Four Nights With the Duke(40)

Ruthlessness took over.

She could. She would.

She wasn't the first woman to have fallen in love with a beautiful man.  Besides, everything might change in a few months. Vander might wake up  and realize that he wanted a wife like the one his friend Thorn had: a  perfect, exquisite noblewoman.

They would divorce . . . unless she was with child.

For a moment she lapsed into fear, her mind scurrying in circles. But  her brother, John, had been married to Pansy for years, and they had but  one child. Vander was an only child.

She had a vague understanding that it took repeated attempts over a long time.

The four nights rule would save her from that.





Chapter Twenty-two




NOTES ON FLORA'S EXILE





~ Flora believes Frederic jilted her, made her forfeit the inheritance, from pure malice. (That's good!)

~ Having spent her last 2d. on a crust of bread, she wanders along the  lanes of England, tattered, cold, hungry. Near death? Yes. Faints in a  field of bluebells poppies.





"Dear Mother, take me to thy Breast and save me from the Cruel  Indignities of this Cruel World," she breathed, as a single tear slid  down her porcelain cheek.





~ ghost of mother? "The dear face hovered above her, just out of reach  of her trembling fingers. ‘The Goodness of Heaven will guard you, my  Dearest Child, & keep you from the heartless intimacy of a Loveless  Marriage.'"

~ More than hunger, thirst, and cold, the spur to her flagging life  death was the understanding that the man who should most constitute her  Earthly Happiness-he whose love ought to fill her heart and mind-had  proved himself an infidel.

~ Infidel? Maybe not.

~ Ruffian. Rake. Roué.

~ Scoundrel?

~ "He whom she had long worshipped had proved himself naught but a  Worthless Idol. It was that cruelty that broke the soft heart of this  creature, the spirit, the joy of her family and friends. Now fallen  lower than the lowest of tavern wenches . . ."

~ Tavern wenches?

Mia bathed, dressed, and escaped her bedchamber without hearing a peep from her husband.

"Aunt Mia!" Charlie shouted when she opened the door to the nursery. "Look what Dobbie is doing now!"

He stood braced against the back of the settee, holding a crust of bread  in the air while a shaggy pillow pawed his legs. "I'm teaching Dobbie  to roll. Just look at this." He looked down at the dog at his feet and  commanded, "Roll, Dobbie, roll!"                       
       
           



       

Dobbie sat down and looked up at him, panting with willingness.

Mia waited, but nothing happened. "You'll get it, old fellow," Charlie  reassured the dog, dropping the bread into his open mouth.

"How did Dobbie and Winky sleep last night?" Mia inquired.

"They love being with me," Charlie boasted. "They used to be the duke's  mother's dogs, and His Grace says they've been lonely. I let them both  sleep on the bed with me, and they weren't lonely at all."

And neither was Charlie, apparently.

Mia went over and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. She remembered  the duchess' exquisitely groomed and scented dogs, always tricked out in  bright ribbons. A year after her death, the animals were considerably  shaggier, with no ribbons in sight.

Winky trotted over to her so she crouched down and scratched his ears.  He had thin legs, like the brown cigars that the grooms smoked when they  weren't on duty. Age had brought touches of white here and there, but  his eyes were still bright and cheerful.

"Do sit down, sweetheart," she said to Charlie. "You might fall, especially if Dobbie starts pawing your legs again."

"I'm trying to stay on my feet as much as possible. It will make me stronger. The duke says so."

Mia sat down and Winky hopped up, curling into a ball in her lap.

"Perhaps I'll sit down now," Charlie allowed.

She patted the sofa beside her and he picked up Dobbie and made his way around and sat.

"Mr. Gaunt thinks it best that they be kept out of the drawing room, but  they can go everywhere else with me. Just think: that old butler made  them sleep in the garden shed the whole last year," Charlie said,  stroking Dobbie's ears.

"That wasn't very nice," Mia agreed. "I gather you rescued them from the potato cellar."

Charlie nodded. "The duke and I went to the kitchens night before last,  because that's what we always do. We fetched something to eat, because  I'm growing."

