The Duke (33 page)

He thought grimly that this might very likely have been the case. Because he was too damned proud to admit that he could be killed. It chilled his blood. “Perhaps,” he said. A man could only admit to so
much, after all. “How do you feel?” He kissed her mouth, then hugged her tightly against him.

“Like I've been knocked in the head too many times. Surely marriage can't be any tougher than this was.”

“I sure the hell hope not. However, now that I see you in the sunlight, I know you're going to be black and blue on Saturday. Everyone will call me a brute and not worthy of you.”

“Ian, I'm so sorry about Marianne.”

For a moment he couldn't speak. Giles had paid with his life. Ian didn't think it was enough. So much loss all because of a single man's greed. “Thank you, Brandy,” he said. He lifted her into his arms and swung up upon Hercules's back. “Let's go home.”

D
anvers, the Carmichael butler for more than thirty-five summers, looked out from the long parlor windows over the front lawn of Carmichael Hall at the two squawking peacocks—one male and one female, a disaster, he'd said from the very beginning. The male simply wouldn't leave the female alone. At the moment his tail feathers were spread in riotous color. He was chasing the peahen, his brand of charm, Davers thought. The peahen ducked back behind one of the elm trees that bordered the perimeter of the home wood.

Danvers had heard her grace call the male Percy. His grace had said pensively that he wasn't sure what to call the female, but he had at least one excellent idea. Her grace had punched his arm. Regardless, Davers would like to see the Percy peacock in Cook's baking pan, the bloody bleater.

“Never a moment's peace,” he said to Mrs. Osmington, the duke's admirably efficient housekeeper. “I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Dr. Mulhouse, jokester that he is, gave them those wretched birds as a wedding present only because her grace said that England lacked the color of Scotland. It's my belief that those puffed-up noise boxes will scare away the deer.”

“Well, you must know, Mr. Danvers,” said Mrs.
Osmington, her fingers unconsciously fiddling with the huge circle of keys at her waist, “I heard her grace laugh in that good-natured way of hers and admit to his grace that she'd really been thinking about heather, not peacocks.”

Danvers grunted and turned away from the windows. He withdrew a large round watch from his black coat pocket. “Dr. Mulhouse has been upstairs for over an hour with her grace. It is hoped that all is well with the heir.”

Mrs. Osmington nodded her head in a peculiarly birdlike movement. “At least her grace, most sensibly in my opinion, is very conscious of her delicate condition, not galloping about the countryside like Lady Dorrington, who I'm convinced suffered complications because—” She drew to a disconcerted halt. “How right you are, Mr. Danvers. Such a long time it's been and nearly lunchtime it is. I must inform Cook it's likely we'll have another place at the table.”

Dr. Edward Mulhouse was at that moment frantically searching his brain to come up with something that would make the duke's wife relax. She was stiff as a board, her eyes were tightly closed, her hands were fisted at her sides. It was obvious she was embarrassed, miserably uncomfortable, and that if the duke hadn't insisted she be examined, she would never have let him come within two rooms of her.

He adopted his most soothing voice. “Come now, it's all right, Brandy. I've attended more than two hundred births. Please don't be embarrassed. Won't you relax?”

Nothing changed. Edward looked up at the duke. He was beginning to feel as inept as she was embarrassed.

The duke said, with all the flavor of the autocrat in his deep voice and a wicked grin on his face, “Brandy, if you don't ease, I'm going to force brandy down your throat until you're giggling and carrying on like you
did with me just last Wednesday night. Don't you remember how—”

“Ian, don't you dare.” Her eyes flew open, her fists tightened. She looked ready to jump up and hit him.

He grinned like a sinner at her. “Come, let poor Edward do his job. I'm watching him carefully. You needn't worry that he'll do anything untoward. If he does, he knows I'll pound him into the ground. He knows that after I've pounded him, I'd plant him in the petunia bed. Then I'll send goats over to eat the petunias.”

She laughed. “You're not funny, Ian. I'm just laughing because, well, never mind. I'll make you very sorry you said all that in front of Edward.”

“Let him do his job,” the duke said again. He pulled a chair to the bedside and took his wife's hand. “Onward, Edward, do what you have to do.”

