Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NOTHSHIRE WOKE THE next morning to his valet standing at the foot of his bed, shaking his ankle. “Wake up, Your Grace, wake up,” he was whispering.
“I’m awake.” Nothshire yanked his foot back. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir, he forced us to come in and disturb you. He has been here for almost half an hour, and he is insistent he talks to you,” said the valet.
“Who is?”
“The Duke of Arthford, Your Grace. So sorry, truly, but he will not rest until we have awakened you. He is, even now, without in the room just beyond your bedchamber.”
Nothshire groaned. He staggered out of bed. “Banyan.”
“Here, Your Grace,” said the valet, helping him into the robe.
Thus covered, Nothshire padded out into the other room, yawning.
Arthford was still wearing the same clothes from last night.
“Haven’t you been to bed, yet, Arthford?”
“I went to do some preliminary looking about for Penbrake,” said Arthford. “Just asking here and there, just a few inquiries in a few places, that’s all.”
“You haven’t seen your bed tonight.”
“It’s only that you’ll never guess where he is,” said Arthford.
“Where?” said Nothshire.
“He’s in Kent, at Lisbil’s End,” said Arthford.
Nothshire furrowed his brow.
“That’s right, he’s a guest of the brother of your wife-to-be.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Arthford, I never said I was marrying her.”
“You said you wanted to. Look, it’s perfect. We can go to Dunrose’s estate near there, yes? And you convince her to go to her brother’s house—”
“She doesn’t do my bidding. She doesn’t want to marry me.”
“Well, you were doing her some favor—”
“Yes, in return for her not telling everyone in town that we were the Lords of the Crossroads,” said Nothshire. “I did my part, but it didn’t turn out well, so I don’t think she’ll count that as my having held up my end of the bargain. So, I think she’ll say I still owe her a favor.”
“Well, do her a favor, then.”
“No, because what she wants from me, I will never give her.”
“What does she want?”
Nothshire sighed.
“Look, get her on your good side, please. And then she goes to her brother’s, and you can call upon her, because you’re courting her, because you’re going to marry her.”
“I am not.”
“This is how we get Penbrake.”
“Oh, hell and damnation, Arthford, let’s just ride up there and stake out the house and nab him. It can be that easy.”
“What did Champeraigne say? That he wanted to have a discussion? So, I think he wants Penbrake to come willingly.”
“He said something about how helpful Rutchester would be in the mix, so I don’t think he’s opposed to our using force.”
“We can’t simply nab an earl from his visit to someone’s country house!”
“Why not?”
“What does she want from you?”
“She wants a child, Arthford, a child.”
Arthford was confused. “She doesn’t want to get married, though.”
“No, she thinks she can take my child and raise it as if it’s a foundling. She wants to conceal her entire pregnancy, and pretend it’s not her child or my child, and I can’t—”
“You want to marry her, though, yes?”
He swallowed. “W-well, I shouldn’t.”
“Get her with child and then try to work on her,” said Arthford. “I have a feeling she’ll be more amenable to the idea once she’s gone with a babe inside her. I hear women get all kinds of emotional, then.”
“That’s devious,” said Nothshire.
“Is it? Really? Why doesn’t she want to marry you?”
“I don’t know. Probably because I killed her husband.”
“Why’d you tell her you did that?”
“She figured it out.”
“And you couldn’t deny it?”
He sighed heavily. “I can’t… get her with child as a scheme to coerce her into marriage.”
“Against your code?”
“It sounds just as bad as drugging a woman who’s already consented to taking your cock so that you can do it while she’s a asleep,” said Nothshire. “Maybe worse. And you wish to kill a man for what he did to the woman you love, but—”
“Does she hate you?” and Arthford. “Because if she wants your babe in her belly, it doesn’t sound like she does.”
“It doesn’t matter to her whose it is. I happened to be there when she came up with the scheme, that is all.”
“Just go and tell her you will father her child if she’ll go to visit her brother and allow you to call on her there.”
Nothshire shook his head. “No. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Well, what if she… what if she won’t marry me? Then I have a bastard out there, one I can’t even claim or bring into my own household. I’m not that sort of man. I swore I’d never be that sort of man.”
Arthford shrugged. “If she won’t marry you, Seraphine has something, a tincture perhaps, that can kill a babe growing inside a woman—”
“I’m not killing my own child! What is wrong with you?”
“It’s all ridiculous, that’s what it is. Why can’t you actually just come to terms with the fact you’re not actually a moral man?”
Nothshire shook his head. He didn’t quite know. It seemed fairly obvious, didn’t it?
Still, maybe there was a way around it. A way that would allow him to indulge his desire for this woman but wouldn’t involve any dire consequences. And a way that would mean that he could help Arthford as well.
Maybe, he could agree to take her to bed for the purpose of getting her with child, but he could simply not spend. He could pretend to. She wouldn’t know the difference if he claimed he’d done it. There would be no child, nothing to worry about in that way.
He could convince her that she must go to her brother’s house. He could call upon her. This would be the way in to reach Penbrake.
Everyone would leave happy.
Well, except her, when she wasn’t with child.
But maybe if he had her, truly had her, really did it, skin on skin, his hard prick sunk all way inside the tight, wet center of her, her thighs wrapped around his hips, their bodies flush against each other…
Maybe that would help him work the idea out of his system, giving in to it.
On the other hand, maybe he’d like it too much. Maybe he wouldn’t want to give her up. But if so, maybe he could convince her to marry him.
Truthfully, there were no downsides to the entire plan.
“All right, I’ll do it,” he said to Arthford.
“You will?” said Arthford, quite surprised.
“I will,” he said.