The Irish Duchess (36 page)

Morton frowned at Fiona’s conversing with the enemy, but etiquette required he acknowledge the lady. Fiona flashed him another smile as she accepted her cup. Power definitely could be a heady elixir.

“I was just telling Lady Whitton I missed seeing her husband here tonight. The duke would so like to talk with him about a few matters he’s been considering. But it’s a pity to spoil a party by talking politics.” She turned her head flirtatiously toward Mrs. Whitton’s anonymous partner, another crony of Townsend’s, she suspected.

“And you, sir, how is your health? So many of our older, wiser heads have retired or are considering retiring from the public arena, it seems. It’s a pity that my husband and his friends carry more and more of the burden these days. I’d much rather keep him at home. But duty calls and the good of the country is more important, I suppose. I do hope he finds more men like you to help him.”

The lady’s escort frowned. “As you say, Your Grace, but I cannot recollect anyone retiring lately.”

Fiona gave a trill of embarrassed laughter. “Have you not? Oh, I am so very sorry. I must be speaking out of turn. That’s the reason Neville never brings me to these things, you know. I’m such a prattlebox. I’m supposed to hear everything and say nothing, but I vow it’s a hard lesson to learn.”

One of the gentleman standing close by intruded. “Someone in the cabinet is retiring, you say? Can’t think who. Liverpool won’t let ’em.”

Fiona covered her smile with her fan. “Oh, and I’m sure I have it all turned about. I remember Neville mentioning several people who will be offering their resignations when the reform bill passes. He said something about it was time they retired, and I took it to mean...” She trailed the sentence off uncertainly.

Another gentleman took up the lapse. “Nonsense. The reform bill hasn’t the votes to pass. Liverpool’s cabinet will stand solidly behind us on that.”

Fiona fluttered her lashes above the fan. “Oh, I’m certain I know nothing of cabinets and such, but my husband is quite positive about the bill. He’s promised me, you see, and he told me just last night he had the votes. That’s when the topic of retirements came up, but I most likely misunderstood that part. But I did understand when he said I could give a select dinner for his friends to celebrate his success. I do so hope you all will be able to come,” she said with a trace of wistfulness. “Neville has this terrible habit of dismissing anyone who disagrees with him.” She brightened again. “It’s a good thing Effingham and my cousin agree with him then, is it not? I shall always be able to count on their presence.”

Closing her fan and smiling fatuously, she took Morton’s arm, bade her farewells, and practically steered him into the ballroom.

“Since I know demmed good and well Neville didn’t marry an idiot, could you please explain that performance?” Morton demanded as they walked the perimeter of the ballroom, out of the way of the dancers.

“Don’t be such a slow-top,” Fiona scoffed, scanning the room for her next victim. “I told them the bill will pass, Neville is almost guaranteed a cabinet position, and that he’ll demand the resignations of all those who don’t support him. And then I promised them they’d be rewarded with invitations to the first entertainment Anglesey has ever given if they step in line.”

“My word,” Morton exclaimed, tallying the number of lords she’d just bribed. “You’ve a devilish mind beneath all that hair. Does Neville know?”

Fiona shrugged. “He knows. He just doesn’t understand it yet.”

***

“I say, Your Grace, your wife has a flare for words, don’t she? I hadn’t thought of your reform bill in quite those terms before.”

Neville turned with a forbidding frown and examined the intruder with his quizzing glass. Turner, son-in-law of Lord Whitton, Townsend’s party, he deduced warily. He would have dismissed the man summarily had his words not caught his interest.

“In quite what terms?” he asked coldly.

“H-hungry children,” Turner stammered. Gathering his courage, he straightened his shoulders and continued. “It costs more to transport or hang a child caught stealing bread than to feed one. We’re wasting money on trying petty thieves for capital crimes when we could send them to the mills and put them to work instead.”

Send them to the mills? Neville almost repeated the preposterous suggestion aloud, but he bit his tongue. He heard Fiona’s Irish tale-telling behind this, and he really didn’t want to hear the whole of it. He had difficulty enough keeping a straight face as it was.

“We’ll need someone to look into all the ramifications, of course,” Neville said, maintaining as solemn a tone as he could muster.

