My Naughty Minette (Properly Spanked Book 3) Page 18

  August did not know how they had managed to show hospitality to everyone, except that Minette awoke the morning after his father’s death and calmly took everything in hand. She had been their saving grace, directing the servants and playing hostess while August flailed in a fog of numb emotion and his mother lay prostrate with grief.

  Dear, sweet Minette. Where would they have been without her? She had told charming, heartfelt stories of her limited acquaintance with the marquess, until the ladies were in tears and the gentlemen all clearing their throats. She had put a publicly acceptable shine to the miserable character of his father, and brought brightness and order to the exhausting rituals of mourning. August was not offended by this fiction. He was grateful. As the next Lord Barrymore, he had an interest in maintaining the honor of the name. His mother and sisters, in fact, everyone who had criticized Minette after he jilted Priscilla, remarked how magnificent she was.

  In one whirlwind week, Minette had won the ton’s regard, smoothed social snarls, and saved his father’s legacy. This afternoon, when the last of the guests finally left, he noticed she looked thin and tired, and had dark circles under her eyes.

  August was in love with her. He had been in love with her before this past week and all its challenges, but he was more in love with her now. It wasn’t the careless, casual love he’d felt for her in years past. It was a new kind of love, fearsome, consuming, deep enough to drown him. This love suffocated him, pulling him under waves of confusion and self-doubt.

  Now Warren sat across from him in the library, one leg crossed over the other, a befuddled frown on his face. “You want me to take Minette to Oxfordshire? Why?”

  “It’s her choice, of course,” August replied carefully. “But I thought she might wish to be with Josephine during her lying-in. They’ve always been such close friends. You should present her with the option.”

  Warren snorted. “You should present her with the option. She’s your wife. And as I recall, last time you stowed her in the country, she made her way back to you within the week.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want her here.” At Warren’s daunting look, August stood and began to pace. “It’s only that things are in such disarray.”

  “There is no one better at dealing with disarray than my sister. She kept your household running all week.”

  “Yes,” August said, turning back to him. “She’s tired herself out. She’ll always tire herself out, as long as there is work to be done, and endless visitors. There are so many tasks yet to be accomplished.”

  “Such as shunting your wife off to the country.”

  August sighed and moved to the window. Minette had mended some relationships this past week, but the rancor between him and Warren festered as painfully as ever. “It’s not as if I’m trying to get rid of her,” he said. “I love her very much.”

  “Is that so? Have you slept with her yet?”

  “I won’t discuss that with you.”

  “That means no,” said Warren in a disgusted tone. “She must be going out of her mind, you heartless bastard. There will have to be children, you realize. Minette has always dreamed of children.”

  “Three months,” August said, wondering when the fight had gone out of him. “Three months is all I ask.”

  Warren took a deep drink of brandy and put his glass down with a bang. “You’re a liar. You don’t love my sister.”

  August turned to fix him with a look. “Take care what you say to me, Wild.”

  Warren pursed his lips at the childhood name. “Help me understand then. You’ve always cared for her. I know you’ve a heart under all that bluster and scowling. If you loved her, you would try to make it work. You wouldn’t send her away for a second time.”

  “Barrymore’s dead and the house is in mourning. Why must she be here?” He hid his guilt and anxiety in mounting irritation. “She’ll enjoy better looking after Josephine. She likes to be helpful.”

  “And who helps Minette?” Warren snapped. “She’s not the same since she married you.”

  “Nor am I the same,” August shot back. “Forgive me for my blundering failure. I wasn’t ready to be married, not now, not to her. Forgive me if I haven’t transformed into the perfect husband, like you. Like Townsend.”

  “You can send her off a thousand times, and she’ll come back.”

  “If Josephine asks her to go to Oxfordshire, Minette will go. Three months,” August repeated again. “You’ve been my friend for years, Warren. Help me. Take her with you until I’m better prepared to be her husband.” He turned away from the man’s grim scowl. “I ought to have spoken to Josephine instead. She would have been more sympathetic to my plight.”

