Lady Belling's Secret (25 page)

“Good thinking, I’m sure.” He clapped the man on the shoulder.

“Yes, well, after I sent two of the dining chairs to be repaired, we thought it best to try and control the damage.”

“Oh, what happened?” He glanced down at the dogs. They sat on the floor at his feet, tongues lolling out, staring up at him and the butler with unconditional devotion.

“Apparently, they enjoy chewing,” the butler added dryly. “Who would have known?”

Thomas laughed. “I’ll watch them for the rest of the night.” How hard could it be? They had to tire eventually, right?

“If there is nothing else I can do for you then?” Masters glanced about the room and seemed to be assessing that the fire was burning steadily and the brandy bottle was full. “I’ll bring up another bottle, my lord.”

Thomas shook his head. “No need. I’ll not be drinking again tonight. You retire. If I get thirsty, I’ll go down to the kitchen and get some milk.”

For the first time in his untraditional employ the butler showed real terror. “You’ll not make a mess? I don’t know if I can convince Cook to stay if there is a repeat of last eve.”

Thomas sank in a deep bow. “I give my word as a gentleman and as an earl, I will not make a mess.” He raised his right hand as if giving a solemn oath.

“You’re not crossing your fingers behind your back, my lord?” the butler asked, apparently willing to risk the cost of being a little cheeky with his employer rather than be terrorized by the cook.

This time Thomas really laughed. He pulled his other hand from behind his back as proof. “No, I assure you.”

“Good night, then, my lord.” The butler did retire, but not before eyeing the two puppies with actual malice.

“All right, lads. You’re not going to cause me any trouble are you?” But the puppies weren’t listening. They had already started wrestling on the floor.

Thomas sat in his customary chair in front of the fire, watching them play with the abandon that only puppies could seem to muster. They made him smile, despite how out of sorts he felt, with their little growls and yips.

And then it dawned on him that Francesca would never have this gift. She would never accept them from him now. He had gone to the country to pick them out and brought them home for no other reason than he knew how happy they would make her. He had thought it a completely unselfish gesture, but that wasn’t true at all. It had made him ecstatic knowing how happy she would be.

She might never marry him. He realized it now. The weight sitting on his chest was crushing. He would never again have that peaceful feeling he had when he was with her, when he held her in his arms. He felt light when she was near, warm and comfortable. And necessary. He had never felt necessary before.

His internal musing circled back to where they’d been all day. Why would a woman who professed a lifelong love for him flat-out deny a marriage to him? Clearly she enjoyed their lovemaking. She didn’t have enough experience to fake that kind of reaction. Besides, she didn’t love Dalton. Why would she accept less?

He was at a loss and more than a little angry. For God’s sake, he had no idea what the woman wanted. She loved him and needed a husband. He tried to give her that and more, and she threw him out. He done everything he could think of to woo her. She was exasperating.

With any other problem, or any other woman, he would go to Christian to discuss it. Between the two of them they had surly experienced enough women that they thought they had covered every eventuality. But truth be known, this was uncharted territory for both of them. Neither had felt serious enough about a woman before where the outcome mattered so much. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the woman he could go to Christian for advice on.

Dalton had been a surprisingly good friend throughout. He certainly hadn’t needed to be. After all, Thomas had basically come in and whipped the rug right out from under him. Dalton was clearly a very perceptive man but, again, Thomas didn’t think it was fair to go to him for more advice on how to steal his intended. He didn’t want to push his luck that the man’s temper would change.

Francesca was strong and independent. She was smart and beautiful and much desired by gentlemen of the ton. But still she loved him. She had chosen him. Why? What could she possibly see in him that his own family had never seen? He had never believed in the lovelorn protestations of the other women with whom he had shared his bed. They had all wanted something from him. But what could Francesca possibly want? She had a title, and he knew it wasn’t his money or social position. Yet she had continued to love him from childhood. Well, that is, if he hadn’t effectively killed those tender feelings. If he could somehow figure out what about him made Francesca love him, then maybe he could figure out the answer to her riddle.

