My Three Lords Read online

  “I’m—” he began.

  “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything more. Nothing!” He tried to speak. “Not another word.” For the first time in my life, I refused to hear the truth.

  He looked away from me so I gazed on his profile and that beautiful mouth with its firm lines and tender curves. In side view, he was as magnificent as a warrior on a coin. Nothing could be wrong with this splendid man. It was impossible.

  We said nothing more during the remainder of the trip across the lake. As soon as we’d dragged the rowboat to its resting spot under the trees, I ran alone toward Notre Plaisir. Grayness tinted everything, the trees and the grass, even the sky above. I remember almost nothing from that mad dash to my bedchamber. When I reached my bed, I tore off the Duke’s coat and stuffed it under my bed. I dove under the counterpane, burrowed deep inside my nest of covers, and cried.

  Chapter Eight

  Annie came to me a few hours later. At the sound of her entrance, I raised my throbbing head from my pillow to make certain none of the three lords had come into my bedchamber. I wanted none of them. At the sight of Annie, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Good morning, my lady,” she said. “Do ye care to break your fast this morning?”

  “No, I thank you. I believe I will stay abed today.”

  “Are ye ill, then?”

  “No. Yes. I know not what I am.”

  She came around to the side of the bed, her bright head a beacon of sunshine, and gasped at the sight of my tangled hair. “My lady! What have ye done?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” Certainly it was nothing compared to the turmoil inside me.

  “Your beautiful hair,” she moaned. “Please may I brush it out, my lady? It won’t take but a shake of a lamb’s tail.”

  The quaint country phrase comforted me. “Very well. But I am not cheerful today and if I say anything untoward you must promise to forgive me.”

  “Forgive you?” Annie seemed astonished at the thought. It was not the role of a servant to forgive her mistress. But Annie and I, through our previous intimacy, had passed beyond such strictures, in my opinion.

  I rose naked from the bed and let her drape a new nightdress over me. Her touch soothed me. She was such a kind little soul, like a hedge-sparrow hopping in from the fields. If the Marquis were a bird, he would be a black raven. The Earl, a kingfisher or perhaps a falcon, graced with a love of the hunt. And my Duke? The Duke would be an eagle, magnificent of heart and body.

  I sat on the little gilt stool before the mirror and shook out my hair. A terrible mess, it was. I even felt bits of vegetation among its strands. Annie, who had no doubt seen much stranger things in the Marquis’ employ, made no comment on its condition.

  She took one thick lock in her hands and worked the brush through it. I watched her in the mirror.

  “Ye seem downcast this morning, my lady.”

  “Yes, as I said, I’m not cheerful today. I detest being unhappy. Why be unhappy when there are so many delightful things to be enjoyed? That has always been my philosophy.”

  Dimples flashed in her freckled face. “I, too, believe it’s best to look on the good of things and not dwell on the unpleasant.”

  “Such as the fact that you won’t be able to marry for some time?”

  “But we will be able to marry, some day. So why should I complain?” With the tangles smoothed from one shank of hair, she placed it carefully over my shoulder so it hung over my breast.

  “Perhaps you’re better off as you are, with no husband.”

  “My lady!”

  I’d shocked her with my bitter tone. “You need not take my words seriously. Besides, my situation is not at all like yours. You’re in love, are you not?”

  “I suppose I am. Sometimes I can scarcely remember.” She giggled. “If I had a fine lord like the Earl in my bed, I would not complain.”

  Her expression bright with mirth, she met my eyes in the mirror. I ought to have corrected her and told her such speech was improper. Instead, I giggled in response. “Perhaps my dilemma is too many lords in my bed.”

  This sally turned her giggle into a full-fledged fit. Oh, what a relief to be able to share my worries with a sympathetic female.

  “The Earl is too simple in his methods, and the Marquis is too subtle. How am I to choose one over the other? Especially when…”

  “When what, my lady?” Her pretty eyes were bright with curiosity.

  “When there exists another, who is neither too simple nor too subtle, who inspires such passion in my heart and soul as I never knew existed.”

