Duchess in Love (23 page)

She smiled up at him. “Can you give me one moment? I am just answering the estate manager's questions about sheep breeding.”

“Why on earth haven't you given these questions to your husband?”

“I could have,” Gina said, finishing the letter. “But I actually enjoy managing the estate. I'm afraid I'm a managing sort of woman. Will you be able to bear it?”

He bowed gallantly. “I should warn you that I am lucky enough to have two excellent estate managers.”

“Shall we practice our lines, then?” She walked over to a sofa.

Sebastian joined her, opening his Shakespeare.

“I believe I have finally memorized the opening scene,” Gina said. “This is my favorite line:
I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.
”

“I can see why,” Sebastian said. “It suits you.”

“Suits me?” Gina repeated, startled.

“Your wonderful air of independence,” Sebastian explained.

“Oh.”

“I too have my part memorized,” he said, leafing through the later scenes. “However, Lady Rawlings informed me during the musicale that she has not even begun to work on her part. Perhaps since you seem to know your lines, I should seek her out. She's so flighty that I wouldn't be surprised if she never learned her lines without explicit guidance.” He smiled down at her. “Not a bit like my duchess.”

Gina sighed. “In that case, I will write a few more letters.”

“Your sense of responsibility is admirable. But you need more light,” Sebastian said, jumping from the sofa and ringing the bell. He bowed and strode over to the door. “I'll instruct the footmen to bring you plenty of candles.”

Gina stared at the closed door with a sense of mild shock. Sebastian couldn't have made it clearer that he had better things to do than sit about with his future wife. Slowly she walked back to the library table and sat down, pulling another sheet toward her. Bicksfiddle wrote that the bridge spanning Charlcote Stream appeared on the verge of collapse. Would she like to repair the existing span, or tear it down?

Gina was gazing blindly at the estimated cost of the project when Cam walked in. “A man from Rounton's office is
asking if he might speak to us,” he said without greeting, walking over to where Gina was sitting. “Since his business is likely to address the annulment, I told him to join us here.”

He read over her shoulder. “Bicksfiddle wants to pull down the bridge over the Charlcote?”

She nodded. “Apparently the timbers are rotting.”

“Pity. It had the lovely high span you see in Elizabethan bridges. Is this the estimation for a new one?”

“Yes.”

“He doesn't say whether the bridge will achieve the same height.”

“Probably not,” Gina said. “Bicksfiddle is rather wanting in imagination. I expect that he simply instructed an architect to build a flat bridge.”

Cam drew up a chair. “We can't have that,” he said. He pulled over a piece of paper. “I'll send him a picture myself. Now I think about it, I'd like to have the arch rise well above the surface.” He started to sketch quickly.

Gina watched, rather fascinated, as the bridge grew under his hands. It arched up with a lovely span.

“Are those supposed to be stones?” she asked, watching him crosshatch the span.

He nodded. “If the old timber bridge has to go, I'd prefer to replace it with a stone arch. This is a reproduction of a bridge in Florence. We'll have to scale it down, of course, but—”

“Cam,” Gina interrupted. “We can't possibly spare the funds for a stone bridge. Do you know how much masons cost? We spent over a thousand pounds just repairing the courtyard last year!”

He looked at her sharply. “I hope you didn't replace the star in the middle with gravel or some such abomination.”

“Of course I didn't! But that's how I know the expense of masons. It took four of them months to repair all the brick in
the central pavement. We simply can't afford to build a stone bridge this year.”

Cam was finishing his drawing. “I don't see why not. I remember glancing over the figures Bicksfiddle sent me. Didn't the estate make around eleven thousand pounds last year? Where's it all gone?”

“That was two years ago,” she said. “Last year was an even better year. We made fourteen thousand pounds on rents and properties alone.” Pride leaked into her voice.

He smiled at her, and his eyes crinkled at the corner in such a way that her stomach curled. “Good work, Gina!” He looked back at his drawing. “Let's put some of those pounds into a new bridge.”

“We can't. I've already earmarked all the money not needed for the London house and my allowance for building drains in the village.”

“Fourteen thousand pounds worth of drains? Impossible.”

