AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Tim.”
“It is my story to tell, Tab. And my instincts to trust.” He set the last platter on the table, pork chops done to a turn in rosemary and sage. “We dineá la française, Your Grace. One may take what they like without being obliged to eat what they dislike.”
His Grace laid his serviette in his lap. “I am honored. By the meal and the trust.”
“I am glad to hear it. Now. Need I explain how my desires are illegal in the eyes of the powers that be and those who do not mind their own affairs?” The duke shook his head even as he dished up a healthy serving of the pasta. “Very well. My lover was to marry, as many do, and there was to be a send-off amongst our friends of a certain kind. Jasper has an elder brother who did not mind his own affairs and, in a fit of pique, alerted the local constabulary as to a gathering ofomepalonisin the area. Amongst whom, thankfully, was a friend of a certain kind. To add insult to an injured heart, I escaped the pillory by the skin of my teeth.”
Tabitha stabbed her pork chop. “That man would not desist in his pursuit of Timothy—”
“In a decidedly unromantic fashion, with many protestations as to his true motives, although I have my suspicions—”
“He then turned his attentions to me—”
“And tried to compromise Tabitha to force her into marriage. It did not go well for him.” Timothy’s grin was pure mischievous satisfaction, and he bit into his buttered bread with relish.
“Once he recovered, he intended for it to go badly for me.” Still, she shared Timothy’s smile. “So, with both of us in need of broader horizons, we engaged upon a stratagem in which Tim became consumptive.”
“Overnight. Such a shock,” Timothy said. They both snorted. “Fortunately, our parents had long ceased to remark upon our existence—”
“Timothy!” Tabitha protested and then reconsidered. “You are not wrong.”
“Due to the fact I was not a manly man on the verge of repopulating our little corner of England and Tabitha was a woman intent upon working with her unnatural skills—”
“Never mind that father’s heart congestion was managed entirely by me, and I abandoned my Season to go to his aid.”
“—we departed for the Continent to little fanfare and much relief.”
Relief did not begin to describe it. Tabitha was well used to Timothy’s gloss of the situation, but the reality had not been nearly so tidy. That loathsome lord had made a show of her before the whole world and threatened her safety, on top of his wandering hands and unwelcome (and poor) kissing. If she had anything to thank him for, it was that she took command of her sexual education; he provided her with a very low bar to step over in the intervening years.
Llewellyn’s kisses were not so much a step up as a vault into new heights. How easy it was to talk to him after such intimacies: no embarrassment, no awkwardness, no unsavory allusions to what might come next—unless he had not liked kissing with her or because he thought of it as a minor exchange of affection?
He and Timothy were back at it with that language, which sounded much the same as any to her. Should they not speak it? It might be a painful reminder of the duke’s time in captivity… He seemed not to mind. In truth, he had been much easier in himself for having spoken the truth about his time in Drake’s. Much as the lancing of a wound released painful pressure. But ought she to suggest they stop?
No, she ought not to: the duke was an independent soul capable of saying what he wanted or did not want. Tabitha cut her pork chop into tiny pieces as she composed herself, for she was experiencing fear for him, and it was not her place to do so. How had she gotten so afraid, so concerned with what was affecting him, in such an unprofessional manner?
After another flurry of incomprehensible chatter, the duke said, “I understand you speak many languages, Mr. Barrington.”
“I do. Had you known Parlyaree before…”
“Before Drake’s? No, I learned it in my Shape.”
“Did you? Is that possible?” Tabitha took a slice of bread to conceal her shredded chop.
“It became so. Apparently.” He said something to Tabitha, who looked blank and then handed him the salt.
Llewellyn smiled, again. How easily one could become used to that expression on his face. “Thank you. However, I said,It may be my lion who was adept.”
Timothy offered around the pasta. “My sister has not got a head for languages.”
“Perhaps Miss Barrington requiresun dictionnaire d’oreillers.” Her brother and the duke laughed and laughed.
“Tiresome polyglots,” Tabitha groused. “And yet I still do not know what it means.”
“It means, roughly, a pillow tutor,” the duke said.
“One who will rest their head next to yours and whisper in your ear,” her brother explained. “The shared intimacy and the lowered defenses before sleep are likely to aid one in grasping basic grammar, as well as grasping other things within reach—”
“Fine, Tim, thank you.” How wonderful to be teased, to see the light in her brother’s eyes, his ease in himself. “I do not think a thousand pillow tutors would have helped me conquer Greek.”
