Page 12 of His Unexpected Duchess (Hearts of Whitmores #2)

CHAPTER 12

M ore than one woman had called Nicholas a cad. And worse. He supposed the insult was not far from the truth now, but more than anything, he just felt like a fool.

He thanked Mary for her time, apologized for such bold behavior, and asked her not to repeat what had been discussed in confidence.

“Certainly not, Your Grace.” She tapped the side of her nose with a wink. “And should you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

Right, she’d mentioned her bedchamber was somewhere in the house. He couldn’t remember half of what she had said, however, and was determined to forget all of it by the end of the day.

“Thank you. Good day,” he said shortly before going in the other direction.

Nicholas walked on blindly through the kitchens, ignoring the stilted conversations when he passed the servants. He was distracted. Too distracted.

What was he doing, flirting with the staff? He’d always promised himself that he would never take advantage of them.

I wasn’t going to, not really. But I had to prove… I had to know… Blast it, Kenneth, you’re in my head now.

He couldn’t decide if he was broken or merely changed. He has wrestled with this feeling for the last night or so, trying to figure out the man he was. So many years had been wasted on his pleasure as his own man, the second son, the spare. He was free to do as he liked. His father had never pressured him to go to church or join the army, so he had played the rascal instead.

But he couldn’t play that once he took on the mantle of Duke. Last year, he had tried to be both his father and brother at once. Nicholas feared it was not going as well as he had hoped. Every morning became more daunting as he feared he was not up to par for the challenges he faced.

Still, he missed his old self. The free young man who could do as he pleased and worried little at the end of the day.

Perhaps he is gone, after all. Dead and buried with the family. Whatever I told Kenneth earlier may have been well-intentioned for our friendship, but maybe I am no longer my old self. No longer my past.

Nicholas feared he would keep going in circles if he was left to his own devices for much longer. His committee meeting had been cut short, as their lead had to deal with some other matter he had paid little attention to. Not interested in staying at his office, he had come home and?—

Hearing music now, he skirted the stairs and walked through the familiar door in the hopes of seeing his sister performing.

“Good afternoon, Nicholas.”

Eleanor was seated on a stool by the window, facing the door with a tentative smile.

“Eleanor.” He turned to the piano to see a vaguely familiar face.

The older woman rose gingerly to her feet, the final notes still lingering in the air. She smoothed her skirts and bobbed a polite curtsy. “Good day, Your Grace. Your piano has been tuned to your liking, I hope.”

“Mrs. DeJoy came instead of her husband today—he came down with a cold,” Eleanor explained as she rose to her feet. “It sounds perfect. Thank you very much.”

“Yes, perfect,” Nicholas agreed with a nod. “Thank you.”

Mrs. DeJoy smiled broadly before bobbing another curtsy. She closed the piano lid and picked up her bag. It seemed heavy for such a thin woman, but she made no complaint. “I’m merely glad to be of service. I hope you enjoy your playing, My Lady.”

Eleanor’s smile dimmed, but only slightly. “That’s very kind of you, thank you. Wordlesby should be in the hall and will see you out. He’ll take your bag and hand you your payment. I’m sure we shall see you again soon.”

“Sooner, I hope,” Mrs. DeJoy hinted politely before excusing herself.

After a nod, Nicholas turned back to his sister. The piano hadn’t been tuned since their arrival. For all of Eleanor’s past playing, Mr. DeJoy and occasionally his wife would visit them every couple of months. It had been too long, however, and the house had been too silent.

“Are you––” Nicholas began.

But Eleanor quickly cut him off with a question of her own. “What are you doing at home at this hour? The sun is still up. Is everything all right?”

The hope in his heart plummeted to his stomach. So she wasn’t playing again.

Nicholas tried to brush aside the disappointment and heartache. “Canceled meetings, that is all. I thought I would spend the afternoon with you.”

She furrowed her brow. “And not your wife?”

