When the Duke Returns (14 page)

“Did your wife lose a baby?” Isidore asked.

“That depends on how you see it. She kept the baby with her, so I never saw the child.”

Isidore looked at the dirt floor because there was too much pain in his eyes. But: “So the baby wasn't born?”

She didn't glance up, but his voice continued, rough with that sort of male anger that accompanies pain. “Joan labored for two days. I found the surgeon from the next village, Pasterby, forced him to come. It was too late.” Still not looking, she heard him get up and clump to the wall to fetch the horseshoe.

He put it down on the anvil and struck it with the hammer, a gentler, quieter blow than earlier. “She might have died, even with a midwife here.” Another thump of the hammer. “But she died alone and in pain, while I was riding over to the next village. And for that—”

“She knew you were coming,” Isidore said. “That you were trying to help.”

“For that I pissed on the duke's marble coffin,” the smith said. He turned to her. “And for that I almost killed his daughter-in-law.”

Isidore nodded.

“Aren't you going to have a hysterical fit and scream your way out of here?”

“I'm learning so much,” Isidore said. “I'll send Honeydew to polish the family tomb directly.”

There was a moment of silence and then he made a strange barking sound. Isidore was trying to blink away an errant tear and didn't realize what the sound was, until she understood he was laughing. And laughing.

Isidore rose and brushed off her back of her pelisse. “Mr. Pegg, I need someone to help me.”

He stopped laughing and looked at her. “I suspect you would not be surprised to hear that I require all duchesses to pay beforehand.”

“The vicar reports that he has many graves without stones, as people haven't been able to afford them. I told him that the Duke of Cosway would be righting the cemetery, and making sure that each grave has a proper memorial.”

He looked at her. “My Joan has a stone.”

She nodded. “Will you help me make sure that everyone who was not as lucky as Joan gets a stone?”

“Lucky?” he said. And snorted.

“Lucky,” she said. “Unlucky in some ways, lucky in others.”

“Christ,” he muttered. “A philosophical duchess. That's just what this village needs.”

“Philosophical and rich,” Isidore said.

He got to the door before her and pushed it open. “As I said, Your Grace. Just what this village needs.”

Revels House
March 2, 1784
The next day

T
he man from London had bulging eyes that reminded Simeon of a tree frog he'd seen in Morocco. He had on a wine-red velvet waistcoat that must have belonged to a nobleman at some point. It strained over Mr. Merkin's impressive stomach.

“Yer Grace,” he said, bowing as much as his stomach would allow.

“I am very grateful for your assistance with this problem,” Simeon said.

“Sewers is my business,” Mr. Merkin said. “There's no one who knows the inside of a sewer better than I do.”

“It's not really a sewer,” Simeon said. “My father put in a water-pumping system—”

“Sewer,” Mr. Merkin said cheerfully. “Just because it don't work so well doesn't mean it's not a sewer. I can smell its perfume, so why doesn't your butler here show me the place and I'll do an assessment.”

Simeon stood up. “I shall accompany you myself. I am curious about the solution.”

“I can tell you on the hoof,” Mr. Merkin said, taking a generous pinch of snuff as he led the way out of the room. “I've seen this over and again. It's meant to flow, and it ain't flowing. You could do dirt, but you han't done dirt.”

“Ah,” Simeon said.

“Have to pipe it,” Mr. Merkin said.

“I'm not sure I follow the question of dirt?” Simeon said.

They arrived at the door to the first-floor water closet. Honeydew, with a look of fastidious agony, directed a footman to remove the felt blanket that had been tacked tightly to the wall so as to cover the entire door.

“This'll be the heart of it,” Mr. Merkin said. “The rest of the closets feed into the pit here. I'll send the men in. We'll have to clean it all out; you do realize that.”

“I had hoped so,” Simeon said.

“We have to take it out through the front door,” Mr. Merkin said. “There's them as has palpitations at that thought, but there's no other way to do it. The pipes are blocked; we need to clean it out right good and then pull all the pipes and replace them. They'll have fallen to bits.”

“Perhaps we should simply—”

The footman pulled down the last corner of the green felt and opened the door; without thinking, Simeon fell back a pace. The smell reached out to greet them, as thick and loathsome as a London fog. It felt like something that had weight and mass. Perhaps even life.

Mr. Merkin walked forward as if he smelled nothing.

“Your Grace need not follow,” Honeydew said, with a note of conscious heroism in his voice. “I will accompany Mr. Merkin and ascertain if he needs assistance.”