Thomas sat back in the chair, ignoring the fuzzy terrorists at his feet. The crushing weight was gone from his chest. Replacing it was complete and total emptiness. Contemplating a life without Francesca, or worse yet, having her married to another man, left his soul destitute. Dear God, he hoped she wasn’t pregnant—not yet anyway. He couldn’t imagine the thought of living without her and the possibility that his own child was being raised by another man, even one he liked and respected.

The vacancy in his heart was just that. There was nothing there. And the feeling was horrible. He felt like a little boy again, alone and scared. To go back to that empty, lonely feeling was unbearable after experiencing the surprising completeness he found with her.

He lingered there for several more minutes, wallowing in self-pity, before he remembered that Francesca loved him. She loved him, so there was hope.

Once again he spent a restless night tossing and turning. He and the dogs had whiled away several hours, prowling around the halls of his spacious mansion in Mayfair listening to the sounds of the house settling, the clocks ticking, and one lone cricket that nearly drove him mad. Because he knew sleep would evade him, he spent an entire hour stalking the pest through the downstairs, finally cornering it behind a settee in the front parlor. He had moved several pieces of heavy furniture during the hunt, and he smiled cheerlessly when he thought of the perplexed looks it would give the housekeeper and parlor maids.

Sometime around dawn, the pups were sleeping at last. Thomas had watched them in awe for hours. His initial idea that they had to sleep sometime eventually had come to pass, but not until after much high jinx. No wonder the butler had been so leery of leaving him alone with them. They were clearly a two-person job.

He had thought they were settled down at one point, so he went up to his room to change into a comfortable dressing gown. He shut them in the library, which on further reflection may not have been the best plan. Sometime between the barking and howling they managed to chew up a book, tear open a throw pillow and scatter every single piece of paper off his desk. Off the desk, for crying out loud, what were they even doing up there? He had been gone for less than ten minutes, deuced take it.

He did get hungry, but quite frankly was afraid to leave them alone in the room again, and he certainly wasn’t going to break his promise to the butler and take them to the kitchen with him.

But the funny thing was, the more chaos they created, the more excited he was to give them to Francesca. He laughed at one point because the whole thing seemed a tad sadistic, but he knew she would appreciate the two little clowns. Francesca would love these two just as she loved him. If he had any doubt, all he had to do was remember the day in the park when she met their uncles. He could understand his butler’s point of view that these dogs were hard to love, but Thomas thought the same of himself and Francesca was certainly able to love him.

The dogs kept their master company while he brooded, ensconced in his favorite leather chair and staring into the fire. Eventually, all three of them trod up the stairs to the master suite. The dogs snored at the foot of his bed, and Thomas spent another sleepless night staring at the dark ceiling.

Thomas clung to that idea of hope: hope that Francesca wouldn’t give up on him, hope that he could figure her out very soon, and hope that everything would end up all right.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The next morning, while Johnson finished Thomas’s shave, the butler entered with a message on a silver salver. He wiped the rest of the shaving soap off his face and bent to the envelope in his hand. Inside was a note on expensive, ivory linen paper. The handwriting was that of a woman, each letter perfect and artistically penned.

Lord Harrington,

I will expect you at my home no later than 11 o’clock. Do not disappoint me. I’ve had enough of this nonsense.

            
The Duchess of Morewether

It was to be a command performance then? How very intriguing.

* * * *

Anna tilted her face up to Thomas’s as she spoke. “I have been privy to much of what has happened this week.”

“Oh!” he said in surprise to Anna. “Oh?”

She had accosted him before he could get out of the carriage. Apparently, she had been waiting for him at the curb.

“Yes, well, not every detail mind you,” she explained, “but I know the gist of everything—more than the duchess knows anyway.”

He wondered what she planned to do with this information. He pulled his watch from his pocket. He had two minutes till eleven. It never paid to leave the duchess waiting. “I’m here to see the duchess.”

