The Duke and His Duchess - By Grace Burrowes Page 0,28

some time. She hoped it would feed the child.

“Let young Romeo keep his wages,” Percival said, “provided he takes a wife. Are you enjoying your soup?”

Esther glanced at her nearly empty bowl. “It appears I am. You’d allow a footman to marry?”

“I will not allow a child to go hungry merely because her parents were young and foolish. The mother will have to find lodging elsewhere, lest Moreland take offense at my interference. Is she a village girl?”

“From Dorset, though she speaks well enough and is clever with a needle. I could send her some mending if she finds lodging nearby.”

“Excellent notion.” Percival moved the soup dishes to the side and began carving Esther a serving of roasted beef that would have fed Tony for several days of forced march. “How are my little Hottentots, and what could they possibly be waging war over?”

The topic of tribal warfare in the nursery was much safer, though why the exchange regarding a straying chambermaid and her swain should be upsetting, Esther did not know.

Not exactly upsetting, but Percival’s reaction to it gave Esther pause.

He deserved to know about the boy, Devlin St. Just. Esther admitted this to herself as she and her husband wandered up to the jungle on the third floor, and tucked sleepy, well-fed, happy little warriors into their cozy beds.

As Esther settled Valentine into his crib, and Percival waited patiently in a rocking chair by the fire, Esther realized the decision was not truly about Percival’s deserts, or about Mrs. St. Just’s, or even about Esther’s.

A boy needed to know who his father was and to have the protection that man could afford him in this precarious and difficult life. One pearl bracelet was no substitute for a father’s protection, much less a father’s love.

Coming to this conclusion and broaching the matter with her spouse were two separate acts of courage.

In a silence that should have been companionable, Esther accepted her husband’s assistance undressing. His hands lingered in seductive locations, on her nape when he unfastened a necklace, at the base of her spine when he unhooked her dress. His lips strayed to the spot beneath her ear that sent shivers over her skin.

Of all nights, why was he seducing her now?

When she was wearing only a chemise, Esther turned, intending to unknot Percival’s neckcloth. She was willing to be seduced, willing to accept some marital comfort and to forget for a few moments what—whom—the day had brought to her back gate.

Had Percival not built up the fire while Esther had removed her remaining jewelry, Esther might have missed the little glint of red on his sleeve. She drew his neckcloth from him slowly and turned to toss it over the open door of the wardrobe, when a hint of coppery fire caught her eye.

Two red hairs lay on his coat at the shoulder, two brilliant, gracefully curving commas of evidence that Percival had been close to somebody other than his wife. Mrs. St. Just had hair that shade, but she would hardly have come calling at the home of a man who was paying her for her favors, would she?

Gladys also had red hair, but not nearly this long.

“Esther?” Percival leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. “I would join my wife in our bed, if she’d allow it.”

He was asking to bed her, to exercise his marital privileges, while his very clothing bore traces of congress with somebody else.

“Of course, Percival.” Esther finished undressing her husband, wondering how it was that she could love a man whose casual behavior also had the power to devastate her.

When she was naked on her back, Percival braced above her and, joining their bodies with excruciating deliberateness, Esther tried to push the ugly, desolate thoughts aside:

Was it guilt—or something more arrogant and possessive—that drove him to make love to his wife while he was also keeping a mistress?

Should she wait out his renewed interest in the behaviors of an unmarried man, or accept that their marriage had served its purpose and separate lives awaited them?

Percival set up a languorous rhythm, tucking himself close and running his nose around her ear. “Where are you, Wife? Do you grow bored with your husband’s attentions?”

He punctuated the question with a kiss, a hot joining of mouths that tormented as it aroused: Did he kiss his mistress this way?

As Esther’s body undulated in counterpoint to her husband’s, her imagination flashed on Cecily O’Donnell’s bright red hair and full mouth. Even through the pain of