Three Weeks With Lady X

  But she also knew that Adelaide preferred to believe that the marquess and his wife had been merely flighty. Eccentric. Different.

  She kissed her godmother again and went to her own room, falling onto her bed. Unfortunately, as soon as she lay down she proved to have more than enough energy to think about the way Thorn made her feel: silly, and feminine, and weak in the knees. Which was absurd.

  She rolled over on her back, biting her lip. She had to stop thinking about him. He was a man who knew what he wanted, and he wanted Lala: a girl who was lovable and uncomplicated, like sunshine. And beautiful. India wasn’t falsely humble about her own looks, but she didn’t have Lala’s perfect features and sunny blue eyes.

  What’s more, India had a hard shell, built up over those lonely days while her parents had cavorted and she’d been hungry and hadn’t known what to do with herself. When there had been no cook, and no footmen, and nothing but a huge, decaying house.

  She sighed and rang the bell to ask Marie to fetch her some supper. It was stupid to feel slighted by the fact that Thorn wanted to marry someone else.

  It wasn’t as if she wanted him, after all.

  The next morning Thorn decided to ride to Starberry Court, leaving Rose, Twink, and Clara to follow in the carriage. He was well aware that he was irritable. To begin with, the rubber band machine had broken down yesterday, a disaster that followed a morning drive with Laetitia that left him a little concerned.

  She hadn’t said a word. Not a single word. She’d just sat next to him, her hands folded, as beautiful and as mute as an English rose.

  India was no English rose. She was a wildflower, something brighter and uncultivated that stirred your heart with its beauty.

  Tomorrow, when Laetitia arrived for the house party, she would surely have more to say for herself. Perhaps she had simply been lulled into a companionable silence by the trotting horses, or the fresh air.

  As he dismounted before Starberry Court, the great front door opened and a man—clearly a butler, given his lack of gloves—emerged, two footmen at his heels.

  The butler bowed. “Mr. Dautry, my name is Fleming. Lady Xenobia engaged me to serve as your butler, should I prove satisfactory.”

  Thorn handed Fleming his coat and listened while the man told him that the Ladies Adelaide and Xenobia had not yet risen. After that he asked Fleming enough questions to get the lay of the house; incredibly, in all his visits he’d never managed to go above the ground floor. It seemed the family chambers were situated in one wing, and the guest rooms were in the other. “Isn’t the nursery generally on the third floor?” he asked.

  “Lady Xenobia believes that modern mothers prefer a less old-fashioned arrangement,” Fleming stated. “Her ladyship converted a large sitting room in the family wing to a nursery, with a small attached chamber for the nanny.”

  Thorn headed up the stairs, thinking about India’s restoration of Starberry Court. She hadn’t simply painted the walls; she had actually made decisions about how he and his new family would live their lives.

  He strolled into the nursery, amused to find a large rocking chair on the hearth, flanked by a smaller rocking chair and a tiny chair obviously meant for Antigone. Rose would be delighted.

  What’s more, India had lined an alcove with bookshelves and stocked them. Rose would love The Adventures of the Six Princesses of Babylon. He picked up a book of fairy tales and looked at the painting of Cinderella on the cover. Lala was prettier. Hell, India was prettier than that.

  Though India wasn’t conventionally pretty. Not with her odd combination of white-gold hair and darker eyebrows. And the beauty mark just next to her lip. She looked like a sensual painting, like one of those Titians for which the painter used his mistress as the model.

  Of course, Titian’s mistresses had sleepy, placid expressions, nothing like India’s. She was a pain in the arse, but something about their exchange of letters was as much fun as sparring with Vander. But subtly different—probably because she was a woman.

  Back in the hallway, he opened the door to the master bedchamber. He had told India that he disliked red; naturally she had papered his walls a dark crimson. Once inside, he saw she’d had an alcove built there as well. But whereas Rose got books, he got the Cellini.