“It's not at all impossible. I'm afraid that your father neglected the village shamefully during his lifetime. All the cottages were in terrible repair when he died.”

“Dear Father,” Cam remarked. He picked up the quill and began fussing with his drawing.

“In the years that I've been running the estate, I've managed to rebuild most of the cottages, or at least repair them to a livable state. But every extra penny is needed to build some sort of a sewer system.”

She poked him. “Do you know that the villagers were simply emptying their slop into the river? That river flows directly past Girton House
and
close to our well! Last year we discovered that all the trout were dying.”

“Because of the nasty habits of the villagers?” Cam asked rather absentmindedly. The bridge was growing more ornate by the moment.

“In fact, it turned out that the mining projects upstream
were leaking into the river and killing the fish,” she explained. “Mr. Rounton had to serve papers before the miners stopped shoveling ore into our stream. Then when the stream was clear again, I restocked it with trout. Unfortunately, they all died. But Bicksfiddle reports here that there are still living fish in Charlcote Lake, so perhaps it was a matter of—”

He gave her a swift hard kiss.

She stopped in mid-breath and blinked.

“Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are when you talk about trout?”

“Never.”

“You are,” he said. “What do you think?” He pushed the paper around so that she could see.

“Oh,” Gina said, rather lamely. “It's lovely, of course. But—”

“You see, there's a statue of Neptune here.” He tapped with his quill. “And these two are water nymphs. Two more water nymphs over there.”

“Are they clothed?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at the drawing.

“Absolutely,” he said. “You know water nymphs. Never seen abroad without a corset and gloves.” He grinned at her.

Gina bit her lip. “You want to turn the old wooden bridge over the river into a stone bridge guarded by
naked water nymphs
? I suppose that Neptune is naked as well?”

Cam looked forward and peered at his own drawing. “Here.” His quill scratched the parchment for a second. “Now he has an artistic bit of seaweed around his middle.”

“Absolutely not!” Gina cried.

He was wicked,
wicked,
to laugh at her like that.

“You don't understand,” she said. “Girton is a beautiful property, built in—”

“Built just in time for one of Queen Elizabeth's pro
gresses in the 1570s,” he filled in. “I know all that, Gina. A few naked statues will enliven the grounds. They were deadly boring, from what I remember. Is that ghastly formal garden still in place?”

“Yes, it is!” Gina snapped. “And I don't want a thing changed about it. Your mother designed it before she died, and it stays as a monument to her.”

“As if she'd give a damn,” Cam drawled.

“She would!”

“How do you know?”

“Because she didn't have anything else to do. Your father barely let her leave the house, you know.”

“I was too young to realize.” He had pulled forward a new piece of foolscap and was sketching with great concentration.

“I'm certain
she
would never have allowed the cottages to fall to pieces.”

Cam frowned at her. “You never met my mother. Hell, I barely met my mother. Why all the passion over her garden?”

Gina stopped. “After you left, I didn't—I was rather lonely, so I…”

He put his quill down. “What do you mean, you were lonely? Where was
your
mother?”

“She returned home and left me there,” Gina said. “The duke said I had to begin my duties immediately, and you know how he and Mother used to quarrel. I begged him to let her visit more often, but he refused.”

“Damn it to hell,” Cam said. “But you had a governess, didn't you? Pegwell or Pegworthy, wasn't it?”

Gina nodded. “Mrs. Pegwell was a very good woman. She lasted quite a long time as your father's employee, four years, I think. By then I was fifteen years old, and old enough to do without a governess.”

“I feel like a blackguard.”

“Your father was difficult.”

“Not difficult: an utter bastard. I should have taken you out that window with me. I never thought your mother would leave you to Girton's tender mercies.”

“I was fine. What are these blocks?” She pointed at the bridge.

“They're called abutments,” Cam explained. “We can put figures here and here, on the abutments.”

“You cannot ornament Girton with naked people,” Gina said. “I won't allow it, Cam.”

“But that's what I'm planning. Naked Venuses in the front hall. Naked hat racks in every room. Naked Cupids in the dining room.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Impossible. The villagers would be horrified.”

