His servants weren’t fanning him, but she recognized the livery they wore. Slowly she turned her head to Thaddeus. He was watching tight-lipped, his arms folded over his chest.
“Thaddeus,” she breathed.
Except for that word, the Lindow Castle dining room was completely silent, which never happened in a chamber that held more than one family member.
The man said, “So many Wildes in one room. I am near to overcome by the brilliance of it all.” His eyes moved from person to person, as commandingly as if he were royalty. Yet there was nothing regal about his expression. He had the peevish, ripe look of a man who put his own welfare above that of all others.
“And my wife.” His voice was melodious and deep, much larger than his wasted body suggested. To Joan, it sounded like the drone of bees.
He was looking at the Duchess of Eversley, so Joan was right about the livery. The grooms on Thaddeus’s carriage wore the same colors.
The Duke of Eversley—dying or not—had arrived at Lindow Castle.
“Along with my inestimable elder son,” Eversley rumbled, his eyes moving to Thaddeus. “Trying to wrangle a permanent berth in Lindow Castle? Third time’s the charm, eh? Good thing that Lindow has so many daughters.”
Thaddeus stared back at him, utterly expressionless.
With a scrape of his chair, Joan’s father rose from the head of the table. “Eversley,” the Duke of Lindow acknowledged, strolling forward. “Your dramatic arrival irresistibly reminds me of theatricals at Oxford.”
“How would you know? You never took part in them, and I cannot recall seeing you in the audience,” Eversley retorted.
“It’s true that I generally found better things to do. You seem to have taken those days to heart,” Lindow said agreeably. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”
“Necessity,” Eversley said, running a hand through his curls. “The castle housed two people whom I need to see before I die, so I made the journey. A good thing too, because my doctor tells me I have little time.”
Joan would have thought it pure dramatics, but the hand he had languidly raised into the air was faintly blue. As were his lips, when she squinted.
“I cannot imagine that you wish to see me, Eversley,” his duchess said, rising from her chair. “You have made no such request in over a decade or more. We have nothing to discuss.”
“To be truthful, you weren’t on my list,” the duke said nonchalantly. “Didn’t even recognize you at first, but I guessed when I saw a fat rosebush sitting up at the dinner table.”
Joan registered that comment with a shock of rage that went right down her back. The sweet, shy duchess didn’t deserve this from her adulterous husband.
Sir Reginald, seated next to the Duchess of Eversley, looked as if he were on the verge of stabbing Eversley in the heart.
Thaddeus was on his feet. “I would gather that the pleasure of speaking to you is to be mine.” His voice was hard and dry, without a shade of other emotion. “Would you prefer to retire and speak in private?”
“Don’t see any reason for that,” Eversley replied. “The world will shortly know everything, so we might as well begin with the Wildes.”
His duchess walked around the end of the table and approached the bier. “This has been such an unexpected pleasure, yet I believe I shall retire for the evening. Farewell, Eversley.” Her voice was courteous, as if her husband had done no more than greet her. As if he were no more than a passing acquaintance.
The duke opened his mouth, undoubtedly to say something unkind, but his wife was too quick for him. Joan hadn’t noticed that the duchess had brought a glass of red wine with her—until she threw the contents of her glass just below her husband’s face.
The liquid, a deep, rich color, red as blood, hit his chest and splashed outward, staining all that snowy, rumpled silk, the white ermine, the white velvet.
“Bloody hell!” the duke bellowed.
Joan jumped to her feet and began to clap. “Brava!” she called. “A fitting close to a melodrama!” Beside her, Joan heard a choke, a suppressed laugh, from Thaddeus.
The duchess turned back to the table. Joan grinned at her; Lavinia jumped to her feet and clapped wildly as well; along the table the women rose and applauded, Aunt Knowe adding another “Brava!” for good measure. The duchess blushed, and smiled directly at Sir Reginald.
Behind her, the duke was clutching his chest and wheezing a demand for smelling salts. “You! Butler!” he shrilled.
Prism walked, very slowly, toward the door, ignoring him.
Joan was happy to see the smile on the Duchess of Eversley’s face.
“If you would all please excuse me,” she said, nodding.
“Of course!” Aunt Knowe said, bounding around the end of the table. “I shall retire with you.” She paused by the bier. “You always were a numbskull, Eversley. Now you’ve become a raving lunatic, and you don’t even have old age as an excuse.”
The duke gave a crack of laughter that was more breath than sound. “If you think I care for the opinion of an unsightly, overgrown shrew—”
The Duke of Lindow cut him off. “Insult my sister at your peril, Eversley. I will not hesitate to put a rapier through what’s left of your withered heart.”
Joan met Lavinia’s eyes, both of them full of glee. Joan’s father never lost his temper, but it was thoroughly entertaining to see him transform into a menacing duke, every inch of him outraged.
Eversley fell back on the wine-stained velvet, panting. “Trying to kill me, I see. I see. I see the light!”
“I only wish that was the case,” Joan whispered, sitting down and pulling Thaddeus down beside her. She turned her head to find him staring at her incredulously. “What?” she asked.
“How can you find this wretched scene funny?”
“I’m a Wilde,” she said, shrugging. “Madmen are two for tuppence around here, and we are absurdly dramatic by nature. Miraculous saves and brushes with death were practically a daily occurrence when I was growing up.”
Thaddeus shook his head as if to wake himself up. Down the table, everyone was seating themselves again, chattering as they did so. Only Sir Reginald still looked murderous.
“I told you that I wouldn’t make a good duchess,” Joan said, feeling that she had to vanquish the bleak look in his eyes. “I might as well say now, Thaddeus, that when I am near death, I shall want a bier as well, and eight servants fanning me with peacock feathers.”
“Fitzy’s, I suppose?” he asked dryly.
“A nice touch,” she said. She poked him. “Handsome young men, mind you.”
His eyes lightened. “Pillows made from a woolly goat?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I hate to think of Gully and Fitzy not being with us any longer.”
Thaddeus leaned toward her, and before she could stop him, he kissed her. A chaste kiss, but on the lips. At the table, where anyone could see them and undoubtedly did. She didn’t dare glance around. Instead she frowned at him.
“We said—”
“Until matters are resolved with my father,” he shot back, nodding. “I have a strong feeling that will happen before the next course arrives. Meanwhile, I’m bent on being as dramatic and scandalous as my future wife.”