“Could it be that something died there?” Simeon asked, feeling himself turn pale. “I once came on a village ravaged by the plague and the odor is disconcertingly similar.”

“Always a possibility,” Merkin called back. “Rats need air like anything else. If one fell in, it'd be dead within minutes. I'm just—” there was the sound of wood shattering—“removing the seat so I can see the size of it.” He backed out a moment later and Simeon was oddly gratified to see that he was mopping his forehead with a red handkerchief. “That's a bad one, that is.”

“How can you possibly clean the pit?” Simeon asked.

“Oh, my men will do that. We'll set up a dumbwaiter and take it out in wheelbarrows. Your man said you wanted the best, and you've got them. I brought the Dead Watch with me.”

Simeon backed up as Honeydew closed the door to the water closet, with the air of someone shutting the door on a wild animal. “What is the Dead Watch?”

“The Dead Watch,” Merkin repeated. “London's finest. You're paying them double, of course, but it's worth it. Penny wise, pound foolish, I always say. The lads will be down there in a thrice and clean it until it sparkles like a plate. You'll have to maintain it, of course, Yer Grace. No more of this foolishness. You'll need me to check your pipes every three months; fresh water twice a day. I can lay it all out with your butler here. If you love your sewer, it'll love you back.”

Simeon could hear Honeydew making a sound like a rusty grate, which he thought indicated some reluctance to love the sewer. “The Dead Watch?” he persisted.

“The part of the Watch that cleans up the dead,” Merkin replied. “The floaters, in the river, of course. But there's them as get stuck in a house and no one finds them. There's the murders, of course. The Dead Watch doesn't do your ordinary killing. But a truly nasty one? They're the men for the job!”

His cheerfulness made Simeon feel a bit ill.

“I always use them for this sort of thing,” Merkin continued. “They're down at the pub, waiting for me, Yer Grace, and if you'll excuse me, we'll start on the job.”

“Of course,” Simeon said.

“I'll be putting a pipe down there first. I have to get the gas out, or me lads will keel over. No air. Then yer butler and I will be figuring out the way to get the muck out of the house with the least fuss. And I'll be asking yer Grace to leave.”

“Leave? I can't leave, I—”

“Leave,” Mr. Merkin said. “You seem to be stomaching the smell all right now, but this is nothing. You'll have to be out of the house tomorrow morning and not come back til the day after, Yer Grace. And that goes for all the maids and everyone else as well. The butler can stay with me, and make sure that the silver stays in its place.”

Simeon heard a little groan from Honeydew's direction.

“We'll open the house up and pipe all the gas out. It'll take a day and a night, maybe two days. We'll go down there, empty it out, and wash it. Then I'll replace the pipes, but that's a different matter.”

“Will you go down in the hole yourself?” Simeon asked, unable to imagine the gaudy Mr. Merkin making his way down into a pit.

“No, no,” Merkin said impatiently. “I've the Dead
Watch for that. In the normal run of things I use a couple of mud larks. Now I need to take my leave, Yer Grace. If you'd be out of the house by morning, I'd be obliged. As you can imagine, the Watch may well be needed in the city any day, so I need to start.”

He paused and hauled down his waistcoat so that it covered his stomach better. “Now I've one more thing to tell you, Yer Grace. The Dead Watch ain't my servants, and I can't speak for their behavior.”

“What worries you about them?” Simeon asked.

“Thievery worries me. I know my mud larks.”

“Mud larks?” Simeon interrupted.

“Lads who grow up in the mud of the Thames,” Merkin said impatiently. “I pick the best of the lot and my lads don't thieve. But the Dead Watch are pirates. They go where no one else in the city will go. They do the tasks that no one else will do. They think themselves as outside the law, see?”

Honeydew made a groaning sound.

“You need them, Yer Grace, cause I ain't going to get anyone else down there to clean out that muck. They're the only ones.”

“Even if we paid—”

“There ain't enough money in the world. Besides, chances are if I sent one of my larks down there, the poor fool would die and then I'd have to cope with a dead body on top of it all,
if
there ain't one down there already. That's a worrying smell you have down there, I don't mind telling you.” He swung about and peered at Honeydew. “Anyone missing from the household in the past few years? A housemaid run away without notice, that sort of thing?”

Honeydew drew himself upright. “Absolutely not.”

