Grace,” his duchess murmured as she swished through the opened library door. “The bills have arrived for the girls’ trousseaux.”
Leaning forward, Lennox waved his duchess into the room, still awed by her dazzling beauty after all these years of marriage. “And what has their trousseaux set me back?”
“An enormous amount,” she said with a smile as he captured her hand in his and brushed his lips along her fingers. She blushed. As pretty still as the day he had first laid eyes on her. He had wanted her so much. Still did. Nothing would have stopped him from possessing her. In fact, nothing had. There had been one particular hurdle to jump, but nothing too serious.
“The modiste has done an extraordinary job of dressing them,” his wife said. “Wait till you see them in their new gowns. Mrs. Hartwell has such a way with color and draping. And the lace,” his wife continued, obviously over the moon with pride, “the lace on their cuffs is at least three inches thick, and so finely spun. I can hardly credit how she is able to design such gowns.”
He did not want this private moment with his wife spoiled by talk of the village modiste. “Why you did not send for a modiste from London for a proper trousseau, I will never understand,” he grumbled, thinking of the woman who ran the only clothing shop in Glastonbury. “You know how I adore my girls, nothing is too good for them. I want them to have the best.”
“I like our modest little modiste,” his wife replied. “And their gowns look as though they were designed and made in Paris, not Glastonbury. Besides, our modiste is rather gifted.”
His brows arched. “In what way?”
“The villagers say she’s been blessed by faeries. They say,” his wife murmured, leaning into him, “that the reason her gowns are so magnificent and her stitches so delicate, and her lace so beautiful, is that the faeries visit her nightly and fill her orders.”
A harrowing thought, indeed.
“They say,” his wife continued, whispering in his ear, “that our little village modiste is happy to repay them in their favored currency.”
“Carnalities?”
“Honeyed milk.”
Patting her rump, Lennox sent his wife a lusty smile. “How little you know of the fey, my dear, for they would much prefer humping to honey.”
She blushed at his vulgarity. “What are you working on?” she asked, flipping through the papers that littered his desk.
“Nothing to concern yourself with, my dear,” he cajoled. Gathering up the papers, he stacked them away from her reach. His investments were listed there, and some of them were dubious to say the least. He had no wish for his wife to discover how he made his coin. Her Grace might be beyond accepting if she were to learn that the jewels around her throat were paid for by his investment in a notorious bawdy house that catered to humans and fey alike.
“Your Grace …” His butler coughed discreetly from the door. “You have a caller.”
“Who is it, Salisbury?” he grumbled, not wanting to be disturbed. His wife was feeling much too fine in his lap, and the thought of the Nymph and the Satyr, the bawdy house and all the erotic, decadent delights to be found there, had him aroused. Suddenly he found himself wondering what it would be like to have his wife and a little fey concubine addressing his needs. He had heard that the fey, particularly the Dark Fey, could fuck like the devil. Perhaps he would make a trip into the city and watch a female fey with her lover from behind the privacy of a peephole. He could put the theory to a test to see if indeed the fey were sexually insatiable. And maybe he’d even have one, too, a little pixie on his cock.
What a delightfully debauched diversion. Perversity was a healthy thing to maintain a man’s vigor as he neared the end of his fourth decade, and there was no place on earth more perverse than the Nymph and the Satyr.
“Your Grace?”
“Who is it?” he growled as his palm skimmed his wife’s rounded rump.
“He refused to give his name, Your Grace. He said to tell you that the time has come to pay up.”
Lennox lost his grip on his wife. All thoughts of nymphs and pixies rousing him to a sexual peak flew out of his head. Bloody hell, he did not wish for Salisbury to say another word. Thankfully, the butler correctly interpreted his hard stare.
“Probably Arawn,” he murmured as he patted his wife’s thigh. “Always a prankster, that Arawn. He’ll be wanting to take Prue on a ride or some such thing.”
“I shall leave you alone then, as you hammer out the details of Arawn’s courtship of Prudence,” his dutiful wife replied, slipping from his lap and straightening her hooped skirts. “By the by, do inform Lord Arawn that it will not ingratiate him at all to me if I hear of any of my girls being talked of in such a fashion. Paying up refers to commodities, Your Grace. Our daughters are not things to be traded.”
“Of course, of course,” he said, ushering her along with a wave of his hand. “Wouldn’t dream of such a thing.” And he wouldn’t. By God, he loved his daughters, and only wanted the best for them.
Lennox’s gaze followed his wife out of the room before fixing on his butler. Damn it, he knew it wasn’t Arawn come to pay a call. He had an idea who the intruder was, and needed a second or two to formulate his plan. His girls, he thought, thinking of them upstairs giggling and laughing as they pored over the boxes of new clothes and petticoats, stockings and ribbons. He must protect them at all costs.
Clearing his throat, he asked, “What manner of man is he, Salisbury?”
The butler frowned. “Rather odd, Your Grace. I’ve never seen him before. He’s tall, fair.a most regal, yet intimidating fellow.”
Lennox felt his throat dry up, from relief or apprehension he knew not. “Send him in,” he commanded, “and allow no one to disturb us.”
As if by magic, the stranger appeared behind the butler, startling the retainer. But Salisbury recovered with aplomb. “His Grace will see you now.”
The man breezed in and slammed the library door shut. For long seconds, his penetrating violet eyes stared him down, and Lennox refused to give in to the urge to loosen his jabot.
“George Jasper Buckman, the fifth Duke of Lennox?” the stranger inquired as he took the tapestry chair in front of the wide desk.
“Yes,” Lennox replied as sweat began to bead on his forehead.
“Queen Aine has sent me.”
He felt his face drain of blood. The man smiled, then reached for the goblet of brandy that Lennox had just poured. Raising the crystal to his lips, he took a sip, his eyes scrutinizing his discomfort.
“Queen Aine?” Lennox asked vaguely.
“You received a gift from my mother, did you not?”
“Did I?” he asked, feigning boredom. “I’m afraid I don’t recall being introduced to a Queen Aine.”
The man sat forward, his strange eyes darkening. “She found you weeping over the cradle of a deformed, lame little wretch. Your
