Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
“ O h, there you are. Good morning.”
Xander looked up from his newspaper to find his bride peeking into the breakfast room, looking as shy as he’d ever seen her. He found himself unspeakably charmed by the sight of her fresh from her toilette, dressed simply in a morning gown and with her hair pinned into a plain bun. It was, he assumed, the Helen who had lived in Northton, who had spent her days… Well, he didn’t know for sure, but he had a sneaking suspicion that sheep played a part.
“Good morning. Or, well—” A glance at the clock. “Ah, yes, morning still, for another quarter hour.”
She blushed. A man could get addicted to those blushes.
He likely should have been troubled by such thoughts, but he decided that he would worry in the afternoon. And, as he’d just told his new wife, they still had time.
“I don’t normally sleep so late,” she said in a rush, still hovering in the doorway. “I don’t quite keep full country hours now that I’ve been attending parties and whatnot, but I assure you, I’m not some layabout.”
He shrugged. “Lay about as much as you wish. We’ve nowhere to be for several days yet.” Then he shot her a grin. “Although, I must say, it is very flattering to hear that you don’t normally sleep so late. Did something tire you out, little rabbit?”
Her eyes went wide. “You can’t call me that where someone might hear!” she insisted.
Though she didn’t, he noted, deny that he’d exhausted her with pleasure. It was so very nice to hear that one had done a good job.
He waved a hand. “Nobody is here. My mother lives in a dower property not far from here, and I’ve sent my siblings to stay with her. They’ll be gone at least a day, though I don’t know if they’ll last much longer than that, to be honest. My mother can be…trying.”
It felt rather good to be able to say as much to her. Now that she, too, was a Lightholder, there were things he could share that could never be spoken outside the family.
He probably shouldn’t like it so much that Helen was his family now.
His duchess pulled a serious face and gave her a solemn nod.
“There’s only so much one can talk about silk origins,” she said mournfully, startling a laugh from him. Instantly, her show of melancholy dropped, and she grinned back.
He would stop this any moment. Any moment now.
Or… Well, it was only the very first day after their marriage. Perhaps he could indulge himself in a day. Just one day.
“Are you going to come in here one of these days, or do you plan to set up permanent residence in that doorway?” he asked mildly, pushing his newspaper fully away so he could regard her.
She narrowed her eyes.
He gave her his most innocently charming smile.
She huffed—but she stalked into the room.
Yes, he would take a day. Just one day to have fun with her. Nobody could begrudge him that, could they?
She began to cross to the sideboard, but he gestured her to the seat beside his and stood instead, following a bizarre impulse to ensure she was properly cared for after the ups and downs of the day prior.
“What do you like to eat for breakfast?” It felt suddenly crucial that he know this little, intimate detail.
“Toast, please,” she said at once.
He put two slices on a plate. “And?”
“Um.” Her brow furrowed. “Marmalade? For the toast? But that’s already here.” She gestured to the small pot on the table.
“You cannot only have toast for breakfast,” he said. “You’ll be hungry.”
He found he intensely disliked the idea.
She gave him a skeptical look.
“One,” she said, and Xander knew this was never a good start—he had sisters. “I will not be hungry, as I eat toast for breakfast every day and have survived yet. Two,” she continued, “even if I were hungry, I daresay I’d survive the…two hours, is it, until luncheon? And third,” she said with a sweetness that Xander knew spelled disaster, “the English do sausages wrong.”
He looked at the entirely regular sausages, then back at his wife.
“You’re English,” he said.
She tipped her head in a kind of regal acknowledgment that would have impressed his mother had they not been discussing breakfast foods.
“But we had Scottish sausage in Northton,” she explained. “It’s better.”
Xander, who had never been closer to Scotland than Derbyshire, found he lacked a useful response for this.
“Fine,” he sighed. “Kippers?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No.”
“Eggs?”
The wrinkling intensified. “Goodness, no.”
“Potatoes?”
She perked up.
“Oh, yes, please!”
He sighed again and heaped twice as many potatoes onto her plate as he might normally have done. If he was going to give himself one day to enjoy his wife, he was going to bloody well enjoy it. She’d need her strength.
That thought turned the act of watching her eat into something more than a little suggestive, and Xander felt his body swell—both with pride and ardor.
Helen was his wife. He would provide for her in ways great and small. He had already given her the protection of his name, something that appealed to him more than he ever could have anticipated. But he would feed her, too. Clothe her. See to her happiness.
And give her as much pleasure as she could handle, of course.
His heated thoughts must have shown on his face because Helen stopped eating her toast with marmalade—which caused her to make little humming noises of delight that went straight to his groin—to look at him.
And blush again.
God, it was madness that her blushes affected him more now that he’d seen all of her, but damn him if they didn’t.
“Um,” she said. “Are you all right?”
He made a show of leaning back in his chair to show that he was perfectly at his leisure. If that position had the added effect of highlighting her physical effect on him…well, so be it.
