“Of course.”
Never mind the fact that for one crystalline moment he was filled with joy, as if everything that was wrong in his world had suddenly sorted itself out.
The idea was so surprising that he began unlacing her gown without a word.
Meanwhile, Joan was flinging hairpins to the floor until she threw her wig on the opposite seat and pulled a smaller man’s wig from a travel case. Her dress fell forward, baring her slender shoulders, now clad only in a shift so transparent that he could see the delicate knobs of her backbone. She snatched her breeches from the bag and hopped to a standing position in order to pull them on.
Thaddeus froze, watching as no gentleman would while she hauled them up her legs. For one glorious moment, as she pulled the chemise off, he saw her bare back. Then she pulled on a shirt and began stuffing it into the top of the breeches. “You’re going to have to manage my neck cloth,” she said, not turning around.
“I’d be happy to,” Thaddeus said, reaching out to steady her as they went around a corner. His hands curved around her waist, and happiness flooded him again. As a child, he’d learned that ignoring an irritating emotion—such as missing his father—would diminish the feeling.
He had an odd sense that it wouldn’t be true this time around.
Another problem to solve.
Joan threw herself onto the opposite seat and began hauling stockings up her legs. “Can you pull out my knee ribbons?” she asked, nodding at the bag. “I have my garters.” Thaddeus wrenched his eyes away from the lacy garters that Hamlet would apparently wear under his breeches.
He poked around in the bag and found two hair ribbons.
“Here,” Joan ordered, straightening one leg while she pulled on the other stocking. “Double knot it, please. These ribbons have to survive the sword fight.”
Thaddeus grinned. “I never anticipated the need to learn a valet’s tasks.”
“You should have,” she retorted, adjusting her breeches over a garter. “What good is a man who can’t tie his own neck cloth?”
“I do tie my own,” Thaddeus said. He leaned over and pulled the ribbons tight, knotting them more than twice. No one was going to see his lady’s leg—
His lady’s leg.
The lady in question was pulling on her coat. “Shoes!” she said urgently.
Thaddeus turned to the bag and pulled out shoes. “Diamond buckles,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “You didn’t wear these last night.”
“I need to look like a prince,” Joan said. She slapped her hat on top of her wig. “Last night, the costume was irrelevant, but tonight I have to actually look royal. Otis is going to meet me and escort me to his dressing room so I can fix anything that is out of order.”
“Give me your Hamlet look,” he said.
Instantly her face dropped into lines that signaled a bone-deep feeling of superiority. “My rapier!” she cried. “I almost forgot it.”
Thaddeus pulled it from the bag and helped her buckle it on. Suddenly he remembered something from the night before. “Hamlet appears to have a propensity to drum his fingers on the hilt of his sword when worried.”
She flashed him a smile. “As do you. This is your look as well.” The bored, condescending look of an aristocrat settled onto her face.
Thaddeus blinked, appalled. “I?” The word came out in a rasp.
The carriage was slowing to a halt. Joan leaned forward and patted his arm. “I told you that I was mimicking the habits of a duke, remember? You don’t look like that when we’re in private.”
“I didn’t think I looked like that ever.” He thought of the expression as ducal composure, but apparently more emotion leaked than he had imagined.
Joan almost patted his arm again, but he drew back before he could stop himself. She had a sympathetic, nearly regretful, look on her face. “I apologize, Thaddeus. I didn’t know you when I planned my Hamlet. Now that I know you, of course I feel differently.”
So he did wear that expression.
“I didn’t realize that you were playacting,” she went on awkwardly, as silence grew between them. “As when your mother described herself playing the role of a duchess. I had no idea. I have always known that I, in particular, must play the part of a lady, and sometimes I have chosen not to comply. I didn’t think of others faced with the same conundrum.”
“I don’t play the part of a duke’s heir,” Thaddeus stated. “I am a duke’s heir.” He deliberately made his expression mimic Hamlet’s. “I assure you that I haven’t homicidal feelings toward the boy who may usurp my title.”
“Of course you don’t!” Joan said. She picked up a small glass and poked at her wig, making sure there were no stray tendrils showing. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you that I shall not need your help choosing a husband. My mother is quite willing to take on the task, now that I’ve promised that I will take it seriously. Which I shall.”
“When you travel to Lady Ailesbury’s house party,” he said, knowing his voice was wooden.
She smiled at him as cheerily as if they were discussing the weather. “I also want to get my part of the bargain out of the way. I suggest that you avoid dukes’ daughters; you need someone haughty but not too haughty, if you see what I mean. I’ve given it some thought, and I suggest Lady Lucy Lockett. Her mother was a marquess’s daughter, and her father is an earl. She has excellent connections, admirable composure, and no one will question whether she is fit to be a duchess.”
For a second, Thaddeus felt as if someone had drenched him in privy water.
Joan babbled on about the virtues of Lucy—who sounded like an excruciating bore—while Thaddeus ordered himself to show no signs of anger. Ducal composure.
“Her face is a perfect oval,” Joan told him. “She’s very dainty, if you know what I mean. I expect you can put your hands around her waist.”
Thaddeus knew exactly what Joan meant: no picnics for him. No ants, no rolling in the grass, no vengeful goats. One heir and a spare, because his dainty wife wouldn’t want to spoil her figure.
Perfect. Lovely Lucy.
“And,” Joan wound up with a brilliant smile, “your mother will like her. Lucy often wears pink.” She blinked. Her smile faltered.
Thaddeus clenched his teeth and kept his composure by counting to ten. It seemed that the woman he loved had suddenly remembered that people weren’t chess pieces to be moved about the board and matched due to superficial traits such as birth and clothing.
The fact that he himself had declared an intention to marry a duke’s daughter was of no consequence. He’d been a fool.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her as they descended from the carriage, which had drawn up behind the theater. “Good luck with the performance tonight,” he said, with a curt nod. It would never do to bow to an actor, a male actor, in case anyone was watching.
Otis was waiting at the theater door, so Thaddeus got back into the carriage without another word.
The door closed and he took a deep breath. He was about to rap on the ceiling and tell the coachman to take him around to the front of the building, when the door swung open. His head jerked up, but it wasn’t his groom.