Tamed by her Duke (Seductive Mysteries #4)

Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

“ G ood Lord,” Grace said, stunned. “I did not think I’d ever say this but…thank you for dragging us north the absolute instant we were wed.”

Caleb gave her a speaking glance. “Do ye recall how ye keep assuring me that ye’re not frightened of me? Is there any way I can change that?” he asked dryly.

Grace grinned. “There is not. You’ve shown your hand, I’m afraid.”

“Bollocks,” he grumbled before walking deeper into the most decrepit townhouse Grace had ever seen.

The outside had been mostly respectable, which Grace assumed was the only reason Caleb’s neighbors hadn’t been camped outside with pitchforks, demanding that he update the place. The facade was neat, for all that she had immediately pinpointed a half dozen places that she could, with very little effort, modernize the place.

It was also a terrible lie designed to fool Grace into a false sense of complacency.

Come inside , it said. It’s nice in here. You can have a pleasant rest after your journey back to Town .

She didn’t even follow her husband further into the house, too stunned by rooms that were positively crowded with…well things , she supposed, as there was something of nearly every category of item she could think of, as well as several things she could not categorize at all.

“Welcome, Your Grace.” This was Mrs. O’Mailey, looking grim and sardonic. She and a few of the more adventurous maids had left Montgomery Estate two days ahead of Grace and Caleb so as to ready the London property.

Grace had initially been surprised that the house was not staffed, even minimally. Now she was distracted by wondering what it had looked like before the highly competent housekeeper had been working for over a day.

“I…feel like I don’t even know what I’m seeing,” Grace told the other woman. “I… Who decorated this?”

Mrs. O'Mailey sniffed. “Decorated is not the word I’d use, with all due respect, Your Grace,” she said. “But—as I gather it— His Grace’s grandfather wanted to come to Town. His wife—Scottish, too; there’s a history of it, with the Montgomery line—did not.”

“So she…filled the house too much for human beings to inhabit?” Grace asked doubtfully.

Mrs. O’Mailey shrugged. “I think it was more that she sent down all the things she hated from Montgomery Estate, but the effect was much the same.”

“Two birds with one stone,” Grace observed, impressed with the efficiency—and grateful for a certain former duchess for ensuring that Grace did not have to live in a house filled with things like… “Dear God. Does that tapestry show a beheading?”

“Oh, would ye like that one returned to Montgomery Estate, Your Grace?” the housekeeper asked sweetly. “We could have it installed in yer bedchamber, if ye like.”

“As long as you’re prepared to have my death on your head when I die of fright,” Grace said, just as sweetly.

Once she and the housekeeper had come to an agreement that, yes, it really was as bad as their eyes informed them, Mrs. O’Mailey expertly assembled the maids—and an errant footman she seemed to have conjured out of thin air—and set them about removing the worst of the offending items while Grace retreated to her bedchamber for a much-needed bath.

She’d had a bath the night before, at the inn where they’d stopped for the night, but as her husband had slipped into her bed in the dark of night—and then had amused himself during the long journey by slipping a hand up her skirts and teasing her until she was panting and begging—another felt important before she greeted her friends.

She had just finished drying herself off—but was not yet dressed—when her husband entered, an intrigued look dawning on his face when he saw her state.

“No,” she said firmly. “Absolutely not. I’ve just gotten out of the bath and Diana, Emily, and Frances will be here soon. You will have to wait until this evening.”

Since that first night, when they’d told one another everything, Caleb had been as hungry for her as she was for him. He would come to her after she was already asleep, waking her with kisses before slipping inside her, leaving before the sun rose in the sky. She’d been too busy with preparations for their travel back to London to put up a proper argument over the fact that she had not yet seen him unclothed—something that seemed particularly unfair as he looked her over, taking in her form with avid interest.

“They could wait,” he said thoughtfully.

“No!” she said again, snatching up a dressing gown and then adding a blanket atop it for good measure. “Go away! Take your—your looks elsewhere!”

He gave her another long look that made her feel naked despite the doubled layers she’d covered herself with, then quirked up the corner of his mouth in the way that felt like an intriguing promise.

Which meant, when he did leave, Grace didn’t know if she was pleased or disappointed that he’d listened.

Fortunately, she was distracted by a need to hurry, her eagerness to see her friends again forestalling any delay, no matter how pleasurable. She’d written to Diana, Frances, and Emily the moment she’d ascertained their travel plans and had arrived at the London townhouse to the delightful news that they would be coming by for tea.

