Page 11 of Duke of the Underworld (Regency Gods #2)

CHAPTER 11

I t took until the middle of the next morning for Persephone to realize how effective her husband’s, ah, ministrations had been at distracting her.

“Oh, fie!” she exclaimed, sitting upright.

Martha, who had been sitting beside her sounding out words from a primer (which Persephone thought was admirable skill for a child of her age, though she did recognize that she was already likely to be biased, given her quickly blossoming affection for the children) looked at her quizzically.

“What’s wrong, Aunt Percy?” she asked.

Lucy and Grace looked over from where they were playing dolls. Grace’s was a princess, and Lucy’s was some sort of knight or prince or possibly a dog? The paper costumes the dolls wore had been designed and created by the children alone, so it was a bit difficult to tell.

Persephone cleared her throat and sent up a private prayer of thanks that she hadn’t said something more inappropriate. She knew rather more scandalous words than she ought, given her station, but her father had been known to come home swearing a blue streak after a serious loss at cards.

“Oh, um, nothing,” Persephone said, blushing. “I just remembered that there’s a letter I forgot to return.”

It was not a particularly good lie, as these things went, but the girls were children, and they seemed happy enough to accept it—or else they simply were more interested in their various diversions than in whatever had set Persephone out of sorts.

This gave Persephone the freedom to privately fume.

That sneaky duke! He had used his wiles to distract her from an important conversation about the girls!

He was clearly a very formidable opponent, though she wasn’t sure why he chose to be her opponent in this of all things. He had been very explicit that he wanted her to care for the girls. He hadn’t gone so far as to say that she was meant to serve as their mother, but if she was married to their guardian, the implication was there, whether he spoke it out loud or not.

And a parent’s duty, whether they were merely like a parent, rather than one in truth, was to put the children first.

As she watched Martha snuggle happily into a pile of cushions, however, she thought that perhaps last night’s distraction hadn’t been all bad.

Well, no, obviously it hadn’t been all bad. It had been extraordinarily physically pleasing, for one. Those pleasures had endured, too, leading to delicious dreams in which her husband loomed over her in a highly enjoyable, intensely menacing sort of way. She’d woken up aching and with her thighs pressed firmly together. She’d liked that part, obviously.

And she’d had fun . It felt strange to say that, almost like she transgressed some sort of rule of comportment, but it had been ever so much fun to enter into that physical and mental battle with Hugh.

But waiting—being forced to wait, rather—to discuss the matter of the girls’ outdoor adventures had given her one further opportunity.

Namely, to ask the girls if they even wanted such a thing.

“Girls,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. Either she failed because she was a poor liar or the three children were just eager to hear what she had to say, because their heads again whipped around toward her. She put extra effort into seeming casual as she went on. “Do you all like playing outside?”

“I do,” said Martha with a smile. “I like the sunshine.”

“I like the gardens with the flowers,” said Grace.

Lucy leapt to her feet.

“Yes!” she said. “Yes, yes, yes ! I love it outside! I love the plants and the animals! There are insects and they have lots of legs. Once, I saw one that had at least a hundred million legs! Daphne told me not to touch it, but I did touch it, and it wiggled over my fingers. And then I put it back on a leaf because it’s important to be nice to creatures, even when they are wriggly and ugly. And outside you can do climbing and jumping and running! It’s the best place in the whole world probably, and when I am grown up, I’m not going to get married at all , I am going to live outside and never ever be in a house again.”

Well. That was definitive.

Lucy practically vibrated with happiness over the mere thought of all the adventures she could have outdoors, which meant that Persephone was especially touched when she paused and added, “We especially liked playing outside with you , Aunt Percy.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Persephone said. “That’s very kind.”

“Well, it’s just true ,” Lucy said, as though this were the most obvious thing in the world.

“True things can be kind,” Martha told her sister.

Lucy looked doubtful. “But what if they’re unkind?”

“Then they can be unkind and true.”

“But what if you only think they’re true, and then you say it, is that unkind?”

This had all the markings of the kind of six-year-old debate that could roil for hours, so Persephone politely excused herself, leaving the girls in the care of their nursemaid.

And then she went to seek her husband.

