Page 15 of The Duke’s Replacement Bride (The Wild Brides #6)
“ C hildren, this is no way to behave while we’re guests of the Duke of Mowbray,” Arabella chided, catching her young son and daughter by the hand. “Don’t you remember what we discussed at home about being a little lady and gentleman?”
“It’s all right,” Levi said. “I’ve arranged for one of my maids to take them into the yard to play and have a picnic while the rest of us dine, if that meets with your approval, Your Grace.” He inclined his head.
“Oh, there’s no need for that. We’re family now,” she told him. “And yes, of course the children ought to go outside. They’ll have a much better time running around out there than spending time with us.”
Levi called one of his maids forward, and she took Arabella’s children by their hands. He could hear them chattering all the way down the hall.
His heart clenched at the sound. He had never longed for children, and he didn’t want them now.
His marriage to Caroline didn’t have that sort of potential.
But there was something about the way their laughter lit up the house that made him ache in a way he hadn’t realized he could feel.
This house had never sounded that way before.
And even when he had been young himself, he had never felt free to laugh like that—not in the home he’d been raised in, not growing up with a mother who could barely stand his father, who was too snobbish for their humble life.
I never wanted to be a duke. I never wanted this title or this life . It was the thought that came to him in his darkest moments, the thought he could never quite shake off.
The most he could do was push it down deep within himself, which he did now. He turned his attention to Arabella and her husband, William, the Duke of Redmayne. “It’s so good of you both to come on short notice,” he said.
“Well, when we heard about Prudence, we had to,” Arabella said.
“Are you worried? I know Caroline has hardly slept.”
“To tell you the truth, if there is anyone in the world who could go out and make her way on her own, it’s Prudence,” Arabella said.
“I won’t pretend I’m not vexed with her, but she’ll turn up in a few weeks laughing about what a chase she led us all on.
I know my sister, and she wouldn’t have left home without some plan.
The joke on us is that we haven’t been able to figure out what it was. ”
“So, you don’t share Caroline’s fear that she’s been haunting pubs and sleeping in alleys, then.”
“Oh, my goodness, no. Prudence may be impulsive, but she’s very smart, too,” Arabella said. She lowered her voice. “I as good as raised the two of them, you know. Caroline was always the more cautious one. The fearful one.”
Levi couldn’t suppress a smile. “She has never seemed remotely fearful to me.”
“Perhaps you bring something out in her.” Arabella angled her body to take in her sister, who was standing in the doorway of the sitting room and talking to their parents.
Lord and Lady Highgate had arrived about twenty minutes previously, and they had been fairly quick to settle in with cups of tea and tales about everything that was going on at home.
“She does look more confident than I’ve ever seen her.
I know that your original intention was to marry Prudence, but I must say, I think this may be a fortuitous match.
You and Caroline seem to me to be well suited. ”
A servant stepped out from the kitchen and inclined his head quietly, a signal to Levi. “Dinner is ready,” he announced, loudly enough for the baron and baroness to hear. “Shall we repair to the dining room?”
Everyone rose and moved in that direction. Caroline’s cousin Bridget caught up to Levi before Caroline could do so, and she smiled at him. “It’s lovely to see you again, Your Grace.”
“It’s very good to see you too, Lady Bridget. How have you been?”
“Very well. I’ve been practicing daily on the pianoforte,” she said.
“Aunt Constance says that all well-bred ladies must have a talent, and that if I am to make the most of this season in London, I will need something to show to potential suitors. I wonder if I might play for you after we finish with our meal? I’ve only had the opportunity to play for my aunt and uncle, you see, and it’s difficult to say whether I’ve improved at all.
I don’t think they are good judges of my abilities.
Aunt Constance always says I must practice more , and Uncle Stephen hardly listens at all. ”
Levi couldn’t help smiling. She was so earnest and open. “Of course there will be time for music after dinner,” he said. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“Bridget! Are you bothering the duke?” Lady Highgate came up alongside her niece now. “I’m so sorry, Your Grace. It’s impossible to get her to stop talking about that piano.”
“Well, she must be talented,” Levi said with a smile.
“She is, although if she devoted herself a bit more to practice instead of talk she could be even more so. None of my own daughters bothered to learn an instrument, you know. Well, yes, surely you know, being married to Caroline, that she’s hopeless in that regard. Always with her nose in a book.”
“She is particularly well read.” Levi stiffened, displeased at his guest’s words.
“I personally find her remarkable, and very intelligent.” Caroline had passed him while he had been speaking to Bridget, and he lowered his voice slightly, hoping that her mother would take the hint and do the same.
