The Duke's Disaster (R) (18 page)

Melmouth drained half his cup. “Are you inviting me to join you at home, kitten?”

The question was stone sober, and pathetically hopeful. On stage, the portly tenor and the equally substantial soprano were warbling away at volume in Italian, despite the lady’s supposedly mortal wound.

Henny was abruptly homesick for the green, windy dales of the West Riding and the bleating of her uncle’s fat, woolly sheep.

“Dickie, I don’t think I’ll ever invite another man to join me at home.”

The earl set his punch down unfinished and slicked a hand over his thinning hair. “I’ll have the carriage brought round. Opera has always struck me as so much noise anyway.”

He took himself off, an aging knight who still had a few turns in the lists left, but Henny wouldn’t allow him to squander them on her.

She’d done Melmouth a favor, but she’d also made up her mind. When Polite Society went grouse hunting, Henny would leave Town as well. Until then, she’d keep an eye on Hallowell, for a duke besotted with his new bride might not notice a threat skulking about his own garden.

* * *

One floor below Thea’s darkened bedroom, the longcase clock in the library let go a single, resonant
bong!
that reverberated through the house and through her wide-awake body.

Noah hadn’t come to bed.

He’d given Thea a particularly enticing kiss in the library before she’d gone up to read the girls their bedtime story. His usual routine took him out to the stables after dinner, there to confer with his grooms, pet his beasts, and walk off some of his supper.

Thea grabbed a candle, and opened the door between her dressing room and Noah’s, then crossed from his dressing room into his bedroom.

She didn’t often go into Noah’s bedroom, feeling as if his presence, or at least his permission, was needed to justify such an intrusion. His canopied bed sat in dark, ducal splendor along one wall, raised up three steps for both winter warmth and sheer impressiveness.

Had a woman at any point shared that bed with Noah? A guest at a previous Wellspring house party perhaps?

Thea closed the door. She wasn’t allowed to have such thoughts, lest Noah have them about her. He hadn’t asked, hadn’t made any more allusions to her past, but sometimes she caught him looking at her, a question in his eyes.

Her thoughts careened in another equally foolish direction: maybe Noah had been kicked in the head while visiting the horses, and was even now lying unconscious in True’s stall, overlooked by the grooms.

Maybe he’d decided to take a late evening ride in the moonlight, and come to grief hours ago.

Maybe…

“You are being ridiculous.” Papa’s admonition didn’t quell Thea’s worries now any more than it had when she’d been a girl. She grabbed a dressing gown, scuffed into a pair of old slippers, and made her way to the kitchen. There, she lit a closed lantern and let herself out into the summer night.

Crickets chirped, an owl hooted far off in the direction of the home wood, and down at the stables, a faint light came from the horse barn.

The night air didn’t carry any human voices though, so Thea hurried across the gardens, sternly lecturing herself about borrowing trouble.

No grooms were stirring, but outside Regent’s stall, a lantern hung on a peg. Thea made her way down the aisle, a low murmuring coming to her ears.

“…not well done at all, to die when we’re still in our prime. Seventeen isn’t that old, not for a fellow who’s enjoyed the best of care all his lazy, shiftless days. My duchess just met you, you filthy beggar. She will think you took her into dislike, when we both know you dote shamelessly on females of any species. Let the mares push you around, you do, which is probably why you’re in such a taking. No biting, unless you’re my duchess, which you decidedly are not.”

Noah was talking to his reserve mount, a huge black coal barge of a beast named Regent, who could barely turn in a twelve-foot loose box without brushing both walls. Advancing age had seen the gelding demoted to status of second mount, though Noah still rode him regularly.

“Noah?”

He left off lecturing his horse, and came to the stall’s half door.

“Great God Almighty.” He ran a hand through hair that sported a wisp of straw. “My duchess has taken to wandering half-clothed in the dead of night without benefit of escort.”

“My duke has taken to staying up past his bedtime, leaving me to pine for his company, strange as that notion might be. Is your horse sick?”

Noah turned to survey the gelding, who stood with his head drooping, the look in the animal’s eye dull and pained.

“Goddamned colic,” Noah said. “He was listless this morning, which isn’t unusual when it’s hot, but he declined his oats at dinner, and as is predictably the case, in hindsight the grooms recall him kicking at his belly, though at the time, they thought he was grouching at the flies.”

“You’re worried about him,” Thea said. Noah was a prodigiously competent worrier too.