“Well, I… I haven’t seen her,” he explained with more than just a note of guilt in his voice.

There had been a shadow in Eleanor’s eyes that now flitted away with a sharp determination he hardly recognized. It reminded him of the party she had hosted the other week. With a shake of her head, she poked him in the chest.

Nicholas fought the urge to smile as she scolded him, having missed even this part of his little sister.

“Don’t be a cad, Nicholas. You must be better. Much better. You have a wife now, and you need to spend time with her. She deserves your attention. I’ve already had a lifetime with you—I shall be fine. You should spend time with her instead. Joanna is a very splendid woman. If you actually try to listen to her, I think you will find her very pleasant. No, I know you will,” she pressed.

“How can I argue with you when you are so passionate?” he said with half a sigh.

Those eyes of hers brightened again. It gave his heart hope, even though he was dismayed at the thought of speaking to Joanna.

After several attempts at flirtation, Nicholas could no longer ignore the tightness in his chest. Guilt. He’d never felt guilt over speaking or flirting with more than one woman at a time. Apparently, now that he was wed, he couldn’t help feeling rather put off by everything.

It was too late. Eleanor had already yanked on his coat, tugging him out of the room. She chattered on about how Joanna was probably still visiting with her stepmother and stepsister. They had come for a visit this morning that could not be avoided.

“You almost speak as though I need to rescue her. I shouldn’t like to pull her away from her family,” he pointed out on the stairs.

“Oh, you would be doing no such thing.” Eleanor paused, nearly tripping on a step. He grabbed her elbow in time, and she flushed, her eyes darting around. “It’s only… Well, I’m not certain about her family. They are respectable, but… I did not find them…”

The way she hesitated caught his attention. Nicholas recalled how strange the Cramptons acted around Joanna. No, not really that strange. Indifferent, perhaps, or bitter. But that was common enough among the ton. Kenneth himself was estranged from his family and so were many others. Few married for love, and it was hardly a priority once there were children in the picture.

Nicholas brushed aside his past concerns and Eleanor’s remark, telling himself it couldn’t be a problem. Few families were close. Although he loved his family, most of them could be distant on occasion.

“I’m sure it’s all right. But we may join them if she permits us,” Nicholas agreed.

However, upon reaching the parlor, they found it empty. The house guests had taken their leave a short time ago. That was of no matter, except it didn’t explain why they couldn’t locate Joanna.

“Where is the Duchess?” Nicholas asked when they found their butler.

Already Wordlesby was hastening around the corner toward them. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief and tried to catch his breath. “Your Grace, I was just coming to see you about the same thing.”

“About Joanna?” Eleanor asked.

The butler nodded and wiped his brow again. “Yes. The stablemaster just alerted me that Her Grace has gone out for a ride.”

As Nicholas waited for the man to continue, he noticed his sister stiffen and let out a strangled breath.

“What do you mean, she went out for a ride?” Eleanor asked. She clasped her hands together and shot her brother a worried look. “She doesn’t know how to ride a horse, Nic.”

“What?” Nicholas wondered if Joanna had told him this before. “Then why did she go riding?”

“I believe she took the phaeton, Your Grace.”

“Oh, then that’s all right.”

Eleanor shook her head and grasped his arm. “No, it’s not. She doesn’t know how to drive, let alone ride. This isn’t like her. She was very hesitant when I gave her a lesson. Did she take a groom with her?”

“If you were teaching her, then I’m sure she’s all right,” Nicholas tried to reassure her.

“She requested no groom. We know she headed down the lane in the direction of Mayfair, but the stableboy lost her and had to run back to alert us,” Wordlesby explained. He seemed more harried than usual as he focused his attention back on Nicholas. “We’re all rather concerned about Her Grace. She was out of sorts and very new to such conveyances, as My Lady has just said.”

