Page 15 of Duke of the Underworld (Regency Gods #2)

CHAPTER 15

T he day did not pass quickly.

“Aunt Percy! Aunt Percy, my doll! ”

Persephone was distracted from her thoughts—which had been of a highly private nature that she hoped was not reflected in her face—by Grace’s wail of despair. She looked at the girl in front of her and had a doll thrust in her face, its tiny skirts streaked with dirt.

“She’s dirty ,” Grace cried. “It’s all Lucy’s fault! She was chasing me and I fell and I dropped Bertha!”

“It wasn’t my fault at all,” Lucy protested, a sulking note in her voice. “You should be better at running.”

Persephone tugged Grace into her lap, then settled Bertha atop Grace.

“Girls,” she said in her best patient voice, “please do not quarrel. We are enjoying our time outside, and casting blame on one another will make that much more difficult. Now. Bertha shall just have to take a bath—” She said this to Grace, who was sniffling piteously into Bertha’s hair. “—while the three of you take your baths this evening. It will be like Bertha is one of your sisters. Does that suit?”

Grace looked at the doll, like she was considering how much finer it would be to have an inanimate sister as opposed to her real, flesh-and-blood ones.

“Yes,” she said finally. “Bertha will like bath time.”

Her tone was ominous, and Persephone made a mental note to remind the girls’ nursemaid to lay down a few extra towels before bathing the girls that evening. Something told her there would be an unusual amount of splashing.

“Good,” Persephone said. “And Lucy?” She turned to Lucy, who wore a stubborn pout. “When we are playing outside—or playing anywhere, really—and someone falls, it is best to be kind to them—even if it wasn’t your fault,” she added hastily as argumentativeness flashed across the child’s face. “Even if it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Don’t you prefer people to be sweet to you when you are startled or hurt?”

“I guess so,” Lucy said extremely begrudgingly. “I’m sorry, Bertha.”

It wasn’t as good as an apology to Grace, but Persephone decided to count this as a victory.

Or she did , until Martha looked up from where she was reading—as always—and said scornfully, “You can’t apologize to a doll . They’re not ammamite. That’s stupid .”

While part of Persephone wanted to compliment Martha for knowing the word animate —even mispronounced! The girl was only six!—she opted instead for duty.

“Martha,” she sighed. “Don’t call your sisters stupid.”

It was too late, though. The girls devolved into a quarrel that did not end until Persephone sent them inside to tidy up, have their luncheon, and think about the merits of being kind.

Once the girls were handed off to their nursemaid, who had the impassive look of a woman who had seen a thousand childish feuds before and knew better than to insert herself into the fray, Persephone sighed.

When Hugh had fretted about the perils of playing outdoors, she would bet he hadn’t considered grass stains and battles of the sentience of dolls. But, then again, neither had she.

Next, Persephone spent her own lunchtime thinking, as instructed, about her husband and his return that evening.

It made it very challenging to focus on her food.

When she realized that her bowl of excellent spring vegetable soup had gone cold before her, she decided enough was enough and turned to some of the household matters that she’d been disregarding over the past week, while she adjusted to caring for the girls and having a husband.

After a few false starts—wherein Persephone reminded herself to just ask someone as this house had a full staff for a reason, before not following through in the least—she found her way down to the kitchen.

“Is anyone here?” she asked, poking her head inside. “I beg your pardon, am I interrupting? Is this a good time?”

The cook and the housekeeper looked up from where they’d been leaning—the cook against the wall near the stove, the housekeeper against the servants’ table—with a start. They’d obviously been having a nice gossip, which meant that this was both a fine time for Persephone to interrupt, as they weren’t in the midst of some pressing duties, and a terrible one—since gossip was the lifeblood of the London servant class.

“Of course, Your Grace,” the housekeeper said graciously—not that she’d really had another choice, Persephone supposed. She was a proper servant, and a high-ranking one, not like the underpaid cook who had been the last member of staff released from service at Baron Fielton’s home.

She hadn’t had a problem telling Persephone to clear offf—usually with far more colorful language.

Persephone had learned a lot from that cook, linguistically speaking.

“How can we help you?” the cook added.

Persephone saw no irritation in the two women’s faces, so she decided to leap on this chance to distract herself for a few hours.

She smiled politely.

“I know I have not been terribly prompt in assuming the duties of the duchess, insofar as the household goes. I’ve been tending to the girls, you see,” she added, before remembering that no proper duchess would give an excuse. Well, she supposed it was better to be a slightly improper duchess who was kind to the staff than an aloof one who constantly had to worry there would be spit in her soup. “But I thought I might discuss menu planning with you both?”

