Tamed by her Duke (Seductive Mysteries #4)

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

S omething strange was going on with his wife. Caleb didn’t like it.

He sat on one of the upper balconies, which had just the right angle that he could see, in the distance, where the full moon glinted against the dark water of the North Sea. It was, technically, a tactical weak point in the keep, this place where you could see the waves over the walls, but since it had been five or so centuries since someone had besieged Montgomery Estate by sea, Caleb felt that this weakness could be easily borne.

Besides, he liked to come here sometimes, when he needed to think.

He had learned something when he’d made the likely ill-advised decision to pleasure his wife against their dining room table.

He hadn’t merely discovered that Grace’s breath hitched in the moments before she hit her crisis, nor that bringing her pleasure had been as satisfying as achieving his own. He hadn’t just found that she was tantalizingly obedient when she put her mind to it, nor that she blushed all the way down the neckline of her gown when aroused.

No, he’d learned, more than all those other things, that his wife was—or had been, until the day prior—untouched.

He’d felt it when he’d pressed his fingers inside her, had seen the evidence in faint traces of blood afterward.

This presented two very snarly questions, which were keeping Caleb from his bed and his rest.

First, why had Grace been branded ruined by the ton ?

And second, why did he care?

If he’d been willing to take her ruined, he should be willing to take her a virgin, he reasoned. It didn’t make any difference to him.

Except it did, somehow. It made something fierce and curious and possessive wake inside him. Something dangerous.

He was pondering this and feeling rather annoyed about it when a voice interrupted.

“Oh, my—I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

Insanely, part of him wanted to laugh. Of course she would appear here. She was everywhere.

“Don’t bother, leannan ,” he said, ignoring the way the endearment was tripping off his tongue with increasing ease of late. “Come sit, if ye like. Night’s pleasant enough.”

She was, as appeared to be her habit during these nighttime excursions, wearing her night rail and a blanket, fashioned like a cloak around her shoulders. Did the woman nae own a dressing gown? The idea made him frown. He’d have one purchased for her. His eyes darted down. And bare feet.

Her lack of sense would be the end of him. As she perched on the stone bench beside him, he found himself absently tucking the blanket around her small, narrow feet. He snatched his hands back when he saw her blink at him in surprise.

“Nightmares again?” he asked. It wasn’t kind, that question—or at least he hadn’t done it for kind reasons. Her look had made him feel exposed, and he wanted to even the field.

Even so, her subtle wince made him feel like a blackguard.

“I didn’t realize they bothered you,” she said, playing with a loose thread on the tartan wool. “I’ve tried to keep quiet.”

A curious answer.

“What do ye dream about?” he asked, wondering if the question revealed too much.

She huffed a humorless laugh.

“Ghosts,” she said, which was no answer at all. But if he pressed further, he would be revealing himself—to her and to himself. He wanted to know, but he didn’t dare ask himself why.

It was all far too dangerous for a man like him.

The silence between them was soft as eiderdown. He’d found that it was becoming increasingly easy to simply be with Grace, to have her beside him without silence or friction. Of course, he’d also found that he minded it less when she spoke, too. She was frustratingly clever at times.

It made him wish he’d been more careful, that he’d found a useless bit of fluff to marry, had made sure that his bride was as uninspiring as blancmange poorly made.

Except, that was, for the parts of him that didn’t wish any such thing at all.

He was relieved when she spoke, as it saved him from doing anything as foolish at touching her.

“I received the most thoughtful missive from Lady Fenwick this morning,” she said.

She sounded as airy as if she were in a London drawing room, and he appreciated the reminder that she was just another coddled Society lady. If he insisted on finding her intriguing it was no doubt because he was drowning in unspent lust. He’d nearly taken himself in hand a dozen times over the last several days before, each time, inanely deciding it would not be satisfying .

He grunted then had to suppress a smile when she rolled her eyes expressively enough that he could see it clearly, even in the dark.

This was, alas, yet another sign that he was being driven mad with unspent ardor. Her persistent disrespect should have annoyed him, not amused him.

“It appears,” she went on when it became apparent that he did not intend to contribute further, “that the Fenwicks have coordinated with several prominent local families to throw a banquet to welcome us to the area. Well,” she amended after a beat, “to welcome me and welcome you back , I suppose.”

He wasn’t sure if she was intentionally lying or was really quite so oblivious, but he felt entirely certain that this banquet was for Grace and Grace alone.