“Not by Neptune and his nymphs,” Cam said, leaning over so he was touching her shoulder. “How would you feel if I changed—”

But Gina wasn't listening. What was it about her husband that made her quake, deep in her stomach, every time he touched her? He was scribbling all over the bridge, his head bent just in front of her. Her whole body tingled with a desire to sink her fingers into his hair. Turn his face toward her.

He straightened. “If we change these arches, Gina…” His voice trailed away.

She swallowed.

His eyes were lit with a deep, sinful amusement. He leaned toward her. “It was the picture of Neptune, right?” He almost whispered it against her lips. “Before I added the seaweed, of course.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she managed.

They were so close that he didn't have to pull her far.
Those big hands simply lifted her up and transferred her to his lap.

“I'm talking about you,” he said, tracing the shape of her lower lip with a finger. “You and the way you look at me.”

“I don't look at you!” she snapped, mortified. She pushed his hands away.

“The same way I look at you. Want to know how that is?”

She shook her head firmly. She really ought to get off his knees. Except she didn't want to. “Of course I don't,” she added, for good measure.

“When I look at you I pretend that you threw out those corsets you were clutching this morning. That would mean that under this cotton dress you're wearing there's nothing but rosy, creamy curves, smooth skin”—he was embellishing his words with kisses—“mmm, lovely breasts, damned if you don't have the most beautiful breasts in England, Gina”—and his hands were following his words.

Except that he stopped talking because his wife had grabbed his hair and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “Shut up”—except that very proper duchesses never say something so impolite. At any rate, it was a good thing he did stop talking because, as Cam had lately discovered, he couldn't put a finger on Gina's breasts without her making little squealing noises that made him crazed with lust.

And when he discovered that she had held to her word, and discarded her corsets, his hands wandered in such a way that the gathered bodice of her gown soon lost its claim to decorum. But he couldn't let his mouth follow his hands because of the inarticulate noises his wife was making, the ones that made him long to do nothing more than sweep up her dress and satisfy both of them.

Of course, if he hadn't been busy stifling all those little
squeals with his mouth and causing new ones with his hands, he might have heard the library door open.

It was really a circular argument. Because if he had heard the library door open, he and his wife wouldn't have been caught kissing by one of the solicitors working on their annulment.

Or, to put it another way, they wouldn't have been caught looking about as close to consummation as was possible while clothed.

“I
gnore it,” Cam advised the solicitor standing in the open library doorway. Lady Troubridge's butler had taken one quick glance and fled the scene.

The young man's face was as fiery as his hair. “I will return at a…a more convenient time.”

Gina wanted to sink through the floor in mortification or, at the very least, drop into a dead faint. But her disobedient heart kept beating in a steady rhythm.

Cam came around the end of the library table, casually rearranging his neck cloth. “I heartily apologize, sir,” he said, bowing. “But I have clean forgotten your name. It must be the excitement of the moment.”

“My name is Finkbottle,” he said. “Mr. Rounton's junior solicitor. We had the pleasure of meeting last week in the
Queen's Smile
.”

“Well, Mr. Finkbottle,” Cam said. “May I have the pleasure of introducing you to my wife, the very one whom I'm annulling?”

Gina dropped into an awkward curtsy. Her knees were still trembling. “I apologize for my disarray. I was unprepared for your arrival.” But that sounded as if she were cast
ing blame on him—something no proper duchess ever did. “It was entirely our fault,” she added. “Please forgive us.”

“May I return at a later moment?”

“No, no. I imagine you've come to speak about—” she stumbled over the words—“about our annulment. Please, do be seated.”

“Mr. Rounton desired me to inform His Grace that your plan to remain in England only a week appears to be inadvisable,” Mr. Finkbottle reported.

“What on earth is taking him so long? The duchess wants to remarry immediately. And I need to return to Greece,” Cam said.

“Mr. Rounton is, of course, aware of your wish to fulfill your commitments in Greece in a timely fashion,” Phineas Finkbottle mumbled. He'd never been much good at fabrications. The duke and duchess's annulment papers were burning a hole in his chest pocket as he spoke. But Rounton's command was clear:
delay
. “I am expecting a communication from Mr. Rounton within a day or two. I am staying in the nearest village and I will—”

“Oh no,” Gina said. “Lady Troubridge will surely be pleased to have you remain here. We wouldn't wish you to be housed in a dreary inn on our account. I insist,” she said, jumping to her feet. “I shall speak to Lady Troubridge at once. Your Grace, Mr. Finkbottle.” She curtsied without meeting either man's eyes and left the room at what she hoped was a dignified pace, rather than an indecorous trot.

