Grace Burrowes - The Duke and His Duchess

“You are Moreland, Percival. You’re tending to matters of state, you’re running the estates, and you’ve secured the succession. For all relevant purposes, you are the duke—and you’re making a fine job of it.”

The conversation was intimate in a way that felt different from their previous intimacies. This was intimacy of the body, of course, but it was also intimacy of the woes and worries, and it bred desire as well.

If she initiated lovemaking with her weary, unhappy spouse, would he reciprocate, or would he withdraw, leaving Esther physically and emotionally empty?

She settled for taking his hand and resting it over her breast, then kissing his temple. Her last thought as she succumbed to slumber was a question: Would Percival use some of Peter’s largesse to set up a mistress? For a duke was entitled to his comforts.

He probably would, and tell himself he was being considerate of his wife when he did.

“He’s a good man, your papa. An important man.”

Devlin did not meet his mother’s gaze as they walked along. She was pleading with him somehow, and he didn’t like it. He also didn’t like this neighborhood, where the streets were wide and the walkways all swept and he didn’t know the way home.

“Devlin, he was in the cavalry.”

Devlin forgot about the list of things he didn’t like.

“I’m going to be in the cavalry. I’m going to have my own horse, and I’m going to protect everybody for the king.”

Now Mama stopped walking, and right there with people hurrying by, crouched before Devlin. “Your papa can make that dream come true, Devlin. I cannot.”

Which was why they were going to his papa’s house, he supposed. They’d been to visit other men’s houses. Mama would wait in the stables and mews, and Devlin liked that just fine. Those places smelled of horses, and the grooms were usually friendly to a small boy who thought horses were God’s best creation.

“Will you talk to him in the stables?”

Mama kissed the top of his head—he hated when she did that—and rose, taking his hand again. “If I have to.” Her tone was grim, determined. She said Devlin got his determination from her.

She talked to men in the stables lately, sometimes telling Devlin to be good when she went into the saddle rooms or carriage houses with them. She was never gone long, and they could always get some food on the way home when she’d had one of her visits with the men.

Then too, stables were warm, and they smelled good. Home was not warm these days.

You could tell a lot about a man from his stables. Sir Richard Harrowsham was a friendly man who laughed a lot. His horses were content and well fed, his stables clean without being spotless.

Mr. Pelham’s horses were nervous, the grooms always rushing about, and the aisles never swept until somebody stepped in something that ought to have been pitched on the muckheap as soon as it hit the ground. Mama had been crying when she’d come back from her little meeting with Mr. Pelham.

Devlin’s papa’s stables were large. There were riding horses, coach horses, and even a draft team, which was unusual in Town for the nobs, though not for the brewers and such.

Devlin did not think his papa was a brewer. The grooms were friendly, the tack was spotless and tidy, and the horses… Devlin peered down the aisle at the equine heads hanging over half doors.

The horses were magical. They were huge, glossy, and glorious even in their winter coats. Their expressions were alert and confident, somehow regal. If horses could be generals and colonels, then these horses would be.

“You wait here,” Mama said, sitting Devlin on a trunk. “Be quiet and don’t get in the way.”

“Yes, Mama.”

She said something else, very quietly, in Gaelic. Mama never spoke the Gaelic in public. “I love you.”

Devlin smiled up at her, trying not to show how pleased he was. “Love you too!”

He watched her cross the stable yard and take up a position near somebody’s back gate. All the houses here had back gardens; their kitchens didn’t simply open onto a smelly alleyway. The grooms went about their business, mucking, scrubbing out water buckets and refilling them, cursing jovially at each other—but never at the horses.

When a groom asked Devlin if he’d like to help brush a horse, Devlin decided his papa must be a good man indeed.

Esther knew who the pretty red-haired woman was and wondered if this remove to Town was intended by the Almighty as some sort of wifely penance.

“Mrs. St. Just, is there a reason why you’re lurking at my back gate in the broad light of day?” My husband’s back gate, in point of fact.

Upon closer inspection, Percival’s former mistress was thin, she wore no gloves, and her hair bore not a hint of powder or styling. She wore it in a simple knot, like a serving woman might. Esther hadn’t been able to put any condescension into the question—Percival recalled this lady fondly, drat her.

