Duke and His Duchess (3 page)

Good sons turned into good fathers.

Another emotion had lurked behind the compassion, though. Esther pushed her eggs around rather than watch as Tony tucked into yet another portion of rare steak.

Percival had been
relieved
at the prospect of leaving Kent and biding in London with his brother over the coming winter. Esther was not relieved, not relieved at all to think of her husband decamping for the vice and venery of the capital, while she remained behind to deal with teething babies and ailing lords.

“Why is it,” Percival asked his five-year-old son, “every woman I behold these days seems exhausted?”

Bart grinned up at his father and capered away. “Because they have to chase me!”

For a ducal heir, that answer would serve nicely for at least the next thirty years. Percival caught the nursery maid’s eye. “Go have a cup of tea, miss. I’ll tarry a moment here.”

She bobbed her thanks, paused in the next room to speak with the nurse supervising the babies, and closed the nursery-suite door with a soft click of the latch. Percival did likewise with the door dividing the playroom from the babies’ room, wanting privacy with his older sons and some defense against the olfactory assault of Valentine’s predictably dirty nappies.

“I swear that child should be turned loose on any colonial upstarts. He’d soon put them to rout.”

Gayle glanced up from the rug. “He’s a baby, Papa. Nobody is scared of him.”

“Such a literalist. Some day you’ll learn about infantile tyrants. What are you reading?”

Gayle, being a man of few words, held up a book. Bart, by contrast, was garrulous enough for two boys.

“Shall I read to you?”

Bart came thundering back. “Read to me too!”

Percival glanced out the window. The morning was yet another late reprise of the mildness of summer, but to the south, in the direction of the Channel, a bank of thick, gray clouds was piling up on the horizon.

“I have to ride into the village today and meet with the aldermen, then stop by the vicarage and be regaled about the sorry state of the roof over the choir. When that task is complete, I’m expected to call on Rothgreb and catch him up on the Town gossip, which will be interesting, because I haven’t any. My afternoon will commence with an inspection of—”

Two little faces regarded him with impatient consternation.

“Right.” Percival folded himself down onto the rug, crossed his legs, and tucked a child close on each side. “First things first.”

He embarked on a tale about a princess—didn’t all fairy tales involve princesses?—and the brave hero who had to do great deeds to win her hand.

“Except,” Percival summarized, “the blighted woman fell into an enchanted sleep.”

“Then what happened?” Bart asked, budging closer.

“He…” According to the story, the fellow swived her silly—“got her with child,” rather—which was what any brave hero would do after a rousing adventure. “He kissed her.”

“Mama fell asleep.”

That from Gayle, who wasn’t the budging sort. The little fellow’s brows were drawn down, the same sign his mother evidenced when she was anxious.

“Keeping up with you lot would have anybody stealing naps,” Percival said.

“Not a nap.” Gayle sprang to his feet and went to the middle of the carpet like an actor assuming center stage. “She faded.”

He collapsed to the rug with a dramatic thump, lying unmoving, with his eyes closed for a few instants before scrambling to his feet. “Old Thomas says the ladies do that when they’re breeding. Bart wondered if we should bury her at sea.”

“I did
not
. I said
if
she died, then we should bury her. She wasn’t dead. She woke right up.”

Gayle put his hands on his skinny hips. “You did too, and then she took a nap right there on the ship.”

The ship being the picnic blanket, Percival supposed. “You saw her fall like that, both of you?”

Two solemn nods, which suggested this development was of more import to them than their inchoate argument. Percival set the book aside and held out one arm to Gayle while wrapping the other around Bart.

“Old Thomas is right.” He tucked both boys close, as much for his own comfort as theirs. “Ladies sometimes fall asleep like that when they’re peckish or their stays are too snug or they’re breeding.” Though Esther wore jumps, not stays, and never laced them too tightly.

“Mama breeds a lot,” Bart observed.

“Your mother has fulfilled her obligation to the succession admirably.”

“That means she does,” Gayle translated. “She napped a lot too, when I wanted to fly my birds.”

“Your birds are stupid,” Bart observed.