  “Oh my,” she breathed.

  “Yes, and I cannot have him. I am married to another, and I can never have my true love.” I closed with a sob.

  “Oh, that’s simply too tragic.” In her sympathy, Annie pulled the brush through my hair with an overabundance of enthusiasm that made me wince. “Oh sorry, my lady.”

  “Make it hurt, I don’t mind. It’s just how I feel inside.”

  Despite that childish statement, she gentled her strokes. “What a dreadful situation for ye, my lady. If it were only a question of the Earl and the Marquis, ‘twould be easily solved. But with a third to consider, oh my poor lady, my heart bleeds for you.”

  “Thank you, Annie.” But I had to return to her most interesting comment. “What do you mean, that the problem would be easily solved if it included only the two lords?”

  “Well, begging your pardon, mum, I’ve been in the Marquis’ employ for quite a time, so I’ve also come to know the Earl.” She blushed a bit, so I knew not to pursue the precise details of such knowledge. “The Earl, fine man though he be, has not the temperament to attend to a lady’s…needs. But he is a sweet-hearted fellow, and he would not wish for his wife to be unhappy. The cousins are so very loyal to one another, they are all branches of the same tree, so to speak, even though they’re only distantly related. Your Earl looks on the Marquis almost as a father, or perhaps an uncle. He would not deny anything the Marquis desired, and he would not deny you either. Thick as thieves, those three are. Blood brothers, you might say. It’s said if you do harm to one, you do it to all three, and so no one cares to do so.”

  At the mention of the Duke, tears came into my eyes again. Annie, focused on my hair, didn’t notice. “The Duke seems very different from the Marquis.”

  “Oh yes, he’s quite different. The Duke is a great man with many duties and burdens. He doesn’t visit here in the way the Earl does. He’s never married, no matter how many heiresses chase after him. I do know the other two fret about him. They think he worries overmuch and doesn’t enjoy himself.”

  “We know what the Marquis means by that,” I murmured.

  “Aye.” Annie giggled. “I do believe both the Earl and the Marquis would do anything to enliven the Duke. He’s so serious and worried.”

  Clearly, she didn’t know the Duke’s secret. It must be very closely guarded, because the scope of Annie’s knowledge was truly impressive. All the information she’d conveyed swirled inside my mind. The Earl…the Marquis…the Duke…me.

  The room dimmed, and when I came to I was lying back in the chair with my nightdress opened. Annie waved smelling salts under my nose. I shrank from the unfamiliar, bitter smell. “Oh my lady, you’re back.” She pressed kisses onto my cheeks and neck. My skin shivered in response. “I feared I’d knocked ye dead with all my silly chatter. My dear, lovely lady, please do tell me you’re all right!”

  “I’m all right. Please, Annie, I’m fine. Don’t fret so. I never faint.”

  And yet, I had fainted. It made no sense, nor did anything else that had happened to me since my marriage.

  “As you say, my lady.” She stopped kissing me, but kept hold of my arm. With gentle strokes, she felt my pulse. “May I say something to you in confidence?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “When I stroke so, I see the blacks of your eyes grow big. And your cheeks turn flushed. You have a great appetite for sensual de
lights, I find. Do not be offended,” she said quickly. “I, as well, have an appetite for such, and the Marquis has taught me not to be ashamed of it. It’s a wonderful quality for a woman to possess. The fine ladies, some of them, don’t allow themselves this joy. Others overindulge and use it to do harm.”

  From the edge in her voice, I wondered if she referred to the Marquis’ cold-eyed wife.

  “But you, with your freshness and softness, your eagerness for sensuality, are most unique. In my time serving the Marquis, I have never encountered this combination.”

  Her delicious strokes made my eyes close halfway. I felt as if I were a cat being petted. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Only to say that perhaps ye should not worry. Perhaps there is a perfect answer that will make everyone happy, especially yourself.”

  I gazed into her kind eyes. Her caresses had lulled me into a dreamy state, one in which I could not bring myself to worry. “Everything will be lovely,” I said in a sleepy voice.

