The Duke I’m Going to Marry (Farthingale Series Book 2) (17 page)

“Stop. There’s no use denying it. I’ve already had the scum you hired to do your dirty work tracked down and questioned. They’ll be punished.” He paused a moment to watch her squirm, which she did a little, but mostly she glared at him. “I don’t plan to do anything about my loving family—yet. You’ll all keep your allowances and your heads this time.”

“How generous of you,” she remarked dryly.

“It is. Damn generous, though you don’t deserve it.” He rubbed a hand across the nape of his neck. “I just want to know why. Why last November?”

She shrugged, as though to say the time line didn’t matter. She hated him, always had, and never wanted him around. “If you must know, we didn’t really think it through,” she admitted. “You’re a horrible son, but you know how to grow the family wealth, and of course, you’ve shared it with us, as is your duty.”

“Right. My duty.” He struggled to suppress a hearty laugh at that remark. Those were love scars crisscrossing his arms and slashed across his stomach, placed there by the knife-wielding ruffians hired by his beloved family. He owed them nothing.

“It
is
your duty,” she insisted. “After all, I devoted the best years of my life to raising you.”

Odd, he thought he’d been raised by strangers. A governess, a tutor, the housekeeper at Swineshead, a fitting name for the place. In truth, it was a beautiful house, but isolated. The relatives rarely visited unless they were in need of funds. They reminded him of pigs at the trough. “Of course. I remember all those cozy nights we sat beside the fire, drinking hot cocoa while you or Father read to me. Wonderful memories. Brings tears to my eyes.”

Her lips pursed in that sour lemons expression she’d perfected. “You always were a sarcastic bastard.”

“Not to mention a constant trial and a disappointment.” He shrugged. “Go on. What put the idea into your head to have me killed?”

She paused a moment, her manner as unaffected as though she were about to comment on the unpredictable London weather. “It didn’t start out that way. We never meant to have you seriously hurt. We heard you intended to marry.”

He said nothing for a moment, stunned. “Me? Take a wife? Bring a sweet, young thing into
this
family? That will never happen.”

“Why not? You’re a wealthy duke. Any girl would be flattered by your proposal, no matter how loathsome you are. We only meant to prevent the marriage from taking place. We like things as they are. Didn’t want the greedy bitch urging you to cut us off.”

“Warms my cockles,” he said, a familiar numbness sweeping through his body. Since childhood, he’d endured his family by creating a hard shell around his heart. He was like a turtle, ducking into that hard shell whenever danger approached. He’d managed to survive the brutal kicks and punches because he was protected by that thick outer covering.

Sometimes he was kicked so hard the shell cracked a little. However, it would quickly repair itself. His shell would take only a day or so to recover from this kick. “So what you’re saying is that you preferred to have me dead rather than possibly losing your allowance. I’m moved, Mother. I feel more tears coming on.”

“We never meant to end your life, just interfere with your wedding plans.” She tipped her nose into the air and made a little sniffing sound. “What did you expect to hear? That I love you? That I’m glad you’re my son? Well, I’m not glad. You’re a murderer and I rue the day I gave birth to you.”

Which is how most of their encounters ended. “Good day, Mother. I hope I won’t see you around.” Which was his way of telling her to leave town immediately, before he changed his mind and had them all clapped in irons.

“London is surprisingly dull this year,” she said, her nose still tilted upward into the air. “I think I shall return to Bath with your cousins.”

“A wise decision.” He started for the door, and then halted. “By the way, if you or my cousins ever make mention of Mary or Felicity again, I will cut off your funds.”
In addition to cutting off my cousins’ balls.
He hadn’t bothered to issue that threat because if given the choice of which to lose, their manhood or their money, his cousins would have sacrificed their manhood. “You will mention it to Simon and Edmund, won’t you?”

She rose with a start. “You wouldn’t dare cut us off! Who cares about your father’s by-blow or her wretched offspring? The infant is an affront to the sanctity of my marriage. Your beloved father—”

“Right, my sainted father.” The man who hadn’t spoken to him since the day James died. The man who’d cheated on his mother, just as she had cheated on her father throughout their perfect marriage. He pinned her with a warning glare. “The rumors stop. Starting now.”

