Four Nights With the Duke (17 page)

MORE NOTES
ON
THE
J
ILTING

         
~ Perhaps Frederic is inebriated and forgets to come to church?

         
“Frederic keenly felt the impropriety of his conduct. ‘Now I am myself again, no longer under the Dangerous Influence of Spirituous liquors . . . my affections suppressed by Demon Rum, I forgot the most precious gift that Life had given me.’” No. (Readers wouldn’t like it.)

         
- Perhaps he accidentally tips Flora over a waterfall. Puts her in Mortal Peril
and
permanently lames her. He jilts her from guilt. (They wouldn’t like that either.)

         
~ or he’s Jealous! A deceitful friend tells him that Flora is naught but a wanton deceiver. Yes, this works!

Very Shakespearean ~ wasn’t that
Much Ado about Nothing?
Or
Measure for Measure?

M
ia was beginning to feel that she would deserve a medal if she survived the meal. There wasn’t much conversation; Sir Chuffy was humming to himself, and Vander was eating a beef steak in the devotional way that men eat large slabs of meat.

She couldn’t stop worrying about the question of intimacy—and she didn’t mean first names. When she and Vander did consummate their marriage, which was bound to occur at some point, she would insist that all the lamps be extinguished first. No candles either. Sheets pulled up to their chins.

Was it permissible to insist that a man not touch his wife above the waist? She had a feeling it wasn’t, though she didn’t really know. Not having known her mother, she had only foggy ideas about the finer points of conjugal intimacy.

Enough! They had to talk about
something
.

“I met Jafeer today,” she said brightly.

Vander looked up from his plate. “So Mulberry informed me. Don’t go near that horse. He’s far too high-strung.”

“I gather Jafeer is a new addition to your stables?”

“Yes, he arrived a few days ago,” Vander said, taking another forkful of beef.

“You did tell me that you had a race upcoming, did you not? Will he take part?”

“I hadn’t thought to enter him because he has been unsettled. He won races in his native country as a yearling, and I’d like to have a sense of what he’s like on the track. But perhaps I shall . . . now I know that the way to his heart is a duchess with a pocketful of apples.”

Mia knew she was beaming, but it felt wonderful to triumph where Vander’s stable master had failed.

“Good for you, m’dear,” Chuffy said, leaning back with an expansive wave of his glass. He nearly tumbled but caught himself. “You’ve deduced the way to your husband’s heart.”

Vander’s eyes narrowed. He probably thought she was trying to trap him into unwanted emotion by befriending Jafeer—when she’d had nothing like that in mind. “There’s no need to go to such lengths, Duchess,” he remarked. “I’m bought and paid for.”

Mia froze, unable to speak. Chuffy, on the other hand, made a sharp gesture and barked, “Nevvy, I—”

His chair toppled backward with a crash, and a hard thump indicated that Chuffy’s head had hit the floor. Mia sprang to her feet with a squeak of distress, but Vander merely leaned forward far enough to peer down at his uncle and got up in a leisurely way.

Mia rushed around the table to where Chuffy was lying on the floor. To her relief, he was blinking up at the ceiling, looking surprised rather than injured.

“Here I am, on the damn floor again,” he observed.

Vander hoisted Chuffy to his feet and deposited him back in his chair. “Having second thoughts about our marriage?” he asked Mia in a mocking tone, as he walked back to the head of the table. “This household does not fit the mold of the
beau monde
.”

“I need a restorative,” Chuffy said, hauling on the cord to summon Gaunt.

“If I had dreams of a life in the
beau monde
,” Mia managed, “I gave them up long ago. If you would both please excuse me, I shall retire for the night.” She stood up and nipped out the door as Gaunt entered, running up the stairs to the nursery.

The ducal nursery was three times larger than that in Carrington House. It was bright and airy, with a rocking chair with metal mounts and red velvet cushions. A sofa was positioned in front of the fireplace, which was fronted with an elaborate grate guard.

In the corner was a child-sized iron cot; next to it was a child-sized wash table and basin. Charlie was in bed, but when she tiptoed into the room, she could tell that he was awake. She sat down on his bed, leaning over to kiss his forehead. “Why aren’t you asleep, Barley Charlie?”

“I’m too excited,” he whispered. He sat up. “Uncle Vander is going to teach me how to ride, Aunt Mia! He’s going to teach me to ride a horse. And he showed me how to go downstairs all by myself.”

“What?”

Charlie grabbed her hand and put it against the inside of his thin knee. “Do you feel this?”

He pushed against her hand, and she nodded.

“That means I can ride a horse!” he said triumphantly.

Mia’s heart sank. “Honey, riders use these things called stirrups—”

“A true rider needn’t use them,” Charlie said fiercely. “You can ride a horse with your knees. The duke says that is the best way to ride. You don’t need feet; you only need strong legs.”

Mia opened her mouth and shut it again. She was hardly someone who knew the finer points of horsemanship. “I suppose you could ride Lancelot.”

Charlie shook his head. “I shall ride proper horses, starting with a pony named Ginger, and after her, the biggest horses in the duke’s stables. I shall ride them
all
.”

“Oh, no,” Mia moaned. She knew that look. She’d
seen it on her own face, when she’d realized that if she wrote novels and published them under an alias, she could keep writing about love without risking humiliation.

Charlie’s face was small, but all of a sudden she saw that it was no longer delicate. His chin was square and his eyes were fierce.

“You’re growing up, aren’t you?” she asked, unable to keep a smile from her lips.

“Of course I’m growing up,” Charlie told her. “All boys grow up. I shall go away to school soon. It’s going to be an adventure.”

“No, you won’t!” she cried, the denial coming straight from her heart. “Who told you such a thing? Did the duke say that?”

