She was about turn around and come back later. Then the topic of conversation reached her ears.
“Think hard, all of you,” Khan said. “Swanlea wasn’t enough. We need a new plan.”
A new plan?
Emma wasn’t an eavesdropper by nature, but further “plans” involving her marriage seemed good cause for an exception. She tucked herself in the wedge of space between the open door and the wall. From here, she could not only listen, but peek through the gap.
“Well, it has to be a ball,” Mary said. “Balls are ever so romantic. Surely they’ll receive an invitation to one.”
“The duke would never accept,” one of the footmen said.
“Then perhaps we could host a ball here,” she replied. “As a surprise.”
“Perhaps we could,” said Khan dryly, “if we all wished to be summarily executed.”
Mary sighed. “Well, whatever we do, we must do it soon. Once Her Grace is with child, it will be too late.”
A scullery maid hooted with laughter. “That won’t be long, will it? What with them humping like rabbits all over the house.”
“Not only the house,” a groom said. “The mews, as well.”
Mary hushed them. “We’re not supposed to let on that we’ve noticed.”
“Oh, come on. How could we not?”
Oh, Lord. Behind the door, Emma cringed. How mortifying. Although she supposed it was to be expected. They had polished every stick of furniture in Ashbury House with her hiked petticoats. They weren’t especially quiet, either. Naturally, the servants had noticed. As the groom said, how could they not?
“Ahem.” Khan tapped his chalk against the slate. “Let’s return to the list, please.”
The servants burst out with a flurry of suggestions.
“Set a small fire?”
“Rig one of the carriage axles to break. Accidentally. In a storm.”
“Oh! They could go swimming in the Serpentine.”
Khan refused to even chalk that one on the slate. “It’s nearly December. They’d catch their deaths.”
“I suppose,” Mary said. “But there’s nothing to encourage affection like a good scare. Perhaps we could make one of them just a little bit sick?”
“The duke was bedridden for nearly a year,” the butler replied. “That would be cruel. Though perhaps a minor incident . . .”
The same footman’s hand shot toward the ceiling. “Bees! Hornets! Spiders! Snakes!”
“Frogs. Locusts. Rivers of blood,” Cook deadpanned. “I believe we’ve covered all the plagues, Moses.”
Emma wheezed. She clapped both hands to her mouth.
“She could walk in on the duke while he’s dressing,” Mary suggested.
All the servants perked up at that one. “Oooh.”
Khan apparently agreed. “Now that has possibilities.”
Emma couldn’t remain quiet any longer. She emerged from her hiding place and announced her presence. “That last happened already.”
The assembled staff leapt to their feet, the blood draining from their faces. For a good half minute, the only sounds were anxious gulping.
Mary broke the silence. “And . . . ? What was the duke’s response?”
“The duke’s response was none of your business.”
The footman piped up. “How do you feel about spider bites?”
“What I feel is that this needs to stop. All of it. You must all adjust your expectations. There will be no romance. The duke is not falling in love.”
Emma needed the stern reminder as much as anyone.
It wouldn’t even matter if he did begin to love her. In the end, they would part. He was resolute on the matter, and she needed to be at Swanlea this winter for Davina’s sake. But before Davina could get permission to visit, Emma must convince the duke to move in society—at least a little bit.
“I think,” she said quietly, “he needs friends.”
Khan gave a heavy sigh. “We’re sunk.”
“They all deserted him,” Mary said. “And the few who didn’t—well, he drove them away. His Grace doesn’t have any friends any longer. Not outside this room.”
Emma pondered in the ensuing quiet. If it was true that Ashbury’s only remaining friends resided inside this house . . .
She must convince him to venture outside it.
Chapter Twenty
Ash stalked the corridors of Ashbury House. Where the devil was his butler?
Khan wasn’t in the library. Nor the billiard room, ballroom, sitting room, drawing room, or music room. Though Ash wasn’t certain why he’d even checked the last. It had been established quite painfully last summer that the man couldn’t hold a tune.
Eventually, Ash found him in the kitchen.
The pungent fragrance of herbs came from a pot boiling on the hob. Khan sat on a chair, holding a compress to his eye, while Emma cooed and fussed over him.
Look at her, the picture of tender domestic care. She’d make an excellent mother. He’d suspected as much from the first, but it was reassuring to see with his own eyes. His heir would need a steady, loving presence in his life, and it wasn’t going to be Ash.
She looked up and noticed him, and her concerned eyes narrowed to knife-blade slits. “You.”
“What?”
“You know very well what.” She waved at Khan. “Look at him. His eye’s all blackened and swollen. I know you’re responsible.”
Oh, she would make a fine disciplinarian, too. Her censure almost made Ash feel guilty, and he never felt ashamed of his actions. Only his appearance.
“It was only a bit of sparring. And the injury was his fault.”
“His fault? I suppose he punched himself in the eye.”
“We were practicing a new combination. Khan was supposed to weave and dodge.” He turned to his butler. “Go on, tell her. You were supposed to dodge.”
“I was supposed to dodge,” Khan mumbled from behind the compress.
“See?” As his coolly silent wife went to the stove, Ash continued, “Anyhow, I need him back. He has work to do.”
Khan set aside the compress and drew to his feet. “Thank you, Your Grace, for your kind attention.”
“But your poultice,” she said. “It’s nearly ready.”
“Perhaps Your Grace would be so good as to save it for later.” He bowed to Emma, then turned to Ash. “I will wait in the library.”
After the butler had quit the room, Emma banged about the kitchen in silent censure.
“It’s a bruise,” Ash said. “One derived from manly activity. I’m telling you, he loves it.”
“He was weeping,” she returned.
He spread his hands. “Tears of joy.”
She sighed.
“Yes, I’m demanding. Yes, I’m inconsiderate. Yes, I’m remorseless. Anything else I should admit to being while I’m here?”
She retrieved a broadsheet from the table and held it up for his view. It was emblazoned with the headline “Monster of Mayfair Strikes Again.”
Ash reached for it. “I hadn’t seen that one. That’s brilliant. I’ve top billing, too.”
“There are several.”
He paged through the stack she offered.
“Monster of Mayfair Assaults Local Lad.”
“Monster of Mayfair Terrorizes Three in St. James Street.”
“Monster of Mayfair Abducts Lambs from Butcher. Dark Rituals Suspected.”
“Hah. The ‘local lad’ was twenty if he was a day, and he richly deserved it. There were four in St. James Street. Foxed dandies chatting up a lady of the evening on their way home from Boodle’s. I didn’t like their disrespectful attitude. This last . . . I didn’t even do this last. Lambs, my eye.” He chuckled. “Do you know what this means?”
“I’m married to an unchecked vigilante?”
“No. Well, maybe. But also—it means people are making up their own Monster of Mayfair stories just to share in the notoriety. It means I’m a legend.”
Emma shook her head. She strained the herbs through a cheesecloth, twisting them into a bundle.