Taking a long breath, he puffed up his chest. How would he explain it to the girls, to Cecilia?
Tonight, they’d enjoy another private supper in his quarters.
A little sweet Madeira from a small island near Portugal would be a new experience for her. He could picture her, smiling, teasing him with her lashes half shut as he pressed a goblet to her lips.
Adventure had taken on a new meaning. The simplest things, like a pudding, made her eyes shine more like gold, so large and trusting.
This feeling he didn’t think himself capable of having, that any Lance man was capable of experiencing, started to appear. He and his first wife had got along well, but his feelings for Cecilia were different, so much stronger. This marriage of convenience, which saved his life, might’ve become his life.
He rubbed at his skull. A logical, hardened spymaster couldn’t be undone by the engaging young miss.
The contentment would pass.
All novelties did.
It was the reason he always craved missions.
On his way to the mews, he saw a familiar Berlin carriage, one with his family’s crest.
His shoulders straightened as he bypassed his driver and simpler carriage, then popped inside his father’s.
“Yes, Tramel,” Felton said. “You needed to see me.”
The old man with ash-and-silver hair had his hand clasped on his cane. “I thought you’d abandoned this foolishness. It’s not befitting a marquess.”
Felton opened his mouth to correct him but then realized that his father had just informed him of his grandfather’s passing. “How? When?”
“Another grand tour, a Paris bordello, a month ago. Just received word.”
His father liked to shock him but Grandfather was unusual, erratic, and carefree. “Suppose that means he left on his terms?”
“You come from an interesting line of men. Ones with long lives. Make the most of it. Hard to do that if you die for the War Department.”
Tramel didn’t look upset at the late duke’s death. They were never close. They hated each other. Well, like father, like son. “Service to our country is worthwhile.” Felton kept his voice even; the man sought weakness. “Since the Duke of Tramel has come to me, it couldn’t be just to announce your elevation, your Grace.”
“True. I want you and the family, dear Cecilia, to move back to Warwick. Especially if you’re abandoning her to take on more missions.”
“Lonely, Tramel? No one to torture?”
The man balled his fist, then set a shaking hand to his side.
Felton had to blink and focus on the metal of his father’s ring to relax. His father already sported Grandfather’s signet.
“Lady Gantry’s not happy. You’ve given her a veritable closet to paint in. She had the best at Warwick and meadows to stretch her legs.”
That was true, but she hadn’t touched her paints much. Felton kept her preoccupied. She might be very well along the path to a new project, producing an heir.
She seemed to like the idea of a child bonding them together.
Still forcing his breaths to be even, not smiling ridiculously thinking of Cilia, he eased back against the onyx tufted seat. “Why are you so eager to please my wife?”
“Someone should. She has a gift very similar to your mother’s. It should be nurtured.”
Felton had heard his mother was a genius painter, very talented.
Cecilia’s mad Roman soldier sketches were nice, but also ridiculous.
Tramel leaned forward. “Gantry, you don’t think her talented?”
