Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(98)
“Your Grace?” came her hesitant voice.
It would seem that she, on the other hand, didn’t quite recognize him.
How lowering.
“Madam,” he bit out. “I’ve traveled an ocean. I’m injured and tired and severely lacking in the sort of patience and understanding one would require in a circumstance such as this.”
“Do step aside, Ludlow,” she ordered the mountain.
The mountain complied with great reluctance and another scowl. And there she stood in his place. She was lovelier than he remembered. Her hair was plaited in a basket weave and worn high atop her head. Her gown was navy silk with bottle-green underskirts, lace and ribbon adorning a bodice that couldn’t help but draw attention to her narrow waist and generous bosom. Even in his weakened state, he felt an unexpected, odd flare of awareness as he took her in.
“Your Grace,” she said at last, her too-wide pink lips pressed into a severe frown. “You look ill.”
Well, hell. He’d been standing about, thinking how remarkably fine she looked while she’d been taking in his gaunt frame, pale skin, and cane. He was a wreck and he knew it. He leaned heavily on the cane now. “I’ve been injured. Will you grant me entrance, or am I to stand in the street like a bloody tradesman?”
She blinked, color blooming in her cheeks. “Did you suffer a hunting injury, Your Grace?”
Clever minx. He gave her his haughtiest stare. “Yes.”
His wife took a step back, allowing the door to open fully. “Come in, then. I suppose I cannot deny you entrance.”
With the aid of his servants, he stepped over the threshold. But the effort of walking to the door, combined with the length of time he’d been forced to wait at the door and the crippling pain searing him had made him even weaker. He swayed, losing his balance, humiliation stinging him simultaneously.
How had he ended up here, in this moment, standing before the wife he’d never wanted like a bloody invalid, a strange butler presiding over his disgrace?
Her gaze raked the length of him, going wider still. “Oh dear heavens. His Grace is bleeding. Ludlow, have my chambers prepared for him, if you please.”
He glanced down to see that his wound had indeed begun to weep once more, soaking through his trousers. Damn it. “Prepare my chambers,” he commanded the insolent mountain, gainsaying her.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” his duchess said without a hint of remorse.
What the bloody hell?
“There’s no longer a bed in your chamber,” she explained. “It’s the main dog chamber now. Even if there were still a bed, I doubt you’d wish to convalesce there.”
“The dog chamber,” he repeated, wondering if he’d lost his mind along with the blood that had seeped from his body.
“Yes. It will have to be my chamber, I’m afraid, or nothing at all.” She turned to give the butler a look that was far too intimate for his liking. “There’s no helping it. You’ll have to move Lady Philomena Whiskers somewhere else for the birthing.”
Dogs and cats and a mountain of a butler who was too familiar with his wife. And he no longer had a bed. Of course, this was precisely the homecoming he should have expected.
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Before you go…
If you enjoy steamy Regency and Victorian romance, don’t miss the Heart’s Temptation series. Read on for an excerpt of Book One, A Mad Passion.
A lost love...
Seven years ago, the Marquis of Thornton broke Cleo’s heart, and she hasn’t forgotten or forgiven him. But when she finds him standing before her at a country house party, as devastatingly handsome as ever, old temptations prove difficult to resist. One stolen kiss is all it takes.
A proper gentleman...
Thornton buried his past and his feelings for Cleo long ago. He’s worked diligently to become a respected politician with a reputation above reproach. The only trouble in his otherwise perfect life is that he can’t resist the maddening beauty he never stopped wanting, no matter how devastating the cost.
A mad passion...
Cleo is hopelessly trapped in a loveless marriage, and Thornton is on the cusp of making an advantageous match to further his political ambitions. The more time they spend in each other’s arms, the more they court scandal and ruin. Theirs is a love that was never meant to be. Or is it?
“A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion.”– Oscar Wilde
Wilton House, September 1880
leo, Countess Scarbrough, decided there had never been a more ideal moment to feign illness. The very last thing she wanted to do was traipse through wet grass at a country house party while her dress improver threatened to crush her. Not to mention the disagreeable prospect of being forced to endure the man before her. What had her hostess been thinking to pair them together? Did she not know of their history? A treasure hunt indeed.
Seven years and the Marquis of Thornton hadn’t changed a whit, damn him. Tall and commanding, he was arrogance personified standing amidst the other glittering lords and ladies. Oh, perhaps his shoulders had broadened and she noted fine lines ’round his intelligent gray eyes. But not even a kiss of silver strands earned from his demanding career in politics marred the glorious black hair. It was most disappointing. After all, there had been whispers following the Prime Minister’s successful Midlothian Campaign that a worn-out Thornton would retire from politics and his unofficial position as Gladstone’s personal aid altogether. But as far as she could discern, the man staring down upon her was the same insufferably handsome man who had betrayed her. Was it so much to ask that he’d at least become plump about the middle?