Chapter 5

Chapter Five

L iam had acquired more paper cuts in the last half hour than he'd had over the entirety of his life. He'd likely acquire a few more before they'd finished, too.

"How many of these damn rabbits must we make?" the Duke of Clearford grumbled. He sat in a low chair, legs sprawled out, black hair raked to the side, a pile of crisp white paper piled haphazardly beside him on a table.

"Enough to fill a nursery." Viscount Noble sat behind a large, dark wood desk, tongue poking out from the corner of his lips as he bent low over a square of paper he was folding. Even in the comfort of his home, he was fashionably clothed and well groomed, his jaw clean shaven, and his gold hair perfectly coiffed. But the hard edge of his gaze warned anyone who noticed that he was no fop. "Lottie said Andromeda is calling the baby Little Rabbit, so Lottie wants rabbits. So Lottie gets rabbits."

"Five hundred forty-eight thousand and sixty-two of them," Benjamin Bailey said. He sat in a seat across from the duke, muddy boots kicked up onto a table, dirty-blond hair tousled and a bit too long, the hint of scruff growing across his jaw. "Ouch." He sucked his thumb. "Bloody hell. How are your fingers not ribbons, Noble?"

Noble squinted at the paper, flipped it, straightened one side to a razor's sharpness. "They're not sledgehammers like yours, Bailey."

"Then why am I doing this if I'm so ill-suited to the task?" Bailey folded his paper, scowled at it, unfolded it. "Hell. I've left a smear of blood." He crumpled it up and tossed it. The man had not a single finished rabbit anywhere near him.

"Why does Andromeda call the baby Little Rabbit?" Clearford asked, setting a finished paper rabbit carefully on the table and picking up a new sliver of unfolded paper.

Tristan Kingston sprawled on a small sofa, folding with almost careless movements, finishing each paper rabbit quickly and efficiently and tossing it to the floor below him. "Because it hops." He grinned, green eyes glowing. "And hops and hops. I've felt it. She's looking forward to the baby hopping outside of her."

"I'm not sure we should be discussing such things." Clearford cleared his throat. "I don't want to think of the inside of my sister."

"You're being too careless, Kingston." Noble stood, stretched, then marched toward the other man. "Your rabbits look more like toads. Good God, it's your child. You would think you'd take more care."

"Toads hop, too." Kingston shrugged.

"But someone has to make up for Bailey," Noble cried. "He's the worst I've ever seen."

They all swung around to look at the American.

Who pointed an accusing finger at Liam. "He's doing well enough for all of us. Look at those perfect ears."

They all swung around to look at Liam, and they did not stop looking at him. In fact, each tick of the clock seemed to make them stare harder. And not at the folded rabbit in his hands.

"What are you doing here, Norton?" Clearford finally asked.

"My wife was invited."

"But you were not," Bailey said.

"Can't a man go where his wife goes?" Liam continued folding.

"If that wife wants him there." Bailey stretched an arm out to the duke. "Give me a knife, Clearford."

The duke reached inside his jacket and produced a blade from… somewhere. One never knew exactly where he kept it. Perhaps some magical void deep inside his waistcoat.

Liam searched for something to defend himself with. "Don't think I won't fight back, Bailey."

The American considered him over the blade's edge briefly, then snapped the knife's point into the paper. He carved something into it, then held out a bit of shaped paper to Noble. "Here. This look enough like a rabbit for you?"

Liam released a heavy breath. Bloody hell. He'd seen his life flash before his eyes.

"Crude," Noble said, but he placed the carved rabbit with his own meticulously folded ones as Bailey handed the knife back to Clearford. "I would like to know, Norton, what brings you to my home without an invitation."

"Should have kicked him out on his arse," Bailey mumbled.

"My child's birth is not an opportunity for you to atone for your sins." Kingston spoke loud and clear and without bothering to even look at Liam.

Liam, clearly, was not welcome here. His own fault. These men took the safety of the women in their charge seriously. They'd meet all potential threats with muscle and murderous intention.

Noble leaned against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest. "Is it true you've welcomed company into your hotel room?"

