The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide (10 page)

Just before sunrise, a great house has an empty quality, like a drum waiting to be struck. Cecilia rose in the pinky light of dawn and washed at the basin, then brushed out her hair. Without her maid she didn’t trust herself to pin up her hair without having it lopsided on her head, so she just tied it back with a ribbon.

Petunia had been overjoyed by the attention the Duke of Ormond had paid her the night before, but she would not be enthusiastic about this early morning rendezvous. Cecilia had to be so quiet that her mother—sleeping in the chamber next door—wouldn’t wake.

She slipped through her door, and closed the door quietly behind her—only to come to an abrupt halt. There, leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed over his chest, was the duke.

For a moment they just stared at each other, and then a slow smile spread over his face.

“Hello there,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

“Waiting for you.” He took a step forward.

Their eyes met. It was amazing, really, how little words mattered. His had a question that she had already answered. Banked passion flared suddenly when she bit her lower lip.

“Oh,” Cecilia said, sounding foolish to her own ears. No man had ever looked at her like that. She felt beautiful, as if his gaze alone made her glow, spangled by early
sunlight, glittering like something precious. “I really oughtn’t go with you, Your Grace,” she said, her voice breathy and low.

“Theo,” he said pointedly.

“It would be most improper to call you by your first name.”

“But my intentions are entirely proper, Cecilia.” Her name rolled off his tongue like a promise.

“Oh,” she said again, feeling herself turn pink.

“But also improper.” He gave her a wolfish smile, the smile of a boy who always got what he wanted. All the same, his eyes were direct and clear, showing desire
and
respect.

When he drew her into his arms, she didn’t squeak, or call to her mother, or any of the things that a proper young lady should do.

Cecilia had never been kissed, so she hadn’t realized how large the barrier was between ignorance and experience. It turned out that kisses weren’t a matter of lips, or even mouths, as she thought.

The duke’s tongue stroked into her mouth and her body woke up as if a deep chord of music had sounded nearby.

Her arms went around his neck instinctively, and then he drew her into his arms and brought their bodies together, turning and putting her back against the wall. It felt as if Mozart and Bach mixed together, joy and the grandeur and solemnity at once.

Cecilia had always been good at learning music.

Theo’s body—his mouth—was a new instrument, but she felt herself instinctively into the art of it, her fingers curling into his hair, her body melting against his.

Sometime later, he drew back, breath ragged, a curse word slipping from deep in his throat.

Forgetting about her mother, about the early hour, about any of it, Cecilia laughed aloud at his surprised expression.

He let out a breath and put his forehead carefully against hers. “You’ve unmanned me, damn it.”

She didn’t say anything because even a very young lady without much knowledge of the world could interpret the pressure of his body. He was not unmanned, no.

Not at all.

She grinned up at him, knowing that she was glowing with happiness and then daringly arched her back, just a little bit. Enough so that their silent conversation could refer to the question of manliness.

He bent his head again, as if he couldn’t stop himself, ravishing her mouth, drawing her against him tightly.

“How soon can we marry?” he asked in her ear, sometime later.

Cecilia had discovered that Theo’s back was corded with muscle; she could feel fascinating hollows through his coat. “Did I miss your proposal?” she asked, with a gurgle of laughter.

He cocked an eyebrow. “Here?”

Really, the man had a terribly provocative grin.

Cecilia leaned back against the wall. “The location is, of course, your prerogative,” she said gravely.

“Then I choose the music room,” he said. With one swoop, he snatched her into his arms. Cecilia gave a startled squeak but the duke was already walking down the corridor.

Over his shoulder, she saw something that made her wince. And wave. “My mother just saw you snatch me up like a pirate marauder. What do you think of that, Your Grace?”

He glanced down at her. “I think she’ll expect to see you at breakfast with a ring on your finger.”

Cecilia leaned her head against his chest. Her life had changed so sharply that she had a sense of vertigo. She was going to be a duchess.

Her duke was a brilliant musician.

Theo strode into the ballroom and walked straight to the piano. He didn’t put her on the seat; instead he seated her on the piano itself, which put her about eye level with him.

