Desperate Duchesses (7 page)

“Thinking of Beaumont makes me tired, and he’s not even dead. At any rate, Frenchwomen make difficult friends. They’re given to thinking that Englishwomen are, by nature, inelegant and rather foolish. But even if one overcomes the prejudices of one’s nationality, I have never felt as easy with a Frenchwoman as I do with you, Harriet.” And as if to demonstrate her point, she stood up, reached under her skirts and untied her panniers. With a little clatter they fel to the ground and Jemma curled bonelessly back into the chair. “Go on,” she said, “you do it too! You are spending the day with me, aren’t you? I must introduce you to Roberta; she’s a young relative come to live with me and make her debut.”

Harriet hesitated. “You have a bal tomorrow. Surely you have—”

“Absolutely not! I have a marvelous secretary who handles al the wretched details of putting on an event. She thrives on it. My role is to stay to my rooms and keep out of the way.”

Harriet got up and dumped her hoops. “How I loathe these things.”

“I adore them,” Jemma said. “There’s nothing better than arranging huge swathes of silk just so; one always makes a grand entrance if one’s hoops are large enough. This season the fashion in Paris is for smal er panniers, which in itself was a good reason to leave.”

Since Harriet loathed the idea of a grand entrance under any circumstances, and particularly with huge wire baskets attached to her sides, she changed the subject. “So who is Roberta, and what is her surname?”

“Lady Roberta St. Giles. She’s great fun; I am persuaded the two of you wil like each other enormously. The only problem is that she’s quite desperately in love and the man is rather unlikely.” She reached out toward the bel cord. “I’l ask if she could join us, shal I? She’s been in fittings for a bal gown but perhaps she is finished.”

But Harriet quickly waved her hand. “I want to ask you something first.”

Jemma dropped the cord. “Of course.”

“It’s—It’s about Benjamin.” Whenever she brought up her dead husband, people’s faces took on one of two expressions.

If they knew only that she was a widow, their faces took on a practiced look of sympathy, often quite genuine. They would offer stories of aunts who were widowed and found true love a mere week afterward, as if she, Harriet, were lusting to marry over the very coffin of her husband.

But if they knew that Benjamin committed suicide, their faces had an entirely different look: more guarded, more truly sympathetic, slightly horrified, as if suicide were a contagious disease. No one offered stories of relatives who put themselves to death.

Jemma looked purely sympathetic.

“He kil ed himself,” Harriet said bluntly. “He shot himself in the head after losing a game at which he gambled a great deal of money.”

Jemma blinked at her for a moment. Then she jumped out of her chair and plumped down next to Harriet. Without panniers, the chair was more than wide enough for both of them. “That is absolutely terrible,” she said, wrapping an arm around her. “I’m so sorry, Harriet. No one told me.”

Tears stung her eyes. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

“Does one? I supposed I would get over my husband doing such a thing, simply because we aren’t very close to each other. But you and Benjamin—how
could
he do such a thing?”

“I don’t know.” Despite herself her voice cracked a bit, and Jemma’s arm tightened. “He was so miserable. He was never good at being miserable.”

“No, I think of him as always laughing.”

“He was never very good at being formal, nor sad either. Nor ashamed of himself. He was ashamed of himself, and that’s why he did it.”

“Over a game of cards! And why was he playing such high stakes?”

“It wasn’t cards,” Harriet said. “It was chess.”

“Chess!”

Despite herself, a tear rol ed down her cheek. Jemma produced a handkerchief from somewhere and blotted her cheek.

Harriet almost smiled. It was the softest, most elegant little scrap of cloth she’d seen in years, perhaps ever.

“It’s mortifying to be crying for him,” she said, sniffing a bit.

“Why? I would think you should wear your grief like a badge of honor. After al , you care enough to grieve. I can hardly imagine.”

“It’s mortifying because he—he was so eager to leave me that he took his own life.” It came out angry.

“That’s foolish, darling, and you know it. Your husband no more wished to leave you than he truly thought to give up life. I know Benjamin, remember? I was there when you fel in love.”

“When
I
fel in love,” Harriet said, more angry tears swel ing in her eyes. “If he was in love with me, he showed an odd way of displaying his passion.”

