"Lydia has been educated to be Tarquin's wife. She will bring him Melton land to augment his own. She knows her duty and she knows what to expect. She will be a good wife and mother to his children, and she'll expect no more than courtesy and consideration in return. She won't think about other women in his life, because she knows that all women of her social status do not marry for love. She knows that she must expect her husband to seek his pleasure outside the marriage bed." The bitterness was back in his voice now. "Tarquin has no truck with sentimentality, Juliana. And love comes into that category."
"I suppose so." Her fingers plucked restlessly at an overblown rose in a bowl beside her chair. The petals showered down. She and Tarquin had had no private talk since their last confrontation. He had been polite and distant, but he hadn't come to her bed. She wondered if he was waiting for an invitation. She had told him to leave her alone, after all.
"Don't you think he could change, Quentin?" She pinched a rose petal between her fingers, not raising her eyes as she asked the question.
"He already has a little," Quentin said thoughtfully. "I think you've had a softening effect on him."
Juliana looked up with a quick flush. "Do you think so?"
"Mmmm. But then you, my dear, are a most unusual young woman." He rose to his feet and took her hand, raising it to his lips. "Unusual, and most perceptive. I didn't mean to burden you with my troubles."
Juliana's flush deepened with pleasure. "You didn't burden me with anything, sir. I'm honored with your confidence."
He smiled again and bent to kiss her cheek. "You have, at least, enabled me to see clearly again. If it's so obvious to you what Lydia and I feel, then it may become obvious to Tarquin also. I don't want that to happen."
"So what will you do?"
"Write to my bishop and ask to return before my mission is completed."
It was a sad-indeed, rather pathetic-solution, Juliana thought, but she merely nodded as if in agreement, and he left her.
She leaned back against the chair and closed her eyes for a moment. Her hand drifted over her belly. Had she conceived? It was five weeks since her last monthly terms. She felt no different, none of the signs so painstakingly pointed out by Mistress Dennison. And yet she had this strange, deep knowledge inside her body that something different was going on. She couldn't put words to it, but it was a definite conviction known in her blood if not in her brain.
She would wait until she was sure, of course, before telling the duke. In their present state of estrangement he'd probably be delighted that there was no further need for their lovemaking. She ought to be pleased herself, but Juliana was too honest to pretend that the thought brought her anything but a hollow pain. She hated the present coldness, but some stubborn streak kept her from making the first move. It was up to the duke to heal the breach if he wanted to.
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" 'E's lodgin' at the Gardener's Arms, in Cheapside, Yer Grace." Ted took a thirsty gulp of ale. Tracking George Ridge across London had been hot and thirsty work.
The duke was perched on the edge of the desk in his book room, a glass of claret in hand, his canary silk coat and britches a startling contrast to his companion's rough leathern britches and homespun jerkin. Yet it would be clear to anyone walking into the room that there was a definite equality in the relationship between the Duke of Redmayne and the stalwart Ted Rougle›.
"Has he recovered from your little intervention?"
Ted grinned. "Aye, 'e's large as life an' twice as ugly." He drained his tankard and smacked his lips.
Tarquin nodded, gesturing to the pitcher that stood on the silver tray at the far end of the desk. Ted helped himself with a grunt of thanks.
"An' there's summat else ye should know, Yer Grace." Ted's tone was faintly musing, yet carried a note of some import. Seeing he had the duke's full attention, he continued. " 'Cordin' to the missis at the Gardener's, 'e's bin 'avin' a visitor. Regular like."
"Oh?" Tarquin's eyebrows crawled into his scalp.
"Right sickly-lookin' gent, the missis said. Gave 'er the creeps 'e did. All green an' white, with eyes like the dead."
"She has a colorful turn of phrase," Tarquin observed, sipping his claret. "Are we to assume that Lucien and George have set up an unholy alliance?"
He took out his snuffbox and stood for a minute tapping a manicured fingernail against the enamel. He was remembering that George had been in the Shakespeare's Head the night Lucien had put Juliana on the block. Juliana said he'd made a bid on her. It was possible that these two, both bearing grudges against Juliana, and in Lucien's case overwhelmingly against his cousin, should have formed the devil's partnership.
Ted didn't answer what he knew had been a rhetorical question, merely regarded his employer stolidly over his tankard.
"Let's deal with George first," Tarquin said. "We'll pay a little visit to the Gardener's Arms later tonight… when the oaf should have returned from his amusements in the Garden. Bring a horsewhip. We must be sure to emphasize my point."
"Right y'are, Yer Grace." Ted deposited his empty tankard on the tray, bowed with a jerk of his head, and left.
The duke frowned into space, twirling the delicate stem of his glass between finger and thumb. He'd been intending to put a stop to George's antics as soon as Ted had tracked him down after the attempted abduction, but if Ridge had joined forces with Lucien, then the situation was much more menacing. Lucien was unpredictable and could be quite subtle in his malevolence. Ridge, as he'd already demonstrated, would rely on brute force. They made a formidable combination.
He stood up suddenly, impelled by a force he'd been fighting for the last couple of days. He wanted Juliana. This estrangement tore at his vitals. It was becoming almost impossible to keep up the cool, distant facade. Every day he looked at her across the dinner table, at the fierce vibrancy of her hair, the luster of her eyes, the rich curves of her body. And he held himself away from her. It was torture, a wrenching on the rack. And Juliana, damn her, was giving as good as she got. Her stare was as cool as his, her voice as flat, her conversation never transcending the banality of small talk between strangers. He wanted to throttle her as much as he wanted to assuage his aching longing on her willing, eagerly responsive body.
Never had he felt like this before. As if every carefully woven strand of his personality was tangled, his life a jumbled jigsaw. And all because a seventeen-year-old chit didn't know what was good for her. What else did she want of him, for God's sake?
With a muttered oath he flung himself out of the book room and took the stairs two at a time. He entered Juliana's parlor without knocking, shut the door behind him, then stood leaning against it, regarding her in brooding silence.
Juliana had been writing a note to Lilly. At midnight they were all due to meet at Mother Cocksedge's establishment. Juliana had planned the evening very carefully. She was going to the opera in a party assembled by one of Lady Melton's acquaintances. It would be easy enough to slip away before supper. She could plead a headache, insist on returning alone in a hackney, and instead have herself driven to Covent Garden. In the unlikely event that the duke returned from his own entertainment before her, he would assume the party was sitting late over supper.
She was explaining in her letter to Lilly that she would arrive at Cocksedge's just after midnight when Tarquin burst in. She felt herself flush. Instinctively she thrust the sheet of vellum to the back of the secretaire.
"My… my lord. This is a surprise,'' she managed to say, trying for the cold tone she'd perfected recently.