Desperate Duchesses (6 page)

“I suggest you bar the nursery door,” Jemma said, “particularly now that you remind me of children’s indiscriminate attitude toward hygiene.”

“Can’t do that,” Damon said. “What if there was a fire? And Teddy, by the way, is past the age of indiscriminate peeing.

He’s very good at seeking out a tree, just like the wel -trained puppy he is.”

“Perhaps you could carpet the vestibule,” Roberta suggested. “If you mean to al ow him to continue in this habit.”

“Remarkably uncharitable on both your parts,” Damon complained. Then he looked back and forth. “How odd! I suddenly see quite a resemblance between the two of you. Don’t tel me! My il egitimate child is only matched by our father’s own indiscretions!”

“Actual y not,” Roberta said. “I’m legitimate, but from a far branch of the family tree. I only wish that I resembled Jemma.”

“You have her blue eyes,” he said, grinning at her.

“Roberta is going to be my project,” Jemma said. “I’m going to dress her up to look absolutely gorgeous, which of course she is, and then marry her off to whomever she wishes. It’l be great fun.”

Roberta felt a queer compression around her chestbone. “Are you sure?” she asked. “It wil be frightful y expensive. I’m not sure how much I can persuade my father to contribute.”

“Jemma’s husband can manage a dozen debuts and not notice,” Damon said. “I don’t know why Beaumont bothers with his speechifying; he could just buy the votes he needs to get a bil passed, in the time-honored fashion. That’s what father always did.”

“I’m afraid that the third earl—our father—was a tad disreputable,” Jemma said. “You interrupted me, Damon. I was trying to warn Roberta that she might not want my chaperonage.”

Damon looked her over so careful y that Roberta felt herself getting pink. “It’s true that your reputation was marred by merely walking into this den of inequity, or it wil be once the English ladies get the measure of my sister. Jemma is unlikely to be a prudent chaperone. The Reeves have been disreputable back to the days of King Alfred, and though I regret to say it, the tendency bred true in both of us.”

“Jemma has neglected to tel you that I am the only child of the Mad Marquess, to use the term the popular press prefers,”

Roberta said. “So the
ton
wil have more hurdles than Jemma’s reputation to consider when it comes to my marriage.”

His eyes widened. “You grow more fascinating by the moment. Do tel me a bit of poetry.”

She scowled at him, and then relented. “My father’s letter to you, Jemma, takes the form of a poem in fourteen stanzas.”

She opened her little knotting-bag and handed over her father’s letter.

“It’s entitled ‘Epistle to a Duchess,’” Jemma said. Roberta watched her smile fade into a look of puzzlement. “I’m not sure I’m intel igent enough for poetry,” she said, final y.

Which was a kind assessment. “It’s not a question of your intel igence,” Roberta said. “I’m afraid that Papa’s poetry is obscure in the extreme.”

Damon took the poem. “This isn’t so bad.
It ever was allow’d, dear Madam, Even from the days of father Adam
. Wel , I don’t see much of difficulty here, Roberta.
Such stuff is naught but mere tautology,
” he continued. “What’s
tautology
again? I can’t remember, if I ever knew.
And so take that for my apology
. He’s apologizing, Jemma.”

“For what?”

“For imposing his daughter upon your presence,” Roberta said firmly.

Damon was stil reading ahead. “Here he’s talking about the
solid meal of sense and worth, set off by the dessert of
mirth
. Very nice rhyme!”

“Sometimes his poetry is quite good,” Roberta said with a flash of loyalty. “He’s writing an excel ent poem on David and Bathsheba, for example. One can real y understand what he’s describing.”

“Wel , this poem ends with
your most obedient,
” Damon said. “I think he’s asking you to bring out his daughter with al the pomp and circumstance Beaumont can afford, Roberta. My expert judgment.”

Jemma took back the poem and puzzled at it for a moment. “But what’s the part about a
rude ungrateful bear, enough to
make a parson swear
?”

“I find with Papa’s poems that it’s best not to devote oneself too strictly to meaning,” Roberta said.

Damon let out a bark of laughter.

“There is just one more thing that I should tel you,” Roberta said.

Brother and sister turned to look at her. “Wait, don’t tel us,” Damon said, with his irresistible grin. “The family character bred true in you as wel , remote relative though you are. Let’s guess: You have a child—you, with such a young, innocent—”

“No!” Roberta said.