“I shouldn’t be. He has gut sounds on both sides, his gums are a perfect, horsey pink, and he isn’t dehydrated.”

Noah lapsed into silence, studying his horse, while Thea studied her husband.

“You’re worried sick,” she said, “and the night grows coolish. Let me bring you a jacket.” Let her do anything to help, because Noah—her duke—was alone in the dead of night with a suffering animal.

Noah looked torn, as if the decision to stay with his horse or escort his wife was too difficult, so Thea kissed his cheek and took her leave. She returned less than ten minutes later, Noah’s oldest riding jacket over her arm, and a tray in her hands laden with a fat ham and cheese sandwich, some hulled strawberries, and a tall glass of lemonade.

“You can’t neglect yourself to care for him,” she said, balancing the tray to open the half door. Noah sat on a low, three-legged milking stool in one corner, the horse standing with its head down, close enough that Noah could pet and scratch and comfort his ailing beast.

“You brought food.” This seemed to puzzle Thea’s husband.

She nudged a pile of clean straw together with her foot, and sank down beside him. “Food is for eating, Noah.”

“You will get straw in odd places, Wife,” Noah said, shifting off his stool. “Take the throne, there, and let me relieve you of your burden.” He hefted the tray into his lap, sitting cross-legged in the straw. The horse looked vaguely interested in the goings on, but didn’t stir so much as a hoof.

Thus did a duke recall how to impersonate a boy who was worried for an old equine friend.

“He’s still listening to my voice,” Noah said. “Even though his symptoms aren’t severe, when they aren’t listening anymore, it’s time to clean your gun.”

“I noticed the pistol on the trunk outside the door. Is he in such bad shape?”

“Hard to tell with horses,” Noah said between bites of sandwich. “They’re an odd combination of delicacy and power, much like duchesses.” He settled his jacket around Thea’s shoulders. “What possessed you to come haring down here in the dead of night?”

The stable was dark and quiet, save for the sounds of horses shifting sleepily in stalls thickly bedded with straw. Thea was alone with her husband. She could be honest.

“I came looking for you because I missed you.”

“Hmm. Strawberry?” Noah held a ripe berry to Thea’s lips, and she took a bite.

“You could have had the lads look in on him, Noah.”

“When a pony has served his boy loyally for all his equine days”—Noah popped the other half of the strawberry into his mouth—“he deserves loyalty in return. These are good.”

“You’ve had Regent that long?”

“He was the last gift from my father,” Noah said, stroking the horse’s nose, which had a sprinkling of pale hair. “I was leaving for university at the end of summer, and Papa gave him to me as a yearling, so I might spend the summer getting to know my horse. I spent the next two summers with him, every break and holiday, and we came of age together. When I went up to Town three years later, Regent was the envy of all my fellows. He’s won me some money, and more than once, he saw me home when I was too drunk or tired or befuddled to know where I was going.”

This recitation had the horse’s interest, as if he understood the content, not simply the affectionate tone of voice.

“He likes your panegyric,” Thea said. “I’ve always thought horses’ noses were magic, like four-leaf clovers and fairy rings.”

Noah traced a clover on the gelding’s forehead. “What a fanciful notion.”

“Their noses are so soft.” Thea stroked her fingers over Regent’s graying muzzle. “Velvet isn’t this soft.”

“None of that.” Noah tone was stern, but directed at the horse. “He’s making eyes at you, the worthless flirt. He’s the same way with the girls, has no dignity whatsoever around females.”

“Lucky for him he has you to protect him from his misguided nature. Do you think he’d like some hay?”

“We tried at supper,” Noah said. “He looked at it and made pathetic eyes at us. The lads left in disgust.”

Doubtless, the lads had been ordered to leave by a certain shy, tenderhearted, imperious duke.

“You’ve been sermonizing at the poor beast half the night. Shall we try again?” Thea asked.

“You try.” Noah rose and took the tray from the stall, coming back with a bundle of fragrant hay.

“That smells good,” Thea said from her perch on the stool. “Like mown grass.”

Noah froze and scowled at the hay in his hands as if it were noxious.

“Bloody hell.” The horse lifted his head at his master’s tone. “It isn’t cured,” Noah spat. “The lads will answer for this.” He tossed the hay into the aisle, and stood in the dim light, fuming, his hands on his hips.

Vulcan probably looked thus when at his forge: more shadow than light, and ready to hurl lightning bolts.

“What’s the problem, Noah?”