It occurred to her, as she walked through the well-adorned hallways of Lethon House, that she did an awful lot of seeking of her new husband. Three days they’d been married, and she’d spent all of them running after him. Indeed, it had started even before they’d wed, what with her showing up at his club.

One of these days, he was going to have to start chasing after her.

But today was not that day, and the girls did come before her pride.

And at least this time she didn’t have to leave the house to find him.

He was in the library, not that it was at all hard to see why; the room got far better light during the day than did the duke’s study, though she supposed that mattered less when one conducted a business that operated solely at night. Hugh was intent on whatever he was writing when she came in, scribbling with such ferocity that he no doubt went through pen nibs like they were water. She took a moment to watch him.

She told herself this was a matter of planning her attack but, in truth, he really was just very pleasant to look at.

He was rather too big for the current fashion, which preferred a man who was tall but slender, more athletic. Hugh’s shoulders were broader than that, and the tapered cut of gentlemen’s clothing made them seem even more enormous. The beard, too, was not strictly de rigeur , and something about his decision to wear it anyway appealed to Persephone. She didn’t think it was vanity, necessarily—she simply could not believe that he had the kind of weak chin he might want to hide, nor could she imagine that he would care about what others thought about his visage. And she didn’t think it was quite pure stubbornness, though God knew the man was stubborn as a bull.

She suspected that he just liked it. And so he wore it. And damn what anyone else had to say about it.

Even when he was being highly irritating, she found that admirable. And it wasn’t as though she , with her curves and her red hair, was the kind of figure one might see in the fashion plates, either; those images ran to rail-thin women with boyish figures and golden locks.

“Are you just going to stand there and stare at me?” Hugh demanded, not looking up from his work.

For once, Persephone was not startled. This felt like a good omen for the conversation ahead of them.

“I might,” she allowed. “Am I bothering you?”

“Always,” he said—but it didn’t sound like an insult.

She shot him her most impish grin. With a sigh that she also did not take as an offense to her person, he laid down her pen.

“What can I do for you, Persephone?”

It was very possibly going to be a problem, Persephone thought, that merely the sound of him saying her name put her in mind of the more personal interactions between them. She fought back the urge to rub her thighs against one another.

She was determined, positively determined, to retain the upper hand.

For once .

“May I sit?” she asked politely.

He regarded her with a great deal of suspicion but gave her a single curt nod and gestured to the chair across from him. There was no proper desk between them, not like there would be in his study, merely the small, low table against which Hugh had been penning his letter. Persephone liked this, she decided. It made her feel less on the back foot.

She sat in the chair he had indicated and folded her hands primly in her lap.

The way her husband was looking at her was not at all prim. His dark eyes were burning embers, coals that threatened to burst into flame at any moment.

She squirmed under that gaze, then stopped herself.

She opened her mouth to speak and?—

“You need a new wardrobe.”

She blinked, then looked down at her frock as if to find herself wearing anything other than the two years out-of-date morning dress she’d put on that day. It wasn’t as though she had enough dresses to confuse them, after all.

“Oh,” she said. “Very well.”

She wasn’t a fool, after all. If the man wanted to buy her new clothing, she’d let him do so with a smile on her face. She wouldn’t even have to pretend. Her kingdom for a set of stays that didn’t leave angry red marks that lasted for hours upon her sides.

“Not that I don’t enjoy your present attire,” he added, giving her a slow look. Oh, Lord, how that look made her feel hot. It was a look that spoke of firm caresses and wet kisses and?—

No. She could not let herself think of it. She had something to accomplish.

She gathered her reserves.

“Thank you,” she said politely. “Now, what I came to?—”

“But you are a duchess now,” he went on. Goodness, that was still strange to hear. “And you should have a wardrobe that befits your new status.”

“I appreciate that,” she said. Why was he arguing when she’d already agreed? “But what I’d like to?—”

“I myself am not current on women’s fashions,” he continued, “but I shall send you with my cousin Catherine, if you do not wish to go alone. I’m sure she would be happy to accompany you—to get to know you, as the newest member of the family.”

Persephone had met Lady Catherine Lightholder at her wedding, and though she’d found the woman terrifyingly lovely, proper, and elegant, her new cousin by marriage hadn’t seemed unkind.

