16
Robert’s head was pounding as if it was an anvil where a vigorous blacksmith was making shoe after shoe for horses.
He alighted the steps to his townhouse carefully, followed closely by Thornston who had insisted on accompanying him home when Robert refused to have breakfast at his house, let alone offer more than a grunt in reply to anything Thornston said.
The door was held open by a footman and Robert gave him a nod in greeting as he entered.
“Good morning, Your Grace. Good morning, Lord Thornston,” the footman greeted them. “There is a visitor for you, Your Grace.”
Robert cursed under his breath. The last thing he wanted was to have to face someone now.
He needed some of his cook, Mrs. Miller’s, potato scones and lots of bacon and coffee before he was able to speak to anyone.
And when he did, he wished for it to be Jo.
Not a visitor who had come calling first thing in the morning.
“Who?” he growled, his voice hoarse from not speaking all morning.
“Mr. Ambrose Hawkins, Your Grace.”
Robert closed his eyes. He thought he had told Robinson that Jo’s cousin was not to enter his house. Robert searched his muddled brain without finding an answer. Perhaps he had forgotten about it with all that was happening.
“I will see him now,” he told the footman. He might as well get it over with. “Will you ask Cook to prepare potato scones, bacon, and coffee?”
He glanced at Thornston who was standing behind him, looking as fresh as ever.
“For both of us,” Robert added with a sigh.
The footman bowed and told him that Mr. Hawkins was waiting in the downstairs drawing room. At least he would not be far from the door when Robert threw him out.
“Are you certain it is wise to speak to him?” Thornston asked below his breath as Robert approached the door.
“It will only be a minute. Not even that, since all I have to say to the man is that he is not welcome in my house and should leave at once.”
“Riddles,” Thornston started in a cautioning voice, but Robert had already opened the door.
“What do you want?” Robert asked without preamble as he entered the drawing room. He did not want to waste civility on his wife’s dreadful cousin.
“Your Grace.” Mr. Hawkins rose so eagerly from his seat that his light brown curls bobbed about his head.
Robert had not noticed until now that, sans the golden highlights, Mr. Hawkins had the same hair color as Jo.
The resemblance only made him feel sicker and more determined to throw the other man out.
“I thought you should like to know the latest news.”
Mr. Hawkins’s face faltered slightly as he saw Thornston enter behind Robert through the open door to the entrance hall. He quickly recovered though.
“I have it on great authority that your wife, my deceitful cousin…”
Robert interrupted him by growling. He actually growled like an animal. He wished he could have made a more scathing comment, but it was at least doing the trick, making Mr. Hawkins look just slightly uncertain for a second.
“Out now. I will not have you slander my wife,” he bellowed.
“But she is being unfaithful. With him.” Mr. Hawkins pointed gleefully at Thornston behind him.
Robert hated that he actually turned to look at his friend. It was instinct he told himself. Pure and simple.
“Riddles,” Thornston began again, but Robert cut him off before he offered an explanation. Whatever Thornston had to say was not to be said in front of Jo’s weasel of a cousin.
“Out. Now,” he ground out as he turned towards the man again.
“But, Your Grace, you must understand that if she is unfaithful…” Mr. Hawkins began.
Robert had raised his fist before he thought of it. It was only Thornston’s hold on his arm that prevented him from striking.
“Mr. Hawkins, your hat and gloves,” Robinson said in an unwavering voice from the doorway. He was flanked by two footmen.
Mr. Hawkins looked between them but luckily thought better of saying anything further. He snatched his hat and gloves from Robinson and slammed the entrance door shut behind him before either of the footmen had a chance to close it.
“He is never to enter this house again,” Robert told Robinson.
“I gathered, Your Grace,” Robinson told him with a slight smile. “Your meal is ready in the morning room.”
“Thank you, Robinson,” Robert said in a hoarse voice.
He exited the drawing room on his way to the morning room when Jo came down the stairs in a hurry.
She was wearing a cream-colored dress with blue flowers embroidered on it.
She looked so sweet and fresh in it that he immediately had to look away and prevent his mind from going down more salacious paths.
“What is happening?” she asked breathlessly as she looked from Robert to Robinson, then her eyes widened slightly in surprise to find Thornston there as well and he saw color bloom on her cheeks.
The sight made bile rise in his throat and not simply because he had been drinking too much the night before.
Mr. Hawkins’ accusations seemed impossible, yet a tiny part of him could not help but entertain the idea.
“Your cousin,” Robert snarled in irritation. “If you would please both join me in the morning room.”
The way Jo briefly glanced at Thornston and the shrug his friend offered his wife did not escape him and he only walked faster toward the morning room. They both followed him without a word.
Robert piled his plate with scones and bacon, emptied one cup of coffee still standing by the buffet before he filled another and sat down at the table.
He slathered two pieces of potato scones with butter, made a sandwich with the bacon and took a huge bite before he looked at his wife and then his friend in turn.
They had tentatively sat down on either side of him.
“Riddles,” Thornston began for the third time since arriving at the house but stopped speaking when Robert glared at him.
“Why would there be a rumor that the two of you…” he began, unable to finish the sentence. He swallowed thickly and not because of the food.
“The two of us what?” Jo asked, somehow managing to sound both tentative and annoyed.
Robert felt his nostrils flare when he took a deep breath to steady himself. Thornston beat him to the explanation though.
“Your cousin outright told your husband that you and I are having an affair.”
