The Duke's Disaster (R) (27 page)

Violated.
Noah said the ugly, honest word Thea had avoided even in her mind. To hear him speak that truth ought to have sent her into strong hysterics, but to her surprise, his accusation calmed some of her upset.

“Anselm…” Thea linked their hands again. “Please don’t raise your voice. I cannot—I think I’m relieved, if you must know. Sick, angry, and disgusted, but now at least I know. Nobody intended anything more than malicious mischief—very malicious mischief—such as would have resulted if I’d been seen turning a man away from my bedroom door.”

Thea knew who, she knew why, she knew in a way she hadn’t that
none
of
it
was
her
fault
.

“For the love of God.” Noah pushed away from the chair. “My uncle confesses to being an accessory to your ill usage, and you’re relieved?”

“A duchess must deal with difficult truths sometimes,” Thea said as the damned reel finally came to a close, and a measure of quiet descended in the library.

Noah glared at his uncle and seemed to grow larger before Thea’s eyes. “You, my lord, engineered a situation others could use to wreak criminal havoc on a young lady’s virtue. What reparation are you prepared to make?”

“My daughters call her Mama,” Meech said, “and I will happily become this family’s remittance man if that’s what Lady Thea demands of me.”

A duchess also asserted her authority from time to time. The guests would be on hand for hours yet, the truth had been aired, and Thea needed to put distance between herself and Meech.

She got to her feet and brought Noah his gloves.

“I will not have two grown men bickering before me at this hour. May we get back to our guests? I cannot recall this Pemberton person’s appearance in any detail. I can assure you Violet Carter was an unpleasant, malcontented woman who took me into immediate and bitter dislike for the consideration shown me by my employers.”

“You want to get back to our guests?” Noah posed the question as if the words made no sense, neither did he don his evening gloves.

“I don’t want to,” Thea said, “but we’re enduring this entire ball to ensure there’ll be no gossip. If we’re closeted much longer with your uncle, there will be talk, and for no purpose. I cannot think, given what has been revealed here. I don’t know what to feel, toward whom I should be angry, or if it even changes anything to know these truths, as opposed to other truths. Supper will soon be over, and it’s late.”

Thea needed her husband, though. Of that, she was certain.

“My duchess has spoken,” Noah said, winging his arm at her.

She allowed herself one long moment to lean against him, to let a weight of anxiety and fear slide away, to take solace from the man she’d promised the rest of her life to.

Someday, someday in the future, matters between Thea and her husband would be all right. Maybe after five years of stumbling and groping their way forward, maybe after adding more children to the nursery. Maybe more awkward discussions were needed, but someday, their marriage would come right.

Just as Thea knew, in that moment, they were
not
right at all.

* * *

“I didn’t know Lord Earnest Dunholm was your uncle Meech.”

Noah turned his tired, brave, amazing duchess under his arm, while their guests bowed and twirled along to the music beside them. “My dear, I can hardly recall the figures of the dance, much less attend to more revelations at the moment. Might we simply waltz?”

“If that’s what you want.”

Thea dipped gracefully, when Noah wanted to bellow until their infernally smiling neighbors, and confoundedly attentive family, and everlastingly helpful servants all waltzed themselves to perdition so he could be alone with his wife. She was holding up magnificently, while he, duke of all he surveyed, wanted to take his bullwhip to the idiot confined in his stables, the uncle swilling brandy in his library, and the greater idiot—safely traveling north—who’d invaded Thea’s room and her peace and her body all those years ago.

Idiots, all of them, and yet Noah had been an idiot too.

He’d never told Thea he cared for her, never assured her he’d stand by her, never given her any reason to trust he’d meant his vows, never given her reason to confide in him.

Idiot, idiot, idiot.

Knowing now exactly what she’d suffered, he wanted to take his bullwhip to himself. How long would it be before she could tolerate him in her bed again? How long before they had more than two nominal daughters to parent together? How long before Pemberton’s or Meech’s name could come up in conversation without the both of them wanting to retch?

The music ended, and Noah threw ducal pretensions to the wind. He led Thea to the top of the steps and signaled the butler serving as herald. Etiquette, duty, and decorum could go to perdition, for Noah’s wife needed to get off her feet and into his bed.