But before she could continue, he said, “Your turn, Jemma.”

Jemma looked thoughtful. “At some time last year, you were at an inn. You gazed out of the window and were instantly struck by an ungovernable passion for my brother.”

Roberta’s mouth fel open but Damon didn’t notice. “Very nice! Can you work Teddy into the picture?”

“More than anything, Roberta wished to be a mother, but unfortunate circumstances have decreed that she wil have no children of her own, therefore Teddy wil become her most cherished possession.”

Damon was laughing. “What about me? I want to be her most cherished possession.”

Jemma turned to Roberta. “You must forgive us; it’s an old game that we—” She stopped. “You did see Damon last summer! And you fel in love with him? How very peculiar. Are you sure you wish to marry my brother? I can assure you that he’s terribly annoying.”

Roberta started giggling. “No, I don’t wish to marry your brother!”

“There’s no need to be quite so emphatic,” Damon observed. “I would quite like to marry you myself, although I see that I shal have to assuage my grieved heart elsewhere.”

“But I saw something on your face,” Jemma said. “I’m sure—”

“I went to a bal given by Lady Cholmondelay,” Roberta said hurriedly, getting over the rough ground as quickly as she could. “And I did meet someone. I should like to marry him. In fact, I have made up my mind to it.”

“How useful,” Jemma said. “Love at first sight. I’m sure it must be most delicious. I would quite welcome it myself. I’ve fal en in love many times but never without thoroughly discussing the impulse with my closest friends.”

Her brother snorted. “Not to mention your less-than-close friends and the other half of Paris. Although I thought it was love at first sight between Delacroix and yourself. Al Paris thought it was.”

Jemma looked insulted. “Absolutely not! I spoke to each of my intimate friends before I al owed myself to feel a patch of affection for the man. That is my invariable practice. A man about whom one knows nothing is invariably boring or diseased.”

“There you have it, Lady Roberta. You might want to rethink your love at first sight,” Damon said.

“I do know quite a lot about him,” Roberta said shyly.

“If there is one thing in the world that I love it’s a chal enge,” Jemma said. “The bigger the chal enge, the better!”

Roberta took a deep breath. And told them.

She was answered by silence.

H
arriet, Duchess of Berrow, hadn’t been in London for a year, and she hadn’t been to Beaumont House in at least eight. It was just the same, of course: a huge, jumbled assortment of mul ioned windows and towers that had no place in London. Terraces sprawled on two sides, in blatant defiance of the properly contained attitude of a townhouse. It looked as if it had been picked up in Northamptonshire, transported by a giant’s hand to London, and plopped down on the street. The other houses around it

—elegantly built in the Portland stone everyone preferred—looked positively affronted at having to reside beside such a monstrosity.

The last time she’d been here Benjamin had been alive. He’d run up the stairs, always ahead of her, and banged the knocker himself.

Then, Benjamin had leapt ahead of her in every way, and now footmen were the only men who accompanied her to parties.

The door opened and she gave herself a mental shake. The last thing she wanted to do was lower Jemma’s spirits.

Benjamin was gone, had been gone these many months and after she did just one thing in his memory—just the one—she would forget him. Put him away in her memories, or whatever it is you do with a dead husband.

Truly, a dead husband was an inconvenient presence, she realized, not for the first time.

The butler led her to a smal dining room and then stood to the side. “The Duchess of—” he intoned. Suddenly he lunged forward, words forgotten.

Jemma was standing on a chair, with her back to them. She was in the process of unhooking a very large painting from the wal . Even as they watched she staggered back, her heel on the very edge of the seat, the huge frame waving in the air.

“Your Grace!” the butler shouted. He caught the huge gold frame just as it began toppling toward the ground.

Harriet rushed forward as wel , just in time to stand directly under Jemma as she fel off the chair. They both hit the ground with a whoosh as their hoops swel ed up around them. Simultaneously the butler lost his grip on the painting and it crashed into a sideboard.

“Oh no,” Jemma said, laughing. “Is that Harriet?”

Harriet scrambled to her feet. Jemma’s butler was shouting, presumably for a footman.

