Warren and his friends had taken Minette to see the menagerie a year or so ago. She doubtless didn’t remember because she’d spent the entire time gawping at August rather than looking at the exhibits. “I suppose you may go, if your friends’ chaperones don’t mind an extra ninny to look after.”
“I am not a ninny,” she said, tapping the brim of his hat with her fan. “And you must come too, you and Josephine. It’ll be delightful, peering into the cages at all the exotic beasts.”
“I don’t believe I want to go,” said Josephine, her hand tightening on his arm. “If there will be animals there.”
“And you call me a ninny,” Minette teased. “Of course there will be animals there. That’s what a menagerie is, all kinds of curious creatures. Bears, lions, monkeys, even huge elephants lumbering about. There are tigers too, snarling and stalking to and fro, with great piercing eyes and claws as big as a man’s head. Honestly, Josephine, you should want to go most of all, because you’ve lived in so many wild places. Come with us, won’t you?”
“No, Minette,” he broke in. “She doesn’t want to go.” In fact, since Minette had brought up the tiger, his wife had gone quite pale. “Go along with the other young people. Josephine and I shall go quietly home like old married folks.”
“Oh, but…” She began again to entreat Josephine but his furrowed brows silenced her. “Very well. I’ll have Lady Julia’s carriage bring me home when we’re done, and I’ll tell you about my adventures. And then you’ll wish you’d gone!” With those words, she hooked arms with Lady Julia and another friend and set off across the park.
“Did you wish to go?” Josephine turned to him in dismay. “I’m sorry. I ought to have asked you.”
“There’s no need to feel sorry. Caged animals give me the chills.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “It gave you a start to hear about the tiger, didn’t it?”
“A little bit.”
“Would you like to go sit down?”
He drew her to a bench, away from the growing crowds. She sat beside him with her hands clasped in her lap and gave a little sigh.
“I feel I’ve disappointed my friend. Minette has been so kind to me.” Her hands clasped tighter. “Perhaps I ought to have gone as she wished.”
“Minette will be fine in the company of the other young ladies. The lot of them will soon be surrounded by admiring suitors, and none will give a whit for the animals.”
Josephine smiled. “Your sister cares nothing for suitors. Her heart is already given.”
“To whom?”
“To Lord Augustine, of course.”
Warren laughed. “That silly tendre. Well, I’m afraid she’s going to be disappointed there. August’s under pressure to marry Lord Colton’s daughter. Family politics and matters of that sort. I expect he’ll give in and offer for her before Christmas.”
“Minette will be crushed.”
“No, she won’t. She knows as well as any of us that a match with August would never work. He sees her as a little sister. My little sister. I wouldn’t allow him to court her even if he wanted to.”
“Why not? He’s your friend.”
Warren snorted. “Exactly. I know where he’s been and what he’s done, and what he likes to do. And right now, thanks to you, I’m trying very hard not to picture him doing such things to my sister.”
“You mean the sort of things you do to me?” she asked in a curt tone. “How protective you are, except when it comes to your own wife.”
“Hmm.” He frowned and pulled at his gloves. “I protect you. I protected you when I married you, didn’t I?”
She wouldn’t look at him. “I suppose.”
“You sound churlish, my dear. Shall I borrow Arlington’s riding crop and take you behind a copse of trees to correct the problem?”
Her gaze flew to his, and then over toward the Duke of Arlington, who rode with a large black crop tucked beneath his arm. She shut her mouth, sufficiently threatened against further peevishness.
“Speaking of Arlington,” he said, touching the back of her hand. “He’s giving a garden party next week, and he’s invited us. It’s to be outdoors, with dancing and games, a fun and frivolous affair, but still the sort of thing one might bring one’s wife to.”
She peered over at him. “Does His Grace hold garden parties that one might not bring one’s wife to?”
“I’m not going to answer that.” He’d been to some parties at Arlington’s that would have sent the devil running for cover, but that didn’t seem salient to the present conversation.
Josephine sighed, looking out across the park. “Do you think I’m fun?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” She bit at her lip. “You are very fun and frivolous. I think you always have been. I wonder if you wished for a fun and frivolous wife to take to these fun and frivolous parties you and your friends enjoy.”
“I like my present wife very much, thank you.”
“You know what I mean,” she said impatiently.
“I’m afraid I don’t. Are you asking if I wish you to be more fun and frivolous? I tend to believe we balance one another out. I have a tendency to lackadaisical behavior, while you’re a more sobe
r sort.” He didn’t know if that was the right thing to say, but he hoped it was. “Do you wish I was a more serious person, like you? In the end, we are who we are, and we’re married for life, so we must make the best of it.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” she asked. “Making the best of it?”
Warren turned and scanned the park. “Where is Arlington with that damned crop?” He turned back to her and took her hands. “I care for you very much, and I like you just as you are.”
“That’s not true. You spank me all the time for displeasing you.”
“Because you can be damned ornery when you feel like it. I love you, Josephine,” he said, and realized he meant it. “Do you love me?”
She stared at him. “You love me?”
He frowned, all the angst of his confession swirling inside him. “Why are you answering my question with another question? You wonder why I spank you so much. Do you care for me, Josie?” That seemed a safer tack. “Do I make you happy? I’m trying to.”
At last she squeezed his hands with a tremulous smile. “I do love you. Sometimes I can’t believe you really love me, with my poor manners, and the way I irritate you.”
“Sometimes I can’t believe it either,” he teased. “But I enjoy spanking you immensely,” he added in a lower voice. “So I suppose it all squares up in the end.”
Josephine tried to look outraged, but then laughed along with him, and he realized that yes, he hadn’t lied. He loved her, and he ought to have told her so before now. What a humbling development, to fall in love with one’s wife. His gentlemen friends would never stop ribbing him, just as they ribbed Townsend.
Warren decided he didn’t really care.
Chapter Fifteen: Choices
Warren held the sugar bowl for the Dowager Countess Overbrook, who happened to be one of the more influential dragons in society. Even better, the lady was his mother’s older sister, and had dandled him on her knee when he was an infant. Such fond connections could prove useful, particularly when you were trying to secure your wife’s position within the social tier.