She cleared her throat rapidly, her gaze flicking down to his lap and then hurriedly back to his face as if she planned to deny she’d ever been looking elsewhere.
He gave her a slow, satisfied smirk.
She turned back to her toast, giving it as much attention as she might grant one of the world’s greatest pieces of art.
Playing games with her was truly so very delightful.
Xander was beginning to scheme how he might turn a fantasy involving kissing marmalade off Helen’s mouth and perhaps other parts of her, were she so amenable, when a clearing of a throat signaled one of the untimeliest interruptions of his life.
“I beg your pardon, Your Graces,” Edwards, the butler, said, looking as warmly toward Xander as he’d ever done. This was a look that the elderly servant normally reserved for Catherine and Catherine alone.
Another perk of marriage, it seemed.
“Of course, Edwards,” Xander said as Helen hastily wiped at her mouth, as if this would help wipe away her blush. “What is it?”
The man cleared his throat again mildly—which was akin to spitting on the floor in disgust for another man.
“Viscount Northton is here to see you,” he said, corners of his mouth turning down infinitesimally. “He’s being…rather insistent.”
Xander didn’t bother keeping his own frown nearly so mild.
“Viscount Northton,” he repeated flatly. “At my home. The day after my wedding.”
“Indeed, Your Grace,” Edwards said with a flicker of approval.
“I am so sorry,” Helen burst out. “He can be rather determined when he sets his mind to?—”
“No,” Xander interrupted, firm but not harsh. “You will not apologize for him, Helen. He is his own man. Anything he does or doesn’t do is no fault of yours.”
At this, she looked at him with such naked gratitude that Xander didn’t know if it made him feel exposed or strong enough to smash mountains with his bare hands.
Rather than reckon with this untidy bit of emotion, he pushed to standing, then extended an arm to Helen, who spared one last mournful glance for her marmalade and toast before rising to accept the proffered arm.
“Steady on,” he murmured, low enough that only she could hear—not that he had anything but the utmost confidence in Edwards’ discretion. He’d not have hired a butler who was anything less than absolutely loyal. “It’s both of us, now.”
He watched as the words sunk in and settled her. She nodded once, decisively.
“Very well. Let’s go.”
When Xander and Helen entered the drawing room, Northton leaped to his feet.
“Oh, good morning, Your Grace—oh. And Helen.”
The man didn’t even bother to hide the dislike in his tone when he turned to address his cousin—when he turned to address Xander’s wife .
“I think you mean and Your Grace ,” he corrected icily. “As you will recall, Helen is now my wife, the Duchess of Godwin. You will speak to her with the deference due to her rank.”
Northton looked like he wanted to argue but didn’t dare. Even so, there was a distinctly scornful curve to his lip as he said, “Of course. Good morning, Your Graces .”
“Hmph,” Helen said lightly. It almost made Xander smile, but he wouldn’t give Northton the pleasure.
Xander waved the man back into his seat, then guided Helen to sit beside him across from her cousin, who was doing a poor job of hiding the daggers he was glaring at Xander’s duchess.
Xander wondered if he might get to punch the man. It wouldn’t necessarily be the morning he had envisioned, but it wouldn’t be unpleasant. Maybe Helen would fuss over him afterward. He could work with that, particularly if the fussing occurred in his bedchamber.
He wouldn’t get to slug the bastard quite yet, though, because Northton had turned back to look at him like an eager puppy hoping for a treat. If Xander punched people for being obsequious, he’d never have time to sleep.
“To what do we owe this…prompt visit, Northton?” he inquired, leaving just enough of a suggestive pause that the man could not fail to note the impropriety of such a visit.
But perhaps Xander had spent too long playing political games with people with brains because this implied insult seemed to roll right off Northton.
“Well, you see,” Northton began, actually wringing his hands as he spoke, “I have come, of course, to offer my felicitations. Greatest congratulations! I am sure that you will be happy together for many years, with many heirs. You couldn’t have picked a better bride in that regard,” he added, frowning at Helen’s figure.
“You will watch yourself,” Xander snapped, not liking the way his wife looked down at herself in turn, as if considering her cousin’s implied criticism to be legitimate.
Making her see her own beauty was added on his plan for the day. It was shaping up to be a good day—just as soon as Northton got out of here.
“Oh, yes, of course, no offense meant,” Northton stammered. It was like a switch—he looked at Helen, and he became a sneering villain; he looked at Xander, and he became a blubbering mess. “I merely meant to say that it has all ended well, has it not, despite the deeply unfortunate circumstances that led to yesterday’s festivities.”
Xander noted that Northton did not reference his own role in said deeply unfortunate circumstances .
He sighed. He was sick of the man already. He didn’t know how his wife had survived a year or more living with this odious creature.
“What do you want, Northton?” he asked, too bluntly by half. It was not a political question, but this was not a political visit. Anyone with half a shred of decency wouldn’t have shown up the day after a wedding.