“Brandy, please relax your stomach muscles. There, that's better. Ah, the babe kicked me.” He smiled as his hand carefully pressed against her growing belly. “Lively little fellow, feels like he's turning cartwheels.”

“The babe's a little brute,” Ian said. “I was simply showing my wife a bit of affection just this morning, and he walloped me with a big foot. I know it was a foot even though Brandy swore it was his head. No, I told her, all the Dukes of Portmaine have big feet.” Ah, he thought, she was distracted. In fact, if she didn't shoot him after this was over, he'd be surprised. “Yes,” he said, “in that respect, he'll be just like his father. Big feet and a great lover.”

“Don't forget born diplomats,” Edward said.

He watched Edward's hands disappear beneath the sheets. He didn't like it, but he imagined that Brandy was ready to expire. Edward was fast, Ian would give him that.

In just another moment Edward rose, smoothed down the covers, and said, “Everything is just fine.
You're small, Brandy, but that's just as well. We don't want you to become overlarge, given the size of your husband. Yes, all will be well. Now, if you could just speak to your husband about his constant conceit at beating me at chess. I hear you play. Beat him, Brandy, bring him down.”

“I'll try,” she said. “I promise.”

“Seriously,” Edward said, “you're the picture of health, Brandy, and so is the babe. You've nothing to worry about, save, of course, Ian driving you to bedlam. I swear if he demands one more detail of the birthing process, I'm going to let him do it.”

“God, no, thank you,” the duke said. He actually turned pale. “You've got to be here, Edward, you must.”

“I think you've got him, Edward. Play a game of chess with him after lunch. Just perhaps you'll win this time.”

The duke smiled. “We'll go down now, Brandy. I'll send Lucy to you, though I'll bet you she's pacing the outside corridor like a mother hen. You'll have luncheon with us, won't you, Edward?”

“I will.”

Ian patted Brandy's hand and accompanied Edward from the bedchamber.

Edward said as they walked down the great staircase, past the second footman, into the hunting room, “If you hadn't been present, I believe she would have refused even to admit me.”

“Perhaps, but in spite of her grumbling, she did keep to the bargain. She promised when the babe kicked, she'd let you examine her. Now, Edward, is everything truly as excellent as you told Brandy?”

“Indeed, yes,” Edward said, accepting a glass of sherry. “As I said, the babe's smaller than I expected, and that's a good thing. I think the less weight she gains the better. It should make the birthing easier for
her. At least that's the modern view of many of your London
accoucheurs
.”

Edward swirled his sherry about in its beautiful crystal glass, which was at least three hundred years old. “She's also carrying the baby very high, which in my experience indicates a boy. But I refuse to lay a wager with you.”

“I believe Brandy is thinking of a daughter—a pert, redheaded little girl like her sister Fiona. The child will come to live with us next month.”

“Good Lord, Ian, what a staid, virtuous family man you're becoming. Within a year of your marriage, you'll have two children. What is this Brandy was telling me the other day—you've struck some sort of Persephone arrangement?”

“Nothing quite so mythological. I wouldn't ever expect Brandy to give up all she knew and spend all her time in England. We'll spend some months every year at Penderleigh. You'll have to come and visit, Edward. It's a grand old place—moth-eaten in many places and a romantic crumbling turret—and a servant, Morag, who never bathes, except for that one time in honor of Percy's marriage.

“Ah, Edward, I can just imagine you seated across from Lady Adella, listening to her tell you exactly what to do and how to do it and when to do it. I'll wager she'll even come up with some physical complaints you've never heard of just to test you. Yes, I'd like to see you swallow your tongue. We'll travel to Scotland early next spring.”

“It sounds like a trial, Ian. I'd never heard a Scots accent before. Most folk love to hear Brandy speak. That beautiful lilting accent of hers. I hope she never loses it.”

“I won't allow her to. I imagine when we go to London some will want to turn their noses up at her, but since she is a duchess, I doubt anyone would dare
try it. She's doing very well here. She was so worried that she'd blunder and embarrass herself and me.” He grinned. “No chance of that. The servants would kill for her. All except for that one maid, Liza, who thought she was an usurper. She's no longer at Carmichael Hall, naturally.”