When one of the maids came to her door to inform her that the Duchess of Hawkins, the Marchioness of Oackley, and the Countess of Moore were awaiting her in the front parlor, Grace hurried down to find a room that was—well, still dreadful, but considerably less so.

Emily and Frances were settled on a settee, Evan standing seriously behind his wife, while Diana was peering delightedly at some of the art hanging on the crowded walls.

“Look at this positively horrible baby,” she said, clearly thrilled. “Goodness, it’s so ugly . Babies don’t look like this at all—not even the unfortunate ones.”

“I believe,” said Grace, who was not too mature to enjoy a dramatic entrance, “that one is too old for us to feel comfortable chucking it in the fire. As that’s the best way to exorcise a haunting, there’s really no telling what ghouls might inhabit this house.”

Diana stood so rapidly she nearly whacked her head on another protruding frame.

“Grace!” she cried.

In an instant, Grace was drowning in embraces, Diana nearly tackling her in her exuberance, Emily using her height to lean over Diana’s head. Frances wrapped her arms around Grace from the other side.

Grace laughed, letting herself be wrapped up in their love.

“You’re back, you’re back!” This was Diana.

“We’ve missed you, darling.” Frances.

“How long are you in London?” This was Emily, to whom Grace replied.

“We’re not certain yet. Now, do release me before we all topple over, will you?”

With some maneuvering—and some grumbling from Diana—the trio released her.

Only Evan had patience enough to wait his turn. When Grace was free from her friends’ tentacular embrace, he smiled.

“Welcome home, little sister,” he said, taking his own turn to wrap her in her arms. “We’re glad to have you back here with us. Is that husband of yours with you?”

“Aye. He is.”

Caleb’s voice came from the doorway, cold and stern. As the group turned as one to face him, Grace had the oddest flicker of an experience where she could both see the Caleb has her friends could see him—as an aloof giant of a man whose glower bordered on terrifying—and the Caleb that Grace now knew him to be—the man who had traveled to London, a place he very vocally despised, in order to track down some vague, unknown danger to Grace’s safety.

Evan, only subject to the first version of the Duke of Montgomery, tightened his arms around his sister like he meant to protect her.

Grace rolled her eyes at both of them.

“Caleb,” she said, shrugging out of her brother’s hold and crossing to her husband. “You’ll remember my brother, Evan, the Marquess of Oackley, and his wife, Frances. Then there’s Diana, the Duchess of Hawkins, and Emily, the Countess of Moore.” She pointed to each of them in turn, then gave her husband a very pointed smile.

Caleb, who had a talent, Grace was learning, for being utterly dense when it suited him, ignored her.

“Aye,” he said shortly. He looked down at Grace. “I’ll leave you to it.”

And then he did, leaving Grace’s company gaping after him and Grace herself once again rolling her eyes.

“I’m afraid that I, too, must go,” Evan said, his crisp English formality a stark contrast to Caleb’s brevity. “I merely wanted to welcome you back to London, Grace, dear. I know the four of you shall have much to catch up on.” He shot Frances a meaningful look, albeit one that Grace couldn’t parse. Frances also communicated something with her eyes.

How nice for them , Grace thought with an errant wisp of irritation with her husband, to not entirely disregard one another’s glances.

Evan kissed Frances’ hand affectionately, making her blush, then dropped a kiss on Grace’s head far more perfunctorily. And then he was gone.

Now Grace’s friends were gaping at her .

“Tea?” she asked politely. “We’ve a short staff, but I have no doubt that we can rustle up something. Our housekeeper is something of a marvel, as it happens.”

This was a very simple concept, and yet Grace’s friends only responded by looking more confused.

“Grace,” Emily said carefully, in that cautious voice she used when dealing with the most challenging of her hellion sister’s antics. “Are you sure that everything is…quite all right?”

“Of course,” said Grace.

The three exchanged speaking glances. Diana heaved a determined breath.

“Your husband is terrifying,” she said directly.

“Oh,” said Grace, understanding. “Yes, that’s just Caleb’s way. I’d say he doesn’t mean to be rude, but it’s probably more accurate to say that he simply doesn’t care if he’s rude or not. He’s also not fond of London,” she added as an afterthought.

This was, Grace felt, an insightful assessment of her husband’s character. And yet her friends did not seem reassured.

“And you are fine with that?” Frances ventured.

In truth, Grace was starting to get the slightest bit annoyed. She knew her friends had all fallen grotesquely in love with their husbands, but that didn’t need to act like she was the oddest object in the curio cabinet merely because she and Caleb had an arrangement.