“I brought you this,” he said, pulling a ring out of his pocket and sliding it on her finger.

“It’s so beautiful,” Cecilia breathed, admiring the large pale pink diamond.

“It is the exact color of your cheeks when you would become furious and start screaming at me,” he said with satisfaction. “I saw it in Vienna two years ago and bought it for you on the spot. It just took me a while to come home.”

Then he kissed her until her cheeks were altogether rosier than the stone.

“I’ve been in London,” she said later. “I could have found someone. What would you have done with the diamond if I married someone else?”

He couldn’t have given it to another woman, not the ring he picked out for her.

He shook his head. “My mother would have written me immediately if you had a wooer. I would have returned.”

Cecelia’s heart plunked to the bottom of her chest. Theo knew that she had failed on the marriage market two seasons in a row. Who would want to marry a woman who was rejected by all his peers?

His hand gently tipped up her chin. “I know precisely why you didn’t ‘take.’ I heard the foolishness about Silly Billy. Believe me, I consider myself blessed that gentlemen were stupid enough to listen to that nonsense. Unless I am gravely mistaken, a good many men at this very house party are cursing their own stupidity.”

Cecilia managed a wobbly smile.

“Did it give James a moment’s sorrow?” Theo asked. “I remember him quite well from when we were children.”

Cecilia shook her head. “He didn’t know of it. But even if he had, he is innately joyful.”

“That nickname held off the vultures while I was greedily learning everything I could about the piano,” Theo said. “I always knew I’d come back.”

“When your father died, and you had to be duke,” she said, nodding.

“No, because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He shrugged. “I will do my best as a duke. But I had to come back so I could marry you.”

“Oh,” she breathed.

“I thought James might like to live with us,” he said, dusting her lips with kisses. “If he still has tame chickens, he could bring them along.”

There was an endearing flash of uncertainty in his eyes. Cecilia took a second just to savor the pleasure of having a duke at her feet, metaphorically at least. Then she twined her arms around his neck and took a shaky breath.

He was the one. The only one.

“I believe you were going to ask me a question?” she asked softly.

Theo cupped her face in his hands. “Will you marry me, Cecilia? To have and to hold, in sickness and health?”

“I will,” she whispered, tenderness and need roaring through her body like an ocean wave. “I will, Theo. I will.”

“We are going to spend our lives making music,” he said, his eyes dark with an emotion she didn’t yet know . . . but welcomed. “I’ll teach you the guitar, and you will teach me to play Mozart with irony.”

“And privacy,” she reminded him, knowing her face was lit with an impish smile. “I shall need many private hours to teach you to play properly.”

“Many, many hours,” the duke murmured, gathering her more tightly into his arms as he crushed his mouth against hers, giving her deep, hungry kisses that promised everything. “I’ll put a bar on the door of the music room. Banish everyone from the ballroom.”

She would have all the music she wanted, along with shivers that had nothing to do with grasshoppers.

And love.

Even chickens.

Cecilia couldn’t know it at that time, but the Duke of Ormond meant to give her her heart’s desire, and he followed through.

Their house overflowed with musical instruments and sheets of chamber music. Her brother trotted to and fro, peacefully happy to the end of his days.

Cecilia had never imagined that what she wanted most in life—after the love of her husband—were two bumptious, fractious baby boys who both had a tin ear and a mysterious passion for horses that would lead them to rebuild the ducal stables.

Still, that was the deepest wish of her heart, after the love of her husband.

And he gave them to her.

They were all sitting around on a bed, of course. It happened to be a bed belonging to Lucius Felton, though that name was not frequently used, given that His Majesty had recently bestowed the title Earl of Barnett on Lucius. His bed was big enough for the king and most of his court, so the Essex sisters fit on it quite nicely.

“He’s in love,” Annabel announced.

“What?” Tess dropped her knitting and her mouth fell open.

Annabel’s eyes were a little shiny with tears. “It’s true. I found a letter”—her voice caught—“a letter he wrote to her. To a buxom, yellow-haired hussy who does nothing but giggle.”

“Oh, honey,” Tess said, leaning over to give her a hug.

“I never thought he would love anyone but me. Ever!”

