Oh, my darling. You don’t even know. He gazed at her, this blonde, be-curled angel who had changed him so thoroughly. “I’ve never been happier in my life. I’m so happy that it frightens me.” He nudged the swan away and kissed her cheek, and then tasted her lips. “You’re my own special swan,” he said when he released her. “A little cantankerous at times, but still very pretty.”
“What? Cantankerous?” Minette turned on him in feigned temper, pushing at his chest.
“Oh yes, swans can be violent,” he said, capturing her hands. “Who told me that?” As she grappled with him, he pushed her back and kissed her. The swan fell from her hand and landed with a thunk against the floor. Both of them turned to look down at it.
“You see,” he said. “Unbreakable.” He kissed her once more and let her up to retrieve her gift, which was perfectly in order.
“I don’t know where you’ve found this carpenter.” She inspected the carving by the flickering of the fire. “There’s such skilled detail. It’s beautifully proportioned. He must be a master at his craft.”
“He’s very good, and very expensive. Fortunately, I’ve made a pretty penny from the music you made me publish. Perhaps it was a good idea after all.”
Minette grinned at him. “Are you saying I was right? You’re admitting, for once, that I had an intelligent, reasonable, and useful idea which was better than your idea?”
“Yes, little swanbrains. This once.”
She attacked him again in her playful, ticklish manner, but he set her away and gave her bottom a swat. “Go finish your letters before you get me too worked up to control myself. Once I take you to bed, you won’t be getting up for some time afterward.”
Her impish grin widened. “Do you promise?”
“Letters,” he insisted, ignoring her seductive gaze and the growing pressure in his breeches. He’d swept her away from her correspondence last night and didn’t want to do it again.
He sat back on the settee and crossed his legs at the ankles, and let the glow of the fire relax him as he watched his wife. She looked so attractive when she was at work, whether it was writing letters or stitching handkerchiefs, or guiding conversations, or seeing to guests.
Or applying herself to tasks in the bedroom...
“August?”
“Yes, darling?” He pulled his coat down over the bulging evidence of his arousal as she frowned at the pages in her hand.
“I’m a bit concerned about my brother. He doesn’t seem himself in this letter.” She looked up, her expression clouded with worry. “I think we ought to go to Oxfordshire for Josephine’s lying-in.”
“Hmm. Do you?” August thought the last thing Warren probably wanted was for him to show up just as Josephine was about to have their child.
“I know you and Warren aren’t on the best terms these days but... I don’t know.” She looked down at the letter again. “He seems rather at ends. I mean, he doesn’t say so, but this letter sounds not at all like him.”
“I suppose you know him best.” He stood and crossed to Minette. “Why don’t you write and tell him we’ll be coming? If you like, we can leave at the weekend.”
“May we?” She gave him one of her shining smiles. He’d face any amount of Warren’s displeasure to make his wife happy.
“Yes, indeed, if you wish. Arlington’s been making noises about escaping town and going to the country. Perhaps we could travel together.”
Minette clapped her hands. “What a capital idea. I know Warren will love to see all of us, and Josephine will be happy to have me around to help with the new baby. Oh, I can barely wait to see them, and the baby, of course. I’ll want to be one of the first to hold their child. It only makes sense, doesn’t it, since I’ll be the auntie?”
She spun off into ecstasies, making plans of what to take and when to go, and all the wonderful things they would do once they arrived. August was a bit less excited. He and Warren hadn’t parted on pleasant terms last time they were together.
But for Minette’s happiness, he would travel to Oxfordshire and put up with any amount of his former friend’s scorn.
Chapter Seventeen: Love
August sat as still as he could while Minette slumbered against his shoulder. He envied her facility to fall asleep in carriages; he had never been able to do it. Arlington sprawled across from them, his hat resting beside him on the bench. A rut in the road shook him awake, though Minette didn’t stir. The disheveled duke seemed confused for a moment, his blond hair mussed where he’d lain upon it. “Where are we?”
August shrugged. “Somewhere near Maidenhead, I suppose.”
Arlington ran his fingers through his disorderly mop and straightened his coat, and soon assumed his more typical refined air. His gaze fell on Minette. “Look at her. How does she do it?”
“I wish I knew. Put her in a soft, comfortable bed and she’ll sleepwalk all over creation, but put her in a carriage and she’s out for hours.”
“Still walks about at night, does she?”
“No, actually. Not for weeks now.” As soon as he said it, images of their nighttime activities crowded his mind, and a flush rose in his cheeks. His friend stifled a grin.
“I’m glad things are better. Minette seems happy.”
“Our marriage is much improved.” Much improved. What an inadequate description. He wondered if the depth of his feelings showed in his face. Probably so, judging from Arlington’s smile. It was not the thing in London society to be enamored of one’s wife. How they had teased Townsend when he fell for Aurelia, and then mocked Warren when he lost his mind over Josephine. Now August was the hapless husband caught in his wife’s spell, hanging on her every word and living for her attention.
“Say, when are you going to marry that Welsh lass?” August asked, to wipe the teasing smirk off his friend’s face.
“She’s not a Welsh ‘lass,’” Arlington replied with satisfying irritation. “She’s a Welsh baron’s daughter, whom the king is forcing me to marry.”
“The king can’t make you marry anyone,” August said, to annoy his friend further.
Arlington shot him a withering look. “W
arren can’t make you marry anyone either, but we all know how that turned out.”
August laughed for a point scored. “So have you learned anything else about this lady you’re to marry?”
“I learned she’s the youngest of eight, with seven older brothers. Imagine my delight.”
“One hopes her brothers are not the protective sort.”
“And she speaks the King’s English, although I suppose I could make my authority clear to her without language, if need be.”
August arched a brow at this assertion. “With a few sound spankings, perhaps?”
“Yes, if necessary. If I have to marry some Welsh aristocrat’s daughter against my will, you can be damned sure I won’t put up with any nonsense from her.”
“With all those older brothers, she’s bound to be a hellion.” It was fun for August to tease Arlington for once, rather than the other way around. “Perhaps she’ll come to the altar in war paint.”
“The Welsh don’t wear war paint anymore. They haven’t for several centuries. Honestly, try reading a book some time, rather than sitting at the pianoforte all day.”
“What’s your hellion’s name?” August asked.
His friend sighed. “Guinevere.”
August tried—and failed—not to laugh. He clapped a hand over his mouth as Minette stirred beside him.
“What’s so funny?” Arlington snapped. “It’s a perfectly proper Welsh name.”
“And I suppose you’re to be Arthur in this tale, rather than Arlington.”
“My given name is Aidan,” Arlington sniffed. “And I’ll thank you not to mock my future wife’s name. We’re to be married this October.” He waved a hand. “I suppose I’ll ride to the border and fetch her like some marauding knight.”
“Like King Arthur?”
“It’s wonderful that you find it funny.”
August grinned at his friend. “In truth, I wish you the best. Marriage isn’t as awful as we imagined it to be when we were wild, young rogues. Somehow Townsend and Warren and I managed to flounder our way to marital contentment.”