Percival squeezed the ducal heir tightly and kissed the top of his head. “Rotten boy. Your little brothers will gang up on you if you keep that up. They’ll leave Valentine’s nappies under your bed.”

Gayle smiled a diabolically innocent smile at this suggestion.

“Your mother likely needed to catch up on her rest, and she knew you two could be counted on to protect her while she did. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to join you.”

And he was sorrier still that by this time next week, he’d likely be in London, miles and miles away from his children, unless…

“Percival?”

Esther stood in the doorway, tall, slim, and elegant in a chemise gown of soft green and gold. The morning sun gave her a luminous quality, and with her standing above them, Percival was reminded that his wife was a beautiful woman.

Also quite pale.

“You’ve caught me out. I chased off the nursery maid to cadge a few moments with my first and second lieutenants. Won’t you join us?”

Bart scooted free, and Gayle followed suit. “Good morning, Mama!” They pelted up to her, each boy taking her by the hand, Gayle waiting silently while Bart chattered on. “Papa was reading us a story, but he didn’t finish. He said we can shoot down Gayle’s stupid birds on our next outing.”

When Percival expected Gayle to enter the verbal melee with a ferocious contradiction, Gayle’s gaze strayed to the door, behind which baby Valentine, King of the Dirty Nappies, held court.

Esther moved into the room, a boy on each side. “I’m sure your father said no such thing. I thought we might work on drawing tigers this morning though, and tigers might try to catch the birds as they flew away.”

“Tigers!”

Why did Bart shout everything, and why did nobody correct him for it?

Percival unfolded himself from the floor. “You’d make a very poor tiger indeed if you can’t be any quieter than that. Why don’t you creep down to the library and have a footman fetch you some paper?”

More paper in addition to whatever they’d wasted making Gayle’s birds. No wonder coin was in such short supply.

The boys crept away, growling and swiping their paws in the air, leaving Percival alone in daylight hours with his wife. His tired, lovely wife who had fainted the previous day and not told him about it. He slid his arms around her and drew her against his body.

He would not be a clodpate like he’d been the previous night.

He would ask her about her health. He would ask her how she felt about him going to London. He would compliment her on their children—a surefire strategy for happy marital relations.

The scent of roses came to him as she relaxed against him. “Madam, we can lock that door, you know.”

She pushed away, smiling. “Only to scandalize all and sundry when the boys start pounding on the other side.”

The interlude was unexpected, and Percival was glad for it. They so rarely had privacy when they weren’t both tired and full of the tensions and trials of the day. “Will you sit with me for a bit, Wife?”

She gave him a curious look and let him lead her to the table near the window.

Which would not do. He changed course and took a seat in the largest reading chair the nursery had to offer, which was quite large indeed.

He gave a tug on her wrist, and she tumbled into his lap. “Percival!”

“Hush, madam. You and I have cuddled up in this chair when you were magnificently gravid. We fit nicely now.”

She harrumphed and gracious God-ed once or twice under her breath, then settled easily enough.

“How are you, wife of mine? And I did not suggest Bart could stone Gayle’s paper birds.”

She relaxed against him. When had his wife gotten so lithe? So… skinny?

A practical, unappealing thought came to him: in London, a man did not have to pay for a mistress. Court was a very proper place, true, but outside of court, merry widows and straying wives were thick in the corridors. The idea of stepping into a dark alcove with some peer’s well-fed, deep-bosomed spouse—all painted and powdered the better to display her wares—was vaguely nauseating.

Though Esther had fainted. A considerate husband did not overly tax his wife.

Said wife snuggled closer on a soft rustle of fabric. “Boys are bloodthirsty, especially in company with one another. You were kind to offer to go to London. How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

Too
long.
Holding her like this, the quiet morning sunshine firing all the red and gold highlights in her hair, Percival felt two emotions well up and twine together.

He kissed her brow, yielding first to the tenderness assailing him so unexpectedly. “I don’t know how long I’ll be away. There’s always warfare in some corner of the realm. We leave the Americans to their wilderness only to find some raja has taken the Crown into dislike. Colonials don’t fight fair. Our boys line up in neat rows, muskets at the ready, while the natives fire at them from up in the trees or while dodging about in the underbrush. The wilderness ensures only the conniving and determined survive, and the colonials have been breeding those qualities for centuries.”

