Page 9 of The Duke’s Second Bride (Regency Second Chances #4)

A fter the garden party and after depositing Luke safely at home with his maid, Christian found himself at the gentleman’s club. After such a trying afternoon, he was in sore need of a drink.

“Richmond! Old chap.” Vincent Hampton, Marquess of Sedwin, plopped down in the seat beside him, giving Christian a friendly clap on the shoulder. “It’s been far too long since we’ve been graced with your presence, eh? Where on Earth have you been hiding away?”

Christian concealed his wince with a smile. Vincent was a good-natured fellow—and often unaware of the strength he possessed.

“Come, now. I’ve hardly been hiding,” he said. “And I could say the same of you! Too busy tending to your estate to be out and about on the ton?”

Vincent waved a hand. “Ah, Sophia keeps me too busy to leave the house. And the children—James is ten now, can you believe it? And Lucy is six! It takes the wind out of a man, all this child-rearing business. Though I’m sure you know what I mean. Your boy, Luke, he must be what, eight? Nine?”

“Eleven,” Christian corrected him, before leaning back to take a sip of his scotch.

“Eleven! Well. How the time does fly. It’s been so long since I saw him out with you. I’m surprised. Next time we are all at a family gathering, you must bring him! I’m sure he and James would get along swimmingly.”

“Yes,” Christian said teasingly, “they’d get along about as well as you and I.”

Vincent took the jest in good stride. While it was true the two of them seldom crossed paths anymore, they had known each other since they were young men and shared an understanding that any barbs launched against the other were all meant in good fun.

“Ah. It’s good to see you’re still capable of tossing a light joke.”

“What do you mean?” Christian asked.

“Come now, man. Let us speak plainly. You all but had a dark cloud circling your head when you first came in here,” Vincent replied. “What is the matter?”

Christian shook his head. And here he had thought he was hiding his emotional state so well.

“It’s nothing,” he muttered.

“I’d hardly say anything, based on that scowl,” Vincent persisted. “But very well; if you will not say anything about it, then I will simply have to make guesses until you accede.”

“Aren’t you a bit old to be playing twenty questions, Vincent?”

Vincent held a hand to his heart. “You wound me. But no matter how old we both are, here is my first guess: does your dour mood perhaps have anything to do with a certain widow?”

Christian’s head snapped up. He glared at the other man. “How did you—” He shook his head in disgust. “Never mind,” he muttered.

“The ton talks, old man! Word will spread quicker than you could ever expect. Faster than lightning, by my estimate.” He leaned closer towards the other man, resting his chin on his hand with one brow raised inquisitively. “Well? Care to share any more, or shall I go on with my guessing game?”

Christian sighed. “I first encountered Lady Dunfair at the hot air balloon fair.”

“Ah, so it is Lady Dunfair!” his friend said interestedly, a sly gleam entering his eye. “And all I had said was that it was a widow?—”

Christian smacked his friend’s arm. “Luke had managed to slip out of his maid’s grasp.”

“Ah, you can’t be too cross at him for that. My boy does the same. It is to be expected of them at that age—all they want is to grow up, be proper men before their time. And did he manage to run into Lady Dunfair, I take it?”

“I assume so. When I found them, he had wandered over to a horse. When the fireworks went off, the horse was scared, and I…” Christian paused, and took a labored breath.

“She pulled him away from the horse. But I was so frightened for his safety, and in my fear, I took out some of that frustration on Lady Dunfair. She told me that Luke should be allowed to be near more animals, and I accused her of being presumptuous for telling me how to raise my son.”

Vincent hissed in a breath. “Bad start, my friend.”

“Was I so wrong? As though she were in a position to tell me how to be a father to my son. She should be more concerned with her own children.”

Vincent raised another brow. “She hasn’t any. Surely you’ve heard the rumors? The late Lord Dunfair was quite vicious in how he spoke of her—that she was infertile, uninviting … frigid, even.”

A vision of Ava’s face, flushed and warm in the heat of their argument, flashed across Christian’s mind.

He couldn’t imagine a less apt description for such a fiery woman than frigid.

“I was not aware, no,” he said, stiffly, his tone poorly masking his regret.

“That’s our Christian,’ Vincent chuckled, shaking his head. “You never did pay any attention to the gossip mill, did you?” At another sour look from Christian, he raised his hands defensively. “I never said it was a bad thing! If anything, I rather think it is one of your better qualities. Go on.”

“Well,” Christian continued, doing his best not to grumble. “After that, we ran into each other at the Aberton’s garden party this afternoon.”

“Ah, that was today, wasn’t it?” Vincent mused.

“James took ill, and so Sophia insisted on staying home to keep an eye on him, and I could hardly go without her. He seems much better this evening, before you ask after him. In any case, I missed the party. How was it? You say Lady Dunfair was there again? You ran into her?”

Christian nodded. “Or, to be more precise, Luke ran into her. He was …” He hesitated, not wanting to betray his son by speaking of the issue.

“You know Luke has some difficulties speaking, on occasion,” he said carefully.

“That is, he stutters. When he is overwrought, or when people are being unkind to him. Which some of the adults at the gathering were.” He thought again of Lord Dunfair, and his lip curled into a snarl.

“Of course. It’s bad luck,” Vincent said sympathetically. “Though I’m certain he’ll grow out of it. Perfectly common for children of that age, no?”

“Perhaps. But what is funny is—it seemed to briefly improve this afternoon,” Christian said.

