My Last Duchess, стр. 39
“I may choose to use my minutes learning how to love you.” Her eyes twinkled. “Or I may not.”
Her hands fell away and she stepped back. “Your Grace, we must return to the drawing room or our absence will be marked.”
Blood was running hot in Hugo’s veins. He had a cockstand that was definitely not hidden by his cutaway waistcoat, and probablywasn’t going anywhere as long as Ophelia was within an arm’s length.
She raised a finger. “We cannot embarrass Lady Woolhastings. You must extract yourself from your obligations, no matter howephemeral, before you pay me so much as a morning call.”
A smile burst over his face, together with a wild surge of lust. “After we marry, we shall retire to my castle and live therefor a month—six months!—no society, just the two of us.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And a nursery full of children?” But she looked pleased. “I shall take your request into consideration.”
“May I kiss you, please, Phee?”
She shook her head. “I would not kiss a man who is nominally another woman’s.”
A duke always realizes the limits of his power.
Hugo bowed and kissed his lady’s gloved hand.
His heart sang.
Chapter Fifteen
When had Ophelia decided to marry Hugo? What was the precise moment when she decided to take on eight children, a duchy, and—mostimportantly—a man who tempted her nearly to madness?
A man who wanted to live for the next six months in a castle in Cheshire?
The duke paced along the corridor at her shoulder, seeming as quiet and tame as a house cat. But she could feel the wild energycoursing through him. The air she breathed felt like new wine.
Hugo knew what a marriage based on that excitement was like; she didn’t. But now she had a glimpse of it, a sense of it, andit was intoxicating.
Returning to the drawing room, she saw Lady Knowe seated with Maddie and Lady Woolhastings, telling them such an engagingstory that they were both leaning toward her. Lady Fernby passed them on her way to the kitchen to address a small problem.
No one paid attention as Ophelia slipped into the seat beside Maddie; her cousin just squeezed her hand and said, breathlessly,to Lady Knowe, “Then what happened?”
“They were playing at pirates,” she said now. “Horatius, bless that child, has grown up to be as pompous as a sixty-year-oldbarrister, but as a boy he could never resist an eye patch. Now he’s eighteen and far too mature to play a pirate.”
Hugo seated himself beside his sister, ignoring the empty seat next to Lady Woolhastings.
Lady Woolhastings paid him no attention. Her eyes were round. “You are describing extraordinary behavior,” she said, obviouslychoosing her words carefully.
“Not for those varmints,” Lady Knowe said cheerfully. “I often have to send them to bed with only bread and butter for supper.The nursemaids keep honey in the nursery and I pretend not to notice. Am I right, dear Edith, in thinking that your two childrenare both female?”
Lady Woolhastings nodded.
“Boys—particularly Wildes—are a completely different breed,” Lady Knowe said. “Mothering them is a Sisyphean task. Some daysI lurch from crisis to crisis.”
Maddie was patting her stomach as if there truly were a child there. “Oh! I hope I am carrying a boy,” she cried. “I shouldlove to play pirates! Wouldn’t you, Lady Woolhastings?”
Ophelia squeezed her hand again. Maddie’s irrepressible good spirits would be such a gift to the child she didn’t carry, butwho would be her own.
“No, I certainly would not,” the lady stated, “but I have no objection to children playing whatever games they wish in thenursery. Most nurseries are on the third floor precisely so that noise does not disturb the household.”
Lady Knowe wasn’t finished. “After they burned down the vicarage—an accident, I assure you, and thank goodness, no one washurt—the vicar asked me, most earnestly, if I thought they should be exercised.”
“Exercised?” Hugo repeated.
Ophelia glanced at him and had to look away in order to stop herself from laughing. The duke’s eyes were dancing.
“Oh, whatever it is you do to evil spirits,” Lady Knowe said, waving her hand.
“Exorcised. He thought they were possessed?” Lady Woolhastings said. She looked perturbed. “I, for one, would not welcomesuch an impudent suggestion from a cleric.”
“A metaphor, I assure you,” Lady Knowe said. “Help me, Duke. Defend your children. Leonidas, for example, isn’t nearly asnaughty as the older boys were.”
“I hate to mention it, but dead chickens come to mind when one thinks of Leonidas,” her brother said cheerfully.
“That is true,” Lady Knowe acknowledged.
“Isn’t he merely six years of age? What did he do to the chickens?” Maddie gasped.
Apparently chicken carcasses were occasionally taken from the kitchen and made their way under the covers of dislikable guestsstaying at the castle, thanks to little Leonidas, who would tuck them carefully under the coverlets.
“It isn’t the smell that’s vile,” Lady Knowe said judiciously, “as much as the feathers. They paint them red, you see, sowhen someone puts their feet down in the bed, they encounter a disagreeably sticky, wet object. When they remove their feet,they appear to be covered with blood. Shrieking invariably ensues.”
Maddie winced.
“Naughty,” Lady Woolhastings stated.
“I believe you know the Bishop of Halmarken, Lady Woolhastings?” Lady Knowe asked.
The lady’s eyes narrowed. “These children behaved so disgracefully toward a man of God?” For the first time, she seemed genuinelyaffronted. “I should send them to bed without any supper at all.”
“They also played the dead-chicken trick on a scion of the Swedish royal family,” Hugo said. “I do not blame Leonidas; afterall, he’s only six years old. My older sons planned the trick, even if Leo was dispatched to the royal bed with the infamouschicken.”
“I know what I’d do,” Maddie exclaimed. She was obviously enjoying herself immensely. “I’d make those boys sleep with a deadchicken at their feet for a whole night. Perhaps a week.”
Lady Knowe shook her head, her eyes twinkling. “Dearest, think of the nursemaids. They are the most