“I know.” She looped her arm through his and aimed him towards the front stoop. “I waited for you out here because I’m confused.”

“You’re certainly not the only one.”

“So what did you do?”

“What do you mean, what did I do?”

Anna tilted her head way back in order to meet his eyes. “Well, you’ve done something because I’ve never seen Frankie in such a state.”

He guessed he knew what she meant. Francesca had been completely irrational the last time he saw her. “I don’t know. It wasn’t me.”

The look Anna gave him said she was fairly certain he was an idiot. “Indeed.”

The front door opened to reveal the impassive butler. “My lord, you are expected.” He left his hat and such in the hall with the servant and followed the lady to the family parlor.

“There you are.” The duchess set aside her embroidery hoop. “You look marginally better, but that’s not saying much.” Of course she referred to his bruising and the stitches in his face. “I’ll have my cook make up her special poultice before you go.”

Thomas suppressed a wretch at the idea of yet another repulsive poultice. “I told you, my cook already made a poultice. It was horrible.”

“You didn’t leave it on long enough, did you?” she said with a shake of her head.

“I left it on until I couldn’t breathe anymore.”

She clucked at him. “I’ll have
my
cook make one up, and you’ll leave it on as long as instructed.” He nodded because whether he followed her medical advice or not was not the point of his being here in her morning room. “Sit, Thomas. You’re giving me a crick in my neck. You’ve always been too tall by half.”

“Are you angry with me, ma’am?” He folded himself onto a velvet upholstered chair.

“Not angry, per se, but I am tired of this nonsense.”

Thomas sat still, just short of contrite, waiting to hear why the duchess was angry at him.

“Francesca has been sent on an errand and won’t be home for several hours yet. I’m not getting anywhere with her, and it’s time to get to the bottom of this. I understand that you’ve been sneaking around behind my back.” Thomas opened his mouth to defend himself, but the duchess held up her hand. “I’d rather you’d have gone about courting my daughter the acceptable way. Of course, there was that small problem with her already being engaged.”

“Yes,” Thomas said, dryly, “that has proved to be damn inconvenient.”

“If you two had only come to me in the beginning…”

Anna uttered a discreet cough. “I believe the situation snowballed before Frankie and Thomas really had a handle on things.”

Thomas nodded to the lady in thanks. “As you say. We weren’t trying to sneak around, necessarily.” The duchess shot him a knowing look. “Well, not in the beginning anyway.”

“What do you plan to do about it now?” The duchess sized him up.

“I’ve done some negotiations, and I think it’s possible. I want to marry her, but she refuses to talk about it.”

“Really?” Anna mused. She rang for tea. “That seems unlikely to me, considering.”

“Considering what?” the duchess asked.

“Considering the tendre she’s had for him for so long.” Anna sat next to the duchess on the opposite end of the long sofa.

“That’s what I thought,” Thomas interjected, but the ladies ignored him.

“One would have thought he’d be a shoo-in,” the duchess contemplated while she supervised the maid laying out the tea service.

“Clearly, he’s done something wrong.”

“Obviously,” the duchess agreed and proved she remembered he was in the room by absently handing him a cup of tea. “What do you think he did?”

Anna added sugar to her cup. “I can’t think of anything—I’ve been wracking my brains over it. Frankie is noticeably upset, but every time I broach the subject she gets that look she has and starts crying immediately after.” Anna sipped from her tea before offering up a suggestion. “Do you think he botched the proposal?”

“What else could it be?” The duchess took a dainty nibble on a biscuit. “Unless he made an arse out of himself some other way…”

This was ridiculous—being ignored while they discussed his life. Thomas set his cup and saucer down with a clatter. “I didn’t make…”

“Shhh,” Anna hissed. “The duchess and I are going to figure this out.”

“Yes,” the duchess told him with a scowl. “Do be quiet. You’ve had your chance and made a soup of it. Now give Anna and me the opportunity to set things to rights.”