Page 95 of A Portrait of Love

“Only if it is for you. I picked out too much today.”

“I did my shopping in London. Peel brought it with him. You will no longer have to tolerate a shabby husband.”

“That is a relief.”

He chuckled. “What a sharp-tongued viper you are.”

“Tell me about Everley.”

His hand stopped, and she could tell that, for once, she had surprised him.

“Did you ever ride over and see it while you were staying at Whitcomb?”

“Raymond took me over once but I could only see part of it and didn’t feel comfortable riding up their drive.”

He resumed his stroking. “He should have brought you to meet them; the Amberlies are nice people.”

“Amberlies—why do I know that name?”

“They were at your going away dinner.”

“Ah.”

“They have rented Everley since I was young, raised their family there. Their children were between Wyndam and me in age and we used to run wild together.”

“How old is the duke?”

“He just turned nine-and-thirty.”

Honey had thought he was older.

“Amberlie is an admiral and would be gone for long stretches, even before the War. Their two sons are both naval men themselves, and their daughter, far younger than the rest of us, recently married.”

“So, too young for you to run wild with.”

He traced the inside of her ear and she shivered. “Why? Would that have made you jealous?”

She snorted.

“You are right, she was too young for me and Raymond to run with.” He hesitated, and Honey felt a strange tension in his body. “But their neighbors to the west had five daughters.”

“Who are they? Did I meet them at the party?”

His hand dropped. “No. The local people are not invited to Whitcomb very often. The duke is not fond of country gentry or commoners. He liked the Amberlies because they were friends of our father.” His voice had become cold, hollow, distant—the way it always did when he spoke of his brother.

“You have married a commoner.”

“Ah, but your grandfather was Baron Yancy—bosom beau to my mother. In fact, it is quite possible she might have married the baron had her father not decided a duke was a better catch.”

Honey had sensed the same thing in her few conversations with the duchess.

Simon resumed his soothing petting. “Everley is far, far less grand than Whitcomb, of course. It has been the abode of younger sons for generations. The only reason it stood vacant in my father’s time is because he was an only child. Well, the only one who survived to adulthood—he actually had five brothers and sisters.”

Honey shivered at the thought of so much death.

“You are right to shiver. Childbirth is a cruel process. My grandmother died in the childbed, as did my grandfather’s second wife. He did not take a third.”

Honey wanted to ask if that was part of his refusal to have children, but she didn’t want to raise such a topic when he seemed so willing to confide.