“What?!” Jo exclaimed loudly. Her obvious surprise and anger were the most soothing balm Robert had ever had. “But that is madness. He is mad, Robert. I have no idea why he even believes it. It just goes to show that he will stop at nothing to gain my money.”
Robert nodded and took another bite of his sandwich. The food was helping with both his headache and his temper.
“So, you have no idea where he would have heard such a rumor?”
“No,” Jo told him adamantly. “Thornston escorted me home yesterday evening, but that is all. We were in the carriage for no more than fifteen minutes, there was a driver and a footman right outside, I have no idea how…”
Thornston tried to cover a laugh with a cough but failed.
Jo’s eyes widened and her cheeks started going rosy, the color spreading down her neck in a very charming way as she seemed to gather from Thornston’s ill-concealed laugh that fifteen minutes alone was more than enough and a driver and a footman outside posed no hindrance.
Robert willed his thoughts away from such a scenario.
“Oh,” she mumbled and looked down at her hands.
Robert sent his friend a hard glare.
Thornston cleared his throat several times as he visibly tried to wipe the grin off his face with a hand.
“I beg your pardon, Riddles. I had no idea my reputation was so poor that I could not escort your wife home without such a rumor occurring. Duchess,” he began as he looked at Jo, who was still looking at her hands, “I apologize for laughing. It was a blasted thing to do, and I can only offer my sincere apologies.”
“Thank you,” Jo muttered and briefly looked up. Her cheeks and neck were still flushed. The color was only emphasized by her light dress. Heavens, Robert longed to nuzzle his face against the crook of her neck and feel the flaming heat of her skin. All in due time, he reminded himself.
“Thank you, Thornston,” he told his friend.
Thornston nodded and sat perched on the edge of his seat as if he was a schoolboy waiting for permission from the headmaster to leave.
Robert wanted him to squirm a little longer though and took a bite of his sandwich and a sip of his coffee.
Jo was still looking flushed although not as red and at least she was not staring in mortification at her hands.
“Why did you blush when you saw Thornston this morning?” He did not want to add to her embarrassment but still needed answers to his questions.
The color flooded into Jo’s face again and she sent Thornston a horrified look.
“You better tell him, Duchess. Whatever he is thinking now is certainly worse,” Thornston told her in a mild voice.
“I… At your mother’s dinner, before the men joined the ladies in the drawing room, Lady Thistleworth said that she was pregnant again.
Maggie taunted her about a house party in the fall where Lord Thistleworth had not been present, insinuating that he was not the father,” Jo told him as she drew circles on the dark polished wood of the table with one of her slender fingers.
She was mostly focused on the circle she was drawing but would from time to time look up to gauge his reaction.
“I asked Thornston about it on the carriage ride home, since the topic ventured into secrets…”
Robert leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He hated that his wife spoke to other men about what happened in the privacy of the bedroom. Not even if it was someone else’s. Now was not the time to analyze the source of that hatred though.
“And what did you tell her exactly?” Robert demanded of Thornston after he had been studying Jo’s bent head.
“Come now, Riddles. Everyone knows. Perhaps not about the house party, I don’t know which kind of spy network your sister runs, but about their marriage in general.
” Thornston had turned down his charm, although he was not using his most serious voice either.
It seemed he still believed there was a chance for him to jest his way out of this predicament.
“And you thought it a fitting conversation when escorting my wife home?”
Thornston threw up his hands in exasperation and looked toward the ceiling.
“She asked me, Riddles. What was I supposed to do? Lie? Say that I didn’t know? Or play prudish and refuse to answer? That is not me.”
“I suppose not,” Robert muttered and looked briefly at Jo. She did not look flushed, a little amused in fact by his scolding of Thornston. “I will walk you out,” Robert said and rose. An eager Thornston jumped to his feet and bid Jo farewell. “I will be back in a moment,” Robert told Jo who nodded.
“I wanted to tell you myself. But you were very untalkative this morning and I figured it was best to wait until you had had breakfast,” Thornston explained as they walked down the hallway.
Robert nodded. It made sense why Thornston had followed him home then. He should be grateful for it in fact. Part of him was, he supposed. Only a greater part was annoyed that his friend had spent time alone with his wife, when it was all Robert craved himself.
“She was just curious, Riddles. And I am genuinely sorry for embarrassing her. I forgot that she...” His friend trailed off, but Robert knew what he had left out: ‘That she is an innocent’.
He cursed himself for having told Thornston and Xavier.
Jo’s cheeks would burn bright red if she ever learned, perhaps she might even be angry with him.
She had been on the verge of tipping into rightful indignation over him not turning up when Thornston had laughed at her.
It felt like a small animal squirmed in his stomach at the thought.
“She is very forward in so many ways; I mean she was more perplexed by the fact that Lord Thistleworth accepted other men’s by-blows than by the viscount’s rumored proclivities, which you might want to question her on, and I just…” Thornston sighed. “Should I send her flowers as an apology?”
“Don’t send my wife flowers,” Robert growled without thinking.
“Fine,” Thornston smirked, not one to dwell long on a serious note. “Chocolate then? Jewelry? Perhaps a new bonnet?”
Robert only glared in response which made Thornston grin wider.
“Hell and damnation, I have never seen you this besotted before.”
Robert felt as if he was falling but chose to ignore it. He was not besotted. Absolutely not. He was simply being protective of his wife.
His mind ventured to Lucretia and their conversation from last night. Everything had been much simpler with her.
“Just please, never mention it again,” he told his friend and turned on his heel without saying goodbye.