“Spinning?” Silence couldn’t think how spinning might concern Lady Hero, but then the aristocracy was a breed apart at times. “We’d best go see.”
Chapter Twenty
“I have one last question for you,” the queen announced to her frowning suitors. “What is in my heart?”
Well! Her question was not met with joy by the three princes. Prince Eastsun frowned and for a moment simply opened and closed his handsome mouth before admitting defeat and bowing from the room. Prince Westmoon scowled and stomped out, muttering about the frivolousness of queens and women in general. Prince Northwind shook his head and said, “Who can understand the heart of a woman?” And then he, too, left.
The advisers, ministers, and men of letters fell to arguing, but Queen Ravenhair quietly left the throne room and made for the stables….
—from Queen Ravenhair
SIX WEEKS LATER…
“He’s a priggish ass, and I don’t see why I should bother to even reply.” Griffin threw the letter from Thomas on the breakfast room table.
Across from him, his wife of only one week continued to serenely pour her tea. “You need to not only answer him, but also agree to see him for dinner because he is your brother.”
“Humph.” Griffin crossed his arms on his chest and attempted to glare at Hero but was somewhat diverted by the magnificence of her décolletage. “Is that a new frock?”
“Yes, and don’t change the subject,” she replied with adorable severity. It always rather aroused him when she attempted to be severe with him.
Of course, his wife could arouse him by reciting the alphabet, too.
“What are you going to do today?” he asked, ignoring her order.
“I’m going to inspect the progress Mr. Templeton’s made on the new home. He thinks they may actually be done before spring. After that, I’ll stop by the home and see how the spinning lessons are going.”
“Splendid!” Griffin had already bought a prize ram and breeding ewes. By spring the children would have new wool to spin.
She smiled. “And then I’m off to a tea at Lady Beckinhall’s, where I hope to persuade her to join my Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children.”
He made a show of shuddering. “The name alone strikes fear into my heart.”
“Why?”
“A syndication of ladies involving both one’s wife and one’s sister,” he replied darkly, “would strike fear into any man’s heart.”
“Silly,” she said blithely. “Margaret will laugh when I tell her you said so.”
“And prove my point.”
She gave him a look and set down her cup of tea. “Now, as to your brother—”
“Name me one good reason why I should see him”—Griffin held up a finger as she opened her lips—“besides the fact that I’m unfortunately related to him.”
She smiled sweetly, which he had begun to realize in the last week was a warning sign. “It would please your mother.”
“Huh,” was his devastating reply. The fact was that he’d do almost anything to make Mater happy, and Hero well knew it.
“And,” she said, picking up a piece of toast, “it would please me as well.”
Griffin straightened in outrage at that. “He hit you!”
“And I’ve forgiven him,” she said. “He did give me that incredibly expensive emerald necklace in apology.”
“Lavinia made him do that,” he pointed out.
“It was still a lovely gesture nonetheless.” She eyed him as she crunched her toast. “And that was after he sent me roses daily for three weeks straight. I don’t know why you stopped him.”
“Whole damned house smelled of wilting roses,” Griffin muttered. “Irritating as hell.”
His wife looked at him with those diamond eyes. “Don’t you think that if I can forgive him, you should, too?”
“Huh.” He was huhing a lot since marrying Hero. Rather lowering for one’s self-esteem, that. A devious thought suddenly presented itself. Griffin widened his eyes. “If I endure what will no doubt be a horrible dinner with Thomas, will you kiss me?”
She narrowed her eyes. Lovely, but no fool, was his wife. “I always kiss you.”
“Not,” he said silkily, “that kind of kiss.”
He watched as pink rose in her cheeks. Married a week and he could still make his wife blush, by God! One had to take one’s victories where one could.
“Are you trying to blackmail me?” she hissed incredulously. “That’s rather low, even for you.”
He straightened the cuffs on his coat. “I prefer to think of it as an incentive.”
She snorted delicately.
“Just one kiss.” His eyelids drooped lazily at the thought of her kissing him there. “One tiny, little kiss.”
It was a delight to see her cheeks flame pinker. “Rogue.”
He smiled lazily. “Tease.”
“Will you go?”
“Will you kiss me?”
She bit her lip, and his cock stood at attention. “Perhaps.”
Which was why, several hours later, Griffin found himself mounting the steps of Mandeville House. Not even the remembrance of Hero’s eyes as she’d murmured that “perhaps” improved his mood. He knocked, half hoping that his brother wouldn’t answer and he could just go home to his wife.
But the door opened, and he was admitted and escorted into a dining room. Griffin looked around. At one end of a long mahogany table, his brother was seated. One other place setting lay at Thomas’s right hand. Otherwise the table was empty.
He hadn’t seen Thomas since the day they’d argued. In the intervening weeks, they’d both married, and Thomas—in an interesting role reversal—had endured something of a miniature scandal for marrying the notorious Mrs. Tate.
