Once Upon a Tower

Page 9

And she wasn’t even finished:
I would be most grateful if you would write me back. I am certain that you have requests of your own, and I am most willing to take them under advisement.
Take them under advisement?
A great swell of rage swept up his chest. She thought he would disgrace his own marriage vows by taking a mistress? She planned to take his wishes under advisement?
And she thought he would make requests? He was a bloody duke. He issued orders, not requests.
Gowan almost never lost his temper. A raised eyebrow was more than enough to cow a man aware that a duke held the power of ruination in his hands. One word, and Gowan could have anyone thrown in jail. Not that he had or would. But he held the power in abeyance.
Expression of rage was a blunt weapon, as clumsy as it was unneeded. And he was well aware that on those rare occasions when he lost his temper, he tended to say a good many hotheaded things that he regretted later.
Unfortunately, just now anger swept straight from his gut to his head. Lady Edith’s letter was disrespectful: of his person, of his title, and of his offer of marriage. He sat down at his desk and snatched a piece of letter paper. His quill stabbed the paper, tearing it.
He had offered to make her a duchess. Not just any duchess, either: the Duchess of Kinross. One of the oldest, most respected titles in all Scotland. Never held by an Englishwoman. Never.
Maybe there was a reason for that.
He started a fresh sheet.
Lady Edith:
Perhaps it is the Scotsman in me—
No. He didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable owing to her unfortunate nationality. It wasn’t her fault. And since it had been his idea to align himself with a noble English family, he shouldn’t cavil about her birth.
He took a deep breath. He had to keep a sense of humor. His fiancée seemed to be a practical sort with all the humor of a dormouse, but he had never asked her if she enjoyed life. He had just taken one look at her deep green eyes and promised her father a settlement worthy of a princess.
That might have been a mistake, but it was too late now. He’d apparently got himself betrothed to a dour, child-loathing bureaucrat.
Then an image of her curves—and those eyes—drifted through his mind, and his whole being sprang to alert. Maybe they could stay away from each other except when they were in bed.
That in mind, he took up his quill again.
Lady Edith:
Thank you for your letter. You honor me with your candor; I hope you will forgive my bold speech. Herewith please find my expectations for this marriage.
1. I mean to husband your bed every night until we’re ninety, or at the very least, eighty-five.
2. For a Scotsman, the bawdy hand of the dial is always upon the prick of noon. In short, I would interrupt the activities of the day for one thing only.
3. I’ll take a mistress when you take a lover and not before.
4. Children come as God wills them. I’ve no mind to wear pig’s gut on my private parts, if that’s what you’re suggesting.
5. Are you deranged? I’m curious. The betrothal papers are signed, so my statement is not a plea for freedom. However, you may take it as an expression of genuine curiosity.
He’d never written anything so sarcastic before; a duke has no occasion to write ironic notes to anyone except his intimates. And as it happened, he hadn’t many intimates.
In fact, the Earl of Chatteris, whose wedding he would soon attend, was one of few who addressed him as Gowan. He and Chatteris were friends mostly because neither of them liked to attract attention. Years ago, when his father was alive and used to drag him to house parties in the summer, at which the children were forced to put on performances for the delectation of the adults, he and Chatteris had played the trees that moved to Dunsinane Castle and frightened Macbeth. Ever since, they had silently agreed that they found each other tolerable.
He signed the letter with his full title: Gowan Stoughton of Craigievar, Duke of Kinross, Chief of Clan MacAulay.
And then he took out the wax that he almost never used and sealed the letter with his ducal signet.
It was impressive.
Ducal.
Good.
Six
Edie’s father and stepmother had apparently patched things up, but only to the extent that meals were cool rather than frosty.
“He still won’t bed me,” Layla confided over luncheon, a few days later. The earl had been expected to join them, but had not appeared.
Edie sighed. She disliked monitoring her father’s marital folly, but whom else could poor Layla confide in? “The same problem? He thinks that you’re shagging Gryphus in your spare moments?”
“He says he believes me about Gryphus. But as you will have noticed, that fact doesn’t lead him to sleep at home.”
Just then Willikins entered, bearing a small silver tray in his gloved hand. “Oh good,” Layla said. “I expect it’s an invitation to General Rutland’s revue. Mrs. Blossom said that she would invite me to join her box.”
“A letter for Lady Edith,” the butler said, heading around the table to deliver it. “A groom will return for your response on the morrow.”
Edie took the letter. Sure enough, it was a missive fit for a duke, written on thick paper that smelled like sovereigns and sealed with a fat blob of red wax.
“Is that from Kinross?” Layla asked. She put down her fork. “I suppose it’s acceptable for a betrothed couple to correspond, but my mother would have . . .”
She kept talking while Edie ripped open the letter and read it.
And then read it once more. “Husband your bed” seemed clear enough, though the man had delusions of grandeur. Ninety years old? She snorted. Look at her father, and he was only forty or thereabouts.
Kinross’s answer to her point about a mistress was precisely what any woman would want to hear. But “pig’s gut”? How would that prevent conception?
It was the fifth and final paragraph that she read over and over. Her future spouse did have a sense of humor. She appreciated his sarcasm. In fact, it gave her a startlingly different view of her impending marriage.
“What does he have to say?” Layla asked. Her head was propped on her hand. “I have a terrible headache, and I’m not capable of reading, so just tell me.”
“He’s boasting that we’ll dance in the sheets until we’re ninety.”
“He can’t be as stickish as he appeared, then. In fact, he sounds perfect. As unlike your father as can be.”
Edie folded the letter and put it to the side. It wasn’t precisely a declaration of love, but since it was the first letter from her future spouse, she meant to keep it. And to answer it. “Do you suppose that perhaps you and Father could have a rational conversation to determine the points of discord in your marriage, with consideration how to avoid them from here on out?”
Layla raised her head just enough to squint at her and then dropped it again. “You sounded just as priggish as your father when you said that.”
“Really?” It wasn’t a pleasant thought. “I’m sorry.”
“Talking doesn’t work for us. We communicate on a more intimate level. Which means we don’t communicate at all, these days.”
“On that front, do you have any idea what the ‘bawdy hand of the dial’ might signify?”