“You may go,” he said. “I decline.”

She shifted her weight to look at him more directly, and it caused a gap in her blanket. His hands itched with the urge to close that gap before cool night air could touch her.

“You can’t decline ,” she insisted. “It’s in our honor.”

“I can and I am,” he returned. “Go without me or don’t go at all.”

She didn’t balk or squawk. She peered at him.

“Why don’t you want to go?”

A plague upon clever women who asked probing questions, Caleb thought passionately.

Obfuscation, he sensed, would do him no good. She had that annoyingly intent look on her face that said she meant to get answers whether he wanted to give them or not.

He sighed. He was too tired for this.

“It will spoil things if I go, lass,” he said, not sure why he was bothering to gentle his tone. “The Dukes of Montgomery…have a reputation around here.”

She actually snorted .

“You could try just being nice to them,” she said. “Have you tried that? I feel you haven’t tried that.”

And damn her for making him want to laugh, even as they threatened to tread on his most tender spots.

“It’s nae just me,” he said, swallowing hard against thickness in his throat. “The old duke—my father, that is… He was nae a kind man. Folks around here were frightened of him—and are frightened of me. It’s always been that way. There’s really no changing it, so it’s best just to let things be.”

“That,” said the retiring English flower he’d married, “is idiotic.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Christ, now he sounded like a retiring English flower.

The look Grace was giving him was highly skeptical.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” she said. “I do not struggle to believe that you would be simply horrid at a banquet. You are mean, rude, and arrogant. When you’re not being those things, you are annoying. I will be the first to say it.”

“You certainly would not be the first to say it,” Caleb groused, feeling a bit put out. She was saying these things as though they were meant to make him feel better, though he wasn’t sure how . “But please, don’t mince your words on my account.”

“But,” she concluded grandly, “you are not frightening .”

For a moment, this gave Caleb pause. Then he burst out laughing.

Grace looked extraordinarily pleased with herself.

“Very well, lass,” he chuckled. “Ye’ve got me there. Ye are the first one to say that.”

She rolled her eyes again, but she was smiling.

“Oh stop. You really aren’t that frightening. You’re tall. And very cross, nearly all the time, which is strange and irksome. But it’s not frightening.”

She was so unimpressed, so dismissive that he could not help but want to tease her. He moved along the stone bench until he positively loomed over her. Her breath hitched a little but not in fear—though Caleb didn’t dare think about the other possible reason for her reaction.

A dining room table was one thing; a balcony was another entirely.

He bared his teeth at her, making himself look as gruesome as possible.

“Are ye no scared of me, then, lassie?” He tugged a little at a loose strand of her hair. That much, he could not resist.

Her bravado was not feigned.

“Goodness, you do think highly of yourself, don’t you?” she accused. “I’ve seen far more frightening things, thank you very much. You are no more than a sarcastic recluse. You’ll have to do better if you intend to alarm me . And,” she said, holding up a finger, “I think you will find that if you put in a modicum of effort, you needn’t tremble in fear of your neighbors just because your father was a boor.”

She was, alas, simply precious in her defiance—glaring up at him so intently, while wearing naught but a thin linen nightdress and a blanket—that he could not help his laughter. When he saw her pleased reaction, he did not attempt to hold it back.

He enjoyed the way she looked at him, there in the moonlight, so very much that it was not until later, when they had both retired to their beds, that he wondered what frightening things his pampered aristocratic wife had ever been forced to face.

Grace had not been in the habit of lurking around kitchens since she was a child hoping to pilfer a jam tart or three, but she found, in her second week at Montgomery Estate, that she was spending a fair amount of time there. Her reasons were twofold. First, it was the warmest room in the house by far. She learned this during an unfortunate cold snap that had wandered into the house and attempted to stay within its stone walls long after the weather outside had recalled that they were well into spring. Grace, who held a moral objection to shivering in one’s home, had plunked down in the kitchens, fluffed herself out like a disgruntled bird, and tried to ignore all the cautious looks the servants gave her until they decided she was probably there for harmless reasons.

Second, as she’d learned around the time that she’d stopped rubbing her arms to banish the chill, Mrs. Bradley chattered while she cooked.

This made the kitchen the most wonderful font of information.

Plus, there were very often biscuits.

“—and if ye’re thinkin’ this is cold, Yer Grace, just ye wait until His Grace takes ye to Scotland. Oh, that’ll put a right shiver in yer bones, it will.”

