“I don’t want them to think I am going to take over their father’s place.”
Thea almost laughed, but she stifled it.
“What is it?” Neal asked.
“They barely knew their father,” she confessed. She turned to face him. “Boyd and I spent most of our marriage apart.”
“Go on,” Neal said. “I admit I was curious, but I considered your marriage a private matter.”
“Don’t mistake me, Neal, I had strong feelingsfor him when I married him, or as strong as I could have for anyone at my age.” She shook her head. “I was also very foolish, which many people pointed out to me after I ran away. Boyd was intelligent and handsome and seemed to genuinely care for me. He talked about how this country is divided by those who inherit their wealth and those who must work for it. I agreed with him. After all, I’d done nothing to earn my position in society, and yet I had all of these men from good families wishing to marry me. Boyd made me want to stand on my own. He challenged me to do it.”
“I can’t imagine your father took the match well.”
“I didn’t tell my father anything about it. Any time I ever expressed an opinion that wasn’t his, he practically raised the roof. Besides, he wished to marry me off to a man I could not abide. He was far older than myself.”
“Who was it?” Neal had to ask.
“The marquis of Tweedbury,” Thea answered.
Neal frowned. He knew the marquis. He was not fond of women. However, he would have been an excellent ally for the duke of Duruset. “You are lucky you didn’t marry him.”
“I know. He did marry. An earl’s daughter. She is remarkably unhappy and very indiscreet about her lovers. I would not want that for my life.”
“And was your marriage happy?” It was a question he’d wondered since seeing her again. She’d never criticized Boyd to him, and his interest was more than idle curiosity, although he’d not admit it.
It was a strange life he was living now. He needed to keep up barriers to Thea’s charms, and yet it was harder and harder to do so. His attraction to her was strong, and it wasn’t just lust. He trusted her. He always had. At no time in their acquaintance had she been anything but honest, and it was still the same now. She was a good friend ... and an entertaining lover. Her passion matched his own.
“No, not even from the beginning, although we pretended.” She reached for the edge of the door handle and rubbed it with a gloved hand before saying, “Of course, I didn’t realize this at the time. I was infatuated with Boyd because he was so different from the other men I’d known and, yes, that was some love—or at least as much as I had in me for a person who knew nothing of the world beyond London’s protected society. For his part, he played a gallant suitor, and I thought he did care.”
“But he didn’t?”
“Perhaps.” She shrugged. “He was greatly offended when my father sent the letter disowning me. He was even less pleased when Father died three years later and he discovered I had been left out of the will. I knew that my father meant what he said, but Boyd felt that sincehe feltI had been the favorite daughter, my father couldn’t possibly deny me. He did not know my father well.”
Neal was not surprised. Thea and her father had always clashed and, yes, the duke of Duruset had been proud of his daughter and had expected her to marry very well.
Now she had. He took her hand, lacing his fingers in hers.
“I didn’t know this at the time,” Thea continued, “but after my father’s death, Boyd went to my brother, Horace, the current duke. I believe he expected my brother to recognize me. Horace wouldn’t.”
“So money was the reason your marriage was unhappy?” Neal asked.
“That . . . and other reasons.”
Something in her voice told him she did not wish to speak further on the topic, but Neal had one more question. “Do your sons miss him?” he asked, pulling her closer. She smelled of the lily-scented soap Lady Palmer had offered her guests.
“Christopher was still only a baby when he died,” she said. “He barely remembers him, and Jonathan does not speak of him.” She pulled his hand up and around her head so that his arm was around her shoulder. “And perhaps that is good.”
She turned into him. Her breasts flattened against his chest as she kissed him, and any other questions Neal might have had fled his mind. For the rest of the way to London, he learned the many ways one could make love in a coach. That they had to keep quiet so that Bonner and the footman wouldn’t hear only heightened the pleasure.
For that reason, Neal was in very good spirits when they rolled into London. Their first stop was Lady Palmer’s house.
Mirabel had left early that morning, so she’d arrived well ahead of them. If she noticed that Neal and Thea appeared slightly mussed, she didn’t make a comment, but there was a secret smile hovering around her lips.
Thea’s sons were overjoyed to have her return. Neal held back as they rushed into their mother’s arms. In the privacy of the room overlooking the back garden, Thea sat her boys down and explained to them that she and Lord Lyon had married.
Jonathan, bright lad that he was, immediately understood that Neal was now related to him by marriage. Both boys turned to Neal, who accepted that as an invitation to join the small family group. He sat next to Thea.
With a great deal of consideration, Jonathan said, “What are we to call you, my lord?”