Drat him.

“All I seek is a word with you, my lady.”

Here, where any neighbor, Percival, or the children might happen along? Not likely. “Come with me.”

Esther’s footman looked uncertain, while Mrs. St. Just looked… frightened. She glanced toward the stables, as if she’d steal a horse and ride away rather than enter the ducal household.

“I must tell my son where I’ve gone. He’s just a boy, a little boy, and he worries.”

What Esther needed, desperately, was to hate this woman who’d had intimate knowledge of her husband, to loathe her and all her kind, and yet, Mrs. St. Just worried for her son and apparently had no one with whom she could leave the child safely.

“Bring him along.”

Relief flashed in the woman’s eyes. She scurried across the alley and reemerged from the mews, towing a dark-haired boy.

“Devlin, make your bow.”

The lad gave Esther a good day and a far more decorous bow than Bart usually managed.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Master St. Just.”

He was thin, and his green eyes were too serious for a boy his age. Esther was not at all pleased to make his acquaintance, wondering with more than a little irritation which swaggering young lordling had turned his back on this blameless child.

The next thought that tried to crowd into Esther’s mind she sent fleeing like a bat up the chimney.

Esther took her guests—what else was she to call them?—in through the big, warm kitchen. Mrs. St. Just looked uncomfortable, while the boy was wide-eyed with curiosity.

“Perhaps your son would like some chocolate while we visit, Mrs. St. Just?”

If the help recognized the woman’s name, they were too well-bred to give any sign. The scullery maid remained bent over her pots, the boot boy didn’t look up from his work at the hearth, and the undercook kept up a steady rhythm chop, chop, chopping a pungent onion.

“Devlin?” Mrs. St. Just knelt to her son’s eye level. “You be good, mind? Don’t spill, and be quiet. I won’t be long.”

“Yes, Mama.”

Esther did not tarry to study the curve of the boy’s chin or the swoop of his eyebrows. He was a hungry boy, and any mother knew exactly what to do with a hungry boy. She caught the undercook’s eye and made sure the lad would be stuffed like a goose before he left.

The next issue was where to serve tea to her husband’s former mistress—for Esther would offer the woman sustenance as well. That was simple Christian charity.

Esther addressed the undercook, who’d gotten out bread and butter and was reaching for a hanging ham. “I’m feeling a bit peckish, so please bring the tray to Mrs. Slade’s parlor.”

The choice was practical: the housekeeper’s parlor would be warm and would spare Mrs. St. Just a tour past the upstairs servants. It would also mean mother and son were not separated by more than a closed door.

When that door had been latched, Esther turned, crossed her arms, and regarded Mrs. St. Just where she stood, red hands extended toward the fire.

For her sons, Esther would cheerfully kill. She’d walk naked through the streets, denounce her king, sing blasphemous songs in Westminster Abbey, and dance with the devil.

What Kathleen St. Just had done for her child was arguably harder than all of that put together. Esther took a place next to the woman facing the fire, their cloaks touching.

It occurred to her that they were both frightened. This realization neither comforted nor amused. Esther grabbed her courage with both hands, sent up a prayer for wisdom, and made her curtsy before the devil.

“Two questions, Mrs. St. Just. First, does his lordship know that boy is his son, and second, how much do you need?”

Kathleen St. Just’s household had shown signs of wear and want. In Cecily O’Donnell’s, the floors gleamed with polish, the rugs were beaten clean, and a liveried and bewigged porter still manned the door.

And yet, as Percival followed the woman into a warm, elegant little parlor, his footsteps echoed, suggesting every other room in the place was empty of furniture. Fortunately, this parlor held no memories of intimacy, for Cecily entertained only above stairs on an enormous carved bed sporting a troop of misbehaving Cupids.

“Shall I ring for tea?” she asked as she closed the door behind him.

“You shall state your business. One is expected to attend the morning’s levee.”

Her lips curved up in merriment. “How it gratifies me to know you’d rather spend this time with me than with our dear sovereign.”