Four Nights With the Duke(54)

"I never could get you to look at yourself in a glass," he said, shaking his head.

Mia looked down. It had turned out that Madame duBois's idea of a bodice was little more than a corset with a covering of tulle.                       
       
           



       

"Not just your breasts," Edward said, in the detached tones of a  scholar, "though those are damned beautiful. You are exquisite, Mia.  Every part of you: your spirit, your laugh, your face, your body."

Mia found herself turning rosy. "You never said anything like that before."

"I had a lot of time to think in prison."

She flinched at the thought of where he'd been, and only managed a  wobbly smile. Edward took both her hands in his and raised one of them  to his lips. "You're well out of that marriage, Mia. Marry me, and we'll  raise Charlie in a house full of books and children, and the kind of  love that grows and deepens."

"That sounds lovely." She managed a wobbly smile. "Thank you. But I  can't marry you. I do love you, but-but more like a brother, Edward."

His eyes darkened. "It may feel familial now, but I assure you that with time a different bond will grow between us."

Prison had changed Edward. He was more muscled, and he had a ferocious  edge that she didn't remember. He used to look professorial. But even  with a broken nose, he was a very good-looking man.

"Don't answer me now," he said, before she could reply. "This is no time to make decisions."

"Very well," she answered. She was beginning to feel like a teakettle  coming on to boil. It wasn't just tears bubbling up inside her. It was  anger too.

Vander had said hurtful things during their marriage, but he had also  said other things. He had made her feel beautiful. He had laughed at her  jokes. He had not shown even the slightest distaste when he learned  that she and Lucibella were one and the same; indeed, he had been  fascinated in her writing.

Her father and brother had dismissed her novels. Edward had been  supportive, but uninterested. Vander might have poked fun at her  characters, but he had listened intently and made suggestions, though  none of them were usable.

He had made her feel accomplished. Cherished.

But it was all a lie.

Edward leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers. Before she could  stop him, the kiss deepened. Mia froze, letting it happen. She felt no  reaction at all. None. Edward had broken out of prison, then returned to  her-and ungrateful wretch that she was, she felt nothing for him other  than affection.

Mia used to think that love could come after a wedding. But her love for  Edward would never be like a wildfire that ravaged everything in its  path. It would never strip Mia of all her illusions about herself and  the world, and throw her naked onto the ground. Turn her into a woman  aflame with desire.

That would never happen to her again.

That's when the tears came.





Chapter Thirty-one




After Edward Reeve drove away with his duchess, Vander sent a message to  Thorn, informing him of the man's miraculous reappearance. Then he  rooted Charlie out of the nursery for another riding lesson.

He called him "Gimpy" all afternoon, because his ward looked pale and  shocked, though Charlie improved after Vander allowed him to trot  Lancelot for the first time. Sometime later they groomed the horse  together, and Vander showed him how to pick stones out of a horse's  hoof.

One thing led to another, and they ended up in the blacksmith's shop on  the estate. Charlie was not afraid of the pungent smoke or glowing  coals, though Mia would have shrieked if she had seen her beloved boy's  jacket smoldering from a flying spark.

Once Vander explained what he had in mind, the blacksmith took Charlie's  crutch apart and inserted a small dagger while they watched. Mia  probably wouldn't approve of that, either.

On the way back, Vander hoisted Charlie onto his shoulder and the boy  slung a thin arm around Vander's neck and chattered about horses and  smithies all the way back up the hill. Charlie had decided that he would  like to be a blacksmith. Vander didn't point out that a hereditary  title and its estate could not be renounced in favor of a smithy. He was  living proof that a member of the peerage need not restrict himself to  lounging about ballrooms.

"I could make crutches for people like me," Charlie told him.

"From steel? They'd make an awful racket on the cobblestones."

"But wood isn't as strong. You could swing a steel crutch and take  someone's head off," Charlie said, with relish. He was a boy, through  and through.

Even as Charlie happily nattered on, resolve was slowly growing in  Vander's mind. Sir Richard Magruder had ruined his damned life, as  surely as if he'd swung a steel crutch at his head. And Vander meant to  pay him a visit that very night.

"Aunt Mia says we're moving back to Carrington House," Charlie said, out  of the blue. He was clutching Vander's hair to keep his balance.                       
       
           



       

"Yes. But you'll pay me frequent visits, as often as every day, if you're not at school."

"I will?"

Vander gave the legs dangling against his chest a squeeze. "You're mine, Squinty."

"I don't squint!" Charlie squealed.

"I'm preparing for when you do," Vander told him. "Looking ahead."

Charlie gave his hair a tug. "I want to live here, with you. I want to go to the stables every day."

Vander reached up, lifted him over his head, and set him down. Then he  crouched down so they were at eye level. "You have to go away to school,  Charlie. You'll be going to Eton with other boys. But you'll be luckier  than they are, because you'll have two fathers: Mr. Reeve and me."

Charlie's mouth twitched.

"He's a good man," Vander said, hating every word. "Your Aunt Mia will  be his wife. But never forget that your estate runs alongside my lands.  We will see each other often, for the rest of our lives."

Charlie stepped forward and with the great simplicity of childhood, put his arms around Vander's neck. He didn't say anything.

And Vander didn't say anything either.

After a while, they continued on their way. They talked about how a  blacksmith was the heart of a great estate. Charlie would need to know  these things.

Vander had the feeling that professors didn't know how to run estates.  Why should they? "A good smith will say that a ‘job well done is a job  never seen again,'" he told Charlie, keeping an eye out to see if the  boy was starting to flag from overdoing it. But his leg was visibly  stronger, just in the last week.

They returned to the stables and stayed there until Thorn showed up,  walking from his carriage with that loose-limbed ferocity of his. He  didn't say a word about what had happened. Instead, the three of them  got grubby washing down Jafeer, and ate roughly cut ham sandwiches with  the grooms while discussing training schedules and other important  things.

When Charlie had been dispatched to the care of Susan, Vander jerked his  head at Thorn. "Sir Richard had Mia's fiancé-Reeve-thrown in prison  under false charges. He was about to be sent to Botany Bay when he  escaped."

"Reeve? Edward Reeve who made that paper machine I told you about?"

Vander nodded.

"I never knew the name of your wife's betrothed."

"Not my wife for long," Vander said, striding into the house. "She will be Reeve's wife, which is the way it should be."

"Right." There was something guarded in Thorn's voice, but Vander ignored it.

"Sir Richard?" Thorn asked, following him into his bedchamber.

Vander nodded. The time had come. He stripped, then donned a black shirt and close-fitting trousers that went to his ankles.

"My breeches and coat are dark, but my shirt won't do. Have you another black shirt?" Thorn asked.

"This will be dangerous. Your wife is carrying a child."

Thorn's response to this was a curled lip, and after a moment Vander  tossed him a shirt like the one he'd put on. Then Thorn left to collect  his matched pistols, left in his carriage, and Vander took his own  Bennett & Lacy pistols from the gun cabinet. They were overly  embellished for his taste, with the ducal insignia picked out in silver,  but their aim was true.

It would take approximately an hour to reach Sir Richard's estate, on  the far side of the Carrington lands, if they went across country on  swift horses. If there was one thing Vander's stables could supply, it  was swift horses.

He had thought to take his usual mount, but as he walked down the  central corridor of the stable, he heard a soft whicker. Jafeer's head  appeared over his stall door. His eyes shone with lonely, surprised  betrayal. Mia hadn't come to the stables before she left.