Both women sprang into action. The housekeeper hurried off to her quarters to retrieve the household accounting books, while the cook produced a similar tome with lists of menus for the household going back what looked like years.

The records were impeccable. Both women were literate—something likely but not guaranteed for a house like this one—and staggeringly competent at their jobs. They also appeared to be friends who had worked together smoothly for years.

“So, you see here where we switched butchers, after the previous one raised his prices most egregiously,” explained the housekeeper, pointing to a neat line of text.

“The gardeners do a good crop out behind the stables,” the cook said, “so we try to use what’s fresh first. But if you desire something else, you need only say, Your Grace. I’ll send one of the errand boys down to the shops right quick.”

They were, in a word, competent. Extremely competent.

And Persephone supposed that one day she would be grateful for this. Many days, probably. She’d tried to keep a household running without help—or funds—for long enough to know that one never turned up one’s nose at assistance.

But it did not help her today, as there was truly nothing that she could contribute that wouldn’t make things worse, as every aspect seemed to already be functioning at optimum efficiency.

“Well,” Persephone said, hoping her smile didn’t come off as forced. The two servants had done nothing wrong, after all—indeed, they’d done the opposite. “This all looks splendid. I will make a point to check in periodically, and I daresay I’ll take charge of entertaining, when that arises, but you’ve both done such splendid work that I cannot see any way to improve upon it.”

The cook—a craggy-faced woman who looked to be in her fifties—seemed bashfully pleased at this.

“Oh, well, thank you kindly, Your Grace,” she said, bobbing a quick curtsey.

Persephone excused herself so that the women could return to enjoying the few free moments they could snatch during the day.

She went up to her bedchamber.

She sat on her bed.

She glanced over to the place where Hugh had teased her to an inexorable climax while she lay fully bared before him and he had loomed over her, fully dressed, stern and beautiful, promising more to come.

She hastily stood and exited her bedchamber.

It turned out that this entire house was full of reminders of Hugh—even the places that Persephone was only exploring for the first time. She tried to keep her mind on mundane things. As a new wife, she should redecorate, shouldn’t she? She should…think about hosting a party? Something like that. Something proper. Something duchesslike .

No matter where she went, however, no matter what she tried to think about, her mind kept wandering back to a very short list of things.

I’m going to take you to bed, sweet Persephone .

She gave an unstoppable little whimper while in the portrait gallery, then hurried away from the judgmental eyes of Hugh’s ancestors. A curse on dukes and their ability to hire talented artists; no matter where she stood in the room, each portrait’s eyes seemed to stare directly at her.

I’m going to show you why you should be good for me . Can you do that ?

She paced furiously in the upstairs hallway until she caught one of the maids giving her a covert, curious sort of look.

A little anticipation is a good thing, my sweet. Helps you appreciate the final result all the more.

She hastily left the morning room because… Well, because it simply seemed too egregious to feel such feelings in a morning room. One wasn’t meant to be, ah, carnal in the mornings, was one?

Then she remembered the carnal things she had been doing that very morning and stopped short, pressing a hand to her forehead. She felt almost feverish.

Could feeling these conflicting emotions actually make her ill? It seemed possible.

She wanted Hugh to come home. She was so eager for it that every time she spotted a clock, she had the instinctive sense that it must be running slow—it simply must be! She’d taken herself halfway down to search out the housekeeper again, to ask her to send for the clock winder, when she realized that she was being ridiculous.

Four clocks didn’t go out of time in synchrony. It just didn’t happen.

Or perhaps…?

No , she told herself. No.

Every time, however, when she thought about those clocks inching forward, about him actually returning, about his promises…

I’m going to show you all the pleasures your body is capable of, and then I’m going to give them to you as much as you can handle.

Persephone went back to pacing. It was going to be a long, long afternoon.

Hugh held himself together until about lunchtime.

It had helped that Martin had cornered him almost the instant he’d walked back through Underworld’s doors.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he’d accused.

There was nothing, Hugh discovered swiftly, like a cantankerous Irishman berating you to quell poorly-timed arousal.

Hugh gestured at his desk. “I know it might seem like a surprise to you, but I actually work here,” he said. “You know, as your employer?”

Martin let himself in to the office—of course he did—and slung himself haphazardly in one of Hugh’s chairs.

“It’s morning,” Martin complained. “You aren’t meant to be here in the morning.”

“ You aren’t meant to be here in the morning,” Hugh returned.

Hugh had never had a little brother, but he imagined that it might feel a great deal like the relationship he had with Martin.