“Good. There's gas down there, understand? Not air. The Dead Watch, now, they have lungs made out of
steel. I've seen them in action and they go where no one can go, down in the Thames, for example, holding their breath longer than a man should.”

“Honeydew,” Simeon said apologetically, “we need that pit cleaned out, no matter how much it disturbs the household.”

“They're used to going into a house where a man has been dead for a month or two,” Merkin continued, hooking his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and rocking back and forth a bit. “They take whatever money's on the corpse, and see it as their due. Same for a floater. If they pick up a knickknack or two in a house of that type, who's to bother? There's no relatives, see? Otherwise they would have found the poor dead soul before he moldered away.”

“Absolutely,” Simeon assured him.

“I'll move everything to the barn,” Honeydew said. “And guard it.”

“That'll do it,” Merkin said. “They're not really robbers.”

“Just thieves,” Honeydew put in.

“They might pick up a thing here or there, something left before their eye, but as I say, Yer Grace, they're doing a job as no one else will do.” He turned. “Now, if you'll forgive me, I've got to make arrangements. Mr. Honeydew here showed me where the pipes come out on the hillside. We'll be pulling them from that direction, at least till they break in our hands, while the Dead Watch is doing their job.” And with that, he left.

“I'll stay in the house, Honeydew. You can put the silver in my study. I'm just turning the tide with my father's papers.”

“There's a nice desk in the Dower House,” Honeydew said soothingly. “I'll have all your papers transferred there immediately. If Your Grace would excuse me, I
have a number of arrangements to make. I don't trust those miscreants anywhere near the silver. It must be removed from the house. That and everything that could be fenced.”

Simeon walked back into his study and sat down. He had left a complicated letter from Mr. Kinnaird open on his desk. He tried to return to its detailed description of the state of the townhouse on St. James Square. Water had broken through the roof and seeped into the attics; rats had made nests in the kitchen…

The smell of the sewer seemed to cling to his skin. He sniffed his sleeve, but it was his imagination. Or—

He stood up. He had had a bath two hours ago, but it was time for another.

Revels House
March 2, 1784

I
sidore entered the house in the late afternoon to find servants scurrying this way and that, their arms full of ornaments and small statuary. Finally she discovered Honeydew, directing traffic. “What is happening?”

“The sewer will be cleaned,” Honeydew said. “By people from London who have requested that we vacate the house. The dowager duchess refuses to leave.”

“Ah,” Isidore said.

“Master Godfrey has been dispatched to spend a night or two with the vicar. The vicar is a Latin scholar, and Master Godfrey needs to refresh his skill since he will be going to school.”

“Should I speak to the duchess?” Isidore asked, only
belatedly thinking that it was an odd thing to ask a butler. But Honeydew was something more than a butler.

“I believe that would be inadvisable,” he said without blinking. “If Her Grace has decided not to leave her rooms, she will not leave her rooms. If you will forgive the presumption.”

“I'm sure you're right,” Isidore said. “Where might I find my husband, Honeydew? I want to speak to him about my trip to the village yesterday.” She loved using that word,
husband
. It made her whole tenuous situation seem less so, though how the use of one word could do that, she didn't know.

“In his chambers, Your Grace.”

“Oh.” She paused.

“He's merely checking on some papers,” Honeydew said. “You may enter at will, Your Grace, and you won't disturb him. Now if you'll excuse me.” A footman struggled by with a tub filled with silver candlesticks. “We're removing everything for safekeeping. I must supervise—” And with a hurried bow, he left.

Isidore walked up the stairs, came to the door of the master bedchamber, and pushed open the door. Simeon wasn't working on papers.

He had his back to her. It was naked.

It was a beautiful back: strong and muscled, and that same golden toast color as his face. Isidore froze in the doorway. As she watched, he reached out for a ball of soap perched on a small table to his left. Water slid over his skin, chasing the hollows of muscles as he flexed, running his right hand up his left arm. Individual bubbles slid over his skin like small kisses.

The air smelled spicy and sweet. She'd never smelled perfume on his skin, not that she'd really had the opportunity to smell—

He ducked his head forward and then raked his fin
gers through gleaming wet, clean hair. Isidore didn't breathe as he braced his hands on the sides of the tub and stood up.

His body wasn't at all like hers. She was all curves, the gift of her Italian mother. Depending on how tightly she laced her corset, her waist was small, and then her breasts and hips swelled above and below—not gently, not in a slim, English style, but with a lush Latin bountifulness.