It took Nicholas a moment to understand what was happening. He’d been planning on apologizing to his wife for his manners, among other things, and now the household was worried about her. She was off driving a phaeton. The new one he’d bought. It was meant to be a wedding gift, but he couldn’t recall if he’d told her.

Driving it today would be just fine… but blast it, is she in danger?

“I fear so,” Eleanor said, making him realize that he had asked the question out loud. “Please, you must go find her at once. She could fall and be trampled or injured, or––”

“All right, all right, I will go at once,” he agreed hastily. “Wordlesby, I need a horse.”

“He’s being saddled for you now.”

Eleanor shoved him forward. “Go! Now!”

Her frantic energy was getting to him. Nicholas didn’t know what else he could do but worry about his wife hurting herself. Phaetons were pleasant enough carriages and allowed for exciting jaunts through town, but they were also terribly fickle and could cause the driver to be unseated for many a reason.

Feeling his heart begin to race, he nodded and raced out of the house. On his saddled horse, he took off toward Mayfair.

The more time he had to ponder the matter, the more he worried. What was his wife doing? Had she gone mad? He remembered now that she had mentioned she couldn’t ride during their first meeting. There had been an odd note in her voice that he had meant to ask her about, but he hadn’t had the time. And since their wedding… well, he had kept avoiding her.

Discomfiting images flashed through his mind. His stomach twisted. Could he bury someone else again so soon? No, he couldn’t. And his sister would surely not survive it.

Praying she didn’t have a death wish, Nicholas darted through traffic in search of his wife. He feared it would be impossible to find her––until he turned onto a narrow street that seemed to be at a standstill.

He saw familiar horses and nudged his horse toward them. His heart pounded in his chest as he laid eyes on the driver, confirming for good that it was his wife.

A rather anxious and stiff version of his wife.

Pulling up beside her, Nicholas noticed at once that she was very much out of sorts, to put it mildly. The only part of her body that moved was her shaking hands. Her lips formed a small circle as if she was trying to slow her breathing. And yet she was still trying to steer the two horses against the traffic, which was not going well.

He opened his mouth and shut it, thinking quickly about what to do, only to find himself unsure what to call her in public.

“Lady wife!” She didn’t even blink. “Joanna!” Two blinks. “Joanna, please stop your phaeton at once.”

After a moment, she turned her head toward him before quickly looking away. There had been a flash in her eyes that surprised him. “No, thank you.”

She was mad, determined to drive like this.

There were other riders and drivers behind her, calling for her to do something. But she didn’t seem to hear a word they said. Nicholas waved them down, though he knew no one would listen. So he focused back on her.

“You don’t know what you are doing, do you?” She didn’t answer him. “Stop your carriage, and I shall drive us home. This cannot continue. You don’t have enough experience.”

“Just because I don’t have experience doesn’t mean I am useless,” she snapped back.

He realized dimly that she wasn’t even wearing her gloves. Her hands were pink and red with the reins wrapped around them. Already he could imagine the large blisters that would certainly form on her poor skin soon. Another reminder of her madness.

“I am not mad,” she told him. “I am merely driving. Please leave me be.”

“I will not. I am not leaving this street, Joanna.”

“Very well, then I shall.”

Except she couldn’t figure out how to get the horses to turn into the next street. Nicholas let her struggle for a moment, holding firmly to the reins of his horse. He was tempted to block the phaeton’s path, but he didn’t know how she would react. Couldn’t take the risk.

Growing irritated by his worry for her, he growled. “Stop this at once. Do you even know what you are doing? Where you are going?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You will injure yourself.”

“Then so be it.”

Madness, indeed. Blast it.

It wouldn’t be the first, second, or third time he questioned his decision to enter into this marriage. Heat flooded through his body as he watched Joanna twist the reins with a screech that frayed the last of his patience. He couldn’t take this any longer.

He jumped down from his saddle and stormed over to the phaeton to soothe the anxious horses. Several people called out in alarm, certain he would be trampled. That was indeed a risk. But he knew his horses, and he knew he couldn’t make a scene in the middle of London.