  Strolling over to inspect, he realized that India had turned the sculpture in such a way that anyone lying in the bed had an unobstructed view of both figures, their mouths barely touching in a kiss, their bodies entwined.

  There was a note stuck to the satyr’s shoulder.

  Dear Thorn,

  I tried to make this room a refuge for those of passionate sensibilities. Perhaps it will inspire you to new heights.

  India

  He snorted. But he pulled the note off and tucked it in his pocket. He was keeping her letters, if only for the novelty. He had never corresponded with a woman before.

  The guest rooms were on the opposite side of the house. No self-respecting person would be in bed at this hour in the morning, so Thorn decided to rouse India. It wasn’t hard to guess which bedchamber was hers; there was a faint trace of her perfume lingering outside the door.

  Light filtered through the curtains, and Thorn could see that the bed was hung in translucent amber silk; he only barely made out a sleeping figure through it. Pulling back the bed curtain gave him a peculiar feeling, as if he were discovering an enchanted princess. Like one of the stories India had bought for Rose.

  She was curled on her side, all that pale hair of hers spread across the pillow. Surprisingly, she looked sweet in her sleep. But still erotic: her lips were naturally ruby colored, and he could just see her beauty mark. It was a mark that made a man look harder at her lower lip, made him dream about what that mouth could do.

  Hell.

  The funny thing was that looking down at her now made him think back to when he was a mudlark, before the Duke of Villiers had come out of nowhere and declared himself to be his father. He had never seen a woman with skin like India’s, like the inside of a flower petal.

  He hadn’t even known such women existed. As the daughter of a marquess, India was everything he wasn’t, and everything he would never be. All that privilege and birth was bred in the bone, and it showed in her face.

  With a sudden surge of irritation, Thorn sat on the bed, expecting the motion would wake her. She opened her lips and made a funny little huffing noise, flung an arm above her head, and slept on.

  Once, when he was a boy and it was cold, just beginning to snow, he’d seen a girl in a warm woolen coat whose mother had held out her hand and said, “Come on, sweetheart.” The girl hadn’t even seen him, but she’d walked away with all the love he’d never known.

  No wonder sitting beside India made him feel every inch the mudlark. She’d had all that: all that money and gloss and love and protection.

  He reached out and shook her shoulder, and not terribly gently either.

  She opened her eyes, and the look in them went straight to his cock. She had a hazy look about her, as if she’d just made love for hours. As if she was waking after a night of it, and she wanted still more.

  As if . . .

  Her eyes popped open all the way and she sat up. His hand went over her mouth. “Please don’t scream. God knows the last thing either one of us wants is for you to be compromised. I will never marry a woman just because society thinks I ought to.” His voice came out harder than it should have.

  He dropped his hand.

  Her eyes had lost that hazy sweet look, and for a second he felt a pulse of regret. Instead, she was glaring at him. “What are you doing in here?” she hissed. “Don’t you dare think that because you employ me, you have the right to personal services!” She began to grope around behind her.

  Outrage surged up his back. “You think I would come to your bedchamber for that?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first!” she snapped. She brought up her arm, and damned if she wasn’t wielding a club, covered in flowered flannel. “Touc
h me again and I’ll hit you!”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “An iron bar that I will use on your skull if you don’t get off my bed and out of my room!”

  “Are you telling me that some man dared to enter your bedroom and accost you? Is that what you’re saying, India?” Their eyes met, and he reached out and took the weapon away, weighing it in his hand. “This wouldn’t do very much. It wouldn’t stop a man who was truly determined.”

  “It did what it had to,” India replied proudly.

  “Who?” He knew his voice came from his throat like a gunshot. “Who did that?”

  “I took care of it.”

  “Who was it?”

  “That’s none of your business!” She picked up all that gorgeous hair of hers and swept it behind her shoulders. “Now, you—”

  He bent over and growled it, right in her face. “India, who dared to come into your bedroom and frighten you?”