“We are talking about your son Samuel, aren’t we?” Josie said, looking up from Weatherby’s
General Stud Book
, in which she was checking horse lineages for the Mayne stables. “There’s so much quivering emotion in the room that I thought perhaps your husband’s eyes were wandering.”

“Ewan’s? I wouldn’t be sitting here describing the woman; I’d be imprisoned for murder,” Annabel said. “Of course, I’m talking about Samuel. Samuel Raphael, my sweet boy, is in love! And what’s more, he’s growing hair.”

“More information than I wanted,” Josie said. “Poor little Samuel. I’m glad he doesn’t know his mother is blurting out the details of his personal development.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Annabel said, scowling at her youngest sister. “I have absolutely no idea whether Samuel has hair on his body and frankly, I don’t wish to know. What I meant is that he’s growing the hair on his head, well past his shoulders.”

“Well,” Tess said, “why not? Phin has taken to wearing a fringed cravat that he twists and then sticks through his buttonhole. I know it’s in fashion, but it looks ridiculous with his Eton jacket. He’s only thirteen.”

“Samuel is growing his hair in hopes he will come to resemble an ancient Pict,” Annabel said gloomily. “He wants it to flow free down to his waist. Luckily it doesn’t seem to be going much of anywhere. Your Phin, on the other hand, looks like a proper Englishman. Like Lucius, as a matter of fact.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Lucius’s wife inquired with just the smallest edge in her voice.

“Phin is sensible,” Annabel said. “He is as calm and rational as his father. I’ll never forget when he was eight years old and staying with us when Samuel’s cat died. You’d have thought the world had come to an end if you’d been there that day. Tears, howls, and some kicking of the wainscoting. Phin just gazed at him with his gorgeous solemn eyes, and said, ‘He’s gone to heaven, Samuel. Now he won’t pee on your bed anymore. He can pee on a cloud.’”

“Logical,” Tess said, grinning. “That’s my son.”

“No one’s listening to me,” Annabel complained. “My point is that Samuel is engaged in an illicit correspondence with a woman.”

“Who’s the lucky maiden?” Josie inquired.

“The baker’s daughter in the village.”

“How sweet,” Tess said in a tone that indicated (correctly) that her thirteen-year-old son was unlikely to ever fall in love with a baker’s daughter, buxom or otherwise.

“Her name is Marge,” Annabel said. “She is at least sixteen and remarkably well-endowed for her age. I don’t think she can actually read his letters, but it hardly matters; she only giggles in response to any question you put to her. Fortunately, she shows no sign of reciprocating his affection. I think she considers him a thick-witted younger brother.”

“That’s lucky,” Josie said. “Thank goodness, Cecily is only ten years old and I don’t have to worry about this sort of thing yet. What does Ewan say about Samuel’s hopeless passion?”

“He thinks it’s funny, so we argued,” Annabel said. “It takes me forever to make that man see reason. Hours!”

Josie snorted. “Let me guess. The argument ended when Ewan started kissing you.”

“He only does that when he has lost the battle,” Annabel said primly. And then at their laughter, “He does lose quite frequently, of course. If that man had his way he would sweep me upstairs every afternoon, not to mention bedtime. Honestly, I’m a bit tired of it.”

Josie giggled. “A surfeit of pleasure for Annabel. Who would have thought?”

“You’re too young to understand,” Annabel said. “It’s not that I don’t adore making love with my husband, but sometimes I just want to finish whatever task I’m working on.”

“It seems like just only a year ago that Samuel was a tiny baby,” Tess said a bit dreamily. “And then my Phin came along. Do you remember how many letters we wrote each other, Annabel? I used to write you a frantic letter every time Phin cried for more than two minutes.”

“Back then Samuel used to tuck into the crook of my arm. You’re exactly right: it feels like a year ago.”

“Thirteen years ago,” Josie said. “Feeling the creeping chill of age, are you? It seems to me that you’re veering close to a very, very, very big birthd—” She let out a hoot of laughter and ducked out of the way of the pillow that flew past her head.

“I’m closer than Annabel to that big birthday,” Tess said. “And I can’t say that I feel the least bit of dismay.”