  “I don’t want you talking to my wife.”

  August turned back in shock. Warren looked surprised too, that he had said such words. But he had said them. This then, was the end of a twenty-year friendship. This judgment and hostility. This open scorn.

  “Damn you, then,” August said coolly. “Leave your sister here, or take her. Damned if I care.”

  A knock sounded at the door and Minette swept in, a smiling dove in the midst of two dueling hawks. “I wondered where you both were. Why, how dark it is in here, and both of you swilling spirits. The ladies would like your company, you know.” She went to her brother and took his hand. “I know you’ll be leaving soon, and I don’t want to lose a moment of our time together. I’ll miss you and Josephine when you go.”

  She came to August next and pressed her cheek to his. She was like the cozy, comforting warmth of the winter’s fire.

  “How pretty you look,” he told her. She smelled like flowers. Like pretty lace kept in a scented drawer. “It’s true that we’re being unmannerly, darling. We ought to join you and Josephine. Has Mother retired?”

  As Minette answered in the affirmative, Warren roused himself from his chair, draining the last of his brandy. “Yes, we ought to make the most of our last days,” he said in a taut voice. “We’ll be leaving by week’s end.”

  “So soon?” asked Minette in dismay.

  “Perhaps you’ll agree to come with us, if you are not needed here. I’m sure Josephine would like your company as she begins her confinement. You know she’s always been a restless sort, and you amuse her to no end.”

  “Come with you?” Minette slid August a look. He could see the conflict in that small glance. She was so giving—she would wish to help her sister-in-law. But she didn’t want to leave him.

  You should. You must. I need time...

  Always more time.

  What a coward he was. He forced a smile and pitched his voice to a light, casual tone. “Of course you must go with Josephine if she needs you. We’ll manage here. The worst is over, and winter in London is so bleak.”

  “But I can’t leave you. You’ll be here alone.”

  “There’s my mother to settle. And Arlington will be in town, he says. I’ll miss you terribly, of course, but this is Josephine’s first baby. If Warren agrees it would be all right, I think you ought to go.”

  Minette twitched restlessly at the front of her gown before looking up again. Were her eyes misted with tears? “What about my piano lessons?” she asked. “Without your help, I’ll get terribly rough with my fingering. I may forget everything I’ve learned.”

  “I’m sure you won’t,” he assured her. “Your playing has progressed so beautifully, and Josephine will love hearing you play. Your brother too.”

  Warren stared at him with a deeply hateful gaze. He wanted to take Minette away now. “You needn’t decide right away, mopsy,” Warren said, turning to his sister. “We’ll be a few days yet, packing up at Park Street. But I daresay Josephine would find you a comfort. Once the baby is born, you can stay a while longer, or return to prepare for the season. With Barrymore House so recently in bereavement, I don’t think you’ll need to do much.”

  “Goodness. It just seems...” Minette knit her fingers together, and looked back at August. “It seems so soo
n for you to be alone,” she said meaningfully.

  August had shown her a side of him, a tortured, ragged side no one had ever seen. Rather than feel repulsed by him, as any wife ought to, she wished to protect him. August wanted to haul her against him and disappear inside her brightness. He wanted to sob like a child against her neck. But he didn’t, because he had to be strong.

  “I’ll be perfectly fine, if you think it best to go with Josephine,” he said in a carefully steady voice. “I’ll visit when I can, and we can write one another letters, of course.”

  If Warren glared at him any harder, he’d bore a hole right through his dinner coat.

  If you don’t want to be friends, thought August, we won’t be friends. He had expected this, eventually.

  He was growing grievously comfortable with loss.

  Chapter Fifteen: Coming To Terms

  Minette lay in her childhood bed at Park Street, a place she really ought not to be. Warren and Josephine were leaving tomorrow for Warren Manor, and Minette along with them. Everything was packed and ready to go, but her heart was not prepared.

