The Duke of Morewether’s Secret (21 page)

“Yes, you do.” The only experience Christian had with children was with his nephew and the boy was only three. Disagreements with Anthony revolved around where one could remove one’s trousers and if you should bite the puppy. As for what Christian thought about his sister’s monstrous dogs, the answer was yes, if the boy thought he could get away with it.

“Why?”

Miss Honeysett interrupted, “I’ll meet with the housekeeper about my accommodations. Miss Lucy, I hope we can get better acquainted later.”

Christian almost ordered the woman to stay put. He shouldn’t be intimidated by a ten-year-old girl, his own daughter, but he was. Tremendously. What was he supposed to say to this child whom he didn’t even know?

“What does a governess do?” Lucy rose from the bench and stood in front of him.

“She will teach you what you need to know.”

“You hired her to watch me.”

“Someone needs to. Your mother has left you with me, but I’m leaving on my honeymoon this evening.” Why was he explaining this? Send the child away with the governess and be done with it.

Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you sending me to school?”

“Yes.” Christian matched her stance, arms over chest, only he towered over her. His daughter didn’t seem at all intimidated.

“Good. I want to go to school. I like learning.”

“Then you need a governess to get you ready.”

“I
am
ready.” She stuck out her lip in a pout that matched her mother’s to an eerie degree.

Christian gave her what he thought was a serviceably quelling look, but she wasn’t quelling. He didn’t possess any I-am-your-father-and-you’ll-do-as-I-say looks in his repertoire, but he was going to need to get some.

“I know everything a girl my age needs to know.” She sounded like she was quoting someone. “Ask me anything.”

Christian heaved a sigh. “I’m not in the mood to argue with you. I’ve been up all night.”

“Cause your pretty wife ran away? I like the way she talks. She seemed upset yesterday. Why was she angry?”

“You ask a lot of questions.” And she was giving him a headache.

“That’s how I know everything. Mr. Boney says if you ask questions, you get knowledge.” She paused for breath. “I think your wife was angry my mother was there at her wedding. Mama says other women don’t like her, and they won’t like me when I’m older. ‘
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair, And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy!
’”

He wrinkled his brow and moved his hands to his hips. “Did you quote Macbeth?”

Lucy smiled and nodded. “I checked. The new school term doesn’t start for four months.”

“Are we back to discussing school then? Miss Honeysett will prepare you for school. You’ll leave tomorrow for my estate in Yorkshire.”

“No.”

Christian blinked. It had never occurred to him Lucy would be defiant, which was short-sighted. In his experience, every woman was defiant. One of these days he was going to meet a meek and mild woman and he would promptly have her portrait painted and hang it over his bed. “Yes.”

“But, I want to stay here. With you. In London. With you.” She gazed at him with soulful eyes. “Father.”

He felt like a heel. He remembered how much his best friend Thomas had yearned for attention from his parents when the boys had been young. Christian feared he was being hard-hearted, but he had to make things right with Thea before he could worry about this new problem.

“Well, your mother chose a rotten time to deposit you in my care.”

“I’m sorry.”

Now he really felt like a bastard, which was fitting considering to whom he was speaking. It wasn’t this child’s fault she wasn’t wanted. Thomas’s childhood face came unbidden in his mind and the expression of defeat when he was ignored yet again by the parents he wished would love him. Why did this have to happen now? It couldn’t possibly be more inconvenient. It seems the poor girl was one botheration after another from birth.

“I will leave you with Miss Honeysett and will check back on you later today to make sure you two are getting on.” He extended a tentative hand and touched her white blond hair.

“But I will see you again?” she asked. For the first time his daughter sounded unsure.

“Yes.” He nodded in confirmation.

Miss Honeysett was in the back parlor with the housekeeper. Inexplicably, Lucy slipped her hand into his when they located the governess, holding onto him tight. What comfort could she possibly find in him, a man she’d never met until yesterday?

He must be losing his mind but he was wracked with guilt. “I’ll come and check back in with you later tonight.”

Lucy stared at him with clear blue eyes that filled her face. “Promise?”

