Worth escorted his wife across the corridor, leaving both the nursery door and their bedroom door open a few inches. If the child stirred and Worth was slow to fetch her to her mother, Meda would wake him. When Worth was naked behind an almost-closed door, he drew Jacaranda’s dressing gown off her shoulders and led her to the bed.
“A certain pair of wealthy dukes accosted me at the club this afternoon,” Worth said, turning back the covers.
“Wealthy dukes are always accosting you,” Jacaranda muttered, climbing into bed. “If you didn’t make them even wealthier, they might leave you in peace.”
“My besetting sin,” Worth replied, joining his wife under the covers. “I like making money. Dukes want me to invest a sum and make it grow. Royal princes want me to conjure money from thin air, instantly. These dukes were looking for something different to invest in, not the usual French winery or Italian olive grove. My love, what are you doing all the way over there?”
Worth hopped and flopped across the bed, until he could tuck his wife against his side. Because Jacaranda was no delicate flower, and he no small fellow, the fit was marvelous.
“Well, if isn’t my own husband,” Jacaranda said, tugging her braid from between them and tossing it over her shoulder. “How very friendly you’ve become since the baby showed up.”
“My friendliness is part of why she arrived sooner after the nuptials than strictest propriety would have allowed, my love.”
“I’ve never heard it called friendliness,” Jacaranda said, brushing a hand over Worth’s chest and settling in with her head on his shoulder. “You want to help these dukes, don’t you? They’ll get up to mischief otherwise, and then their duchesses will expect me to have a word with you, and I do miss the country, Worth. We were not plagued by mischievous peers there.”
“We all have our little crosses to bear,” Worth said. “Dukes are mine, and—” His mind went blank as Jacaranda’s hand moved lower, then lower still.
“You were saying?” Jacaranda prompted.
Worth’s body was saying please, please, please. “They want something different, these two, something they can boast of in the clubs to the other dukes. Something besides the usual canal or— Madam, I caution you that unless you desist…” Worth’s lady had the loveliest, most confident grip on the part of Worth most in need of gripping. “Jacaranda, what are you about?”
“Tell me about the dukes, Worth.”
What dukes? “Compound interest,” Worth nearly gasped. “They’ve finally got the notion of compound interest through their thick heads and… That is lovely, Jacaranda.”
“I’ve missed you,” she said, setting up a rhythm with her hand. “I do not want our daughter to be an only child, you know.”
“Perish the notion. One of twelve, at least. Children, that is. Of…ours.” For the next twenty minutes Worth spoke mostly in single words. “Please… Damn… Again…” figured prominently, as did the undifferentiated moan of pleasure, and then the more singular groan of satisfaction.
“You’ve slain me,” Worth murmured when Jacaranda was dozing in his arms, and whole sentences, short ones at least, were once more within his abilities.
“One should regularly slay one’s spouse,” Jacaranda replied. “Puts one in a grand humor. What were you prattling on about earlier, regarding compound interest and the dukes?”
Worth cast back over their precoital conversation, as a man casts his line over a placid trout stream. At first no mental fish bit at the lure, then he grasped the thread of their conversation.
“My dukes want a profitable novelty, a project that’s gentlemanly, but not in the common way. A gold mine, perhaps—there’s gold in Scotland—a successful portrait artist to sponsor.” A glimmer of an idea quivered in the undergrowth of Worth’s imagination, but fatigue and the pleasurable muddling of a happily married man dulled his ability to flush the idea into the open.
An investment scheme was like a wife. Timing counted for much, and most did not thrive when harried, bothered, or rushed.
Jacaranda yawned, stretched, and ran her toe up Worth’s calf. “Twelve children is a lot of children, Sir Worth. Do you know how many grandchildren we might have? How many great-grandchildren?”
Worth knew, for this was the biological equivalent of compound interest, like Willow Dorning’s collies or the King’s dozen living progeny.
“I can’t do the math right now,” Worth said. “Heaps and hordes of little darlings. Somebody must set an example for your backward brothers in this regard.” Not a one of whom had wed yet, which Worth knew was a source of worry for Jacaranda. “Are you falling asleep on me?”
“Half on you. You’re very warm, if rather bony in places.”
Worth was very married, thank a merciful Deity. “Go to sleep, Jacaranda. Something suitable for keeping a pair of wealthy dukes in pin money will come to me by morning. Meanwhile, I’ll dream of siblings for my princess, and compound interest.”
Jacaranda’s toe made another trip along the ragged border of Worth’s sanity. “I’ll dream of you.”
“Why dream,” Worth whispered, “when I’m here in the same bed, and your every wish is my dearest command?”