“That sounds very nice,” she said agreeably. “If we could just?—”

“Do keep the current garments, if you would,” he said, those ember eyes flaring brighter. “Though you will be wearing them only for me.”

“Hugh!” Her patience was at an end. She shouted his name. “Would you stop trying to flirt and pay attention!”

His brows rose so high on his forehead that they nearly met his hairline.

“Goodness,” he said dryly. “How humbling. Trying to flirt . And from my own wife, from the very woman who, just last night cried out my name with her thighs around my ears. One would think?—”

“And now you’re trying to seduce me!” she cried. “And while I am not at all opposed to that—” She very deeply wished those words hadn’t come out of her mouth, but what was done was done, so she forged ahead, cheeks blazing. “—it must wait! I have an important matter to discuss.”

He opened his mouth. She could practically see the seductive retort on his tongue. She held up a hand to stop him.

“I understand that you don’t want to talk about the girls,” she said. “I don’t understand why, but I do recognize your reluctance. But Hugh—we must. It is obvious that you care for them. But you brought me here to care for them, too. Please. Let me.”

Hugh might have been stubborn, bossy, and provocative. He might have been the terrifying owner of one of the most notorious gaming hells in London. He might stroll through Whitechapel nightly without fear.

But he was not an unkind man; one only had to look at the way he gazed upon his young nieces to tell that much. And he hadn’t been at all tyrannical with Persephone—at least not in ways she hadn’t enjoyed—despite being perfectly at liberty to do so.

And so he did not brush her off when she spoke to him honestly.

In fact, she thought she saw something like respect in his gaze as she stood up to him.

“Very well,” he said, this time with a sigh of resignation. “You are right, of course; I did ask you to marry me largely for the sake of the girls. And I am making it difficult for you to do so.”

This, more so than all his suggestive flirting, nearly distracted Persephone from her course.

He had admitted that she was right. He had admitted that he was wrong .

She hadn’t known men were capable of doing such a thing.

Still, she was smart enough to press this advantage.

“I appreciate that,” she said. “And I owe you an apology, as well.” He hadn’t technically apologized, but she was willing to take what she’d been given. “I oughtn’t have said you aren’t the girls’ true parent. It is obvious that you care for them immensely, and that is far more important than lineage or origin. There are many fathers by blood that care far less for their children than you do for those three little girls.”

Hers, for example, who had cast the entire family into ruin in pursuit of cheap thrills—or not so cheap thrills, as it had turned out.

She felt that her tone was impressively not bitter.

She again focused her attention on her husband, whose mouth was set in a grim line.

“I care for them a great deal,” he admitted. “But I also recognize that there are things I cannot give them.”

He glanced away from her as he said this, almost like saying as much pained him. Persephone wasn’t entirely certain what he meant—he was a duke, and an attentive caretaker. He didn’t lack money or resources or connections. And he wasn’t neglecting the children. Perhaps he meant a woman’s touch? Wasn’t that what he had married her for, though?

That was a matter for another day, however. For now, she had to discuss what she’d come here to talk about.

“There is something that you can give them that would help them a great deal, though,” she said, very, very gently.

He looked back at her, his expression wry. I know what you’re up to , that look said.

“I assume this is about the girls playing outdoors?” he said dryly.

She gave him a shrug as if to say, What did you really expect ? She could speak without words, too.

He let out a begrudging sort of chuckle.

“I suppose I cannot evade you, you determined little thing,” he said with reluctant admiration. “Go on, then. Make your case.”

“It’s really quite simple,” she said, speaking plainly, since cajoling had not worked. “Children need sunshine. They need fresh air. And some might say that this is more for boys, who need to grow strong and capable—but I’d hazard that it is even more important for girls, as they will have all their lives to be prim and proper, to sit around tea tables and indulge in polite conversation. They will not be children for long. You will not thank yourself—nor will they thank you—if you force them to be adults before their time.”

He nodded thoughtfully and it gave Persephone a thrill to realize that he was actually considering her words—actually, truly thinking about them before responding.