  Her heart wanted to stay here with her husband.

  Josephine lay beside her, absently rubbing her rounded belly. Warren had gone out, Minette knew not where. To bid farewell to his gentlemen friends, and settle his accounts in town. His farewell to her husband earlier that evening had been unreservedly icy. She shivered now, remembering it.

  “Are you cold, dear?” Josephine pushed more of the blanket toward Minette. “No, you must take it. I’m hot as an oven these days. The baby keeps me nice and cozy.”

  “I’m not cold.” Minette eyed her sister-in-law’s seven-month bump. “How does the baby keep you cozy?”

  “I suppose it’s like cuddling, to have a baby inside you. We’re warmer when we cuddle, aren’t we?” She eased closer to Minette, then took her hand and spread it against her waist. “If you wait like this, you’ll feel the baby kick, or turn about. Warren talks to it sometimes in the evenings, and I swear the baby hears.”

  “He ought to tell it to stop kicking you.”

  Josephine laughed. “I like when it kicks me. I like to think it’s happy and healthy in there, and that everything will go well with the birth.”

  Minette patted her bump gently. “I’m sure it will go well. And I shall care for you, and run to get you tea and cakes whenever you like, and keep the servants from tucking blankets around you if you’re hot. I’m so happy to go with you to Oxfordshire, and help you and Warren with whatever you need.”

  Josephine gazed at her a moment, with far too astute a look. “You aren’t really happy though, are you?”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Minette looked away, lest her sister-in-law see the bleak misery in her heart. “I am marvelously happy to stay with you during your confinement,” she said with manufactured conviction. “We shall become closer than ever. I’ve missed you, you know.”

  “I’ve missed you too.” Josephine squeezed her hand. “But you don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I think you’re sad, darling. I think you want to stay here with August.”

  “He’s Barrymore now,” she said glumly. “And there’s no reason for me to stay.”

  “No reason? Why?”

  Minette thought she felt a flutter of movement beneath her palm, but it may have been Josephine shifting position. How novel, to think a little niece or nephew was tucked so perfectly inside her friend. “Do you feel like it’s a boy or a girl?” she asked.

  “Don’t change the subject, Minette. Why don’t you want to stay with August, or Barrymore, or whoever he is now? You still love him, don’t you?”

  Minette caressed over Josephine’s belly. If only August wanted her, she might have her own baby in a year’s time. Their baby, his and hers, together in one blessed package. “I’m afraid it’s never to be,” she blurted out.

  “What’s never to be?”

  “A baby. A child of our marriage.”

  “Oh, that takes time,” said Josephine. “Sometimes it happens quickly, but sometimes it takes months, even years to conceive.”

  “No.” Minette could feel her cheeks going pink. She ought not to have said anything, but the confession poured out of her. “There can be no possible way for us to have a baby. August won’t touch me. Since that first night at the Townsends’ house party, we have not... He will not... I have tried, believe me,” she said at Josephine’s shocked look. “I’ve tried to entice him, but nothing works.”

  “Oh, dear.” Josephine sat up a bit straighter. “Perhaps he’s only been preoccupied with his father’s illness.”

  “Perhaps.” Minette left her friend’s side and sat on the edge of the bed, hoping Josie couldn’t see her blush in the dim candlelight. “I think the real problem is that he never wished to marry me. The sister thing, you know. He’s slept beside me only to prevent me sleepwalking, but he won’t touch me in any husbandly way. I thought his father’s death might bring us closer, but it hasn’t. It’s as if he’s withdrawn even farther into himself. I suppose the truth is that we’re not suited to one another, as much as I wished us to be.”

  “Oh, darling, he loves you. I could see it in his face when he kissed you goodbye.”

  “Perhaps he loves me in some honorable, necessary manner, but he doesn’t want me. I irritate him and cause him all sorts of difficulty.” She turned back to her friend with a rueful laugh. “When your husband has spanked you more times than he’s bedded you, it’s a terrible thing.”