His chest felt unusually tight, but he squeezed her hand in reassurance. He left her with her instructor looking forlorn and lost and even smaller than she had yesterday.

His plan changed then and there. He would send her to school and the country, but he’d make sure not to forget about her. He’d be a part of her life.

But first he needed to repair things with Thea. He couldn’t get sidetracked with his progeny just now. He left the females to get to know each other while he thought furiously how to win back his wife.

Chapter Twenty

The butler heaved a sigh. “Your Grace.”

“Good afternoon, Collins.” Christian made a point of tingeing his voice with an extra note of
joie de vivre
. “Is my beautiful wife at home?”

The servant did not stand aside and allow him entrance. “Her Grace is not receiving.”

“I suspected as much.” Christian forced a smile he hoped conveyed he wasn’t especially concerned he was still not welcomed into the house. Ladies had been angry at him before, but he’d never cared much. Then again, he’d never had any stake in a relationship before, either. “Please give her these.” He handed over a bouquet of outrageously expensive orchids and tulips along with a carefully penned note.

Once the door was closed and locked to him once more, Christian went back to his carriage waiting at the end of the walk. He withdrew a picnic basket, a cushion and a bottle of good wine, then sent the coachmen back home. Instead of setting up camp on his planter by the front door again, he elected to move to the side garden underneath her bedroom window. From his new vantage point, he could see the comings and goings through the front door, as well as keep an eye on her bedroom. And the garden had the additional benefit of obscuring him from the passersby on the street. He wanted to prevent gossip if possible.

He read while there was still enough light. Then, as darkness fell, he was heartened by shadows passing by the second floor window as he ate his supper of cold chicken and cucumbers and later, he was certain he heard her voice through an open window.

“Thea,” he called, “I’m still out here. I’m not going away.” The shadow paused and he continued, “Please let me explain.” She moved away from the curtain. “You can’t ignore me forever, wife.”

As the sun peeked over the horizon, the time had come and gone for patience. Time was running out. Their ship for Greece was leaving in a matter of hours. Back to the front, he banged with the knocker. Once. Twice. Finally a drowsy Collins opened the door.

“I’ve had enough of this.” Christian used his most ducal authoritative tone as he pushed past the butler and into the entry hall. “Go fetch my wife this instant. I will wait in the parlor.”

“But Your Grace —”

“No buts. Go. Now.”

“But —”

“If you’re not back here with my wife in five minutes, I’m going to fetch her myself.” He stalked into the front parlor. He immediately noticed that vast emptiness of the room. All her rescued art work was gone. The tables and pedestals sat bare without even a ring of dust to indicate anything had ever sat there. He turned on his heel only to find the butler standing in the doorway looking pained.

“I can’t fetch her, Your Grace.”

“I’m no longer interested in what my wife’s wishes are on the matter.”

“It’s not that. She’s not here.” Collins clasped his hands behind his back as if he didn’t know what to do with them.

“What do you mean? Go get her.”

“She’s left the house.”

What?
“I’ve been here practically the entire time.”

The butler looked sheepish. “I am aware. Still, she is gone.”

Christian had a sinking feeling. “When?”

“Several hours ago, Your Grace.”

Had that even been her shadow he was talking to on the other side of the window? “I never saw her go. How did she leave without my knowing?”

Collins looked at the carpet. “Through the kitchen and out the back garden. It was all rather clandestine.”

“I can imagine.” Was she really that angry? Damn it. He glanced around the parlor again. “She took all her things with her?”

“The crates were removed earlier.”

While he was interviewing Miss Honeysett. He pushed past the butler and climbed the stairs, with the servant in tow. “Which is her room?” He pushed open each door along the landing until he came to the likely one. It was empty save the flowers he’d brought earlier. They’d been stuck in a vase and placed upon a bureau. They looked sad and desperate in the lonely room.

“Where did she go?”

Collins’s eyes lit up in shock. “To Greece, of course. She had tickets.”

No,
they
had tickets. “What time is it now?”