“It is indeed I,” she said, smiling down at Jemma. Her friend had changed; her beauty had a modish edge that was a long way from Harriet’s childhood memories. But the sleek blonde hair, the deep lip and most of al , her litup, intel igent eyes, those were the same.

With one practiced slap, Jemma col apsed her right pannier and then rol ed to that side to get up. Harriet held out a hand.

With another whoosh, Jemma’s panniers exploded as she stood up and there she was: as sophisticated and elegant a French lady as Harriet could imagine.

She swal owed her up in one of the lightning quick hugs Harriet remembered so wel . “You are as beautiful as ever, but so thin, Harriet. And the
black
.”

“Wel , you do remember…”

“But it’s been almost two years since Benjamin died, hasn’t it?” Jemma pul ed back. “Did you get my note after his funeral?”

Harriet nodded. “And I had your lovely note from Florence too, with the drawings.”

“Wel , it had been a year,” Jemma twinkled at her. “I personal y think that David has a lovely physique although perhaps slightly, shal we say, under-endowed?”

Harriet laughed a bit hol owly. “Only you would notice.”

“Nonsense. It’s enough to make one eye Italian males in a most suspicious manner, I assure you. After al , it might wel be a national trait.”

“What were you doing with that portrait?” Harriet asked.

“Ghastly thing. I stared at it al the way through luncheon and then promised myself that I would take it off the wal directly.”

Harriet glanced at it, but couldn’t see that it was particularly depressing; it depicted a man asleep on a bed while a woman stood next to him with a flask of wine.

“Look more closely,” Jemma said. “Do you see her knife?”

Sure enough, hidden in the folds of her skirt was the wicked, curved tip of a knife. And on close observation, the woman’s face was rather disturbing.

“The house is bestrewed by versions of Judith and Holofernes. I would ask Beaumont about his mother’s penchant for the subject, but I’m terrified of his likely answer. In this one, she’s about to saw his head off. If you’d like to see the event itself, that is hanging in the grand salon in the west wing. The aftermath—i.e., his head apart from his body—appears in various versions al over the house.”

Harriet blinked. “How—how—” and closed her mouth.

“I gather you don’t know the Dowager Duchess of Beaumont,” Jemma continued blithely. “Let’s go upstairs, shal we? We can have some tea in my rooms.”

“Why, this is quite lovely,” Harriet said a moment later. The wal s were white with pale green trim, and painted al over with little sprays of blossoms. “Did Beaumont have the room made over for your return?”

“Of course he didn’t,” Jemma said. “I sent a man from Paris two months ago, as soon as I decided to return to London.

My mother-in-law had this room very grand in gold-and-white. Natural y I had to have al new furnishings. I am so fond of French panniers, you know. I wouldn’t have been able to fit into the chairs designed thirty years ago.”

Harriet paused beside a smal marble chess table. It was set out with a game in progress. “You haven’t given up your chess.”

“Do you remember enough of the game to see where I am? I’m playing white, and my queen is in a veritable nest of pawns. I’m almost certainly beaten.” Jemma dropped into a comfortably wide chair, her panniers effortlessly compressing under her silk skirt.

Harriet sighed. It had always been so, even when they were young girls growing up on adjoining estates. She and Jemma would go for picnics, and she would come back having been bitten by stinging ants, with her hair down her back. Jemma would traipse back to the house wearing a posy of daisies and every hair in place. Sure enough, when she lowered herself cautiously into the chair opposite Jemma, her right-side hoop sprang into the air like a huge blister. She forced it into place.

“I’ve missed you,” Jemma said, stretching out her legs. “I love Paris, as you must know. But I missed you.”

Harriet smiled, a rueful smile. She’d lived a country mouse’s life for the past few years. “You have been in
Paris,
” she said. “You needn’t tel me flummery like that. Those are the most gorgeous little slippers, by the way.”

“Paris is ful of Frenchwomen. They are nice slippers, aren’t they? I like the embroidery. I have them in three different shades.”

“The fact that Paris is ful of Frenchwomen surely came as no surprise?”

“That’s my Harriet! I missed your peppery little comments. You always deflated my absurdities.” She leaned forward. “Are you al right? You seem tired.”

“I should be quite over Benjamin’s death,” Harriet said. “It’s been twenty-two months. But somehow thinking of him makes me tired, and I can’t stop thinking, no matter how I try.”