“I’d be delighted to help in any way I can,” Turner responded eagerly, just as Neville had known he would. “My wife would kill me should I let this opportunity pass. She has three unmarried sisters, you know. You can count on my support tomorrow.”

Three unmarried sisters? Neville tried to assemble that irrelevant information as Turner walked away, then scowled at the appearance of a laughing Aberdare.

“If I forget to vote tomorrow, will you ban me from the Event of the Season, your honor?”

“Event of the season?” A tingling at the base of his spine warned Neville that this would all make sense shortly, but he wouldn’t necessarily like it. One of Michael’s favorite hobbies was laughing at Neville’s discomfiture.

“Aye, and our Fiona is personally organizing the guest list as we speak. She’s rearranging the cabinet too, but Liverpool hasn’t seen fit to show his face so she hasn’t informed him yet.”

“The cabinet?” The tingling transformed into a decided sinking sensation. “I don’t suppose you tried to stop her?” he inquired with resignation.

“Stop her?” Michael asked incredulously. “Would you stop a frigate in full sail? Heaven forbid. I’ll salute her as she passes and stay out of her way.”

That’s what Neville had thought. That’s what everyone had done all of Fiona’s life. The woman didn’t know the meaning of boundaries. Neville wondered if he really wanted to be the one to teach her.

But he’d lived his life by caution, and he couldn’t help thinking caution a necessity now. Someone had already attempted to abduct her once. If she was personally choreographing the passage of the reform bill, they might not stop at abduction next time. Remembering the gang of thugs and the blow to his head, Neville rubbed his skull.

Leaving Aberdare to his own devices, Neville stalked toward the ballroom and his interfering wife.

“My dance, I believe?”

Fiona looked up, startled, at her husband’s voice. She hadn’t heard him approach. She read nothing in Neville’s expression, but she sensed his tension. She really ought to refuse his offer, but aside from the suspicion that he wouldn’t accept her refusal, she wanted to dance with him.

She took his offered arm and nodded to her audience as regally as any duchess. Leaving them open-mouthed, she followed Neville onto the dance floor. The orchestra struck up a waltz, the brutes.

“That was abominably rude, your highness,” she taunted as her husband wrapped his arm around her waist. The full force of Neville’s hot gaze threatened to ignite a raging inferno as he swung her into the dance.

“I’m a duke. They’ll excuse my rudeness,” he replied arrogantly. “You’ll learn that soon, if you haven’t already. You’ve certainly learned the role of duchess quickly enough.”

“You would prefer I remain barefoot and ignorant?” Fiona asked with what she hoped was an arrogance akin to his.

“I would prefer you remain just plain bare and in my bed,” he replied in a gruff tone and with a look that quaked Fiona to her toes, “but I can see my preferences have little enough to do with anything.”

Caught on the broadsword of his gaze, Fiona didn’t answer. The heat of Neville’s palm burned through the frail silk of her gown. He held her closer than the dance required, and his thighs brushed hers as he spun her around the floor. His expressive eyebrows had pulled together in a frown, but she didn’t think it was an entirely disapproving frown so much as one of indecision. Her heart pounded while his powerful mind worked through all the alternatives. She knew the moment he gave up the task and surrendered to the flames already eating her alive.

“I think it’s time we bade our farewells,” she suggested.

He didn’t do any such thing. As the music swelled to its end, Neville spun her off the dance floor, caught her waist, and half carried her past the crowd to the ballroom entrance. Fiona had a glimpse of Lady Effingham’s startled gaze as they swept by, but one look at Neville’s face apparently convinced her not to intrude.

Since the men had decided it would be simpler to guard their wives if they were all in one establishment, Fiona and Neville had rooms upstairs in Effingham’s town house. Neville steered her up those stairs now.

“Neville, this is abominably rude,” Fiona whispered as she realized where they were going. “Blanche will worry—”

“No, she won’t. She has better things to do. If she worried about you at all, she would have halted your performance.” Neville threw open their bedchamber door and pushed her through.

Fiona resisted, but not hard enough. He slammed the door behind them and turned the key in the lock.

Hands on hips, she whirled to face him. “If you brought me here only to scold, you’ve wasted your time.”

