Spencer looked to his mother, his mind already made. He was sick to death of all attempts to make merry. He wanted quiet. Fewer eyes and ears that did not belong within the walls of Boswell Manor. “We will cancel the remainder of the house party. See that the guests are notified and transportation arranged wherever necessary. Lord and Lady Thornton, naturally, will remain on with Lady Boadicea.”
Twin flags of outrage appeared on his mother’s faded cheeks. “We will do no such thing. The Marlow family has never failed to host this house party. Not in decades, Bainbridge. I refuse to countenance such an outrage, and all because some silly miss went off in flagrant disregard of your authority and had herself thrown from a horse.”
In that moment, he rather wished it had been the dowager who had been tossed from Damask Rose instead of Lady Boadicea. He compressed his mouth into a flat, uncompromising line. “You go too far, madam,” he warned her.
“How dare you?” In her dudgeon, she didn’t bother to hide her affront for the benefit of their audience. “Have you not already done enough to hurt this family? You are a disgrace to the Marlow line.”
Yes, he was, wasn’t he? For thirty-three years, he’d attempted to do everything right. He had married the young lady of his father’s choosing in an effort to beget the perfect heir. He had lived a life of staid propriety. He had learned the business of making an estate as large and lavish as Boswell Manor profitable. He had buried himself in the price of wheat and the planting of fields and the dairying of cows. He had devoted his life to being the best Duke of Bainbridge he could be.
And what had his efforts gained him? A mad wife who’d killed herself before him, a son in the grave, the resentment of his mother and brother both, and a betrothed who was most certainly everything he didnotseek in a bride.
“I’ve heard enough,” he snapped at his mother, drawing the line at allowing her to emasculate him before the Marquis and Marchioness of Bloody Thornton. “You will leave this chamber and you will do as I say, or I shall have you removed to Marchmont Hall.”
His mother blanched. Marchmont Hall—a crumbling affair from the Plantagenet era—was drafty, dank, overrun by mice, and it smelled like nothing so much as a sheep farmer’s worn old boot, manure and all. “You would not be so cruel.”
Spencer didn’t say anything, merely returned her stare.
She straightened her spine. “I will do as you wish, Duke.” With a departing, insincere pleasantry for Lord and Lady Thornton and an agitated twitch of her skirts, she was gone from the chamber.
He turned to the marquis and his wife, who had watched the ugly exchange with his mother unfold with guarded expressions. “I apologize on the duchess’s behalf. I fear her…agitation has left her overwrought.”
“A kind way of saying she’s as subtle as a bear,” Thornton said with a commiserating nod. “My own mother suffers from a similar affliction. I can empathize, Bainbridge.”
Lady Thornton gave him a tight smile of sympathy but said nothing. If she was anything at all like her sister, she was likely biting her tongue to keep from airing her opinion. Lady Boadicea, however, would not have even bothered to keep a bloody word to herself.
Thoughts of that particular flame-haired siren had him pacing toward the closed chamber door keeping her from him, intent. He didn’t give two goddamns whether it was proper for him to enter the duchess’s chamber while she was within. He needed to see her. And he didn’t wish to examine why his need was such a pressing concern. It simply was.
“Your Grace, I do not think a personal audience with my sister a wise course of action just now,” Lady Thornton called to him.
He stilled, his hand on the knob, and looked back at her. “Nothing that I’ve done in the last three days has been wise, my lady. I dare not break form by acting with reason now. But by all means, feel free to accompany me within.”
“Leave the door ajar,” she relented, frowning. “We will allow the two of you a moment of privacy.”
He nodded, and in the next breath, he crossed the threshold into a chamber he had not entered in years. It should have taken his breath, filled him with the soul-clenching anxiety he had come to know whenever he was reminded of his wife’s death. Instead, his gaze lit on the still form on the bed, and all he could think about washer.
Lady Boadicea Harrington, who was rather too still and too small-looking and far too pale in the big, canopied high tester for his liking. He crossed the rug, grateful for his mother’s managing nature, which had led her to strip every last remnant of Millicent from the room. The wallcoverings, the paintings, the drapes, even the bed itself, were different. It smelled different too, like a room that needed to be aired out more often, and sweet, like jasmine and lily of the valley.
“Duke,” she greeted him at the same time as her scent.
“How are you, Lady Boadicea?” A gruffness he could not like had entered his voice. His pulse leapt as he awaited her answer, and the ever-growing dread in his gut made itself especially known.
“Rather as if I’ve fallen from a horse at breakneck speed.” Her wit, at least, continued to remain intact. She attempted a smile, but winced as she shifted herself in the bed.
“Let me assist you.” His hands went to her arms without thought as he tried to help her achieve a more comfortable position.
It was a grave miscalculation on his part, for she’d changed into a loose nightdress to aid in the doctor’s examination, which meant that only a fine layer of fabric separated her skin from his. The heat of her, the supple curves of her arms, burned into his palms. Devil take it, he grew more depraved by the day, finding the mere grasping of a lady’s limbs arousing whilst she was in her sickbed.
“You need not aid me,” she protested. “I am fully capable of tending to myself. And you ought not to have brought me here. I’m sure it will be remarked upon and present even further fodder for gossipmongers. I would like to return to my chamber at once.”
She was right about that. He should have had a care before bringing her to the duchess’s chamber. But he’d been half out of his mind with worry, and the only place he could conceive of bringing her was the place that was nearest in proximity to himself. That was a rather sobering realization to make as he stood there with his hands still upon the betrothed he didn’t want, breathing in her sweet fragrance as though it was as essential to him as air. Odder still was the fact that in that moment, he could swear that it was.
There was nowhere else he would rather be. No one else he would rather touch. No other lady could so vex him and yet so render him incapable of resisting her. She was wrong. And right.
Astounding.
He blinked. Nothing made sense, but the coil of fear inside him unwound itself and dissipated beneath her bright-blue regard. He counted at least a dozen freckles charming the bridge of her nose. Where else did she have them? When she was his, he would strip her bare and investigate every lush curve of creamy flesh with his lips and tongue, seeking to find each golden fleck.
Perhaps he was the one who had suffered a fall. Or at the least a sharp blow to the head. That was the only explanation for such absurdity.