  “Besides you?” But she added, “Sir Michael Phillips. I struck him in the ear with my iron bar.” Her smile made her eyes light up. “He complained the next day that he had lost his hearing and wouldn’t be able to sing in tune!”

  Thorn fought back another growl. The bastard was going to be taking the castrato part once he got his hands on him. But there was no need to disclose that fact to India.

  “Phillips, who has a house in Porter Square? Went to Oxford? Silly little beard that only covers half his chin?”

  “Yes,” she said, pushing more hair behind her shoulders. “Adelaide and I visited his mother, because she had influenza. After she was out of danger, he seemed to believe that I would take care of him as well.”

  “Anyone else do that?”

  She frowned at him, so he put it a different way. “Where did you get the idea of the iron bar, India?”

  “My godmother keeps one just like it in her bed when she’s traveling. In an inn, for example. A woman should always be prepared.”

  If a woman didn’t have a man sleeping at her side, she probably should have an iron bar. In fact, it wasn’t a bad idea. In fact . . . he might be able to make bars for just this purpose.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Manufacturing iron bars, for the self-defense of ladies,” he said readily. “I have a factory that could make them. We could use scrap metal. Perhaps with a slender end for women with smaller hands.”

  She stared at him a moment, then broke into laughter. “Is that how you made your untold millions?”

  God, she was gorgeous. Dangerously so. He wrenched his mind back to the reason he’d invaded her privacy. “India, would you care to explain what that statue is doing in my bedchamber?”

  “Don’t you like your room?” she asked, a naughty smile glimmering in her eyes.

  In fact, he did like it. And she knew it. “The walls are red,” he pointed out.

  “The devil should have a lair that suits his disposition,” she replied, obviously unperturbed. “A background, you might call it.”

  “You’ll have to change it.”

  India shook her head. “I’m finished appointing the house. Your guests begin to arrive tomorrow, and I must ensure that Lala’s mother adores you, which frankly will be a bigger challenge than the whole house put together.”

  “Bedchamber aside, India, you did a hell of a job. The place is dazzling.”

  She sat up straighter, and a hank of her hair fell over her breast. The lock was long and curly, and the breast was as lush and delectable as it appeared when she was dressed, though she tended to wear gowns with all the appeal of a governess’s.

  He had to get out of her bedchamber. “Right,” he said, jumping to his feet. “I’d better go prepare for Rose’s arrival. She’ll be along in the carriage presently.”

  For one second, India looked disappointed, but then she said regally, “You ought never to enter a lady’s chamber.”

  “Vander arrives tomorrow,” he told her, ignoring her rebuke. “That’s Lord Brody, future duke. Don’t wear that dress I last saw you in. Haven’t you any gowns that might seduce a man?”

  “I’m not going to seduce Lord Brody!” India said, brows drawing together like a thundercloud.

  “I’m friends with Vander, but I can’t guarantee that he’s anything much in bed,” Thorn said, grinning. “If you like his looks you should try the merchandise first. I’ve never been partial to tow-heads, myself.”

  “I am ignoring you.” India swung her feet out of bed and poked around with her toes for her bedroom slippers. She had the prettiest feet he’d ever seen: slender and white and silky looking. And her ankles were as delicate as the rest of her.

  An image of the scars that slashed across his thighs popped into his mind. Her head bent as she poked her feet into her little slippers; all he could see was her incredible hair.

  She straightened up. “You must leave now. Marie, my maid, will arrive soon.”

  “Does she simply walk into your room in the morning?”

  “Of course.”

  “She’ll have to change that once you’re married.”

  India didn’t even glance at him as she went to the dressing table. He didn’t like to be ignored, so he said, “Vander might be a morning man.”

  She turned around as she pulled on a dressing gown, and he saw faint puzzlement in her eyes. “A man rolls over in the morning and finds himself ready,” he explained. “He wakes up hungry, and if there’s a soft body next to him, he’ll make her a happy woman. Which he would want to do without a maid interrupting.”