“Why would you? Lucius adores the ground you walk on, and you look more beautiful all the time.”

Three sisters stared at Tess for a moment.

“I think it’s because she has such a classic face,” Imogen offered. “She’s going to be one of those gorgeous old ladies who keeps her cheekbones and puts all the rest of us to shame.”

“I am going to be a roly-poly old lady,” Annabel said.

“You always told me that it was good to be curvy,” Josie said, frowning at her. “You are gorgeously curvy, Annabel, and don’t you dare tell me that Ewan has started hankering after slender figures.”

The smile playing around Annabel’s lips told the answer to that question. “Luckily, my husband doesn’t seem to have noticed I’m getting older.”

“Neither has mine,” Imogen said, grinning. “We went for a ride a few days ago and ended up in a field of buttercups.”

“Remember when we first arrived from Scotland, and Rafe was the roly-poly one?” Annabel asked.

“Not to mention his eau-de-brandy,” Imogen said. “Thank goodness, we’re long past those days.”

“Rafe looks marvelous now,” Annabel said, with the grin of a woman who enjoys assessing a man’s attributes. “Taut and muscled in a way that I never could have imagined.”

“It’s the horses,” Josie said. “I decided that’s why Mayne stays so slim, though he and I eat precisely the same food.”

“Do you always call your husband Mayne?” Imogen asked. “And are you saying that Mayne hasn’t managed to get you on a horse yet? I thought he swore last Christmas that his New Year’s resolution was to have you riding like a Valkyrie.”

“Men,” Josie said. “They make so many foolish promises. And no, I don’t call him Mayne. In intimate situations, I call him Garret.”

“And riding?” Annabel asked. “What about that, Josie?”

Josie smiled, a little secret smile. “I’m too old.”

“Old?” Imogen squealed. “You’re scarcely thirty years old.”

Josie looked around the bed and felt her heart swell with love for her sisters, for calm, beautiful Tess, who had always looked out for others, until Lucius made it his life’s work to take care of her every wish; for delicious Annabel, whose sarcastic joyful comments only grew more funny when Ewan jousted with her; for fiery, emotional Imogen, who had rescued Rafe from a barrel of whiskey and turned him into a man who laughed for the pure joy of it.

“I’m having a baby,” she said, her hands cradling her tummy.

There was a moment of silence and then: “A baby! We’re done with babies!” Imogen blurted out.

“
You’re
done with babies,” Josie said. “You each have two or three, may I point out, and I only have one. Cecily is ten years old, and we thought she might like a sister or brother.”

“Oh my goodness,” Tess said. “That’s wonderful, Josie! A little one. We get to have another baby to hold. By Christmastime?”

“Approximately,” Josie said.

“The girls will be so excited,” Annabel said. “Clementina loves children.”

“And Elspeth?” Josie asked.

“If you were planning to give birth to a horse she would be very excited,” Annabel admitted. “I don’t know why, but my children seem to be extremely wild. The other day Elspeth assisted in the birth of a foal, and the stable master said she was as good as any of the men.”

“I like Elspeth,” Josie said. “I mean, I love all my nieces and nephews, of course. But Elspeth is a special soul.”

“I can’t rein her in at all. Sometimes I think—” Annabel hesitated. “Sometimes I think she’s so uncontrollable because her twin didn’t live.”

Tess scooted over and wrapped an arm around Annabel’s shoulder. “Now that doesn’t make a bit of sense, sweetheart. Elspeth is a gorgeous, spirited little person because that’s who she is, not because darling Bethany couldn’t be there with her.”

Annabel swallowed. “I still think of her, you know? Elspeth is nine years old, and I still think of Bethany every day.”

Imogen and Josie were there in a moment, a tangle of sisters’ arms and kisses in the middle of the bed. “I know, darling,” Tess crooned. “We all think of her.”

“I feel as if I shouldn’t,” Annabel said on a sob. “I’m so lucky that Samuel and Clementina and Elspeth are so healthy.”

“That isn’t the point,” Imogen said quietly. “We always miss people we loved when they’re gone. You don’t stop loving just because death comes between you.”