***

Dillie had arranged to pick up Daisy on her way to their monthly sisters meeting, which was to be held at Rose’s townhouse. The monthly meeting had lately become a weekly meeting, and would have become a daily meeting if Dillie had her way. She was in desperate need of advice from her all-knowing married sisters.

Despite Ian’s assurances that the
ton’s
most eligible young men would be tripping over themselves to court her—well, he’d been right about that—none of them were in the least interesting to her. Was she the problem? Or were they? She needed to be told whether her standards were unrealistically high or her suitors as unimpressive as she’d thought them.

“Unremarkable” was the term Lady Withnall had used. It was an apt description of the gentlemen calling on her. However, Dillie gave a small shiver, for she hoped never to end up as withered and mean-spirited as that old woman.

“Play us a song before you leave,” her young cousin Charles said, tugging on her arm. She’d brought him and a few other cousins along for the ride to Daisy’s. They would remain in the care of Ivy’s nanny while she and Daisy visited Rose.

Her other young cousins, Lizbeth and Harry, chimed in with their pleas. “The shoemaker song,” Lizbeth said, referring to a silly tune Dillie had made up on a lark last year. The children adored the easy refrain.
Clip, clop. Clip, clop, went the shoemaker’s wooden shoes.

Dillie quickly gave in, for she couldn’t refuse them anything when they stared at her with their big, innocent eyes. She knew there was plenty of time to indulge the children, for Daisy was still in her morning gown and had run upstairs to ready herself only moments ago.

She soon found herself in Daisy’s music room, walking over to the piano. Charles, Harry, and Lizbeth began to squeal in anticipation the moment she sat down and tickled the keys. Lizbeth jumped up and down in front of her. Dillie laughed. Ah, she loved her adoring public, even if that public comprised three youngsters who were family and therefore required to feign raptures over her talent. “There was an old shoemaker,” Lizbeth began to sing.

Harry, the youngest, joined in.

Dillie counted only two voices. “Charles, won’t you sing along?” Charles, all of eight years old, had suddenly turned quite serious.

In truth, it was in his nature to be quiet and reserved. One rarely got a squeal out of this young man.

Lizbeth, on the other hand, was rarely quiet. She was now about twelve, approaching that awkward age between child and young woman, and as to be expected, responded to everything with joyful excitement or abject tears of sorrow. Dillie hoped she would grow out of it in time.

Harry was the youngest and a very grownup five. Unfortunately, he’d been forced to deal with serious matters quite early on, for his father had died in Napoleon’s war. Gabriel and Daisy had helped him get through the loss. Harry chose that moment to cast her a beaming smile. Dillie felt a happy twinge in her heart.

“May I sing?” Charles asked, as though he required permission to let loose with his vocal talents.

“Of course you may. The song is meant to be sung by a trio.”

“But Aunt Sophie,” he said, referring to Dillie’s mother, “told us not to be a bother.”

Dillie returned his earnest gaze with one of her own. “You never are to me. I love having you with me.”

“Are you certain?” Speaking to Charles was like being put on the witness stand and hounded with questions. He’d make a fine barrister someday. “You were told to bring us here,” he said in his precise way, “because we’ve lost our nannies again. We’re to stay with Ivy and her nanny for today.”

“So you see, it worked out perfectly. I wanted to bring you along. I didn’t need to be asked.”

Lizbeth’s smile faltered and her eyes began to water. “I thought we’d been good this year. I don’t know why the nannies hate us.”

Dillie reached over and hurriedly gave her a hug. “It isn’t your fault. You’ve all been wonderful and I’m so glad you’re here. In truth, you three are my salvation. I’d be bored to tears without you.”

“We love you too,” Harry assured her, throwing his little arms about her waist and giving her a big hug emphasized by an effusive grunt. His hands were sticky, but what did it matter when she had his love?

Dillie hugged him back. “I have a game I know you’ll enjoy.”

The children squealed, their sadness quickly forgotten. “What is it?” Charles asked.

“It’s a musical game.”

Their ears perked.

“I’ll play the shoemaker’s song while you three walk around the piano. When I stop playing, you have to stop in place and stand as still as statues. Anyone who moves is out of the game. Then I’ll start playing again and the remaining players can start walking around the piano again.”