“ I live upstairs,” Martin returned. He pointed in illustration, as if Hugh might have forgotten where the apartments were in his own establishment. What a dramatic little arse. “So when I heard you bumbling around down here—” Hugh had absolutely not been bumbling. He didn’t bumble . “—I came to see if there was some kind of intruder. Imagine my surprise when, instead, I found a lordling.”

“Is respect a foreign concept to you?” Hugh asked. “It’s customarily shown to dukes—lordlings, as you call it—and, oh yes, one’s employer .”

“I am quite literally a foreigner,” Martin reminded him.

“You’re Irish, ” Hugh returned.

“Just so.”

“Ireland is part of the British Empire.”

Martin let out a beleaguered sigh. “That’s what an Englishman would say about matters, aye.”

Hugh had known Martin long enough to recognize an argument he was not going to win.

“What will it take for you to go away?” he asked.

Martin rose to his feet and made a great show of offense.

“Oh, well, if that’s how you want to treat it,” he said, his Irish accent going suddenly twice as thick. “I’m not one to linger where I’m not wanted.” This was a patent lie. “Beggin’ yer pardon, yer lordship.” He tugged at his forelock.

Hugh threw a balled-up piece of paper at him. Martin laughed and dodged, then left, presumably to go get some well-earned sleep.

It was likely what Hugh should have been doing, given his activities the night before, not to mentioned his planned activities for the night ahead.

And lo, with that thought, rest became impossible, even if he did retreat to the spare room that he kept upstairs for moments just like this. He found that he quickly regretted sending Martin away. His friend might be irritating, often astonishingly so, but there was nothing about being annoyed to keep his thoughts from wandering back to the lush image his wife had made when he’d made her fall apart against his fingers that morning.

He planned to repeat that experience at least twice more that evening. He should gather his strength so that he had his wits about him enough to properly enjoy the sight of his wife as he finally made her fully and irrevocably his.

These thoughts were not helpful; rest was impossible, it turned out, when one was so determinedly erect that it challenged the stitching on his trousers.

A curse on whomever had decided that tight trousers were in fashion.

He managed a good hour’s worth of work—something for which he heartily congratulated himself—before his, ahem, condition became too distracting for him to do anything meaningful.

He could have gone home. He could have put himself out of his misery. This was not the early days of the club, when he’d had no choice but to work himself to the bone, all hours, every day. He was no longer kept awake at night worrying over the girls’ financial future, of how he would afford to keep his tenants safe, of how he would pay for repairs on his country estate which was, like every other house of its ilk, perpetually in need of a roof or a re-bricked chimney, or a million other things.

And the most modern fire suppression techniques that Hugh could afford—and even a few that he couldn’t. One didn’t need to learn that lesson twice.

He had scarcely seen the girls—had scarcely seen Daphne—in the first year that the triplets had come to live with him. The financial constraints had been too dire to let any opportunity pass him by.

He’d practically lived at the club, had spent nearly every night in those empty upstairs rooms. He’d seen to every aspect of life in Whitechapel, and while there was plenty that was fine, was normal—families going about their days, washerwomen hanging laundry on the line—there was plenty more that Hugh could never quite unsee.

“Right,” he told himself. “Right.”

This was not then. Those dark days were behind him.

And now, he could bring a little brightness to things. He thought of Persephone, thought of the little flowers on her skirts. And, for the first time, it made him smile instead of sending a pang through his chest.

The shopkeeper did a double-take when he entered the notions shop, and, sure enough, Hugh was the only man in the place. A small boy, lurking behind his mother’s skirts, gave Hugh a commiserative look. Hugh tipped his hat and the boy buried his face against his mother’s side.

“I need a present for three children,” he told the proprietress.

She smiled, her posture easing. This, she knew.

“What ages?”

“Six.”

“And the others?”

“Also six—triplets,” he added, by way of explanation.

The woman’s eyes went wide. “God bless you, sir.”

He chuckled. Chuckled! What had become of him.

“Indeed. But they are different children, so I cannot get them all the same thing, but…”

“But you also cannot get them anything that shall seem better or worse than the others’,” she concluded easily. “Aye, I have four little ones of my own, my lord. I know how they are.”

The woman was a marvel. For all that Hugh’s descriptions of the girls were awkward and surely lacking, he ended up with presents that were perfect for each of the children. When Hugh left, he paid far more than the small gifts were worth, feeling the simple pleasure of being able to do this—for his girls, for this shopkeeper.

He found that he still wore a smile on his face as he left the notions shop.

He had something even better planned for Persephone. Something that she deserved. Something that would finally bring a little brightness to her life that she hadn’t needed to supply herself.