  “Most lovely.” She smoothed the hair back from my forehead. “It serves no one to deny your true nature, my lady.” After that, she helped me sit up and arranged my hair down my back. “Look at you, beautiful as an angel.”

  “You’re the angel, I believe,” I murmured. With a cheeky wink, she left the bedchamber.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair flowed down my back, golden as a sheaf of wheat in the sun. My lips were pink and softly parted. My eyes glowed with a sweet light, the light blue of a spring morning. The flush still sat upon my cheeks, and the neckline of the nightdress revealed a creamy curve of flesh. It serves no one to deny your true nature. I knew my heart. I loved the Duke. That truth was written in stone. I had accepted the prospect of a loveless marriage with Dorchester. But now that I’d fallen so entirely, thoroughly in love with the Duke, everything looked different. Everything looked impossible.

  * * * * *

  “Are you attempting to murder your horse?” the Marquis yelled to the Duke, who was hurtling across the fields several lengths ahead of his companions during their morning ride.

  The Duke didn’t answer.

  “Take care with that beast, Warrington. He’s far too fine a piece of horseflesh to be pounded in such a way.”

  At the Earl’s shouted warning, Warrington pulled on the reins. His gelding reared into the air, hooves clawing, then danced back down on all fours. “You dare to speak to me of how best to treat my horse, when you can’t treat your own wife with the proper respect?”

  “Whoa,” said the Marquis, bringing his white mare to a snorting, foaming halt at his side. “Those are words a gentleman might take as an affront.”

  Indeed, the Earl’s face had turned bright red. “I treat my wife with every respect.”

  “Does a wager demonstrate respect? Have you no thought, no sensitivity? Did either of you pause to wonder how such a bet would make her feel?”

  The Marquis toyed with his riding crop. “And just how do her feelings concern you?”

  The Duke tossed his proud head. “Why should they not? She’s a sensitive, tender-hearted soul.”

  The Marquis perked up his ears as if he were a foxhound on the scent. “And how would you know this?”

  “Yes, how?” the Earl echoed suspiciously.

  “It matters not.”

  “The pieces of a puzzle begin to fall into place.” The Marquis ticked off the points on his fingers. “The lateness of your rising this morning, the mysterious footprints causing alarm among my servants, a rowboat out of place. You had an adventure last night, my dear one.”

  “What adventure? Where? Where’d you go?” inquired the Earl, much like a dog with bone.

  “My whereabouts are not relevant to this discussion.” The Duke wore a look of thunder.

  “Perhaps not, but I venture to guess your choice of companion is extremely relevant.”

  “Companion? Great balls of fire, does this concern my wife?” The Earl sliced his crop through the air, frightening his horse. “I demand an answer.”

  “Come now, Dorch.” The Duke glanced over at the Marquis, who looked equally taken aback.

  “An answer, or I’ll see you for pistols at dawn!”

  “Pistols at… Dorch, really, don’t be absurd.” The Marquis took hold of the great black’s bridle, but Dorch pulled his thoroughbred away.

  “I’m tired of you both telling me what to do and where to go and who to get married to. And then you both want to fuck her. I’ve had enough of it. Pistols at dawn.”

  The Earl dug his spurs into the horse’s side and galloped at a crackling pace toward the open fields.

  The Marquis flicked a speck of horse spittle from his coat. “He must learn to control his temper, that boy. Nobody duels anymore, after all, the law forbids it.”

  “No. He’s right.” The Duke’s dark tone made the Marquis look up in surprise. The Duke frowned down at his riding gloves. “I’ve done wrong by the boy. I must answer for my crimes. It will be pistols at dawn, but¼”

  “But what?”

  “Only one of us will be firing.”

  * * * * *

  The Marquis came to me in greater distress than seemed possible for such a jaded gentleman. I was wandering in the garden among the heavy-headed roses in a brown study of my own, attempting to find a path through my troubles.

  “We must do something immediately, or all will be lost,” he declared.

