It all converged to make her most miserable this morning. The blue devils had come to call, wandered in uninvited, sat down and were making themselves at home in her brainbox. Possibly even deciding on curtain colours.
“Not to worry about your advice, Jack. I think my husband is immune to jealousy. After all, he was the one to suggest you escort me to events, so–”
“No!” Jack slammed the teacup down, mouth aghast and eyes wide, cup rattling in its saucer. “You never told me that.”
“Well, does it matter?”
“Does it matt… Oh hell… I can’t breathe.” He gasped as though choking and she wondered about the biscuits but they still lay untouched at the side of his cup. “I… Oh devil take it, I’ve realised something about His Rakelessness.” The marquess pulled at his cravat as though having an apoplexy, ruining the exquisite l’orientale contour.
“What?” she asked alarmed, leaning forward.
“I can’t say… Oh no. It cannot be…” He thrust agitated fingers through his hair, sucking in gulps of air. “Rakecombe wouldn’t? No, surely not. He’d never…”
Alarm now led to anxious panic. “What about him?” she yelled, but Jack simply fell back against the sofa, a perfect expression of silent dismay and shock etched across brow and eyes – even his curls bore distress.
“I cannot…” he uttered miserably.
A horrible thought formed in her mind. “Has…has he a mistress? Is that why he doesn’t care for me? Has he been with her every night?”
Jack gurgled, hand to his chest. “Worse. Much, much worse.”
Enough was enough, and Aideen flew across the room, kneeled on the sofa beside him and grabbed hold of Jack’s tailcoat lapels.
She shook him rather violently. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll curse you with pissmires and spiders in your marriage bed.”
“Pissmires?” he enquired, brow raised.
“Ants,” she screamed. Nose to nose.
“Oh. Well then… He…he…”
“What? Tell me!”
Jack fell limp in her arms with a sigh. “He trusts me,” he lamented, chin lowering to his chest. “The priggish, strait-laced Duke of Rakecombe trusts me. Me! Infamous rogue and renowned seducer. Hetrustsme with the well-being and all-round chastity of his wife. I’m being punished for my sins. I know I am. I mean, I’ll never be able to stalk a ballroom again.”
Baring teeth but laughing, she slammed the red cushion into his perfect coiffure. “You swine! I thought…”
“I know,” he said, narrowly avoiding a drubbing in the potato trap and chuckling wholeheartedly. “But it cheered you up and dragged you from the doldrums, didn’t it?”
It had, and she opened her mouth to say so when a polite cough interrupted.
The Duke of Rakecombe stood in the doorway, expression formidable, and all of a sudden, she was eminently aware of their indelicate montage.
One knee pressed against Jack’s thigh, her skirts hoisted to reveal a fair amount of stockinged leg, gown crumpled, ringlets loose, an unbecoming flush to her cheeks.
Jack didn’t fare much better: hair now dishevelled, jacket undone, cravat loose and his firm ungloved hand on her shoulder to defend the cushion bashing.
Oh, Saint Patrick’s bones.
Yesterday compromised by a Welsh scoundrel, today an English rogue, tomorrow she’d better be wary of any lurking Scotsmen or she’d complete the trinity.
“Winterbourne,” her husband merely drawled. “Rainham wishes to see you on the hour of five.” And with a curt nod, he skulked off.
They both gawked at the empty doorway.
“See,” hissed Jack. “He trusts me. We’ll have to come up with another strategy since my reputation is in tatters. My fellow rascal, Lord MacDougall, will help us.”
Aideen frowned.
