Page 54 of Five Nights to Claim His Duchess

He sighed. He had not intended to be there at all.

He had been standing under the pillar with a glass he did not want while Phillip watched her walk away on her cousin’s arm.

“She is the fairest woman I have seen in London in a twelvemonth,” Phillip had observed. “I begin to see why you are smitten.”

“You have a very smart mouth.”

“I have been told so.”

And then the two of them, Diana and the cousin, had gone out along the edge of the room after a pair of ladies in the direction of the terrace doors. Phillip’s glass had stopped halfway to his mouth.

“I sense,” he said, “that something interesting is about to occur between your wife, her friend, and those two women.”

Valentine had turned his head.

Phillip sighed and set the glass down.

“I cannot help hearing these things, Rosewood. It is not a talent I asked for.” He straightened his cuff. “It is the talk of the town. It has been these ten days or so. Apparently the Duchess of Rosewood forced you into marriage.”

Valentine’s hand had closed until he heard the stem of the glass creak.

“Come,” he had said.

And he had gone out onto that terrace and arrived, by the grace of God, at precisely the right moment. In time to hear his wife weeping tears she did not mean and speaking in a voice that was not her own, because it was the only weapon anyone had ever left her.

He had not much cared for the sound of it.

There was a noise on the other side of the nursery door. It was small, and muffled; unmistakably a bark.

“Sshh.” Arabella, in a whisper that would have gone across a parade ground. “Do not be so loud. We shall be caught.”

“You will both of you be in your beds this instant.” Betsy. “His Grace and the Duchess are like to be back any moment, and then where shall we be⁠—”

Valentine looked at his wife. Diana closed her eyes, drew one long breath, and opened the door.

The scene inside arranged itself in an instant. Betsy on her feet with her cap askew, going white. Arabella sitting bolt upright in the middle of the rug in her nightgown, with both arms clamped round a small brown puppy that was industriously trying to lick her chin.

Nobody moved.

“Is that,” said Diana, “a puppy?”

“Forgive me, Your Grace.” Betsy had her hands twisted in her apron. “It’s mine to answer for, not the child’s. She found the creature in the stable yard at his lordship’s house, the day we came away, and there was no getting it out of her arms. I’ve never seen her hold to anything so hard in all my life⁠—”

“And so you smuggled it into this house?”

Betsy said nothing at all, which was an answer.

Diana turned. “Arabella, give me the puppy.”

“Please, Diana⁠—”

“Give me the puppy.” Her voice was quite level. “Seven days you have been silent as a mouse and I could not think why. Now I know.”

“I shall take care of it, I promise, I shall do everything, you shall not have to do a single⁠—”

“Bella.” Diana pressed two fingers to her brow. “What did I tell you? We cannot be too much of a⁠—”

“Let her keep it.”