“Ladies and gentleman, friends, and neighbors, my duchess and I thank you for your company this evening and hope you’ve enjoyed the time spent with us. I fear, however, your host and hostess are fatigued by all the gaiety and need to take their leave of you. Stay on as long as you like. The buffet, cards, and drink remain for your pleasure, and I’m sure my family will see to your every comfort until you depart. Again, thank you, and good night.”

Noah stole a kiss from his wife, who was covering her surprise with a convincingly warm smile. He smiled back when the room erupted in a friendly applause at his audacity, then he scooped his bride off her feet and made a grand exit from the ballroom.

If only reality resembled the fairy-tale ending to the evening in the least particular.

“You can put me down,” Thea said when they’d reached the first floor.

“So you can fall asleep on your feet?”

“It’s barely two in the morning,” Thea retorted—around a yawn.

“I rest my case, Your Highness,” Noah replied, treasuring the feel of her in his arms. “The day has been long and fraught, and that was without near kidnappings, attempted rape, assaults, and all manner of discommoding revelations over the brandy.”

“I take it this display of muscles is a function of your husbandly whatevers?” Thea yawned again, and the informality of it, the simple humanness, reassured Noah.

“In all their feeble glory,” Noah said, dipping so Thea could open the latch to his sitting-room door. “I will be your lady’s maid tonight, and you will valet me.”

“If you insist, which you seem to do when a simple request would suffice.”

A show of spirit was a fine thing in a wife.

Thea was the soul of composure when Noah set her on her feet, undoing his cravat, cuffs, and shirt studs; letting him take down her hair, unhook her dress, and undo her tapes, laces, ribbons, and bows. He made quick work of the wash water, but insisted on treating Thea to a turn with the soap and water as well.

“The ballroom ventilates well when we open the highest windows,” Thea said as Noah wrung out the cloth.

“I don’t give a hearty goddamn for the ballroom ventilation,” Noah growled, flinging the washcloth over the hearth screen. “I am exhausted, and I want to hold my wife in my arms and have all my fears relieved.”

He couldn’t believe he’d said that, and in perfect, utter seriousness. Thea, perceptive lady, knew he hadn’t been joking.

He hadn’t ever been joking.

“What are these fears, Noah?”

“Husband,” he said, holding up the sheets so Thea could scoot to her side of the vast bed. “I like it when you call me husband.”

“I like it when you call me wife,” she said, giving her pillow a smack. “Sometimes, you even call me sweetheart or my dear, though. I like that better.”

“God in heaven, Thea.” Noah bounced down beside her and lay flat, eyes closed, forearm over his brow. “How can you stand to look at me? My uncle all but orchestrated your ruin, and his best friend’s response is to lark off to the north. I want to shout down the rafters with the injustice of it, and you want me to call you sweetheart.”

“Only when you’re so inclined,” she said, rising up on one elbow. “Does it make a difference, Noah, to know the how and who of it?”

“Yes, it makes a bloody difference!” He sat up, cross-legged, the sheet draping over his lap. “I hate the bastard, I hate all he stole from you, I hate that my own uncle did nothing to atone for his part, and I hate that there’s no reparation to be made.”

Noah loved his duchess though. Loved her endlessly and forever.

“I don’t want to be concerned with hating, Noah,” she said. “Though I agree, some sort of atonement is in order.”

“Atonement.” A stodgy biblical word. “If that’s a civilized way to discuss putting a man’s balls in a vise—”

Thea put a finger over his lips. “Atonement, as in, I am sorry, Husband,” she said. “My dear husband, dearest husband in the world, I am sorry I did not trust you with the story as I knew it the day you proposed. I thought Lord Earnest Dunholm had stolen into my room. He was charming and wry, and handsome in a distinguished way, and he made a grueling week so much more bearable. Then over breakfast, he’d barely been able to meet my gaze or pass me the toast.”

“You thought it was
Meech
?” Horror elbowed its way past the rage roiling in Noah’s gut.

“No.” Thea brushed Noah’s hair back. “I thought it was Lord Earnest. I wasn’t one for poring over
Debrett’s
when I had Nonie and Tims to see to. I did not research your antecedents or your social habits, though Marliss was of a more methodical bent. She approved of your choice of Henrietta Whitlow for a mistress, for example. Marliss claims Miss Whitlow has no patience with married men who stray. I admit to being cheered by that.”