Nothing was lush about Simeon's body. It was all rippling muscles, even his bottom. As he stood, the last bubbles ran down his back, down his legs. His bottom was hollowed on the sides. Her fingers twitched and she suddenly realized that, in her imagination, she was tracing the bubbles, down over the muscles of his back that rippled as he reached for a towel. He bent forward…perhaps it was the running that gave him such large thighs? She'd heard of men padding their pantaloons to give themselves bulk. Simeon had the muscles of a dock-worker.

He had one foot out of the bath now, and was drying off his second leg. She started to move soundlessly backwards.

“Don't leave,” he commanded, not turning his head.

He must have noticed the door open, and probably thought she was a footman. She stepped back again and began to ease the door shut.

“Isidore.”

Her mouth fell open.

Moving with his usual thoughtful control, he wrapped the towel around his waist and turned around. Isidore snapped her mouth shut.

“I am sorry to have disturbed your bath,” she said, keeping her voice even. “I wished to speak to you about your mother's refusal to leave the house.” She swallowed.
He didn't have a mat of hair on his chest. She could see the shape and size of each muscle, see the way the human body was designed to be.

“How did you know I was there?” She forced herself to meet his eyes. Of course, they were utterly calm, unreadable.

“Your scent,” he said.

She cleared her throat. “Your soap has a very interesting odor.” That was such a stupid thing to say. The words fell into the air between them. Obviously, this was a perfect opportunity to seduce Simeon.

“Cardamom,” he said.

“I suppose you found the soap in the East somewhere?” She sounded like a fool, Isidore thought desperately.

“India,” he said. “It's a spice used in cooking as well.”

“Interesting,” she managed.

The white towel settled a little lower on Simeon's hips and without thinking she looked toward the movement and then jerked her eyes back to his face. He was just looking at her with a pleasant inquiry, as if they were in the drawing room, and he'd asked whether she would like a cup of tea.

She couldn't seduce him. She didn't have the faintest idea how to go about it, and what seemed easy when she was in London wasn't easy at all. He didn't seem the least interested in the fact that she was in his bedchamber while he was nearly unclothed.

Besides…

He was so large. Everything about him was big, from his shoulders to his feet.

She dropped a curtsy, taking refuge in formality. “I beg you to forgive me for interrupting your bath,” she said, backing up one step and then whirling so she could
leave. She shut the door so fast that it slammed a bit, the sound reverberating down the corridor.

Inside the room, Simeon unclenched his teeth and then threw away the damned towel with a muffled curse. She hadn't seemed to notice the way it tented in the front, though she had certainly seen how close he was to utter loss of control. She had fled as if a horde of desert tribesmen had brandished their swords at her.

He glanced down at his personal weapon and then dropped into a chair. Christ, this was a mess. He didn't dare touch himself for fear he would explode. He had been sitting in the bath, thinking of her: the way her hair gleamed like rumpled strands of black silk, waiting to be woven into the kind of garment a man could bury his face in, stroke his cheek, other parts of his body…

His blood had been raging through his body already when he heard that light knock and then, before he could gather his wits, the door opened and it was she. He knew instantly, of course. Who else in the household smelled of jasmine, like a poem in flowers? Even with the house reeking of sewage, he knew when she was near because her scent came to meet him.

But Isidore's real scent wasn't jasmine. Her scent was under the fresh, clear call of the flower, something that teased his senses more than any perfume, made him think deliriously of burying his face in her hair, of kissing her skin, licking her from head to foot.

Embarrassing. That's what it was.

She was like a firebrand, burning more brightly than any woman he'd ever known. He could accept this marriage—and spend his life circling around her, like a tribesman with a precious donkey, trying, trying to keep her from being stolen.

Did he have any choice?

A man always has choices. If you tell yourself you have no choice, you lie…you lie in the worst possible manner: because almost always a man who tells himself that he has no choices has already made up his mind to the wrong choice
. Valamksepa's voice sounded hateful in his ears, even as he recognized the truth of it. Of course, he had a choice. He knew that he could have the marriage annulled, just as the solicitor admitted, and damn the laws of England. He wasn't a duke for nothing. As the highest in the land, just under royalty, he could wield his money and power like a club and achieve what other men were unable to do.

But was that the right thing to do? Was it the ethical thing to do? Isidore would no longer be a duchess. But then, it rankled him to hear that she had ever introduced herself as Lady Del'Fino. She was—

He pulled himself back together, realizing that he was clenching his teeth. She was only nominally his. Nominally.