Charlie snuggled back into his covers. “Yes, he did. He’s going to send me to his school. It’s called something funny . . . like Eating. I think that’s it. He’s sending me to Eating.” His eyes were growing slumberous.

“Eton,” Mia mumbled, shocked down to her toes. Her baby would never go away to school, where cruel boys like that dreadful Oakenrott would taunt and bully him.

She would throw herself in front of the carriage first. Had she done this? By marrying Vander, she had ensured that Charlie would endure agonies of humiliation, not just once, but every day, for years?

No.

Charlie’s eyes opened again. “You can’t keep me a baby, Aunt Mia,” he whispered. “I have to grow up.”

Her heart was thudding in her throat. Her marriage wasn’t consummated. Charlie might be better off with Sir Richard. At least Sir Richard would keep him in the house, rather than throwing him onto the back of a horse or sending him away to school.

No. She had been right to get Charlie away from Sir Richard, no matter what.

Charlie had fallen asleep, so she reached out and smoothed the hair that tumbled over his brow and tiptoed from the room. She had to think, but Susan was straightening her bedchamber. She needed a place where she was unlikely to be disturbed.

Suddenly she remembered Jafeer. He was as distressed and lonely as she was. It took her a while to find a side door, but finally she slipped into the night. It was warm outside, and the sky was full of stars, like shining cherries in a bowl.

She walked the path to the stables, letting the evening air wrap around her shoulders. Weren’t lamps dangerous in a stable? Yet the building was illuminated inside as if by daylight, and as she approached, she heard a shout.

Followed by the high whinny of an enraged horse.

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” she said, under her breath.

Still, she felt better. Someone needed her. Vander didn’t care to have her around, for obvious reasons, and Charlie was growing up.

A couple of grooms came running toward her, down the corridor away from Jafeer’s stall. They tried to stop her, but she brushed past them.

A moment later she stood in front of the stall. The stallion’s eyes were wild, rolling, both ears flat back, his hide blackened with sweat. Mia put her hands on her hips. When he was two years old, Charlie had gone through a spell when he would lie on the nursery floor and scream.

Jafeer, she decided, was having a tantrum. Just as she had with Charlie, Mia waited until she caught Jafeer’s eyes. Instantly, the wild loneliness drained out of his expression, and he brought his front legs to the floor with a thud.

The groom who had been hauling on his reins, trying in vain to control the horse, let out a string of thankful curses, turned, saw her, and started.

“Your—Your Grace!”

“Jafeer,” Mia said, “just what do you think you’re doing?”

The horse blew air and shook his head. He wasn’t going to throw in the towel immediately. It was all her fault, apparently.

Mia stepped forward. “Come here,” she said, reaching toward him.

He held out for another moment, letting her know that she shouldn’t have abandoned him in a strange place where men shouted at him. With a huge sigh he lowered his head to her.

Mia reached her arms around his neck. “You mustn’t behave this way,” she told him. “It’s not as if I can sleep in the stables with you.”

As if he could understand her, Jafeer gave a little snort and lipped at her hair. Susan had left it down in a style that she swore was all the mode, but Mia thought was merely untidy.

She drew away. “There’s entirely too much light here,” she said, turning to address the stable hand. “Oh, Mulberry, there you are! Wouldn’t it be better to extinguish the lamps? Look at poor Lancelot. He wants to go to sleep.”

In fact, Lancelot was asleep. It would take more than a terrified, homesick horse in the stall next door to keep him awake.

“If I’d known that stallion needed a duchess to make him happy,” Mulberry said, “I never would have recommended we buy him.”

“It’s probably just a woman’s touch,” Mia said, even though she didn’t like that idea. Jafeer was
hers
.

Mulberry shook his head. “No, Your Grace. Since
you were here this morning, we tried all the scullery maids, the downstairs maid, and one of the dairymaids. I tried to lure the cook, but she wouldn’t come.”

Mia ran Jafeer’s velvety ear through her fingers. “I can’t remain in the stables with you all night, silly boy. Mulberry, if you would be kind enough to extinguish all but one of the lamps, perhaps I can quiet him enough to sleep.” She turned her face and dropped a kiss on the horse’s whiskery nose. “You’re sleepy, aren’t you?” The Arabian’s eyes drooped. It couldn’t be easy having a daylong tantrum.

Charlie used to drop to sleep like a stone after his fits, back when he was two years old.

One by one the lamps were turned down and the stable descended into near-darkness. The men all left, with Mulberry the last to go.

Finally it was just the two of them. Well, the two of them and two dozen other animals, slowly breathing in a warm darkness that smelled like horses and clean straw.

Mia unlatched the door to Jafeer’s stall and entered. The moment she was next to his head, he folded up his long legs and collapsed like a house of cards.

“You’re going to sleep,” Mia said, in a calm low voice. She sat on the floor next to him and leaned against his shoulder. He curved his neck around her, and she stroked his cheek. “Pretty soon I shall have to leave, and you will sleep through the night. I’ll visit you in the morning, and perhaps again in the evening.”

Jafeer’s head slid off her shoulder to the straw as he fell asleep.

Mia just sat, hand on his neck, thinking about her life. She had sacrificed everything for Charlie—her self-esteem, her self-respect, her chance at a happy
marriage. But it had been the right thing to do; even thinking about his shining eyes made her smile. He wanted to learn to ride, so she’d have to allow it.

Ever since the moment when she’d realized that her newborn nephew might die due to his mother’s extravagant use of opium during birth, and the doctor had chosen not to rouse the baby because of his deformity, she had taken responsibility. It began when she upended a pitcher of water on the baby’s head and woke him up from an opium-induced daze.

As Mia saw it, there were times when only one possible road lay ahead, and so she had snatched Charlie from the arms of the nurse. And eight years later, she had faced a similar conundrum, and married Vander.