“Where did you train?” Cam inquired. “Lincoln's Inn?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Mr. Finkbottle replied. But he seemed reluctant to continue.

“Sergeant's Inn?”

“I trained on the continent.”

“Ah,” Cam replied. He eyed Finkbottle's red hair speculatively.

“Are you French, by any chance?”

“There are Frenchmen among my ancestors.”

“And have you worked for Rounton long?”

“Not very long,” Finkbottle replied, courteously enough.

Cam watched him go with a slight frown. Something about the man didn't fit his prim solicitor's garb. Something awkward in the way he moved, as if he was about to trip over his own feet.

 

E
sme was not particularly happy to find herself seated next to her husband at supper. Lady Troubridge apologetically explained that she was having remarkable difficulty working out an appropriate seating plan.

“The pleasant thing about you and Lord Rawlings,” she confided to Esme, “is that you are so remarkably civil. I'm afraid that does tempt one to seat you together.”

“Miles and I do not hesitate to dine together. He is my husband after all.”

“That's very kind of you,” Lady Troubridge patted her arm. “Yet one hates to force propinquity where none exists on its own.”

“Please do not be concerned,” Esme assured her.

Thus she found herself elbow-to-elbow with her spouse. “Good evening,” she said, accepting a helping of bombarded veal from a footman. “How are you?”

He beamed at her. One could never say that Miles was handsome or particularly gifted, but he had a genuinely kindly disposition. There wasn't a bit of hesitation in his face on seeing with whom he was seated. More the opposite.

“I am quite well,” he answered. “The better for seeing you, my dear. In truth, I've been meaning to ask you this age what you think we should do about the local church. The vicar writes me that the steeple is tumbling down.”

“Oh dear,” Esme said. “I believe he had some eight hundred pounds last year to rebuild the cemetery wall.”

“Was that the amount? I knew there was a substantial sum, but I couldn't remember precisely. Shall we mend the steeple, then? The estate seems quite solvent, goodness knows why.”

“It would be a shame if the steeple fell,” Esme pointed out. It was an example of Miles's innate goodness that he bothered to ask her opinion. In fact, that he kept her as his wife at all. Many a man would have cast her off years ago.

“Are you quite all right, Esme?” he asked. “You don't seem to be as jovial as I am accustomed to finding you.”

“Oh yes,” she said, rather bleakly. “I am quite myself.”

Really, Miles had the kindest eyes she'd ever seen outside the calves' pasture. Unbidden, tears rose to her eyes.

He took her hand under the table. “I may not have been the best of husbands. But I am very fond of you. Is there anything I can do to make you more cheerful?”

“I do have one question,” she said. Yet now that she'd broached the topic, she hardly knew how to continue. To ask such a delicate question here—in company! But a quick glance told her that no one was paying attention. After all, there is nothing more uninteresting than a married couple having a civil conversation.

“I am at your service,” he assured her, patting her hand.

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you still wish for an heir, Miles?”

His eyes widened and he spluttered into speech. “But you—you—you were—”

“I know, I said many things. But I was very young when we married, Miles. I am ten years older now and more aware of my responsibilities.”

“My nephew,” he began and stopped himself. “Are you quite certain, my dear?”

When she looked at his plump face and plumper body, she wasn't at all certain. But how many times could it take? Surely there would be only a few uncomfortable encounters, and then she would have a child.

She clasped his hand under the table. “I would like to make amends for my foolishness years ago, Miles. I had no right to deny you an heir.”

His cheeks turned a little pink. “In truth, my dear, it has been my fondest wish. These past few years I have felt the lack of a son keenly. Except”—he chewed his lip—“I will have to discuss the matter with Lady Childe.”

She flinched. “Is that absolutely necessary?”

“A child will change a great deal in our lives. You and I will have to live together, for instance, once the child is born. I'll release the lease on my house in Porter Square.”