She tucked herself against his chest. “If I haven’t said it before, Percival, I’m saying it now: I am glad you resigned your commission. England expects much of her military, and I would not know how to go on were you lost to me.”

The tenderness expanded as she lay against him, soft, pretty, rose-scented, and dear. He posed the next question quietly. “Esther, are you carrying again?”

Because if she were, it might explain the despair trying to choke its way past the tenderness.

“Thomas tattled on me?”

That was not a no. Percival closed his eyes and prayed. Not a prayer for wisdom or for guidance or for strength to know how to stretch their coin yet further, not even a prayer for strength to endure.

He sent up a prayer for his wife.

***

How long had it been since Esther had enjoyed her husband’s embrace? Between the baby being not quite weaned, the older boys climbing all over her, and Victor grabbing at her hands and skirts, Esther often felt her only privacy was in the bath, and then only if her husband did not walk into the room and offer his dear and dubious brand of “assistance.”

Something he hadn’t done in… quite some time.

And yet, Percival still wore the sandalwood scent he’d used when they courted, and she still loved it. She still loved how his hands felt caressing her back in slow, smooth sweeps, still loved that he could tease about locked doors and broad daylight.

Loved
him
.

The realization brought relief, because it was also true she didn’t always like the man she’d married, and often didn’t agree with him.

“I don’t know if I’m carrying. My monthly is not regular.” Hadn’t been regular since she’d started keeping company with her husband. Percival shifted beneath her while Esther tried to recall if they’d even had relations since last she’d bled.

His hand on her back went still. “Ah.”

What did that mean?
Ah?

“Do you want more children, Percival?” In the name of marital diplomacy and not shouting at Percival when anyone could hear, she refrained from bellowing:
You
can’t possibly want more children, can you, Percival? Not so soon…

He was silent for a moment while his fingers resumed tracing the bumps of her spine. Esther strongly suspected he wanted some daughters. Once upon a time, they had both foolishly admitted to wanting a large family, equal cohorts of sons and daughters.

“I want my wife to be healthy and happy more than I want anything in the world.”

He sounded like he meant it, also like he only realized he meant it as the words left his lips.

“I’m in good health. I’m just… tired.”

“Tired to the point of fainting, Esther?” He kissed her brow again, something he did with breathtaking tenderness.

“Thomas should be pensioned. I swore him to secrecy, and I was light-headed only because I stood up too fast.”

When she had been pregnant, she’d expected the occasional swoon, though none had befallen her. Ladies in the country, particularly women with a baby at the breast, wore front-lacing corsets without stiff reinforcement and were thus able to breathe easily.

Esther closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the languor her husband was weaving right there in the nursery.

“Come to London with me, Esther.”

In his way, that was a question, an invitation phrased as an order. Put like that, the idea of leaving Morelands, with its confused duke, its ailing heir, and its upset household staff held a wistful sort of appeal.

“I’m still nursing Valentine every evening. He won’t settle without it.” And sometimes, the little mite woke up fretful in the night, and Esther indulged him again because nothing else consoled him. The man who snored the night away beside her might have known this. He might also have known that most midwives swore breastfeeding made it harder to conceive babies in close succession.

Percival was quiet in the manner that told Esther he was strategizing, weighing alternatives, considering angles. The military had lost a great general-in-the-making when Percival had sold his commission. Esther felt not the least twinge of guilt over their loss.

“I would miss you, were you to remain here,” Percival said. This time he kissed her closed eyelids. “Keeping the army in decent boots and dry powder is important too. Lives depend on it.”

Despair tried to push aside the sense of sanctuary Esther felt in her husband’s arms. His Grace was failing, Peter’s health was precarious, and in London, Percival would be assailed by all those seeking to curry the favor of the Moreland heir, which he could well be in a very few years.

“I will miss you, but the children need me, Husband.” And her husband did not need her. Esther tucked closer rather than face the question of whether she needed him. “I never wanted to be a duchess.”

Bad enough she was Lady Esther.

“If God is merciful, we will dodge the title for many years, and Arabella is yet young enough she could have a son.”