  I wondered if perhaps he was rehearsing a role in a tableau. “Is your waistcoat ripped, my lord? Your cravat stained?”

  “Is it?” He glanced in alarm at his cravat, but even my teasing could not distract him from his distress for long. “This is no matter for joking, I’m afraid. Your husband intends to put a period to my¼to the Duke.”

  A horrible chill rooted me to the ground. “No. He cannot.”

  “So I told him, but he listens not to me. Oh, what have I done?” He wrung his hands, for all the world like a young girl enacting a Cheltenham tragedy. “But perhaps it’s only what I deserve.”

  “You?”

  “I truly never intended any harm. Especially to one who is blameless. One who is fine in every way, who is—”

  Slowtop that I am, the truth finally dawned. “You love the Duke.”

  The Marquis turned as pink in the face as the peony rose he stood next to.

  “But, but, I love him too.”

  The Marquis snapped the head off the rose and shredded its helpless petals. “Well, and what of it? Shall we fight a duel for his favors? We’d best do it soon, as by dawn tomorrow he will be no more. Dorch means business, and Warrington means to stand up with an empty pistol. He probably thinks it an easier death than the unknown fate he’s decided to accept without struggle.”

  “Unknown fate?”

  “He suffers from an unexplained illness of the heart, and informed us last night he’s decided to seek no more medical attention.”

  At that moment, I experienced a fury like to tear Notre Plaisir into bits of brick and dust. As a female, my destiny was guided and influenced by men. I had so little sway over the events of my own life. But if this was how men directed their affairs, what would the world come to? I didn’t know which lord was worse. The Marquis, who had set this catastrophe in motion, the Earl, who was bent on such an idiotish course, or the Duke, who would accept an early end without battling.

  “Where are they?”

  “Dorch is cleaning his pistols and Warrington is closeted in my library.”

  “Do not allow him to leave.”

  * * * * *

  How I got my ox-headed husband into that library, I’ll never know. I believe I may have threatened to faint, and even faked a few tears. In truth, I was far too angry for tears. When we entered the peaceful, book-lined room, the Duke was hunched over an escritoire writing furiously on a piece of foolscap. He wore no waistcoat or cravat, only a linen shirt open at the throat, and he looked entirely delicious to my loving eyes. The Marquis hovered near him.

/>   I marched to the desk and ripped the foolscap into shreds. “I won’t have this. I won’t, I won’t. Do you all understand?”

  “Darling,” said the Earl, scampering behind me. “This is men’s business.”

  “Men? Men?” I whirled on him, my outrage nearly choking me. “What sort of man wants to put an end to his lord and mentor, the cousin who has named him his heir, who raised him as a motherless child, who has shown him nothing but kindness and generosity?”

  “And who spent the night with my wife, after she, that is, you, turned me out of her, I mean, your bedchamber!”

  I put my hands on my hips like a veritable fishwife. “And so? Is that any different from our first night as a married couple?”

  “Well, yes.” I saw him search his brain for the source of the distinction. “I gave no permission to the Duke.” He punched one fist into the other. “No one can deny my rights as a husband have been violated.”

  “No, indeed,” said the Duke gravely as he rose to his feet. “I am guilty as charged and more than ready to accept the consequences.”

  “No. No.” I cast around for another strategy, something that would mollify my husband’s wounded pride. “Now that I see what has offended my dear husband, which I must admit was not immediately clear to me, the situation is easily solved without bloodshed or murder.”

  “How so?” The Marquis’ black eyes gleamed with interest.

  “My husband is my lord and master. Therefore, he must give his permission.”

  A flummoxed silence filled the quiet library. Outside, I heard the call of a cuckoo to its mate.

  “Permission for what?” The Earl scratched his chin and shifted from one foot to another, no doubt longing to be back on his horse where all was simple.

  “Permission for me and the Duke of Warrington to be together. I cannot lie to you, my dear husband. I love the Duke, and I’m fairly sure he loves me, although you will not hear him say so out of respect for you.”

  The Earl, all agog, swung his ruddy head from me to the Duke. “In love?”