LITMIR.BIZ

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       CHAPTER SIX

      “GOOD EVENING, sir,” the Grosvenor Square butler said as he personally held open the rear door that led in from the mews, just as if Jack had been expected. The man was unflappable, even if he’d had to run down three flights of stairs when alerted that Mr. Blackthorn had arrived at the stables behind the Blackthorn mansion.

      “Good evening, Wadsworth,” Jack responded, and then passed him the soundly sleeping Jacques. “Any harm comes to this child and I’ll have your liver for lunch while you watch. Understood?” he added in the same pleasant tone.

      “I would expect no less, sir. Good evening, miss,” he then said as Tess walked into the warm kitchens, looking about her as if to get her bearings.

      “Lady Thessaly Fonteneau, Wadsworth. See that her belongings are taken upstairs.”

      Wadsworth, soldier turned butler, had never quite mastered the intricacies of proper butlering. However, thanks to Masters Beau and Puck, he did have fairly recent experience in these matters to bring to the subject the disposition of milady’s portmanteaus. He wasn’t blind, after all, and Mr. Blackthorn couldn’t deny this dark-haired child any more than Wadsworth could stop the sun from rising come morning. “Yes, Mr. Blackthorn, it will be just as you wish.”

      Jack almost thought he’d detected a wink from the man, but discounted it as Emilie swept into the kitchens with a rapid stream of authoritative French, relieved Wadsworth of his burden and demanded to be shown the nursery.

      Tess put out a hand as if to stop the butler and nursemaid as they took her son away from her, but dropped her arm to her side at Jack’s slight shake of his head.

      “I’ve been told the Blackthorn butler once knocked down ten of Bonaparte’s elite private guard just by blowing on them. I imagine there was more to it than that, but I’d trust him with my son, and you should do the same. Come along. We’ll go to the drawing room and the wine decanter I’m sure is already there, waiting for us.”

      “Come along? I’d rather you didn’t order me about, Jack. It only serves to make me feel rebellious, and as I’m extremely thirsty, that would only be cutting off my nose to spite my face.”

      “And such a pretty nose, too. All right.” He offered her his bent arm. “An it pleases you, milady, I would suggest we adjourn to the drawing room for refreshments. Lemonade, perhaps?”

      She looked him up and down, as if inspecting him for vulnerable spots she might attack. “Arrogant and condescending, and both displayed within the space of a minute. Two of your less attractive traits, Jack, as I recall. Just lead the way, all right? I want to get the taste of road dust out of my mouth.”

      Signaling to the sleepy-eyed cook who’d just appeared in the kitchens that food would be welcome, Jack led the way through the mansion to the drawing room. While Tess collapsed rather inelegantly on one of the satin couches, he poured them each full glasses of wine and offered one to her. Only Tess could act so rough and ready and still be the most beautiful, feminine woman he’d ever seen.

      She downed it in one go. Ah, the French, weaned on wine from the cradle. He sometimes wondered if she could drink him under the table.

      “That’s better,” she said, holding out the empty glass to him to be refilled. “Now, I’ve had an idea.”

      “Not tonight, Tess. Sinjon’s been in London for more than a week. One more night won’t matter. Either we’re in time, or we’re already too late. We’ve other things to discuss.”

      She shifted slightly in her seat. “True, but I don’t want to discuss them.”

      “And yet that’s just what we’re going to do.” Jack took up a position in front of the fireplace, one arm resting on the mantelpiece below a portrait of the Marquess of Blackthorn.

      It proved a bad choice.

      “That’s your father?” Tess put down her wineglass and stood up, walking closer to inspect the portrait of a younger marquess, handsome, blond, fair of skin and blue of eye, the portrait probably commissioned when he was much the same age Jack was now. “You don’t favor him. Is your mother dark?”

      “No,” Jack answered shortly.

      “No?” Tess looked at the portrait again, at Jack again. “Your mother’s fair, then? Like me?”

      “Adelaide is nothing like you, and you’re nothing like her. If you were, that child upstairs would never have happened. We’re here to discuss Jacques, and why you kept him from me.”

      He shouldn’t have bothered to attempt to divert her. Tess, presented with a puzzle, was like a dog with a bone. She clamped on, and wouldn’t let go. “Your brothers. Oliver LeBeau and Robin Goodfellow to your Don John. All named for Shakespearean characters, courtesy of your actress mother. Don John was a bastard, Jack. I’ve never much cared for Shakespeare, I’ll admit, but I did learn that. Are the other two characters also bastards?”

      “No, they’re not. And my brothers prefer to be known as Beau and Puck. Just as I prefer Jack. Why didn’t you tell me? My son, Tess. My son.”

      He may as well not have spoken.

      “Are they also dark? Beau and Puck?”

      Jack deserted the mantelpiece for the drinks table, pouring himself another glass of wine. He never should have brought her here. He could have taken her to his house in Half Moon Street, but he preferred the mansion as being safer for Jacques. “They favor their parents,” he said, and then turned to challenge Tess with his eyes. “You’re not going to stop, are you?”

      “Would you?” she asked him, standing her ground. “You once told me you didn’t belong anywhere. I thought you were referring to your bastard birth. It had to be difficult, must still be difficult, to be the bastard son of a marquess. Neither fish nor fowl, as it were, I suppose, not knowing precisely where you fit, if anywhere. But we’re in your father’s mansion, and you clearly not for the first time. The marquess seems to be generous to his bastards.”

      She was working it through, piece by piece, and Jack allowed it, mostly because he knew he couldn’t stop her.

      “Is he similarly generous to your mother?”

      “I suppose you’d have to ask her. He ordered a cottage built on the estate for her, and she stays there when she isn’t traveling with the acting troupe he’s bought her. It has a thatched roof. The cottage, that is. She enjoys playing the country maiden. There are a few sheep, and she dresses up like a shepherdess and carries a crook with a large pink bow on—Yes, I suppose she’s content.”

      “You don’t like her, do you? Your mother. It’s not her fault you’re a bastard, Jack. That’s unfair.”

      Jack laughed shortly. “True. Poor Adelaide. Clearly you sympathize with her, one bastard’s mother to another.”

      Tess crossed the room swiftly and slapped him hard across the cheek. “Don’t call our son a bastard!”

      Jack didn’t flinch. “Pardon me. I seem to have forgotten our marriage ceremony.”

      She rubbed her hands together. Her palm probably stung; God knew his cheek felt as if it was on fire. “That’s not what I meant. It’s not what you said. It’s the way you said it. As if… as if it mattered.”

      “It does matter, Tess. Christ, if nobody else knows that, I do. My brothers do. We were raised on the estate. In that sprawling country house. Raised to be better than we were. Given everything save the one thing we needed. Legitimacy. That’s not how it’s going to be for my son. I’ve already sent a message to Blackthorn. The banns are being read in the village church, and one way or another—if I have to carry you to the altar over my shoulder and drugged stupid—you and I will be married in four weeks’ time. That’s what we’re discussing tonight.”

      Now

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