“He did fal in love with you. But Benjamin was a remarkably impetuous person. I’m sure he regretted shooting himself the moment he did it, but it was too late. He just didn’t think clearly before acting.”

“He should have thought about it!”

“Was the chess game public?”

“Of course. Chess is al the rage now. Everyone’s playing it, in the cafés, in private houses. White’s. Sometimes I think it’s al anyone talks about.”

“How surprising. I had no idea. I thought it was only like that in France.”

“Benjamin had a tremendous passion for chess. He couldn’t just
play,
you know? He had to be among the very best.”

“But he wasn’t,” Jemma said sadly.

“You remember that? Of course, you used to play him occasional y, didn’t you? Did he ever win?”

Jemma shook her head.

“He could beat most everyone,” Harriet said. “Truly. But he couldn’t bear the fact that he couldn’t beat the very top players.

It was almost like a disease, the way he wanted to beat Vil iers.”

“It was
Villiers
he played at the last?” Jemma asked. “Vil iers?”

Harriet dashed away more tears. “Why are you so surprised? Vil iers is the best chess player in England. Or so they say.”

“It’s just very odd,” Jemma said slowly. “I’ve been talking of Vil iers al morning.”

“Are you planning to play him in chess?” Harriet said, feeling hopefulness tighten in her chest like a vise.

“It wasn’t that. It’s my guest, Roberta. Lady Roberta St. Giles. She’s in love with him.”

“In love with Vil iers?” Harriet smiled weakly. “I believe I pity her.”

“Was he a friend of Benjamin’s, then?”

“Vil iers played Benjamin al the time, but he never al owed any stakes. Which was just a condescending way of tel ing Benjamin that he was unlikely to win. Then final y Benjamin chal enged him and Vil iers agreed to play. Benjamin played wel in the beginning. But now, I think that Vil iers may have been just playing along.”

“I see,” Jemma said, holding her hands tightly.

“And Benjamin started to raise the stakes on the game. I gather that Vil iers refused and Benjamin got so angry—it was when he was winning, or he thought he was winning—that he forced Vil iers to give in. That’s what everyone told me afterwards.

”

“And then…”

“I don’t think Benjamin realized at first. But he must have gone home and thought over the game, step by step. I was in the country, you see. I wasn’t there; perhaps if I’d been in London I could have stopped him somehow. At any rate, he must have realized that Vil iers had just been babying him. That he never had a chance of winning that game.”

“Benjamin loved chess that much,” Jemma said.

“He should have loved
me
that much!”

Jemma sighed. “Chess is a passion.”

“The problem was that Benjamin was too good to play most people, and not quite good enough for the very best. He used to try to get your husband to play with him; he even said that he would trade a game for his vote in Lords.”

“Ha,” Jemma said. “He misstepped there. Beaumont has one god: his honor.”

“Beaumont just said that he never played anymore. He doesn’t, does he?”

“Not so far as I know. I only played him a few times when we were first married.”

“Did you beat him? Your husband, I mean?”

“Yes. But he was awful y good.”

“Is there anyone you haven’t beaten, Jemma?”

“Every chess player loses occasional y. I only played one game with the French king and he won.”

“King Louis? Then you al owed him to win,” Harriet said with a little crooked smile.

“Prudence is part of strategy,” Jemma said. “But you know I haven’t played very many people, Harriet, so it hardly signifies.”

“You’ve never played Vil iers?”

“Never. I only met him once and that briefly. He was traveling on the continent during the first year of my marriage, and I’ve been in Paris since.”

“They say he’s the best player in England.” She took a deep breath. “I
hate
him for what he did to Benjamin.”

Jemma blinked. “What did he do?”

“He shamed him. And I think he did it deliberately. I’ve thought and thought about it. I think he agreed to play the game in White’s, just to make Benjamin stop nagging at him. And then—and then Benjamin lost, of course, but Vil iers had played it so that Benjamin thought he would win.”

“But—”

Harriet wasn’t finished. “He’s an awful man. A positive wolf. He had
affaires
with half the
ton,
if you believe the stories, and he treats al his lovers despicably. They say he has at least four il egitimate children.”

There was a noise at the door and Jemma came back with a tea tray.