“Miss Whitlow loathes married men who stray,” Noah said, mentally sending Henny a bank draft that should allow her to buy half of Yorkshire. “I do abhor unfaithful husbands too. You’re attempting to change the subject, though, my dear. You did not connect the infernal Lord Earnest of your past with my uncle.”

Thea brushed her fingers over Noah’s brow again, as if she’d settle his thoughts by touch. Her tactic wasn’t working, not when her caresses were so sweet and Noah’s heart one great, endless ache.

“You never referred to your uncle by his proper names,” Thea said. “Then just yesterday, your sister showed me the smaller portrait chamber, where I saw a youthful painting of Uncle Meech. I nearly lost my luncheon right there when I understood who Lord Earnest Dunholm was.”

“Merciful God.” Noah flopped to his back. “Please stop tormenting me with these revelations. You are in our bed, which I take for a sign of your clemency. I want to hold you, sweetheart, dearest Wife, simply hold you, if you wouldn’t object.”

Thea swung a leg over Noah’s lap and settled onto his chest.

Noah’s gratitude defied words. He needed to hold her, needed to feel her heartbeat resonating with his own—and he dared not order her into his embrace.

“I was so angry at Hallowell,” Thea said, her sigh breezing across Noah’s chest. “I didn’t want you to suffer the sight of him making good on his threats.”

“He could not have made good on them,” Noah assured her. “Anger can sometimes serve to inspire a man’s basest urges when desire won’t, but shame will keep him unable to perform, and I knew James, Heath, and Wilson were less than twenty minutes behind me.”

“You might have been killed,” Thea said, threading her arms under his neck. “Noah, your taunting him might have got you killed.”

In which case, Noah would have haunted Hallowell for the rest of his miserable days and nights.

“You would have missed me?” Noah asked. How had he endured his life before Thea had come along to make a husband of him?

“God’s bones, Noah, I love you—of course I would have missed you! Who would steal my tea? Who would call me wife? Who would teach me to use the bullwhip and the dagger and a gun of my own?”

Noah was so
proud
of her. “Harlan and I will take you shopping for a proper little pistol when I’ve recovered from our infernal family gathering.”

“Perhaps I’ll be handier with a firearm, Husband. I didn’t trust myself to throw my knife at Hallowell and hit my target.” Thea kissed Noah’s shoulder and let go a sigh. “I’m new to this duchessing business. You must be patient with me.”

Noah was so
in
love
with her. “You trusted me, Thea. You trust me a lot.”

“I trust you with my life,” she said, punching his bare shoulder. “I trust you with my heart, my body, my children, my future. Oh, you are awful when you are in the grip of these insecurities.”

Noah was so
in
bed
with her too. “I am awful, but I am not deaf. You love me.”

“Hopelessly, though if you were in the least nice, you’d say it back.”

For her, Noah could be the soul of nice.

“I love you,” he said, slowly, distinctly. “I love you until my eyes are crossed with it, and I want nothing except to raise our children with you, tend our acres with you, and keep you safe from all harm. I want darling girls who pester me for little bullwhips, and darling boys who pester me for wooden swords. They can all have ponies when their mother says they’re ready. I want a house full of them, and no more confounded balls, for they distract you awfully.”

Thea kissed the shoulder she’d smacked, while Noah’s body stirred with desire, gratitude, and sheer affection for his wife.

“If we have daughters, there will be balls, Noah.”

“We already have daughters.”

“Meech’s daughters. Not well done of you.”

Not honestly done of him. “I told you they were my cousins. You jumped to unflattering conclusions about me because I’m a Winters, and then I simply couldn’t find the right time to correct the impression I’d created.”

What did being a Winters, or a duke, or anything matter, compared to being Thea’s husband? Noah experimented with an undulation of his hips, a husband’s greeting to his wife.

“You are the girls’ legal guardian,” Thea said, returning his overture, “and you allowed me to draw the wrong conclusions.” She drew away and lay flat on her back. “Mendacity is not endearing in a spouse, but I understand about timing and incorrect impressions.”