“Could we not continue living as we are?”

“Oh no,” Miles said, with a firmer tone than she'd ever heard from him. “I would have to live in the house and set a good example.” He hesitated. “We will both have to be a good bit more discreet. It wouldn't be right for the child.”

Esme had never been one to overlook the absurd, and she could certainly see it in this conversation. “Perhaps if we maintain the lease in Porter Square, you could, ah, visit Lady Childe there. At the same time that you were setting a good example at home.”

“It would be a delicate situation. She's a wonderful woman, Lady Childe. In truth, she's changed my life. I'm never late—never late anywhere. Why, I actually gave a speech in Parliament last year! She wrote it, of course. So I'll have to bring up the subject gently.” He unthinkingly clutched Gina's hand so hard that it began to ache.

“I am certain that Lady Childe will be understanding,” she said. “She has children of her own, and she must know how important this is to you.”

“Even if she throws me over, it would be nothing compared to the happiness of starting a family,” Miles said.

“My goodness.” Esme looked more closely at her spouse. “I had no idea that you were so attached to the idea of reproducing yourself.”

“When we first married, I didn't give a hang,” he admitted. “But I'm not getting any younger, my dear, and the idea has grown on me. There was nothing I could do about it.” He swooped and suddenly kissed her cheek. “This means the world to me.”

Smiling into his beaming eyes, Esme could see her future changing. No longer a scandalous married woman, she was about to become domesticated, even matronly. She would live with her husband and set a good example, whatever that entailed. Unfortunately, she was not greatly enamored of principled activities.

“Shall we say, in two days?” Miles was asking.

For a moment, Esme had no idea what he was talking about.

“That will give me ample time to discuss the situation with Lady Childe.”

She finally caught his meaning. Apparently domestic life would begin directly after Lady Childe had (presumably) given her approval.

“You're a good person, Miles,” she said. “It is honorable of you to be so forthright with Lady Childe.”

Miles turned the ripe color of an embarrassed Englishman, and mumbled something. Esme let her eyes drift down the long table.

Sebastian was seated next to his betrothed, of course. Gina was laughing delightedly.

And Sebastian…just for a moment, she gave herself the luxury of looking at him. He was bending his head to listen
to something Gina was saying. His hair gleamed in the light of the candelabra.

Her heart thumped unhappily.

She sighed and looked up to find Miles watching her with a look of distress.

“I'm very sorry, my dear,” he said quietly.

She hated it that Miles was not only extraordinarily nice but also perceptive. Far too perceptive for a man.

She managed a weak smile.

“You're a good woman,” he said. “And don't think I don't know it.”

She chuckled at that. “I doubt anyone at this table would agree with you.”

“They would be wrong,” he said. He smiled once again, and turned to his neglected dinner companion to the right.

Esme turned to Bernie. But even Bernie's shoulders held no appeal. Moreover, he was beginning to take on a beaten, petulant air that indicated that she would have to give him his walking papers.

“How was the hunting today?” she said, shaping her lips into a smile.

As she listened to the demise of three grouse, a game hen, and two rabbits, Esme tried to imagine herself in bed with Miles. Impossible. It was literally impossible to imagine. Even ten years ago, they had hardly slept together after the first few weeks of marriage. What had her impulsiveness led to?

But the truth was nestled in her heart. She wanted a baby more than she wished to continue being the scandalous Esme Rawlings. She wanted a baby to nuzzle and hold and cuddle and kiss. She was tired of muscular arms and seductive glances.

The truth was that she would exchange them all for a sweetly fuzzy head. Thinking about it, she smiled at Bernie
in such a way that he forgot his newfound belief that Lady Rawlings was merely toying with him.

“I say!” he said, pressing her hand.

Esme winced. That hand had just been crushed by her husband.

“May I have the first dance this evening?”

A fleeting image shot through her head of the last time she and Miles had danced together. He had floundered about the dance floor like a dying fish. She turned her mind away from the obvious parallel.

“I would be pleased to dance with you. The second dance as well, if you wish.”

Bernie glowed. He'd had the idea lately that Lady Rawlings was too much of a high-stepper for him. Obviously he had been wrong.