Caroline didn’t need to hear them talking about her in this way.
“Not every lady needs to play the pianoforte, you know—though I’m glad you’ve found such joy and success in your endeavor, of course, Lady Bridget. ”
Bridget beamed at him. “I won’t bother you any further,” she assured him.
“You were no bother at all.” He raised the volume of his voice slightly to make the point to Lady Highgate, who frowned as if she didn’t appreciate the fact that he was disagreeing with her.
“Why don’t you go in and take a seat?” he added, noticing that Caroline was now working her way back over toward them, her father in tow.
He had a feeling this was about to be a more serious conversation.
Sure enough, as soon as Caroline had reached his side, she put her hands on her hips and looked back and forth between her parents. “I’d like to know what you’re doing to try to find Prudence,” she said.
Levi put an arm around her waist and pulled her close, recalling that the point of this dinner had been to demonstrate a happy marriage to the baron and baroness so that they wouldn’t spread any further gossip about his rakishness.
It was vital that this succeed, not only for the sake of Caroline’s reputation, but for Levi’s as well.
He had married in large part out of a desire to show his tenants and business partners that he was the sort of man who could be relied upon, the sort of man who conformed to the expectations of society.
Everyone was more comfortable doing business with a man who had followed those norms and had taken a wife for himself.
He could understand that, even if he didn’t like it much and found it a foolish reason to have to marry.
But his attempts would be wasted if the story Caroline had repeated from her seamstress were to get around.
How would that look—everyone talking about the fact that the Duke of Mowbray hadn’t been able to keep his wife happy for even a few months?
That he was such a scoundrel that one lady had run away rather than wed him, and now another was thinking of doing the same thing?
No. It had to be made clear that Prudence was an outlier, a wayward type.
He wanted her back safely, of course, but he also wanted to distance himself from what she had done.
He needed it to be clear to anyone who wondered that things between himself and Caroline were going well.
She wasn’t dissatisfied or on the run from a rakish husband.
She was perfectly happy in this marriage.
Even if that wasn’t exactly true, that was the image he had to project.
She melted into him, obviously trying to work with him to present an image of a couple newly enamored with each other.
If they could sell it to her parents, who fully understood the circumstances of their marriage and how dispassionate he had been about it at the start, they ought to be able to sell it to anyone.
This would be the true test that would prove whether or not they were ready to face the rest of society at balls.
“We told you,” Caroline’s mother said. “We don’t know where Prudence is, Caroline.”
“I didn’t ask you where she was. I asked what you’re doing to try to find her.
You aren’t going to tell me you’re not doing anything at all,” she added severely.
“You’re not going to stand there and tell me that you’re not even trying to find her.
Levi is trying, and he has so much less reason to than either of you.
” She leaned in closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Levi cares , even though Prudence ran from him and risked humiliating him.”
Levi was acutely aware of her body against his, her warmth and softness. They had never been this close to one another before, and never for such a prolonged period. He had never held her like this.
It will be like this if we dance together.
Suddenly, he was very much looking forward to the season’s events.
“We are going to send out search parties,” Caroline’s mother said.
“We’re not going to do that,” her father countered.
“We spoke about this already, Constance. If we send people out searching for her, it will only serve to drive her deeper underground. If she wants to hide from us, we’re going to allow her to do so.
She’ll come home when she’s good and ready—when she’s learned a lesson about surviving away from the comforts of home.
That daughter of yours is spoiled to her core, and I’m not going to put up with it. Especially after that second letter.”
“Letter?” Caroline asked swiftly, perking up and leaning ever so slightly away from Levi. “What letter are you talking about?”
“We got a letter from her a few weeks ago.”
Levi could practically feel the surge of adrenaline through Caroline’s body. All her muscles tensed. “And you didn’t tell me that?”
“This was before we discovered she wasn’t at Beatrice’s,” the baron defended himself. “It didn’t seem so important then.”
“But when you learned she wasn’t there, you couldn’t have told me? I thought no one had heard from her in weeks!” Caroline looked as if she might spit. “I thought—I didn’t know what could have happened to her! I want to see that letter!”
“I haven’t got it with me,” her father said, exasperated. “For pity’s sake. She told us not to worry over her and that she’d be home when she was ready. Like I said—spoiled.” He shook his head and went into the dining room.
“I can’t believe that,” Caroline breathed. “I can’t believe the two of them. How could they not have told me that?”
Levi wanted to say something to calm her down, to reassure her. But words failed him. Because he felt she was entirely in the right, and he was just as appalled as she was.