Three Weeks With Lady X Read Free

my mind. She’s the one.” Thorn took a drink, returning his brandy glass to precisely the same spot on the side table. “She is beautiful, well born, and well bred. What more could I want?”
    “A brain,” Vander stated, his eyes not leaving Thorn’s face.
    “I don’t look for intelligence in bed,” Thorn said dryly. In his estimation, Laetitia had all the requisite qualities for bedding and mothering, even if a high degree of intelligence didn’t seem to be one of them. “I believe one of the reasons that my factories thrive is that I suit talent to position. In fact, I see no meaningful difference between the two.”
    Vander snorted. “You think I’m harsh? You will have to live with the woman!”
    “That’s true, but I also live with my butler,” Thorn pointed out. “What’s the difference, really, besides the fact I don’t have to share a bed with Iffley? Laetitia will be the mother of my children, and it is my distinct impression that she is an excellent nurturer. In fact, I met her in the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens, where she was watching boys sail toy boats.”
    His intended probably wouldn’t appreciate the comparison, but Thorn had the notion that she was like a rescued hound, one that would adoringly follow her new master in return for some kindness. That was absurd, given that she was as beautiful as a wild rose, with hair like a Botticelli angel. By all rights, she should be arrogantly aware of her dominion over men. But instead she had a desperate look about her eyes, as if she needed saving.
    It was a fair trade, in his estimation. Her beauty in return for his protection.
    “You plan to drop your wife at this new estate of yours with a brood of children?”
    “I see no reason to live at Starberry Court with her.” His own father had taught him little more than how to fence. Thorn intended to be that type of father, and he needn’t be in residence to do it.
    “A mother does more than nurture her family,” Vander objected. “I hear scientists have estimated that half of one’s intellect comes from each parent.”
    Thorn just looked at him. His children would be his children, just as his father’s were his father’s. He and the Duke of Villiers were carved from the same block of marble. It wasn’t just the white streak in his hair that had appeared in his and his father’s hair after each of them had turned nineteen. It was the set of his jaw, the way Villiers calculated outcomes, even the way he breathed air.
    If one wanted more proof, it could be had in the fact that the duke had spawned children with five different mothers, and each of those children was—in his or her own way—a copy of their father. “Of course, I hope that they look like their mother,” he added, with a wry look.
    “Bloody hell,” Vander said, disgusted. “I suppose you’ll raise the poor babes as a pack of wolves.”
    Thorn grinned at that. “You’d better find someone to marry. You don’t want your wolves to be puny in comparison to mine.”
    “I haven’t met the right woman yet.” Vander took a gulp of brandy, slumping lower in his chair. Thorn never sprawled. Sprawling would put him at a disadvantage; he would lose critical seconds before he could dodge a blow and launch an attack.
    “Why don’t you ask Eleanor to find you someone suitable?” Thorn asked. His stepmother, the Duchess of Villiers, knew everyone in society worth knowing. Moreover, she was brilliantly strategic and would enjoy determining the future of the duchy of Pindar.
    But Vander shook his head. “I want what your father has.”
    “What’s that?”
    “You know what.”
    “You want Eleanor ?” Thorn was, frankly, astonished. His stepmother was beautiful, intelligent, witty . . . and she was also deeply in love with his father. Eleanor wasn’t interested in younger men, nor indeed in any man other than her husband.
    He gave Vander the kind of look he reserved for pickpockets just before he knocked them off