Mrs. Bradley, Grace had learned, had been all too happy to come south—as she called it—to serve in Caleb’s household after he’d inherited.

“Why, I remember one spring where we got snow so late—why, it must’ve been near on June, since I was worried the eggs would freeze and I’d not be able to make a cake for Master Leonard’s birthday?—”

“Who is Leonard?” Grace asked idly. She was shelling peas, mainly because she’d seen the peas and started, and all the maids seemed too worried about offending her to ask her to stop. It had been one of the chores she hadn’t minded, when she’d been away, and her movements were deft and mindless.

“His Grace’s bro—” The woman stopped herself, as if realizing she were about to speak out of turn. Then cleared her throat, apparently deciding it was far too late for discretion. “His Grace’s brother,” he said, far less animatedly than she had been mere moments before.

Grace’s fingers stilled.

“I—I didn’t realize His Grace had a brother,” she said, feeling like the worst kind of idiot for having to say it out loud. It was bad enough that the whole household seemed to know that Caleb wanted her only for the heirs she might provide, but it stung to be reminded of this fact, particularly when things had been going reasonably smoothly between them.

Mrs. Bradley cast a glance over her shoulder, and whatever she saw in Grace’s face made the woman turn from the stove and wipe her hands with the ever-present rag she kept tucked into the front of her apron.

“Master Leonard was His Grace’s brother,” she amended, the emphasis clear enough for Grace to fill in the rest of the story in her head.

“Ah,” Grace said.

The cook pressed her lips together, as if deciding what else she wanted to say. “Those boys…well, they loved one another something fierce,” she said at last. “Even so, they were different as can be. Master Caleb—as we called him then, ye ken—was always much as ye know him now. Big. Brave. Not afraid to speak his mind.”

Despite her mounting dread at this line of conversation, Grace felt her lips twitch. That was her husband indeed.

“Master Leonard, though… He was smaller. More sensitive. And his big brother doted on him. Once, when one of the local lads tried to pick a fight with Leonard—who was half his size, mind—His Grace beat the boy so badly he near on killed him. Might have finished the job, had not his wee brother calmed him down.”

The cook seemed musingly pensive now, as if too lost in her reminiscences to fully appreciate what she was revealing. Grace, meanwhile, was shocked.

How could she reconcile her husband—the man she’d just honestly declared to be not at all frightening in the least—to someone who could so lose himself to fury that he nearly beat another boy to death?

How could she imagine the man who’d brazenly told her she was a broodmare and nothing else as a boy who so fiercely loved his brother that he would shed blood to defend him?

Mrs. Bradley heaved a sigh, seeming to come out of her reverie.

“Well,” she said, reaching for her rag with automatic movements. “T’was a sorry day when we all lost Master Leonard, I’ll tell ye that. And it hit His Grace the hardest, of course. So mayhap that’s why ye’ve not heard talk of him. Some wounds stay fresh, ye ken?”

Grace’s mind flickered, however briefly, to the wounds of her own that she tried never to disturb.

“Of course,” she said, proud when her voice came out even. “I thank you for telling me, Mrs. Bradley. I shall do my best to avoid upsetting His Grace on any such topic.”

Mrs. Bradley shot Grace a fond look, even as she turned back to the stove. Despite her soft gaze, she seemed to censor her words before she spoke.

“We’re all mighty pleased to have ye here, Your Grace. I hope ye know that.”

Grace could not manage more than a smile in response. She finished the peas and headed up to her bedchamber, worried her hands would begin to shake if she had nothing to occupy them.

She paused at the entrance to her room when she saw an unfamiliar gown draped over the end of the bed. It was beautiful, done in the same blues and browns as that blanket she was always wearing about like it was clothing. The hues would have looked sepulchral in a London ballroom, but here, in the moody skies of the north, it felt right. Grace loved it at once with a nearly absurd passion, given it was just a frock.

But it wasn’t just a frock, for next to it, in a hand she knew innately to be her husband’s, was a note.

Wear this to the banquet.

It was high handed and absurd—which meant, of course, that it was Caleb through and through. She found herself crushing the note to her chest before she could stop herself.

The note was secretive, too—which was also like her husband, she was increasingly coming to learn. Because no matter how many times she read it, she could not tell if this meant that he was still sending her off to the banquet on her own, albeit with his blessing, or if maybe, just maybe, he’d heard her when she’d encouraged him to try a different way.