“And when you stop, we have to stop and pose as statues,” Lizbeth said, her eyes brimming with excitement.

Ah, children are so easily satisfied. Too bad men are not so easily handled.

She began to play the shoemaker song. It was a lively, skipping sort of tune. Lizbeth walked like a lady, nose in the air as she glided in front of the boys. Harry and Charles, being boys, were not required to take walking lessons. They hopped, jumped, skipped, and
clop, clop, clopped
around the piano, taking delight in the thuds they made upon the wood floor each time they landed. Harry, being quite little, did an admirable job of making noise. His little feet came down with the heft of a fat old man.

Dillie suddenly stopped playing. All three immediately stopped in their tracks, but as for posing as still as statues? It didn’t happen. They were fidgeting and giggling, but she wasn’t going to call them out. “Oh, you’re all too clever for me!”

She began to play again. Lizbeth resumed walking like a lady, her nose back in the air. The boys resumed hopping and clopping around the piano.

Once again she stopped playing. More laughter. More giggles and squirms.

They were so adorable, so intensely engaged in the game, that she couldn’t help but burst into ripples of laughter herself. The game continued, none of the children called out, and by now they were running and stomping around the piano as she played—until all of a sudden, they broke the circle and raced toward the door.

Dillie turned to call them back, but the words caught in her throat.

Ian was standing in the doorway. He looked devastatingly handsome as always, calm and composed even as the children slammed into him in their haste to welcome him and have him join in their game. Ivy’s nanny bustled in upon hearing the commotion, sparing Dillie the need to make excuses to the children as to why Ian could not join in.

The nanny clapped her hands to gain their attention. “Children, come along. It’s time for milk and biscuits.”

That halted any protest contemplated by the boys.

Lizbeth cast Dillie a shockingly mature grin, and then followed the boys out of the music room, leaving her alone with Ian. Dillie shook her head, laughing gently. “How long were you standing there?”

“Long time,” he said with a slight rasp to his voice. He shot her another one of his heart-melting smiles. If handsome were a crime, Ian would be imprisoned for life. “Harry left his handprints on your gown.”

She glanced down to inspect the outline of little fingers on each of her hips. “Oh dear, I hope it’s just chalk.”

When she looked up, Ian had an intensely scorching look in his eyes. Was he going to kiss her? He was staring at her lips. “What are you doing?”

“Studying you.” There was something in the way he spoke, a sensually husky whisper that stirred the butterflies in her stomach into their usual Ian-induced frenzy.

“I can see that. But why are you studying me?”
And not kissing me with reckless abandon.

He bent his head closer, so that their lips were almost touching. “Can’t help myself. You’re beautiful.”

“I suppose you say that to all your conquests.” She couldn’t help but be disappointed. Honestly, he’d just spouted an uninspired, and rather stale, line of seduction. He must have told thousands of women that they were beautiful, and then kissed them.

“Yes, I’ve said it before. Lots of times,” he admitted. “There are plenty of women who are outwardly beautiful, but...” His voice trailed off and he suddenly seemed to be struggling for words. Ian never struggled over anything. “I was watching the gentle way you handled the children. The way you played with them. The way they giggled and hugged you. They adore you. You’re so honest, so patient with them. That’s what makes you so incredibly beautiful.”

He cast her a look she’d never seen before, one that she doubted anyone had ever seen cast during Ian’s entire life. He was letting down his barriers, allowing her to see the pain he carried in his heart because of his unhappy childhood. Dillie wanted to cry. There was so much pain reflected in his gray-green eyes.

“Ian,” she said in a whisper, her heart aching so badly she could hardly speak. She reached up and lightly touched her mouth to his. “Thank you. I’ve never received a lovelier compliment.”

He said nothing, just circled his arms around her and drew her into his gentle embrace. She was up against his body. Big, muscled body. But it wasn’t a seductive embrace. She didn’t know what to think of it, for it seemed as though he were drowning and needed to hold onto something safe to keep from sinking underwater.

A hot tingle shot through her, even though he wasn’t trying to seduce her. But she always responded this way when she was in his arms. Or hoping to be in his arms. Or thinking of his muscled arms. Or thinking of him. She slid her hands up his chest and rested them on his shoulders, tugging on them to draw him even closer. It wasn’t nearly enough.