Collins leaned back and glanced at the hall clock. “Five till seven.”

“Bugger.” Christian raced down the stairs and out the door. He paused for an instant on the walk, realizing he had no transportation other than his feet and the docks were too far to travel to at a run. Out on the street, he flagged the first hackney and swung himself into the seat. He offered the driver triple his fare if he’d get him there immediately, but traffic had other plans. The driver did his best to negotiate the tradesmen traffic and the crowd at the market, but it was useless.

When he arrived at the berth which had housed the
Persephone
days ago, it was empty. Someone official with a ledger and a scowl informed him the ship sailed at high tide. He’d missed her by little over an hour. Before panic set in, he marched to the harbor master’s office and inquired about another ship. With the political unrest in the Mediterranean, it had been difficult enough to book transportation aboard the
Persephone
. Now he faced even more obstacles.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

More impediments. The only vessel going that direction was a trade ship, small, creaky and miserable.

He slammed his hands in his pocket and trudged home, eschewing a cab in order to walk and think. It was a long, long walk, but he had nowhere else to be.

Once again Christian found himself banging on a giant oak door.

“Tell Harrington I need to see him.” He shoved past this footman, one who wouldn’t dream of shutting the door on his face, and headed for Thomas’s study.

“Right away, Your Grace.”

Christian slammed the door to the room behind him and threw himself into a huge leather chair to wait. He knew the minute his friend arrived because everywhere he went he was preceded by an enormous beast of a dog, sometimes two. The great drooling thing made straight for Christian and propped its head on his knee, fuzzy jowls smearing God-only-knows-what on his trousers.

“Gak.” He shoved the dog’s head away, but the canine was not dissuaded in his greeting.

“Lucifer.” Thomas said the dog’s name in warning.

The Newfoundland looked balefully at Thomas, then lumbered across the room and climbed onto the sofa and was snoring in minutes.

“She left me.” It was Christian’s turn to be baleful.

Thomas nodded knowingly as he dropped on the sofa next to the dog. “She still hasn’t talked to you yet? I’m impressed.”

“No, I mean she left me. On a boat. For Greece.”

Thomas’s jaw dropped open. “When did this happen?”

Christian’s head hit the back of the chair with a leathery thud. “This morning. She took our honeymoon ship. Sneaked out of the house while I was waiting outside, like a complete idiot.”

Thomas stared at him with the snoring dog next to his thigh. He opened and closed his mouth several times, starting to say something then changing his mind.

Still lying against the chair, Christian turned his head to look at his friend. “If she comes back it won’t be for months.
If.
It’s not as if Greece is only as far as Bath.”

“I’m sorry.”

“How could I have been so stupid? How? I should have demanded to see her instead of waiting for her to come to her senses. I thought if I let her make the decision, if she saw that I was serious about us, about how much I loved her, she’d come to her senses sooner. I couldn’t bully her, or so I thought.”

Thomas shrugged as he stood and rang the bell pull. The butler entered immediately and was sent for whiskey. Returning to the sofa, he lifted the dog’s head and settled back into the cushions. “What are you going to do?”

“Well, I’m going to go get her. What choice do I have?”

“Sure, sure.” Thomas nodded thoughtfully. “What about the little girl?”

Dammit. It had only been a few hours since his resolutions, and already he’d forgotten about his child again. He exhaled loudly through his nose. “I’ve hired a governess. I’ll enroll her in school but for now she’ll go to the estate in Yorkshire.”

“Do you think it was the girl or Veronica who set Thea off?”

It was Christian’s turn to shrug which caused him to slosh a bit of the whisky on the silver tray during his pour. “Imagine if it was you and Francesca. If a woman like Veronica showed up at your wedding, how would Francesca have reacted?”

Thomas made an exaggerated shudder.

Christian pulled a face. “Exactly.”

“As for Thea, do you have a plan for her?”

An idea occurred to him as if dropped directly from heaven. He paced the carpet and drank deeply from his glass, thinking it through quickly, getting more and more excited about the prospect. “You’re going to take me.”

“What? No.”