Harriet drank half of her tea in one gulp. “I want you to do me a favor, Jemma.”

Jemma reached to the sugar bowl. “Anything, dearest.”

“I want you to shame Vil iers.”

She straightened. “What? Shame him—
how?
”

“I don’t care!” Harriet said fiercely. “You could take him as a lover, and spurn him. Or take him as a lover and make fun of him, or something like that. I know you can do it.”

Jemma was giggling. “I love your faith in my abilities,” she said. “But—”

“You could play chess with him.”

There was a moment’s silence. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You came from the country not to see me, but to ask me to play chess with Vil iers?”

Their eyes met. “I came to see you, Jemma. We’re not as close as we were when we were children. You’ve changed; you’ve grown sophisticated, and even more beautiful, and I’m just a country mouse.”

Jemma’s eyes had assessed her brown curls and her clumsily handled panniers; she must know it was the truth.

“I didn’t live in the city with Benjamin,” Harriet said, though her throat was so tight she could hardly speak it. “I just couldn’t make this life work, putting my hair up, and powdering it, and taking hours to get dressed. Having a maid, and a dresser, and al the rest of it
bores
me. I just couldn’t stand the boredom!”

“I can understand that, of course,” Jemma said. “It can be quite tedious.” She smiled, but she was cooler now, more distant.

“So I left Benjamin here and I went to the country,” Harriet stumbled on.

“You couldn’t have stopped him from loving chess,” Jemma said.

Harriet felt a wave of desperation. “You don’t understand!” She almost shouted it.

“What?”

“I couldn’t be around him, because—because—”

“Many couples live apart,” Jemma said. “It certainly isn’t your fault that Benjamin committed suicide, simply because you were living in the country. You could not have stopped him from losing a game to Vil iers.”

“You don’t understand,” Harriet said. She lifted her chin. “I had an
affaire
with Vil iers.”

Jemma sat bolt upright. “
You
had an
affaire
?”

It was such a relief to tel someone that the words tumbled out. “It was two years ago, at a bal given by the Duchess of Claverstil , about a month before Benjamin died. Benjamin was playing chess al night. Every bal has a chess room now. It’s so tiresome. Some nights there aren’t any partners for dancing. At any rate, Vil iers came out of the chess room and, somehow, he found me.”

“What is he like? I don’t know much about him, other than that he was a boyhood friend of Beaumont’s and they had some sort of fal ing out.”

“I hate him,” Harriet said, her voice shaking.

“Because you spent the night with him?” To Harriet’s relief, Jemma had lost her air of
froideur
. She poured more tea for both of them.

“Because—he didn’t real y—it was just like the game with Benjamin!”

“What?”

She might as wel tel the whole. “The truth of it is that we didn’t real y have an
affaire
. I was so cross at Benjamin that I just

—wel , I lost my head. Vil iers was taking me home and—and—but he—”

“You’re going to have to be a bit more clear,” Jemma said. “Based on my rather varied experience of men, I’d say that he made an advance to you in the carriage?”

“No,” Harriet said, drinking again. “I did.”

“Excel ent decision,” Jemma said promptly. “Frenchwomen understand that a woman must pick and choose amongst her admirerers rather than leaving it to the man’s discretion.”

“There are no men for me,” Harriet said miserably. “Benjamin was the only one.”

“So what happened with Vil iers?”

“He kissed me for a bit, but then—wel —this is so embarrassing. He did this
thing
.”

Jemma’s eyes were bright with interest. “What thing?”

“With—with his hands. And that’s al I’m going to say about it.”

“Even if I pour you some more tea?”

“Even then. So I—I—”

“What did you do? I gather you didn’t just swoon and say,
Touch me again!
” Jemma was giggling so hard that her tea was in danger of spil ing.

“Wel , I said, actual y I shrieked,
What are you doing?
And he just did it
again!
”

“And it wasn’t any better the second time?”

“What would you have done?” Harriet asked desperately.

“It would definitely depend on the thing in question. I enjoy many things that men do with their hands.”

“You’re so much more sophisticated than I am. I’m not like that. I slapped him. Which is just what my mother, not that my mother would
ever
, wel , it’s what she would have approved of, I’m sure.”