“It’s my fault,” Noah said. “We went through this with him years ago. Most horses will eat hay cut last week if you give it to them, but the better practice is to cure fodder for at least a month. Regent must have his cured, or he becomes dyspeptic. I
know
this about him, and every year I remind the lads. I didn’t do that this year, and now…this.”

As if to emphasize Noah’s diagnosis, Regent stomped a foot in the direction of his belly.

“Perishing, blasted, infernal damn.” Noah took a lead rope and halter down from a peg. “He’ll try to drop and roll if we don’t walk him, miserable beast.”

What followed was hours of walking the gelding, letting him stand around in his stall, offering him water, talking to him, and, Thea was sure, praying for the beast’s recovery. She prayed as well, for the horse, but also for her husband to be spared the misery of having to put his old friend—the last gift from his father—down.

Eighteen

Morning came, and the stable hands went about their tasks, mucking, turning in, turning out, raking the aisle, topping up water buckets, and offering oats to the horses in work.

While Thea remained at her husband’s side, and Regent grew no better.

The gelding lipped at some hay, took the occasional sip of water, but mostly stood, head down, looking pathetic and worn. Based on the muttered rumblings from the stableboys, the horse hadn’t passed manure for nearly a day, and Thea gathered that was symptomatic of a looming tragedy.

“Duchess,” Noah said, “you should not be about in dishabille with the fellows on hand. You will distract them, and you need your rest. Up to the house with you.”

Noah was asking as gently as he could, but Thea did not want to go.

She’d seen him conferring with his head lad and cleaning his gun in the last hour, and her heart broke for him, and for the very young man who’d first fallen in love with Regent years earlier.

Thea went to her husband as he stood beside his horse, and put her arms around him. At first he did nothing, but then his lips moved against her temple, and his arms encircled her. For the space of one long, deep breath, he held her, drawing strength, she hoped, from her nearness.

“I’ll bring you some breakfast,” she said.

“I’ll manage without,” he replied. “Keep the girls away for a bit, would you? They can see their ponies later this morning.”

Thea nodded and made for the house, unwilling to let Noah see her cry. Three of the stable hands passed her in the yard, not meeting her gaze—and they were carrying dirty shovels. She stopped in the back hallway, tears streaming down her cheeks, for the horse, for the man, for the boy.

The girls would be devastated too, even True would likely grieve for his fellow, and poor Harlan—

Thea changed clothes as quickly as she could, determined that Noah not have to deal with this alone. She was his wife, his duchess, and he’d allowed her to stay beside him the entire night. They’d taken turns, walking the horse, talking to him, and spent hours sitting side by side in that stall, silently fretting when they should have been catnapping.

She hurried back to Regent’s stall, leaving her hair in a single ratty braid.

“The girls aren’t awake yet,” she said before Noah could ask, though a gunshot would rouse them, of course.

He rose off a trunk, a long-barreled pistol in his hand. “I didn’t expect you back.”

In the stall, a groom was slipping the halter onto Regent’s head. Panic welled in Thea’s heart at the sight of the horse’s weary docility. She moved to the beast’s side, and Noah followed her into the stall.

“Wife, perhaps you should return to the house.” Noah’s tone was infinitely beseeching, his gaze sad.

“You’ll put him down?”

“The lads are done digging, so, yes, it’s time. He isn’t recovering, and he’s in pain.”

No
, Thea wanted to shout. The horse was no worse, his symptoms weren’t severe, and he was Noah’s friend. They couldn’t just shoot him and push him into a cold, dark hole.

“I’ll take that lead.” She reached toward the groom, who looked first to Noah’s expressionless face, then passed her the rope. “Where do we do this, Anselm?”

“The back paddock,” Noah said. “Wife…Thea…I won’t ask this of you.”

He hardly asked anything of anybody, ever.

“Husband, you are wasting time while this dear beast suffers unnecessarily.”

Noah blinked, as if Thea had spoken in some foreign tongue, then he spun on his heel and opened the stall door for her.

The stableboys watched them pass, two doffing their caps as if a funeral procession were going by.

Tears formed a hard ball in Thea’s throat. The horse came along meekly, almost as if he knew Noah would relieve his suffering one way or another.

Noah led them across fields still glistening with dew, to the side of a yawning, ugly hole freshly gouged in the earth.

“Do you want to say good-bye?” Thea asked.

“I have nothing more to say,” Noah bit out, then more softly, “He knows I’ll miss him.”