Griffin strolled toward Thomas. “Where is Lavinia?”
Thomas, who had stood on his entrance, picked up his glass of wine and took a deep drink, eyeing Griffin sourly over the rim. “She said it would be best if we dined alone.”
Griffin dropped into his chair. “Hero wouldn’t come either.”
Thomas’s gaze lowered. “I’m truly sorry for hurting her.”
“As well you should be,” Griffin growled. He looked away. “She says she’s forgiven you.”
Thomas sighed. “I’m glad.”
Griffin stared at his glass for a bit. If he drank it down, he might keep drinking and on the whole, he’d rather be sober when he returned home to Hero and her kiss.
Thomas cleared his throat. “Lavinia says I must tell you that I believe you.”
It took a moment for Griffin to work out that complicated comment; then he straightened in his chair. “You do?”
Thomas nodded, sipping his wine.
Griffin slammed his palm down on the table. All the dishes jumped, and a fork fell off the edge. “Then why the hell didn’t you say so earlier?”
Thomas scowled. “She always liked you.”
“Anne?” Griffin asked incredulously.
Thomas nodded.
“So? You were the one she married.”
“But if I hadn’t had the title—”
“But you did have the title,” Griffin near roared. Of all the stupid, soft-brained—
Thomas slammed his own hand down. A glass crashed to the floor. “You don’t understand! You’ve never understood. I might have the title and Father’s affections, but you have Mother’s and everyone else’s!”
Griffin blinked. “You were… jealous? Of me?”
Thomas looked away, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
And it was suddenly too much for Griffin. He shouted with laughter, holding his belly, doubled over the table.
“It’s not that funny,” Thomas said when Griffin paused to take a breath.
“It bloody well is,” Griffin assured him. “You’ve barely talked to me for over three years and all because you were jealous. Jesus, Thomas! You’re richer, older, and scads more handsome than me. What more do you want?”
Thomas shrugged. “She always liked you better.”
Griffin sobered. “Who? Anne or Mater?”
“Both.” Thomas stared moodily into his glass. “When Father died, I thought I’d be the one in charge. I was the marquess, after all. But then we realized Father’s debts, and she called you home from Cambridge.”
“I do have the better head for business.”
Thomas nodded stiffly. “You do. You did. Even though you were only twenty—and two years younger than I—you immediately set to improving our finances.”
“Would you prefer I’d let us all go to debtor’s prison?” Griffin asked drily.
“No.” Thomas raised his face and looked him frankly in the eye. “I’d prefer that I were the one who could save Mother from financial ruin.”
Griffin stared at him for a moment and thought about what it must have cost Thomas to admit that he wasn’t good at something.
He leaned forward and poured his brother some more wine. “Every time you’ve ever made a speech in parliament, Mater has written all about it to me—pages and pages of details, the points you made and the reaction of the Lords.”
Thomas’s mouth dropped open. “Truly?”
Griffin nodded. “Truly. Haven’t you ever noticed her in the ladies’ gallery?”
“No.” Thomas shook his head, looking a little dazed. “I had no idea.”
“Well, now you do.” Griffin set the bottle down and leaned back in the chair. “Besides, what good would two financial geniuses in the family do?”
THE OPENING OF the bedroom door woke Hero that night. She yawned and stretched indolently as Griffin set down the candle he carried and took off his wig.
It was sadly unsophisticated but they’d decided they preferred to share a room—and a bed—at night. So upon their marriage, she’d moved into his bedroom and was in the process of redecorating the sitting room on one side into a dressing room for her.
“You were out late,” she murmured, her voice husky from sleep.
Griffin, who’d splashed water on his face from the basin on his dresser, turned to her with a cloth in his hand. “Thomas wanted to discuss his estates.”
His voice was relaxed—a far cry from the tension in his body when he’d left this evening for his brother’s house. “It went well, then?”
“Well enough. He’s very interested in the new weaving venture.” He threw the cloth to the dresser top and prowled toward her, his gaze roaming over the silk coverlet she held to her chest. “Are you wearing anything under there?”
She lowered her eyes demurely. “No… Well, yes.”
He cocked an eyebrow as he shrugged out of his coat. “What?”
She tilted her head.
His gaze went to her left ear. “Ah. Your diamond earbob.” He tugged at his neckcloth. “Where’s the other one?”
She lifted one bare arm out from underneath the covers and pointed mutely at the table beside the bed.
He dropped his neckcloth and waistcoat onto a chair, then came over to look. Griffin picked up the other earbob. “Is this the one you threw at me?”
“Yes.” She lay back against the fluffy down pillows.
“I see.” He toed off his shoes and crawled over the bed at her, the mattress sinking beneath his weight. “May I?”
She licked her lips, feeling the acceleration of her pulse. “Please.”
He straddled her, kneeling on the coverlet, trapping her beneath, and leaned over her. Gently he took her earlobe in his warm fingers, and she felt him insert the fine gold wire into her ear.