She crossed her arms.

“ Your husband,” she said to Diana, “is also terrifying. He makes being terrifying a sport. And your husband—” She turned to Emily. “—would frown at a puppy. And for you —” This was for Frances. “—rumor claims that you and my brother fought like cats in a bag until you decided to instead do things together that I’d rather not think about. So I daresay that not a one of you has any room to discuss whether my husband is terse or rude or terrifying.”

“Oh,” murmured Diana. “So it’s like that, then.”

But Grace had not yet spent her head of steam. “And what’s more,” she went on hotly, “Caleb has come here, to a city he despises, at great personal inconvenience, not for his own interests or needs, but because he is looking out for me . Because when I told him that there was likely another villain in the plot against me, he immediately insisted that we come to London and find the person out once and for all.”

Now her friends looked horrified—though for a different reason.

“What, what do you. mean there’s another villain?” Emily demanded.

“No,” Frances said, shaking her head like she simply couldn’t comprehend this. “It was Dowling, Dowling and the dowager countess…wasn’t it?”

Ah, yes. Grace had not felt it wise to put this part in a letter.

“Let’s sit,” she invited, frustration dissipating. “There’s more to tell.”

She told them about seeing the mill, entirely by chance, then about how she and Caleb had gone into the village to get local gossip about the event, only to learn that some man—some lord from London—was trying to sell the place. She glossed over the bit about her nightmares and her sleepwalking, it was true, but she paused to highlight how lovely Caleb had been through it all.

By the end, Frances was pale, Emily was worrying at a pleat in her skirts, and Diana was looking downright furious.

“Caleb has been rather accommodating, really,” she concluded. “He never expected that he was getting an elaborate intrigue when he married me, but he’s taken it in stride.”

“How is it possible that he really didn’t know any of the story?” Emily asked incredulously.

Grace had posed this exact question during the long hours in the carriage.

Caleb had shot her a sardonic look. “Did ye think we got the gossip pages delivered to us in the army, leannan ?” he’d asked dryly.

“He had only just returned to England from fighting in France when he married me,” Grace explained now. “When my father alluded to the damage to my reputation?—”

“Which was utter nonsense,” Diana muttered loyally.

“—Caleb assumed this meant I’d been caught in some kind of dalliance. As he was willing to marry me anyway, he apparently didn’t feel compelled to ask for details. And I assume my father didn’t offer them because he, in turn, assumed Caleb already knew.”

“Or because your father didn’t want to bring up anything that might damage his reputation,” Frances added—rather boldly, for her. The short time that Evan and his new bride had spent living at Graham House had, however, well acquainted her with reality. The Duke of Graham loved his career first and foremost. Everything else was a distant second.

“More likely,” Grace admitted. “He probably considered himself lucky to not have to discuss such sordid matters and washed his hands of it. All in all, Caleb didn’t know, I didn’t know he didn’t know, and so we were circling one another rather strangely until I revealed everything, whereupon he packed us off to London to resolve it all and—” She broke off, spreading her hands as if to say and now here we are .

“Well,” said Diana, sounding frankly too pleased, given everything Grace had just disclosed. “I can’t deny that I absolutely despise the circumstances that led to this situation, but might I say that the present state of affairs is rather…romantic?” She said this last part with a distinctly hopeful note.

“No,” Grace said flatly, pointing at her friend, trying not to let it show on her face that she, too, needed the reminder. It had been tempting, when her husband lay with her in the dark, or when he’d looked so grimly furious at the mere idea that anyone would mistreat her, to think that he was doing this out of care.

But it wasn’t care; it was duty. And if Grace failed to remember that, even for a moment, she was risking an immeasurable hurt.

To Grace’s horror, Emily and Frances were looking at Diana speculatively, instead of incredulously.

“No,” Grace said again, with more emphasis.

Emily pressed her lips together like she was fighting back a smile.

“Very well,” she said mildly. Grace scowled at her. Somehow she did not think Emily was truly giving in.

Frances, meanwhile, had a dreamy look in her eye. “Of course not, darling,” she said sweetly. Grace sent her a scowl, too, just to be thorough.

Diana looked baffled. “Truly? Even with the way she talks about— oh, I see what we’re doing,” she said, catching on. “Yes, of course, Grace, your husband rushing off to vanquish your enemies is positively thoughtless of him.”

“I despise every one of you,” Grace said with feeling.