“After you dismissed her she said some pretty bad things about the duchess in the village, but no one paid her any heed.” Edward slapped his hands to his arms. “Lord, but the cold weather is upon us early this year.”

“I hope those bloody peacocks take a chill and fold down their feathers,” the duke said.

“Unkind, Ian. What is a poor man to give to a duke for his wedding gift?” He looked about the large, dark-paneled room, the gun collections sufficient, he thought, without a smidgeon of envy, to outfit an entire regiment. He remembered the toy soldiers and guns he and Ian had shared when they'd been eight years old. “The fellow who sold me the birds told me they were sound sleepers. They do sleep at night, don't they?”

“Most of the time. Ah, here's Danvers with the mail.” Edward watched the duke quickly pull out the very foreign, very dirty envelope and hold it up. “A letter from Lady Adella. It's sure to make Brandy forget her embarrassment with you. I only hope that she won't go into convulsions when the old lady rants on about the new earl's—that's Claude, you know—repulsive conduct. Poor Claude, he's only held the title for little more than a month now. I dread to hear what she'll be calling him when we go there in the spring.”

Although Brandy didn't quite fall into convulsions at the outrageous recital of Lady Adella's woes, she did choke with laughter over her soup. The duke thwacked her back, telling her to have a care with his babe.

“Poor Grandmama,” Brandy said. “She sounds miserable. Can you believe that Uncle Claude had the courage to order her to turn the keys of the castle over to Constance? Not, of course, that Grandmama ever much concerned herself with housekeeping matters, but to call her naught but a—ah, where is it?—aye, ‘a meddlesome, interfering old woman and
only
the dowager countess'—she must have been teetering on the edge of apoplexy.”

“That or we'll get word that she shot him.”

“Or struck his gouty foot with her cane,” Brandy said, grinning.

“I have a great aunt Millie who sounds remarkably like Lady Adella,” Edward said. “She's known to shrivel the local vicar to his knees with her vitriol. Her sisters and brothers live in terror of her.”

“Perhaps the two of them could live together. What a competition that would be.” The duke added, “Ah, Brandy, listen to this: Lady Adella says that Percy has been hot off the mark and ‘planted a bairn in Joanna's belly.' It appears that Percy is showing himself quite the model husband, a circumstance, she adds, that will last only as long as Joanna's extreme strength of character.”

“We must write,” Brandy said, “and congratulate them. I think if anyone can curb Percy's more undesirable tendencies, it is Joanna.”

“Since she holds the purse strings,” the duke said, “there's hope. Lady Adella's last line, if I can make it out—yes, it appears that Fiona begs her to tell you that she had nearly tamed the porridge—no, papou—”

“Porpoise, Ian, porpoise. How delightful for her.”

The duke just shook his head. He said to Edward, “Another cousin, Bertrand, calls Brandy a mermaid since she loves the sea so much. I look at her now and think about that and it makes me laugh so hard
I nearly choke. Can you begin to imagine a pregnant mermaid?”

“I wonder how a mermaid could birth a baby,” Edward said, saw that Brandy was staring at him appalled, and quickly cleared his throat. “Just a ridiculous question. No, Ian, don't say anything. I don't want the duchess to throw me out with the peacocks.”

“Not you, Edward,” she said. “I want you to tell my husband that I'm going to have twins. That will give him his just deserts, to have a fat and lumpy wife.”

Edward laughed. “I've already told him it's just one babe this time, Brandy. You'll have to find another way to bring him down.”

“She finds ways daily,” the duke remarked, and took a bite of very thin-sliced ham, one of Cook's specialties. He looked down at the letter again, saying, “Your esteemed grandmother appears to have spent all her excess bile. She even wishes you well. I wonder if it caused her pain to do that? Now, Edward, that you're in possession of some juicy family skeletons, I trust you'll not resort to blackmail.”

“I won't do that until after I've finally beaten you at chess.” He consulted his watch. “I must be going. Luncheon was delicious, as usual. I've got to visit Rigby Hall. Lady Eleanor is breeding again. This is her tenth child. She isn't happy with Sir Egbert.”