Northton’s eyes went comically large in an extremely unconvincing show of innocent confusion.
“As I said, Your Grace,” he simpered. “I wished to welcome you to the family. Surely you know it is the greatest honor to consider the eminent Duke of Godwin among my kinfolk! The greatest honor, indeed.”
Xander waited until the man stopped going on about honor, then waited just a few seconds more to really make his point.
“What do you want , Northton?” he asked even more forcefully.
Again, the large-eyed look. For Christ’s sake, they were going to be at this all day. At Xander’s side, Helen looked resigned, unsurprised. So this was the kind of thing Northton did regularly, then.
“Well,” Northton dithered, “it is the smallest thing, you see. A mere favor among cousins, you understand. Just something that I thought you might be able to help me with, now that we are family. Family is meant to help one another, aren’t they? That’s the Christian thing to do, that’s what I’ve always said.”
Ah.
“You want money,” Xander said flatly.
Helen sat up straight.
“Money?” she asked. “Whatever for? It’s scarcely been a year since you inherited Papa’s estate, and though I know the coffers were not precisely overflowing, we were far from destitute. Nor should the death duties have beggared us.”
Something inside Xander rankled at her use of we and us , but this was likely not the most pressing matter. There would be plenty of time later to remind her that she belonged to him now, not this sniveling slug of a man.
“I can’t see how that’s any of your business, Helen,” Northton snapped. “I don’t even know why you’re here. You’re a woman, and this is men’s business. You’re only good for one thing and that’s?—”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
Xander was on his feet before he’d decided to move, was crowding Northton, who shrunk back into his settee. When they were both standing, Xander had a good several inches on the viscount; with Northton sitting, Xander positively towered over him.
“I warned you,” he said, the icy coldness in his voice taking over his entire body. “I warned you to speak to my wife with respect. You failed to do so. That you speak to her thusly while asking for a favor is truly beyond the pale. After the way you’ve spoken of her—and I daresay to her, during the time she was meant to be in your care—I find myself disinclined to ever do you any favor of any kind.”
“But, Your Grace,” Northton whined, and the audacity of the man sent another spike of frigid rage through Xander.
He bent down and, very precisely, seized Northton by the shirtfront, dragging him to his feet, then dragging him just a bit more, so that there was no doubt who was in control of this encounter.
Behind him, Helen’s breath caught, but she made no move to interfere, neither by word nor by deed.
Good. She needed to see this; she needed to see that he would protect her. She apparently hadn’t had any decent men in her life before this; she would not know that she was owed his protection, that it was his duty and his honor to grant it unto her.
After all, her cousin was clearly the kind of man who put nobility to shame.
Which gave Xander an idea.
He gave Northton his nastiest smile.
“After the way you’ve behaved to my wife,” he said conversationally, “you’re lucky I don’t move to have you stripped of your title. I could do it, you know.”
Northton gasped, though it sounded a little choked, given Xander’s hold.
“You couldn’t—You have no right!”
Xander pretended to pause to consider this. “Perhaps not. But, then again, perhaps that doesn’t matter. Perhaps what really matters is that I am the Duke of Godwin. Perhaps what’s important is not the legality of the matter, but my powerful allies. Perhaps you should reconsider before risking my wrath.”
It was only then that Northton’s mask slipped, and only then, just for a second. But in that flash, Xander saw the blazing fury that lurked beneath the viscount’s surface.
Xander’s own anger flared in response as he thought of Helen, trapped with this odious creature for months on end. If this was the way Northton spoke to her when Xander was present, how might he have spoken to her when she was alone, unprotected?
Well, she would never have to suffer thusly again. And neither would her sister, not if Xander had anything to say about it.
Northton was opening his mouth again, apparently prepared to argue, so Xander gave him a rough little shake before the man could make more trouble for himself.
“Shut up,” he ordered. “I don’t want to hear another word from you. You are going to listen to me very carefully. And then you are going to return home, and you are going to tell Miss Fletcher to pack her things. Tomorrow, I will send a carriage. She will live here from now on.”
“You can’t—” Northton tried again.
Xander gave him another shake, this one harsher.
“I told you not to speak,” he said, summoning generations of aristocratic authority and putting their force behind the words. “You will leave now. You will do as I said. And if I hear one word of complaint—one whisper that you have acted in any way other than according to my wishes, as I have laid them out for you—you will bring down the full force of my wrath upon you. Do I make myself clear?”
He held Northton’s gaze until the man nodded, looking absolutely outraged about it.
“Good.” Xander tightened his hand on the viscount’s shirtfront and dragged him toward the door. “Go see to it. Oh, and Northton?” He paused as if this were a friendly drawing room conversation. “I don’t want to see you again. So make yourself scarce tomorrow, when I come to retrieve my new sister.”
And then—feeling enormously satisfied with it, truth be told—the Duke of Godwin threw the newly-elevated Viscount Northton right out on his arse and slammed the door directly in his face.