“Well, I want to say good-bye.”

Noah looked pained, but nodded, and let Thea lead the horse a few steps away from the grave.

“You were a good boy, Regent,” she said, stroking his neck. “The best boy. You took good care of your master when his mama and papa were gone, and he’ll always love you, and so will I. You’re going somewhere wonderful now, where your tummy won’t hurt ever, and you can play with all the mares, and they won’t order you about. Don’t be afraid. Be proud of yourself. You were a good boy.”

Thea was repeating herself, and Noah was looking at her so sadly, she didn’t even try to stop her tears. She leaned over and kissed the horse on his big, soft nose. A long, lingering, smoochy kiss that seemed to provoke a sigh of contentment from the depths of the horse’s body.

Or something.

Noah cocked his head and regarded the horse. He did not cock his gun.

“The ruddy bastard’s farting,” Noah said, wonder in his voice. Thea straightened, even as she perceived the distinctive sound of a horse breaking wind, and breaking wind, and breaking wind.

Over along the fence, two stables boys stopped walking, one pointed at Regent, and they both smiled sheepishly.

And still the animal farted.

And farted.

Then stopped, and dropped his tail on a sigh.

“Is he better?” Thea asked as Regent picked up his tail again and let go with a procession of staccato little reprises. The morning air took on a noxious, sulfurous quality.

“He’s not worse,” Noah said, the corners of his mouth kicking up. “Maybe you’d better kiss him again.”

“Husband, that is not funny.”

The flatulence ceased as the horse hunkered and grunted like a cow, tail up. This time, he emitted a sibilant, odoriferous breeze, and then began dropping manure.

“Praise Jesus,” Noah said, shoving the gun into the back of his waistband and taking the lead rope from Thea. “Praise Almighty Jesus.” He gave the horse a solid pat on the neck as Regent walked a couple of steps forward and continued to heed the call of nature.

“He did this last time he colicked too,” Noah said, inhaling gustily through his nose. “I’d forgotten. Damn, but that stinks wonderfully. It was the new hay, had to be.” He kept the lead rope in one hand, slung an arm around Thea’s shoulders, and pulled her in close, kissing her cheek as the horse decisively ended a bout of horsey constipation.

“We’ll be asphyxiated if we stay here,” he said. “God bless you, Wife. You’ll become the talk of every stable in the shire.”

“Kissing him good-bye had nothing to do with”—Thea gestured behind them—“that.”

“Tell it to the lads.” Noah kissed her again. “Please understand if, when I take my leave of you in future, your kisses will not be needed.”

“Shame on you, Anselm!” Thea smacked his arm, and was still grinning like a fool when he stopped and kissed her
again
, this time on the mouth, with Regent, the stableboys, and all of creation looking on. Noah didn’t stop until the stableboys started hooting and cheering, and Regent gently butted the duke with his head.

The girls’ morning ride was turned over to Erikson, who professed to need a break from his science, and Thea and Noah took successive baths, ate a huge breakfast characterized by thievery at every turn, and then collapsed into bed together for a much-needed nap.

* * *

Noah’s wife had kissed him good-bye, their partings already having some of the comforting predictably of a domestic ritual. The little girls had tossed him their farewells from the depths of the ponies’ stalls, which defection gave him a pang, one he suspected his duchess sensed.

When Thea might have trundled back to the house, she instead walked Noah to the mounting block, where True waited, one hip cocked.

“I married a nomad,” Thea groused, her arm linked with Noah’s. “You need a herd of camels, or perhaps you’re like the American natives wandering the plains in nothing but a loincloth.”

“A loincloth. A peer of the realm attired in a loincloth. Your imagination, Wife, will give me nightmares while I tend to my business in the City.” Noah sat back onto the mounting block and pulled his duchess down beside him. “You are familiar with my schedule?”

“Appointments this afternoon with your solicitors, dinner and breakfast with your sisters, more appointments tomorrow, and you should be back tomorrow evening. Don’t expect me to stay up late, sewing your loincloths while I await Your Grace’s return.”

“My daughters forget I exist,” Noah informed Troubadour. “My wife would rather sleep than await my homecoming. I will be a nomad
sans
loincloths do I tarry too long on the business of the duchy. I am a man to be pitied.”

Thea slipped her hand into Noah’s, her predictable mercy explaining why Noah hadn’t yet donned his riding gloves.

“I’ll dream of you,” Thea said. “Does that help?”

“I’m sallying forth on your errands, you know.”