Josie’s arm tightened around Imogen, who had lost her reckless young husband after only a few weeks of marriage.

“I’m sorry,” Annabel said hiccupping. “It’s just that it will be their birthday next week.”

“We know,” Tess said, and her eyes were shining with tears too. “We all remember, darling.”

Annabel smiled in a watery kind of way and fished out a handkerchief. “Ewan says she’s in heaven waiting for us. Sometimes it’s so nice to have a husband with such a fierce certitude about these things.”

“He’s right,” Imogen said. “Ewan is absolutely right.”

“I didn’t mean to detract from your news,” Annabel said, giving Josie another hug. “I really didn’t. It’s just that it’s sometimes hard to hear about babies, which is so stupid.”

“Not stupid,” Tess said, rocking her sister a little in her arms. “It’s not stupid at all.”

“I wish Bethany could be here,” Josie said, “but even in her two days of life, she felt loved, Annabel. Deeply loved.”

“We never put her down,” Annabel said. “Never. They said she was too small and so we just—” She stopped.

“She was loved,” Josie said firmly. “She knew you were there, and she loved you back, with every inch of her tiny little body. And that love is waiting for you, just the way Bethany will be waiting for you to pick her up again.”

Tess smiled at her little sister. “Just when did you grow so wise? I keep forgetting that you’re grown up at all. I expect you to dance into the room complaining about the dancing master or your governess.”

“I was always wiser than the three of you,” Josie said. “It’s just taken you thirty years to realize the truth.”

“Oh, be still,” Imogen said, leaning back against the bedpost. “Remember all those schemes you had to catch a husband?”

“They worked,” Josie said smugly. “I was right in my assessments. All three of you had married in less than regular manner, and so I merely followed suit. I have so many friends whose marriages are not loving: I would say that the Essex sister way of finding a husband is a very good one. I couldn’t have done better.”

They each sat for a moment, Tess thinking of her beloved, solemn Lucius; Annabel of her adoring, steadfast Ewan; Imogen of laughing, big-hearted Rafe; and Josie of gorgeous, passionate Garret, known to the world as the Earl of Mayne.

“I think about what could have happened last month and I feel ill with the fear of it,” Imogen said, shivering a little.

“When Rafe got caught in a burning barn?” Annabel asked. “Do tell me how that happened! I got your letter, of course, but it wasn’t very detailed.”

“It was Luke’s nanny,” Imogen said. “At four, he was getting a bit old for his nursemaid, and so I found a lively young nanny. As it turned out, she was too lively. Rafe had a beautiful new barn constructed for the horses, but the old one was still being used for grain storage. Apparently, our nanny discovered that it was a good trysting spot. Until she knocked over a lantern in a sheaf of hay.”

“I expect it went up in a second,” Josie said.

“Yes. She was in the loft, waiting for her friend,” Imogen said, with a little wrinkle of her nose. “She started screaming. Luckily enough, we were actually in the courtyard. Rafe and I love to ride at night, and the stable master had just brought our mounts when we heard the noise.”

“That must have been so frightening,” Josie said. “Did she appear at the upper loft window, her long flaxen hair flowing in the wind?”

“Don’t make fun,” Imogen said. “It wasn’t anything like a novel. All of a sudden there were wild screams, and while I was still trying to figure out what has happening—and the stable master was as slow as I was—Rafe ran straight into the building.”

“That must have been very difficult for you,” Tess said, leaning forward to pat her sister’s slippers.

“Awful!” Imogen said. “It’s not that I ever miss Draven, because I don’t. But I know in the back of my mind that I might lose Rafe because I lost Draven, and—”

“You didn’t lose Rafe,” Tess said. “He’s fine, Imogen.”

Imogen took a deep breath. “Yes, he tossed the girl out the loft window and the stable boys caught her. And then he jumped down himself and fortunately didn’t break anything. A few minutes later the structure crashed to the ground. We were so lucky.”

“Sometimes I think that, for me, the most lucky thing of all was having the three of you as sisters,” Josie said, looking from Annabel to Tess and Imogen. “Because I never knew Mama, and while Papa loved us, he wasn’t terribly good at showing it. But I always, always felt loved because of the three of you.”