  “He shouldn’t be spanking you,” said Josephine with a frown. “You should demand a proper honeymoon. No callers, no duties, no clothing whatsoever. Nothing but long hours spent together in bed.”

  Goodness, that sounded heavenly. Unfortunately, in their case, it was unlikely to happen. “Whenever I demand things,” she explained to Josephine, “it puts him in a peevish mood.”

  “What about your peevish mood? If Warren went two months without...” Now Josephine was the one blushing. “Well, I think your husband’s been lamentably derelict in his duties. You are charming and beautiful, and sweet.”

  “That’s the problem.” Minette stood and crossed to a low shelf, and opened a small trunk of her childhood keepsakes. “I think he would prefer some experienced woman of the world. He still thinks of me as a sweet young lady, too innocent to be besmirched.”

  Josephine laughed. “You’re not innocent, no. Not since we browsed through Lord Townsend’s private literature.”

  Minette’s shoulders slumped. “August spanked me for that too. I suppose if he doesn’t want a traditional sort of marriage, I’ll have to let it go.”

  “Oh, Minette.”

  “No, it’s all right. It’s better for my heart if I just stop trying. It’s become so painful.” She sorted through ribbons and dolls, and a set of bells Warren had given her one Christmas. “We ought to take these to Warren Manor for the baby,” she said, jingling them. “Your child should hear happy sounds when it’s born. I remember how Warren used to sing silly songs for me, and play whatever instruments were around. And, oh goodness, this old doll. Warren brought her to me when I was ten or so. I begged my nurse to help me dress her as a bride, so she might pretend to marry August. There’s a veil here somewhere...” She lifted a ragged fluff of lace and went still.

  Beneath the scrap of lace lay a porcelain swan with a long, graceful neck. It was her French swan, ivory and pink and gold-flecked, with garish red lips. Her hero Lord August had gifted it to her, and oh, how she’d treasured it. How she had cared for it all these years, so it wouldn’t be chipped or broken. And here I am, already singing a swan song, letting our relationship die.

  “I can’t...” she murmured, touching the delicate, curving neck.

  “What, darling?”

  Minette straightened and turned back to Josephine, holding the precious thing against her breast. “I’m doing it again. I’m not trying hard enough.” She remembered so clearly when he had said that to her at the piano. It was o
ne of her very worst faults. “I mustn’t give up so quickly on our marriage. I can’t sing my swan song already, when it’s only been a couple of months.”

  “Your swan song?” Josephine looked perplexed. “What does that mean?”

  Minette took to her feet. “It means I have to go back to Barrymore House right now and talk to August, and try again to make our marriage work. There has to be some way, if only I can find it. I have to keep trying to fix things until I do.” She sat beside Josephine with an apologetic look. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. I know I promised to help you with the baby, but...”

  Josephine touched the swan and gave Minette an encouraging smile. “I’ll have plenty of help with the baby. You’re absolutely right, dear sister. It’s too soon to resign your marriage to failure. You must go to your husband right this instant and show him that true love never gives up.”

  *** *** ***

  August sprawled in the front parlor, in the deep chair before the fireplace. He had an entire bottle of his father’s finest brandy beside him, but he couldn’t rouse himself to take a drink. He stared at the flames instead, thinking of his song for Minette. The notes came to him like all the other songs, in a persistent repetition, but instead of dark and heavy clamor, he heard phrases as light and lyrical as her soul. He heard her voice in the melody, the pleasing resonance of her chatter.

  No, not chatter. He understood now that Minette didn’t chatter. Everything she said had meaning, at least to her. She used words to soothe, to explain, to calm, to soften difficulties and make people smile.

  August thought he ought to hurl the bottle of brandy into the fire. His mind wanted to do it but his body waited, stiff and unmoving. He was half dead in this body. His fears paralyzed him. I will hurt her. I will fail her. I’m not worthy of her.

  I will become like my father one day.