Now the dratted woman rested her head on Noah’s shoulder. “How do you conclude my errands compel you to visit the City?”

“I’m off to Town at your behest. We need some ladies at this house party who can distract Erikson from his science. Patience must be canvassed for ideas, because you are sadly lacking in familiarity with your peers, madam.”

Thea picked a piece of hay off his sleeve and flicked it to the ground.

“What is it, Wife? Do not send me into battle against the weasels with that sighing glance on my conscience.” More of a glower, really.

“Are we procuring for our botanist, then? Turning our family gathering into something else?”

Thea was a veritable Puritan when it came to who would be allowed under the same roof as the girls. Noah liked that about his duchess, among other things.

“You truly have no use for these sorts of gatherings, do you?” Noah cast his mind back over their several discussions of who should attend, and what the activities should be. In hindsight, he could see the tracks of Thea’s delicate heels, dragging in the conversational sand.

“I have no use for Polite Society in general,” Thea said.

The Duchess of Anselm was dodging. Noah sought for a compromise, for something to say that wouldn’t have them parting on a bad note.

“I will find some errands for Erikson to do in Town when I get back,” he suggested. “He can attend to his manly urges when he’s on the duchy’s business, how’s that?”

“I will leave his biology to you,” Thea said, though Noah’s suggestion appeared to have her approval. “And thank you. I really would like this to be more of a family gathering than anything else.”

She’d all but insisted, and Thea was a mostly agreeable sort of female.

“Then that’s how it shall be, but, Thea?”

“Husband?”

“I vote my seat, more than occasionally. If we need to do some entertaining later this year, in Town, I’ll expect your assistance.”

“You’ll have it.” She kissed his cheek. “Give me plenty of warning, so I can interrogate you on the pressing political questions of the day.”

Much more of her farewell affections, and she’d have Noah in such a muddle, he wouldn’t know the Lords from the Commons.

“Take Erikson with you if you’re to wander the property with the girls.” Noah phrased the order—request, really—as casually as he could, checked True’s girth and bridle, then looped the reins over his wrist and took his wife in his arms.

“You’ll dream of me as I slay the dragons of commerce?”

“Weasels, you called them. I might dream of you.”

Noah kissed the daylights out of Thea—not as if the lads hadn’t seen them kissing before—and then Thea kissed the daylights out of him, which really wasn’t very helpful when a hapless duke was spending the next little while in the saddle.

“Safe journey, Your Grace,” she said, stepping back.

Somebody had patted the ducal bottom. Noah hadn’t a clue who that might have been, but
he
patted the duchess’s fundament, for the lads knew better than to gawk.

He mounted up, saluted with his crop, and let True lope down the driveway, but not before he caught the head lad smirking at him from the yard.

In truth, Noah didn’t want to head for Town again, but his last will and testament needed revision, and such tedious tasks never saw to themselves. Then too, he had to invite his family out to Wellspring, and that meant taking personal notice of the state of Thea’s brother.

When Noah had dispensed with the legal business, he dropped in on Meech for tea and found his uncle not only in, but without other callers, which suited Noah perfectly.

Meech ordered the tea tray, shooed the butler off, and smiled a knowing and not entirely attractive smile.

“Is married life going well?”

Noah took a wing chair uninvited, for he technically owned the damned chair.

“Married life goes splendidly. You haven’t acquired your customary dusting of summer sunshine. Didn’t the Harting house party get you out into the fresh air?”

“Sometimes, the routine grows tedious,” Meech said, pouring out for them both.

“You could hie out to Wellspring. You’re always welcome.” Meech was always family, anyway. Welcome in theory, at least.

“Wouldn’t want to intrude.” Meech passed Noah his tea, though when Noah took a sip, he found Meech had forgotten to sugar it. The oversight was unlike him. Meech was as comfortable being a host as he was being a guest, and Meech wasn’t Henny Whitlow, to whom tea preferences were a detail.

“You’re invited to intrude,” Noah said, stirring in his sugar. “The duchess and I are having a family gathering, and I know a pair of little girls who will drag you bodily to the stables to show you their new ponies.”

“Ponies for the girls?” Meech dumped a quantity of sugar into his own drink. “Aren’t they a bit young for that?”

“Nini is two years older than I was when you and Papa first put me aboard Charger.”

“That fat little miscreant? Haven’t thought of him in ages. Do they groom their beasts eight times a day, stuff them with apples, tell them all manner of nonsense?”