’s mind, panic tried to beat away a touch of the poppy and an overindulgence of punch.

Wake
up, for God’s sake, wake up now!

An intrusion, and discomfort, low in Thea’s body, where a chaste woman wouldn’t hurt. More weight, enough to bring her struggling to awareness.

Scream, Thea, scream now!

“Almost there, almost…stop that, my dear, unless you’d like a bit of the rougher…”

Thea had managed to thrash, and tried to wiggle aside, but he was big, and just as she’d perceived the true nature of his intent, she’d also recalled two ducal heirs were at that house party, and neither one would be brought to account should she scream.

Her hands were pinned on either side of her head as he began thrusting in earnest.

“Damn but you’re wonderfully snug, my dear… God in heaven!” He went still, but Thea was too dazed to seize the moment, and then a dreadful sensation—his hand brushing gently over her forehead. “My dear, you should have told me. I might have gone about things differently. Suppose you’d like me to finish now, eh?”

He began to move again, more slowly, almost carefully, and Thea didn’t hurt so much now, not physically.

She cried in silence while he finished, and then he lay on her, panting, while her tears seeped into the pillow.

“I don’t know why you chose me, my dear, and I’m honored and all that, but you know how the game is played from here, don’t you? We bow and curtsy like perfect strangers over breakfast, and wish each other well?”

In the dark, his voice was barely above a whisper, but he sounded anxious.

Not panicked, not ashamed and horrified and all muddled.

“Get off me,” Thea managed, though all she knew was that she’d just been ruined, and by a man she couldn’t even properly see. Her breath was growing short, as if a pent-up scream were blocking her airway. She wanted to breathe, to shove him away, whoever he was, to get up and wash and wash and wash.

Though she had a very good notion who’d ruined her.

“I’ll just be going then.” He kissed her forehead, climbed off her, and then Thea was alone.

The only mercy in the entire five minutes had been the darkness. He hadn’t been able to see her, and she hadn’t been able to see him, though the scent and feel and sound and
shame
of what he’d done would plague her for years to come.

Wake
up, for God’s sake, wake up now!

As always, Thea couldn’t wake up, not fast enough, not soon enough.

Thea, Wife. Wake up, now, for the love of God.

Nobody called Thea wife, or used her name in those gruff irascible tones except—

“Noah.” Thea pitched into him hard, clinging to him like the welcome reality he was. In a shaft of moonshine, she caught the concern tightening the corners of his eyes, and wanted to weep with relief. “Husband.”

“One hopes I’m not unexpected. I said I’d be back tonight.” He’d already disrobed, for moonshine gilded bare, muscular shoulders, and Noah smelled of flowers and herbs, as if he’d recently completed his evening ablutions.

“I didn’t sew you any loincloths.” All Thea could think to say, an inanity. She was rewarded with the sensation of Noah chuckling as she stayed plastered against him.

“You were engaged in nocturnal larceny again.” He shifted to his back, pulling her over him. “I gather you steal covers when you’re thrashing with a nightmare.” His hands started a slow pattern on her shoulders, and Thea’s galloping heart began to calm.

“I’m prone to them. I’m sorry.”

“You should be sorry. I suffer enough worries without you pounding on me in my sleep.”

“Did I strike you?”

“A glancing blow.”

Then a little silence, while Thea let the pleasure of Noah’s hands on her back soothe her nerves. She grew more comfortable, sprawled on him more loosely.

Noah was home. Her duke, her husband, her Noah was home. “How was Town?”

“What do you dream of?”

“You first.”

“Town was hot,” Noah said, for once obliging Thea without a show of stubbornness first. “My sisters send their regards, and James is forever in your debt, because the womenfolk were threatening to drag him to Brighton in lieu of the rural rounds, and one avoids Brighton when His Prinnyness is in residence.”

“I’ve seen his Pavilion, or the unfinished version of it.”

“His folly,” Noah said, applying a slight, scrumptious pressure to Thea’s neck. “I don’t begrudge the man some beauty, or the nation, but too many soldiers have gone begging who didn’t begrudge their country an arm or an eye.”

“Hence you vote your seat.”

“Hence, I do.” He tugged the covers up over Thea’s shoulders. “Now you, Thea. What troubles your sleep? Before you prevaricate, recall that I am your husband, to whom you must transfer title to all your woes and worries.”

More and more, Noah’s orders sounded like endearments. “I don’t recall that as part of the vows, sir.”

He snuggled her closer and spoke very near her ear. “Tell me, Wife. If it breathes fire and has scales, so much the better. The little girls will be so impressed when I vanquish this beast, they’ll recall who I am and forget those blasted ponies.”

Thea faced a decision, one that might cost her the hands so gently stroking her hair, the embrace keeping her snug and safe, the voice teasing and reassuring her in the darkness. Those were precious, and at that moment she needed them.

Needed
him
.

“It’s hard to recall a dream when one wakes.” Hard to forget a nightmare, though. “In the dream, I can’t breathe, and I can’t scream, and I can’t make sense of what’s afflicting me.”

“Are you anxious over something? Does this family gathering truly oppress you?”

“It does not.” The upcoming gathering hardly oppressed Thea, not like a house party among strangers would.

“You shudder, Wife, and give the lie to your words. Our gathering will be for a short span of days, and the young people will provide the entertainment for the curmudgeons.”

“You aren’t a curmudgeon.”

“A certain part of my anatomy has come to its figurative feet to make that same point.” Noah kissed Thea, and she was never so grateful to put his mouth to such use.

When Noah rolled them and rose above Thea to join their bodies, she was grateful for that too. Noah wasn’t a faceless buffoon casually appropriating her virginity in the dark. He would never hurt her, never truly steal anything from her.

Much less rob Thea of the last gift a young woman in her circumstances had left to give.

* * *

“You’ve been deuced poor company all week,” Pemberton said as he sank into a wing chair after a long night at the opera. “Fetch a fellow a nightcap, would you?”

Pemmie was still spry, while Meech’s left hip had begun to ache at the end of any day that involved travel by horseback.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Pemmie went on, “what was Anselm going on about?”

Meech poured them both bumpers of brandy, and brought one to Pemberton before taking the other chair.

“Anselm was going on about something?”

Noah wasn’t given to rants and tantrums, something Meech rather liked about his nephew. The duke was more of a pistols-at-dawn sort—which was not likable at all.

“When I last came ’round”—Pemberton paused to take a hefty swallow of his drink—“you told Anselm we’d be heading north. I thought we’d agreed to avoid grouse moors and the near occasion thereof.”

“All those weapons, all that drink, and a paucity of pretty women,” Meech mused. “My brothers took to it.”

“Here’s to your late brothers.” Pemberton lifted his glass a few inches. “Go if you want to. I’ll bide here in the south until you come home sneezing and sporting chilblains.”

Sometimes, Pemmie was not much of a friend. “Giles?”

“Yes?”

“Sooner or later, somebody will put it about that Anselm married used goods.” Some idiot, of which Polite Society had an abundance, and they all tended to congregate at house parties. Meech was feeling idiotish himself.

Pemberton set down his drink. “Anselm did marry used goods. You might have warned him.”