Duke and His Duchess Read Free Page A

Gayle. We’ve space enough.” Endless leaking corridors of space, in fact.
    Esther dropped her forehead to his shoulder. This was not a gesture of relief or thanks. In fact, it dawned on Percival that she was standing in his embrace, meek and obliging, but her arms were not around her husband. They remained at her sides.
    “You can speak to the housekeeper all you like, Percival. Nothing will change.”
    A frisson of alarm snaked down from Percival’s throat to his vitals. The resignation in his wife’s tone was complete. She’d given up on this issue, and Esther Himmelfarb Windham was not a woman to give up, ever.
    “Why does nothing change? Does she expect the boys to be crammed four to a room until they’re off to university?”
    He hadn’t meant to speak sharply, God help him. He’d meant to tease.
    Esther moved off, toward the enormous bed in which they’d made four noisy, boisterous children. Well, three—Bart’s conception had been a rustic antenuptial interlude that would forever give Percival pleasant associations with alfresco meals.
    “The housekeeper took orders only from Her Grace. For the past year, Mrs. Helstead has maintained that she’ll answer only to His Grace or Almighty God. Lady Arabella is the logical intercessor, but Peter’s wife is too preoccupied with her own concerns to intervene, and I haven’t wanted to trouble His Grace without your permission.”
    Percival shrugged out of his shirt and shucked his breeches. On the bed, his darling wife wasn’t even watching, which was fortunate, because nothing noteworthy had been revealed.
    Surely, her monthly was looming. Had to be, though he would not dare ask her.
    “Speak to His Grace, Wife. He dotes on the boys.” And who wouldn’t? A more charming, dear band of rapscallions had never graced any man’s nursery.
    On the bed, Esther heaved up a sigh like a dying queen reclining on her funeral barge. He hated this, hated decoding every nod and nuance. “What?”
    “I will speak to His Grace, but he will forget, Percival. He will agree to see to the matter, and then lose sight of it all together.” The bed creaked on its ropes as she sat up and punched the pillows into her preferred contour. “He’s failing. His energy, his memory, his will. When Her Grace died, she took a part of him with her, maybe the best part.”
    And what was that supposed to mean?
    Percival tended to his ablutions, torn between the impulse to state his own list of woes and worries, and the desire to kiss his wife’s miseries into oblivion.
    Though where would that lead? They’d never resumed relations after a birth without Esther finding herself again in an interesting condition within a few months. At least one thing was clear: if he wanted to keep a mistress—and he was not at all sure that course held appeal—he’d have to find a way to scare up more coin first.
    From the bed, Esther’s voice was a sleepy murmur. “The boys said to tell you they missed you.”
    Why would his sons miss him? He stopped by the nursery every morning before he rode out. There, he listened to Bart and Gayle’s mighty plans for the day, dandled Victor for long enough to make the boy giggle and laugh, and cuddled Valentine for at least a moment—providing the dear little fellow was not in need of a change of nappies.
    Sometimes, Percival even stayed for a few moments because… just because.
    “Do you know whom I missed today, madam?” He tossed the flannel in the general direction of the privacy screen and climbed onto the bed naked. “I missed my wife.”
    She was on her side, facing away, so he couldn’t measure her reaction to this announcement.
    “I missed the mother of my children, and I missed the boys too. What say we plan a picnic before the weather turns up nasty again? This mild spell cannot last. We’ll bury a few Vikings at sea—”
    He stopped mid-crawl toward his wife and subsided against the mattress.
    Bloody, bedamned hell. Today was Thursday.