"I see you've heard about Madame Juliet," Liam said.

"It is true, then." Clearford set his paper aside and pulled himself up taller. Where had the cursed knife gone to?

Liam put his own paper aside. "Truth depends on what they are saying. Does the lady come to my room? Yes. Do I want her there?" He scratched his chin. The woman had proved educational but had caused him too much trouble. Perhaps Cora would have been more amenable to him yesterday had such rumors not been raging like a house fire on a dry summer afternoon. "No. I've not touched the woman. She's made a project of me."

Bailey cocked his head to the side. "Project?"

"I'm not here to discuss that. I am here to win back my wife."

"Clearly, you don't know how." Noble smirked. "You've asked a prostitute for help."

"I didn't ask her," Liam clarified. "She volunteered."

Noble waved that truth away. "Better to listen to a husband currently in his wife's good graces."

"Or," Kingston drawled, still folding rabbits, "a duke with a courtship guide. You are, essentially, courting your wife, are you not, Norton?"

Hm. He'd not thought of it that way, but the newspaperman had a point.

Clearford laughed, a low dark sort of sound. "I have quite given all that up."

"But why not consider it a courtship?" Liam asked. "Surely the concepts are similar. Winning the heart of an unmarried lady cannot be so different from winning the heart of a wife. Perhaps you could help me."

Clearford's mouth seemed a jagged line, a slash of anger. "I'm not in the business of guiding male hearts in the right direction any longer. I made a muck of it." He slumped in the chair, ran his thumb down the top sheet of paper from top to bottom. "For my sisters and for myself. My great experiment was a great failure."

"Wouldn't have been if you'd listened to people," Kingston said, swinging a foot that hung off the side of the sofa.

Bailey pointed at Clearford. "Listen to your lady. Write that one down. You'll find it useful."

The duke produced a small, stubby pencil from the same magical pocket which had provided a knife and wrote on one corner of a piece of folding paper.

Liam looked between the two men. The last time he'd been with them in a room together, Clearford had been giving Bailey advice. Now it seemed… turned around. "What's going on? Why is Clearford writing that down?"

Clearford made the pencil disappear, cleared his throat, then said, "I've begun to look for a wife. And after so many failures marrying off my sisters, I've decided to take counsel from their husbands."

"I'm not giving any counsel." Noble drummed his fingers on the desk behind him. "I'm not fool enough to think myself an expert."

Bailey chuckled. "I'm giving him bad advice mixed in with the good. To torture him a bit."

"You've no need to torture me, Bailey." Clearford had begun to tap the toe of his boot on the floor, its rapid tattoo muffled by the thick carpet. "The ladies are doing that well enough. I'm a duke for God's sake. Young, relatively good-looking. I have all my teeth at least. They run from me like I've got the plague."

"They've read those inane articles you published in The Daily Current ." Kingston grinned. "They know better than to trust you after two Seasons of posturing, pretending to know everything about something you've never done."

"You published them," Clearford growled.

Kingston shrugged. "Excellent for circulation numbers."

Clearford rubbed his brow. "I seem to have ruined my prospects. The only ladies who will have me are pressed to do so by their title-mad mamas. I'm merely glad I did not ruin my sisters' lives." He glanced at Liam. "Apologies. I appear to have ruined your life instead. You were following my advice, after all, when you kissed Lady Norton in that garden." His hand dropped to his lap like it had been yanked there, and his head snapped up to look one at a time at all the men assembled. "But the advice came from you! I originally said no kissing before marriage, and I let you convince me that was nonsense."

Noble and Kingston discovered a renewed interest in the folding of paper bunnies.

"No apologies?" Clearford asked. When none came, he slumped back into his seat. "Cowards." His gaze rolled to Liam. "You appeared hopeful just after your wedding, Norton. As if you wished to make a happy match of a forced arrangement. What happened?"

Bailey and Liam exchanged a look, and Bailey shifted from side to side. To tell Clearford the truth would be to reveal a secret neither had any desire to reveal. The duke's sisters and Liam's wife read erotic books, organized a club to do just that. Everyone would be better off if the duke never discovered that fact.