“When I found him with Av—with Lady Dunfair, she and I had a bit of a back and forth. Once again, I felt she was being … presumptuous. But then Luke told me not to speak to Lady Dunfair so. And he didn’t stutter once while he said it. ”

Vincent pursed his lips into a surprised moue. “Well, well, well,” he said, musing over this new revelation.

“His new tutor and physician both suggested limited exposure to certain small social gatherings could be helpful for him,” Christian continued. “That is why I took him to the garden party in the first place. Once must feel encouraged, that it seemed to help in such a rapid manner.”

Vincent shrugged. “Or perhaps it was due to Lady Dunfair’s influence,” he pointed out.

“You said she ran to him. He seems to have taken a liking to her, no? At the very least, he must trust her after that incident with the horse. Perhaps her influence is calming to him, such that it allows him to speak more clearly.”

Christian scoffed. “I highly doubt that is the case. I will say, you seem awfully interested in speaking of Lady Dunfair, when the topic at hand is my son’s wellbeing,” he said.

“I don’t know if I am the one awfully interested in Lady Dunfair,” Vincent grinned, which only served to stoke Christian’s ire further.

“I mean it!” he said, as the other man’s smile broke down into increasingly amused and delighted laughter. “You’re incorrigible. If anything, I think I would like to keep Lady Dunfair as far away from my son as possible. With all the rumors surrounding her and her late husband?—”

“Ah, so you have heard the rumors?”

“You just spoke of them!”

“Only one. Aside from speaking ill of his wife, the late Lord Dunfair was also a bit of a Don Juan, it would seem. Very much enjoyed playing the philanderer. He was most indiscreet about his affairs, though I never once heard any indication that his wife confronted him about that, in public or otherwise. Evidently, he used the accusations of his wife’s frigidity to justify his infidelity. ”

“Well, in that case,” Christian said, through his shock, “I would say once more that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be discerning about the kind of person that is allowed around my son!”

“Surely you’d agree some of those rumors are unfair,” Vincent said. “I do not know much of Lady Dunfair myself, but she doesn’t seem to be a shrew or a harpy. And in any case, it seems rather uncouth to blame one’s own indiscretions on one’s wife.”

“I—” Here Christian had to stop. It was true that, based on what he’d seen of Lady Dunfair, all the accusations seemed both unfair and untrue.

“You only say that because you and Sophia are so foolishly besotted with each other,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes at the silly smile that immediately spread across his friend’s face.

It was true. Vincent and Sophia had, against all odds, managed to achieve that rarest of things: a true love match, from the moment they met.

And it seemed that, across the years, they had only fallen more and more in love as time went on.

Obstacles such as finances and children had only served to bring their marriage more strength, and to bring the two of them closer together.

“Regardless of whatever reputation Lady Dunfair has—however fairly or unfairly earned,” Christian said, trying to make his point before his friend shook out of his love-struck daze to counter-argue with him, “none of that has any bearing on my personal experiences with her. Repeatedly, I have found her to be quarrelsome, high-spirited, and a passionate debater. Moreover, she has time and time again inserted herself into Luke’s and my life, offering help where it was unasked for. ”

Vincent chuckled. “Most of those hardly sound like complaints,” he said, with a tilt of his head. “You know, it is perfectly all right to have desires, my friend.”

Christian furrowed his brow. “My only desire is to see my son improve,” he said, “as would any father.”

Vincent rolled his eyes. “You dense fool. I am speaking not of a father’s desires, but of a man’s .”

Christian’s mouth slammed shut. When he had finally collected himself enough, he could only sputter. “Y—I—Don’t be ridiculous, Vincent.” He cleared his throat. “I warn you, another such presumptuous remark, and?—”

Vincent stopped him with a hand raised. “Spare me the threats, Christian.” He sighed, shaking his head.

“I am going home. I have a beautiful wife waiting for me in bed.” As he stood, Christian could say nothing in response.

Before he left for good, Vincent turned around once more to address his friend.

“It isn’t wrong for you to want the same thing, Christian. ”

Christian waved his friend off. “That is not my priority.”

“I’m well aware of that. You’ve been alone a long time. I simply think you deserve to have some company, for once.” He tipped his head. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

As he watched his happily married friend exit the gentlemen’s club, Christian couldn’t help but mull over Vincent’s words.

Could it be possible that his reaction to Lady Dunfair was something more than simple annoyance?

His mind went to the way her hair shone in the sun when she haughtily tossed her head and walked away.

The way her curves pressed against the fabric of her dress, her bosom heaving faster and faster, the more agitated she got in arguing against him.

The way the debate brought a flush to those delicate cheeks, not dissimilar to the type of flush he would coax out of her, were they ever to be in bed together.

At this last thought, he shook his head.

“Enough,” he muttered to himself.

Lady Dunfair was a meddlesome nuisance. No more.

Though he couldn’t deny the way Luke had responded to her.

He had to admit to himself that it was slightly disheartening. Though it of course brought him joy to see his son have a moment of confidence, he couldn’t help but wonder why he was unable to bring Luke such comfort.

How was it that a stranger, in five minutes, was able to do for his son what Christian himself had not been able to do in eleven years?

More so, Luke seemed quite attached to her; he had been willing to brave public speech to defend the lady.

Why was that?

And more so, why did Christian find himself unable to keep Ava—no, Lady Dunfair from his mind?