“Scolding is the very last thing on my mind.” Without warning, Neville dragged her fully against him and captured her mouth with his, preventing any further argument.

Hot coals and summer breezes whirled inside her. Fiona hated how easily he turned her into quivering blanc mange. She tried fighting it by pushing at Neville’s chest, but her fingers curled in his shirt instead. Closing her mouth against his kiss never occurred to her. Her mind defiantly resisted as he cupped her hips in both hands and pulled her toward him, but the rest of her didn’t cooperate. She pressed against him and desire spiraled through her at the evidence of his arousal.

He pushed her against the wall until their hips ground together and their clothing was all that prevented their melding there and then. Fiona moaned as Neville thrust his tongue deeper, claiming her in this way instead. She had no idea when he’d unfastened her gown, but it fell off her shoulders under his marauding hands. They could fight some other time. She needed him now. It had been too damned long.

She tore at his waistcoat and cravat to get at his shirt fastenings. She needed to feel his flesh. He wouldn’t release her long enough to succeed. He had her half undressed and she couldn’t touch him.

Furious with frustration, Fiona caught his hands where they plundered her breasts and shoved him away. Startled, Neville stepped back a fraction, and Fiona grabbed the opportunity to wriggle out of her gown. His eyes lit with the heat of admiration as she stripped naked, but still he didn’t understand. Fiona tugged on his cravat until he nearly choked. He pulled it off then.

He pulled off his coat and waistcoat too, his gaze never once straying from hers. She shivered at the determination she read there, but she wanted to be the focus of his attention for a change. It was her turn. She had earned this.

She slid her hand over his muscled torso as he jerked his shirt over his head. Heat scorched her palms. His bare arms pulled her against him, until flesh met flesh, and heat wrapped around them. Tilting her head, she accepted his kiss again, and gave herself up to the explorations of his tongue and hands. They might never agree on anything else, but they would always be together in this.

Fiona didn’t waste time wondering if lovemaking was enough. She’d chosen her path, made her bed, and now she would make the best of it. She reached for the fastenings of Neville’s trousers.

They never quite reached the bed.

Thirty-five

As the first rays of dawn lightened the draperies, Neville bent over his beautiful, sleeping wife and pressed a kiss against her forehead. Deeply shaken by the prior night, he needed time to think. Quietly, he slipped from the bed.

He held his breath as Fiona stirred at his departure. She needed her sleep. He had kept her awake far longer than was good for either of them, but worse for her. Circles shadowed her brilliant eyes, even in sleep. Shards of pain rendered his insides. No matter how much courage Fiona possessed, no matter how strong she pretended to be, she couldn’t do everything.

He wanted to take care of her and keep her safe forever.

Slipping into his clothes, hardening his heart against the need to crawl back in that bed and love her once again, Neville gathered up the things he needed, unlocked the door from the inside, stepped out, and with determination, locked the door again from the outside.

***

“She’s gone!” Dillian, Lady Effingham, exclaimed, running up as her husband and his brother entered the townhouse later that afternoon, still celebrating their triumph.

“Who’s gone?” Effingham asked with a frown as he dropped his gloves on the table and looked around for their usually hovering butler. “And are our bags packed and ready?”

“We sent your bags to the yacht, as you requested. And who do you
think
has gone?” Blanche asked sarcastically. She glared at her insouciant husband who twirled his hat on the tip of his finger and leaned against the wall without bothering to remove his outer garments. “Locking Fiona in her room is not the best way to acknowledge how she helped you win that bill.”

Finally noticing the Irish earl’s suspicious behavior, Dillian also focused her glare on him. “Why isn’t Neville with you?”

Michael shrugged, popped his tall hat back on his head, and pushed away from the wall. “Don’t know. I’ll find out, shall I?”

“Where’s that damned butler?” Effingham grumbled, reaching for his hat again.

“Out looking for you. We heard the bill passed hours ago and you didn’t come home! We fretted all afternoon.” Dillian glared at her husband. “Fiona refused to wait any longer. You have to find her.”

Wearily, the marquess glanced at his adopted brother. “The docks?” he inquired.

Michael shrugged. “Where else?”

Without further explanation to their worried wives, they retraced their path out the door.