“I understand what you’re saying,” he said after a long moment. “But then I think of all the mischief I got up to as a lad, and… Well.” He rolled up a sleeve, which briefly made Persephone wonder if he was giving seduction another try, but he paused to show her a puckered scar on his forearm. It wasn’t big, but it looked as though it had once been deep.

“I got this playing with my cousin Xander when we were children,” he said. “We weren’t even doing anything unusual, just climbing trees, pelting one another with pine cones. I was not careful climbing down one day—because I was a lad, I was never careful—and I punctured my arm with a jagged branch. One moment of youthful foolishness, and I bear the mark to this day.”

“You do,” Persephone allowed. “But did anything worse happen?”

He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

She nodded at the mark, pointedly not looking anywhere else on his corded forearm.

“You have a scar, yes, but it’s hidden by your sleeves most of the time. It is not, in the grand scheme of things, so terrible. Unless, of course, you caught some dreadful infection and perished?”

She asked this sweetly. He scowled.

“Obviously not,” he said flatly.

“Oh,” she said, nodding gravely as if only now understanding. “So you only very nearly perished.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I did not.”

She tapped her chin. “And I saw your cousin at our wedding, so clearly he survived these antics as well. Are there some other tree climbing fatalities of which I am unaware?”

“Yes, yes, you’ve made your point,” he grumbled. When she kept her inquisitive expression pasted on, he gave her an unimpressed look. “No. None of us died.”

“And did you have fun?” she asked. “Did running about with your cousins bring you happiness? Did it bring you closer with them, even now?”

He paused, not answering, but she saw the truth in his expression.

“I still don’t like it,” he said at last. “The girls, I mean—running wild. They could get hurt.”

“They could,” she allowed. “But I would be right there with them, to prevent them from doing anything terribly dangerous—in truth, I agree that they should not be climbing trees, as a general rule—and I would also be right there to tend to any wounds they might incur.”

When he still hesitated, she pressed her advantage.

“People get hurt, Hugh.” Perhaps it was a dirty trick to use his name like that, now that she knew how it affected him, but she was a woman and he a duke, so she had to use every trick she possessed. “That’s life. These hurts, if they occur, will be small. And it will help the girls learn that when they get hurt, we will be there to pick them back up, to help them heal and feel safe again.”

A flare of embers. “We?”

Hm, she had said that, hadn’t she?

“We,” she agreed, even though the word made a fluttering feeling erupt in her belly. She was not being seduced today, she reminded herself. She was not . “For my proposition is this: we take the girls on an outing—a small one, a safe one. A picnic, perhaps, just in the park. A little further than the garden, but not more dangerous.”

“A picnic,” he echoed, much in the same way that he might have spoken if she had suggested that they all go on a merry little outing to the bottom of the sea.

Perhaps if she explained the concept in very simple terms, the difference would become apparent to him.

“Yes,” she said brightly. “A picnic. You know, a blanket on the ground. Some sandwiches. Lemonade! Maybe even some little cakes. The girls would no doubt love to have some little cakes.”

“I am familiar with the concept,” he groused.

She did not let her bright smile fade an iota.

“So you’ll do it?”

“I’m not happy about it,” he warned her.

She could taste victory. “You don’t have to be happy about it as long as you do a convincing job of making the girls believe you are happy about it,” she reassured him. “Your secret misery shall remain a secret. Just between us.”

His lips twitched like maybe, just maybe, he was fighting back a smile.

“You will get to see how the girls play,” she wheedled, sweetening the pot. “You will get to see with your own two eyes that they are not the wildlings you so fear. Martha will probably read half the time.”

That’s true , his frown admitted, even if his words did not.

“You could even play with them,” she prodded. “They would love it, you know. They would be simply thrilled . Beside themselves, truly.”

She was perhaps laying this on a bit thick, not that she felt any of it was untrue. If she had a farthing for each time one of the girls had said “Uncle Hugh says” before relaying one of their guardian’s opinions, she would have been able to pay off her father’s debts on her own within a fortnight.

“Fine,” he said flatly.

It wasn’t a wholehearted agreement, and there was nothing like delight in his expression. She didn’t care. She would take it.

“Splendid,” she said. “I will arrange everything.”

And then she quickly darted from the room before he could change his mind.