Liam cleared his throat. "A misunderstanding. A mistake, several of them. Made mostly by me." He peered into his glass, into the amber liquid, quite still in the crystal container. Light broke diamonds across its surface.

"Look at the man!" Bailey threw out an arm toward Liam. "Heartbroken. Talk to your wife. Make her listen, even if you have to stand outside her window and yell up at her or follow her about like a town crier."

"Whatever it takes," Liam said.

"Precisely." Ben clapped him on the back.

"Are you sure you have no more advice for me, Clearford?" Liam leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"I'm not fit to give advice. But if you have any for me …" He lifted a brow, waited.

Liam shook his head. "Ha. If I did, I'd use it myself."

"I've advice for both of you." Noble stared into the distance, scratching at his jaw.

"You are fool enough to offer advice, then," Kingston said.

Noble grunted. "Call me what you like, but whatever you do, don't listen to others. When it comes to your wife, listen only to her. And your own instinct. Everyone else is noise."

Bailey's mouth dropped, the duke's brow raised to his hairline, and Kingston looked up, finally, from the paper that froze, half folded between his fingers.

"What?" Noble shrugged, picked up a folded rabbit, and tapped its ear against his chin. "I may be thickskulled, but the crucial lessons can pound their way through. Now and then. And I'm right about this, Norton. Know your own goddamn heart and wear it on your perfectly cuffed sleeve or don't mess about with your wife at all. Let her be. She'll be better off without you."

"I've been very frank about what I feel. She does not care to hear it."

"Then show her."

"I hate saying it, but Noble has a point," Bailey said. "If your actions drove her away, then your actions might be able to win her back. Be done with talk. Show the woman how you feel."

"Difficult when she won't let me near her."

"Then you're not trying hard enough," Kingston said. "Find out what she likes, what she wants, what she needs. When you show her that you can provide her with those things, then you'll have her. Or… not. The lady may simply lack romantic feelings for you, and then you must do as she requests and let her live a separate life."

Easy for all of them to say, happy as they were with the women they chose. The woman Liam had chosen hated him.

"Are you going to kick me out, Noble?" Liam asked.

The viscount rounded his desk and flopped back into his chair. "You may stay as long as you like unless you upset my wife, which means you can't upset your wife."

Damn. Liam's very presence here sent Cora into an indignant rage.

"I need a walk." He needed to think. He'd been planning all month for when he finally found Cora, and now that he'd found her, he had no idea what to do with her. So much for planning.

"Remember," the duke called as Liam slipped into the hallway, "dinner is at Clearford Castle."

Liam halted midstep. "And I'm invited?"

"If your wife doesn't poison your tea before then."

"Even then," Noble said, "you'd be invited. It's more you wouldn't be able to make it."

"What with being dead and all," Bailey said.

"A pity," Kingston added. "Clearford's cook is excellent. I'd hate to be dead and miss it."

"You don't have to worry about that, King," Noble said. "Your wife likes you."

Liam strode away from the maddening men. Maybe Cora would try to poison him, and those four would pick up the cup by mistake.

No, four accidental homicides would help no one. But if Cora were running from justice, Liam could help her, hide her, win her trust.

What stories he was spinning. All the fault of the books he'd been reading.

And Cora spun stories herself, erotic rhyming stories. Why had he felt no shock when she'd revealed the truth? It had merely seemed another puzzle piece required to understand her. Such a bold woman. She knew what she wanted and went after it.

Liam admired that, even though he possessed precious little experience with it himself.

But hadn't Madame Juliet said to be ruthless in his pursuit? And weren't these gentlemen telling him essentially the same?

Very well, then. He'd take a page from his wife's book. A verse from her poem. He'd go after what he wanted. He'd done so when he'd arrived, following her into her bedchamber, and there had been times he'd seen her soften toward him. Even his odd impulse to lay his three failed sexual encounters at her perfect toes had not gone as his impulses usually did—straight to hell.

In fact, that moment more than the others had seemed to soften her. An anomaly. Clearford and his cohorts thought action would speak louder than words, and recent experience taught Liam they were right.

But what action would be bold enough for a woman like Cora?