  Her face flushed pink. Thorn grinned and decided to leave with that thought. He got himself out of the bedroom and downstairs to alert Fleming to the existence of Rose—only to discover that India had informed him about everything, including the need to keep Rose’s presence in the dower house a secret for the time being.

  He spent a half hour poking around the kitchens, butler’s pantry, silver closet. “Where the hell did she get all this stuff?” he asked Fleming, staring into a closet full of silver platters. Some had great domed lids; some, little feet.

  “Lady Xenobia is acquainted with Messieurs Hannam & Crouch. She trusted me to visit their store on Monkwell Street and acquire the basics for a household of this size.”

  Thorn picked up one of the platters, one without fussy little feet. Of course, he’d seen silver like this on his father’s table. The duke did not believe in hiding his silver under a barrel, as it were.

  But he had never thought about owning any himself. The piece he had in hand was an oval with some decoration.

  “This seems good enough,” Thorn said.

  “The platter has a gadrooned border, and the field is engraved with a diaperwork pattern,” Fleming said. “A crest could be added at a later date, should you wish for it.”

  “You might as well get to know me, Fleming. The answer to that is, when hell freezes over.”

  “Quite right, sir,” the butler replied, without flicking an eyelash. He took the platter and handed it to the footman, who had been trotting after them like a puppy. “Put this in my pantry, Stevens.”

  “Why?”

  “We have handled it, and the platter must be polished before use.”

  Thorn was losing interest in silver. “I don’t give a damn whether it’s polished or not, as long as it has food on it.”

  “I gained that impression, sir, when you paid Hannam & Crouch, although they neglected to send you an inventory of the objects you had bought.” Fleming’s tone was wry; Thorn suspected they would get on very well.

  He shrugged. “You realize I’m a bastard? It gave my butler in London indigestion, until at last he left for the good of his immortal soul.”

  “I too am a chance-child, as we call it in the Highlands,” Fleming said.

  Thorn broke into a crack of laughter. “How in hell did she find you?”

  “I have served under the Marquess of Pestle, and most recently as head footman to the Duke of Villie
rs.”

  “Ah, she stole you from my father.”

  “Everyone in service knows of Lady Xenobia. If a man would like to move households, he hopes, if not prays, that she will pay the house a visit. I met her two years ago, when she spoke to every person in His Grace’s household. She did not forget my ambition to be a butler.”

  “Does she always speak to every person in service?”

  Fleming nodded. “From the butler to the scullery maid. You can imagine that she learns quite a bit about the household.”

  She was brilliant, that woman.

  As Thorn entered the library, the image of India in her bed came back into his head. He would have guessed that ladies wore white flannel to bed, perhaps with a bit of lace around the neck and the wrists. To cover up.

  India had been wearing pale blue silk. And there had been a lot of lace, and it hadn’t been doing much to cover anything up.

  A crunch of carriage wheels interrupted that interesting train of thought, so he went out to greet Rose. She climbed down, clutching Antigone and looking uncertain. He probably should have traveled with her, even though Twink and Clara were descending from the carriage as well.

  Thorn stopped and held out his arms. “Rose!”

  Her face was tight, and he waited while she thought about it. Finally, she trotted toward him, and he scooped her up. “How’s my girl?” he asked her.

  “I am not your girl,” she said, with that awkward earnestness that characterized her.

  “You most certainly are,” he said. “On loan from your papa.”

  “Oh.” She looked unconvinced. Thorn had never had trouble persuading members of the female sex to like him. Until, that is, he met Rose. She held herself apart, no matter how much he tried to charm her.

  “We’re off to the dower house,” he told her, hating that fact. He understood the necessity, but it didn’t suit him to hide Rose away, as if she were someone to be ashamed of. It made her seem like a by-blow, whereas she was the perfectly legitimate product of holy matrimony.