Page 51 of The Duchess in His Bed
With her compliment she was striving to appease him, perhaps regain her own honor. With her formal addressing of him, she was striving to put distance between them, to remind him of his place.
“My brother is a young man, with wild oats still in need of sowing,” she added.
“How old were you when you took on the mantle of responsibility for your siblings and married?”
“Much younger than him,” she admitted. “Is he in debt to you?”
He merely gave an inconsequential shrug. “Not as much asyou’llbe if we go through with this.”
Heading for the door, he pointed toward the secretary and tossed back over his shoulder, “Tomorrow. At the stroke of two be there.”
Chapter 15
There were certain sights that a man should never see. His sire’s hairy, flabby bare arse quivering as he pounded into a woman who stared at the canopy while she released a small moan with the regularity of a ticking clock was one of them. He’d expected to find the Earl of Elverton asleep this time of night and had been looking forward to disturbing his slumber.
The woman—too young to be the current countess—shifted her gaze to the side, caught sight of Aiden, and released a bloodcurdling scream as she fought frantically to rid herself of the toad weighing her down.
“Bloody hell!” the earl roared before glancing in the same direction as his mistress. In an ungainly manner, he extricated himself from the lass who scrambled to the far side of the bed, snatching up the covers in an effort to protect her modesty.
Aiden was aware of the patter of light footsteps coming down the hallway, and then a slender woman whose head reached his shoulder edged around him.
“What’s happened?”
Based on the intricate embroidery in her satin dressing gown, and her lack of surprise at the tableau before her, he assumed she was the current Countess of Elverton. In his youth, he’d seen her from afar on a couple of occasions when curiosity regarding his sire had him following the old goat around. Seeing her so clearly now, he mused that she’d been a beauty in her day, her porcelain complexion still radiant in spite of the late hour. Her brown hair gathered in a long braid was streaked with wisps of red and silver.
Breathing heavily, sitting on the edge of the bed, not demonstrating the same modesty as his mistress, the earl waved his hand in the air as though shooing away a swarm of flies. “My bastard. What the devil are you doing here?”
“I need a word.”
“Come see me in the morning.”
“Now.”
His sire narrowed brown eyes that mirrored Aiden’s in shade, and his square jaw tightened with his irritation, but still he gave a nod. “I’ll meet you in the library shortly.”
“I’ll escort you,” his countess said, quickly turning on her heel and heading into the hallway.
With one parting glare that promised retribution if the old man reneged on his words, Aiden closed the door and joined the earl’s wife. “It doesn’t bother you that he cares so little for you that he brings his doxy here?”
She lifted one finely arched dark brow in a knowing way. “She keeps him out of my bed. Why would I object to that, I ask you?”
He couldn’t argue with her reasoning when he’d often hoped that his mother’s time with the whoremonger had been brief. “I know my way to the library.”
She gave him a lofty once-over and a serene smile. “I’ve no doubt. Still, it would make me an inhospitable hostess not to accompany you, Mr. Trewlove.”
Without waiting for him, she began walking elegantly toward the stairs. He hurried to catch up. “You know who I am.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Several years back, as I recall, you arrived at a late hour and informed the butler who greeted you—I shall never forget the words—‘I’m Aiden Trewlove, the earl’s bastard, and I’ll have a word with him.’ I think you quite frightened the poor fellow. I was standing on the stairs”—which she now descended—“unnoticed, as you were singular in your purpose that evening. To be honest, I was quite shocked as well by your arrival.”
“You were unaware he had bastards?”
She held her tongue until she finished her descent, stopped, and faced him. “Oh no, Mr. Trewlove. I knew he had bastards. I gave birth to three of them, but he took them from me within minutes of their birth. He considered children born on the wrong side of the blanket to be an inconvenience. Your arrival gave me hope that he had kept his promise to see them loved and well cared for. This way.”
He tried to study her more closely to determine if he could see any of himself in her, but she turned on her heel, once more leaving him to catch up. Could she possibly be his mother? Or maybe Finn’s?
“You were his mistress before you were his wife.” Again, a statement not a question.
“How clever you are, Mr. Trewlove.”