“Your Grace!” Joanna gasped.

“Your Grace,” he echoed with great ire, meeting her unsteady gaze. “You may not care about harming yourself, but what of me? And these horses?” he added when she didn’t respond right away.

Joanna glanced over at his horse, which stood idly on the side of the busy lane, patiently waiting for his master. “I?—”

“Don’t move a muscle,” Nicholas ordered.

Moving with great haste lest she use the opportunity to flee once again, Nicholas tethered his horse to the phaeton and jumped into the front seat. It had been only a few seconds, and Joanna was unsettled as he joined her. He took her arm after snatching the reins.

“Wait, no, I––” she started.

“Too late,” he responded with a grimace.

Hearing his thudding heartbeat over the noise of the crowd, he waved off the disgruntled drivers as he neatly directed the phaeton away from the busy street and toward home.

It was a roomy phaeton, and yet they were pressed shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. That was how Nicholas realized that his wife was shaking. Even as she wrapped her arms around herself, Joanna couldn’t shrink away from him, as there was no room for her to go.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes. They both had to work on slowing their breathing, though Nicholas supposed it could very well be for other reasons.

He finally spoke. “You are mad.”

“Not one bit. Angry, perhaps, and quite put out. But never mad,” Joanna returned so calmly that if he didn’t feel her shaking at his side, he might have thought they were discussing the weather. “I was fine on my own, Duke.”

He exhaled through his nose. “I think all of London now knows that is not the case,” he shot back, his tone harsher than he had intended.

He felt her tense up beside him. He waited for her to retort. An argument would be perfect for the black mood he was in after what had just happened. They were at odds, and he was not interested in sheltering her from a dangerous mistake that could have cost her not only her life but also the lives of others.

Because of this, neither of them said another word on the drive back home.

It was silent and tense, almost awkward. Sullenness radiated from Joanna in thick waves that he couldn’t ignore. By the time they reached the stables, his heartbeat had finally slowed.

Nicholas very grudgingly realized that he could have been kinder to her.

I have more than just a few apologies to make to her, it would seem.

Swallowing his pride, he took a deep breath. The phaeton came to a stop, and the stablemaster and two stableboys were immediately at their side. Nicholas twisted in his seat, deciding to make amends. He could scold her later, perhaps. But if they could just talk for a moment, they could sort things out.

“Joanna.”

Already her back was turned to him as she made to jump down. Alarm shot through him, as there was no one at her side to help her. His hand only caught air.

“Oof!” She landed on her feet but stumbled forward as many women often did without aid on these high conveyances. Dresses were not ideal for such rides.

He winced as she fell to her hands and knees.

Swearing under his breath, he alighted the phaeton and opened his mouth to apologize. But she never gave him a chance, as she managed to rise to her feet and started toward the house.

“Joanna, I would like to apologize…”

That didn’t even draw her attention.

The stableboy offered her the hat that had fallen off her head.

“Thank you kindly, Tony,” she muttered before continuing toward the house as if Nicholas had not uttered a word.

He stood there, with his arms hanging at his sides, watching her disappear inside. It was their house, he supposed, but suddenly it felt like a stranger’s home. Or hers more than his.

Incensed over her behavior, he followed her inside with half a mind to lecture her on her manners and actions today.

By the time he entered the house, however, the fight had gone out of him. She was gone. Probably hiding from him now. He rubbed his face, wondering what he was doing.

I don’t even know who I am anymore.

Cursing did little good, and something told him that starting an argument with his wife would not help either of them. He remembered his father once telling him and his siblings how, when their mother was alive, they had made certain to never let anger fester between them.

But what was Nicholas supposed to do? He leaned against a wall and dropped his head in his hands, wishing for his father’s presence. He needed guidance. Support. Wisdom.

And yet, once again, he found himself entirely alone.