"What you always do?" Mia echoed. "You've known His Grace for only two days, Charlie!"

"Well, perhaps not every day. But we did it at home, in Carrington  House, and last night too." He paused. "I suppose this is our home now,  Aunt Mia?"

Mia cleared her throat. "For now," she said weakly.

"The duke said Dobbie and Winky look like hairy eggs." He held Dobbie up  by his front paws and leaned forward to rub noses. "You're not a hairy  egg, are you, old fellow?" Dobbie obligingly licked him, giving a little  bark.

"Try not to let him lick your mouth," Mia said. She pulled her feet up  beneath her and shifted Winky to the crook of her left arm. "These dogs  are smaller than you were when you were born."

"Really?" Charlie was trying to avoid Dobbie's enthusiastic licks and giggling madly.

"You had a plump tummy. The duke is right: if Winky didn't have all this  fur, he wouldn't be much bigger than an egg. Of course, it would have  to be a large egg."

"Perhaps an ostrich egg," Charlie said. "I have just been reading about  them. An ostrich is an enormous bird that can't fly. It has the biggest  eggs of any bird."

"Where does one find an ostrich?"

"I don't remember. Not in Berkshire. Was my mother there when I was born?"

Mia opened her mouth and shut it again. Was Charlie still at the age where babies were found under cabbage leaves?

"Do you want to see how I can make Dobbie dance?" Charlie said, already having forgotten his question. "Look at this!"

Winky had gone to sleep, so Mia stopped stroking him. "I think I'll pay a  brief visit to the stables, Charlie. Perhaps you should work on your  essay for the vicar?"

"No, I want to come to the stables with you," Charlie said, dropping  Dobbie's legs. "I want to see the wild Arabian horse who loves only you.  Mary-she's the maid assigned to the nursery-told me all about him. His  name means storm, or something like that. I shall ride him. Someday."

Mia's head spun. Charlie was thinking of riding Jafeer? Not while she had breath in her body.

He hopped up and put his crutch under his arm. "Let's go! Winky and Dobbie can come as well."

"Winky is having a nap," Mia said, moving the little curl of dog onto the sofa cushion as she rose.

"That's because he's older," Charlie reported. "Winky could be a  grandfather. The duke says his mother bought Dobbie to be Winky's  friend."

"Why don't you three wait here, and I'll ask a footman to carry you downstairs," Mia suggested.                       
       
           



       

"I can get down the stairs myself," Charlie said, marching to the door and pulling it open. "Come on, Aunt Mia!"

Mia's heart sank. He would hang onto the railing and make his way down  backward, a step at a time, and agonizingly slowly; it could take an  hour to reach the bottom. She was longing for a cup of tea and  breakfast. "Have you eaten?" she asked Charlie.

"Not yet," he said, clumping his way along the corridor.

The stairs curved in a gracious semicircle. "Are you certain you don't  want me to fetch a footman, Charlie? It would be the work of a moment  for one of those young men to carry you down."

Charlie shook his head. "I'm too old for that. His Grace said so."

"His Grace said so?" What hadn't His Grace said?

"You may wait for me at the bottom," Charlie ordered, sounding for all the world like a duke himself.

He was growing up. That was natural, Mia told herself. Charlie issued  another order. "Dobbie, you go with Aunt Mia." The dog frisked around  Charlie's feet, paying no attention.

Mia picked up Dobbie and started down the stairs with a sigh. She would  have to discuss this with Vander. He was treating Charlie with cavalier  indifference, as if her nephew were a typical boy.

As she neared the stairs' midpoint, where the steps curved, Mia looked  back to check on Charlie's progress and discovered he was still at the  top, waving to a footman in the entry below.

"That's Roberts," Charlie shouted. "Hurry up, Aunt Mia, or I shall beat you!"

Before Mia could respond, he tucked his crutch under an arm, threw a leg over the railing, and whizzed past her.

Mia let out a shriek and dropped Dobbie. Mercifully, the animal landed  on his feet, barking madly, and bounced down the stairs, ears flapping.  For her part, Mia stopped breathing, heart pounding, until she saw  Roberts deftly catch Charlie.