When the Duke Returns (27 page)

Simeon met her eyes. “I do like you, Isidore.”

“You know, I really wish I believed you. Alternatively, I wish that it didn't matter to me. But it does. Somewhere in these last ten years we spent apart when we should have been married, I kept thinking about whether I'd like you, but I never considered you not liking
me
, who I am. I suppose it was vanity.”

“I do like you,” he said.

She went on without even hearing him. “It's probably my fault. Maybe I would have been more docile when I was sixteen. But it's too late now. I can't stop being a person just because you want a wife who doesn't speak English.” She whipped around. “What stopped your marriage to the princess?”

“I was promised to you.”

“Correction,” she said scathingly, “you were married to me. But that's all right. As the solicitor so obligingly told us, we
can
have this marriage dissolved.”

“No, we can't. We've consummated it.”

“I am not pregnant,” she said, through clenched teeth. “Not pregnant.”

He almost asked how she knew and the words died in his throat. “Oh.”

“No one need ever know that I foolishly—impulsively as you would no doubt characterize it—took off my clothes before you, inspiring an ill-advised intimacy. My next husband will be understanding, I'm sure.”

“Your
next—
”

Her eyes met his. “You don't want to be married to me, Simeon.”

“I—”

He was destined never to finish a sentence around her. Her eyes were as fierce as those of a trapped animal. “I don't want to have to earn love by giving up my ability to make decisions that determine how I live.”

What could he say to that?

Her lip curled. “There's a woman out there for you. I would say that youth should be a prerequisite for you. Perhaps your mother can find you someone, rather than making up stories about me. I'll leave tomorrow morning.”

“What?”

“In London, I'll inform the solicitor that we're going ahead with the annulment, on whatever grounds he feels will be the most timely.”

“Is there a need to be so hasty?” Simeon said, feeling peculiarly sick.

“Yes. I'm twenty-three,” Isidore said. “Most brides are sixteen, Simeon.
Sixteen
. I'm twenty-three. You'll forgive me if I make haste.”

He grabbed her arm. “You must be insane.”

“Undoubtedly,” she snapped. “Why I didn't annul this marriage years ago is beyond my understanding.”

“You are
mine
.”

“Don't try to act as if I'm a desert princess you can scream at.” Isidore jerked her arm out of his hand.

“You and I—”

“There is no
you and I
.”

“You didn't think so last night.”

“Neither one of us knew anything about bedding until recently,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It's nice that we learned to be together and share reasonable pleasure, but let's not pretend that it was unique, shall we? Likely the next time will be even better.”

Next time?
Next time
? There was a howl in Simeon's soul that would terrify Isidore if she knew. He felt his teeth baring, like some sort of wild animal. She had no bloody idea what they shared. None.

“I don't understand why you're so quick to leave,” he said. “I think you don't like the way you feel about me.”

Her lip curled. “I don't. You're right. I want to admire my husband.”

He ignored that. She had the tongue of an Italian fishwife, but her eyes were saying something else. “You're singing,” he said suddenly.

The note broke off.

“You love me.”

“I don't.”

“You do. You love me.” The certainty of it was in his heart.

When she finally spoke, her voice was gentle. “You probably thought that the princess loved you too, didn't you, Simeon?”

He blinked at her, having forgotten what princess they were talking about.

“Some men are just like that,” she said, almost to herself, her voice lilting as if she were singing, a sad little song in a minor key. “They think everyone loves them.”

“And sometimes a woman thinks that no one could love her,” he said, catching her again as she was about to slip through the door.

“I haven't allowed any men to know me,” she said. “Except you.”

“I love you.” He said it, and knew it was true.

But she didn't act as if she heard. “I'll be in London,” she said. “I'll ask the solicitor to write you directly, Simeon.” Then she brushed off his hand as if he were no more than a passerby and left the room.

He stood there for a long time, thinking about a little girl who had just lost her parents and sang instead of weeping. And a grown woman who didn't believe he loved her, and sang while she spoke. But never wept.

She would understand once she got to London. She would see what they had together.

As for Isidore, she retired into the Dower House's bedchamber and indulged in an angry fit of tears. Why did Simeon have to have those dusky brown eyes, which were too damn beautiful for a man? Somehow it was even more of an affront that he had decided to dress like an English gentleman that morning. It made it harder to think about him as an object of ridicule, a man who trot
ted around the countryside dressed in short trousers, talking about the Middle Way.

It made it harder to scorn him, when he bowed with such easy and impersonal formality, held her gloved hand for just the right amount of time, as if he'd never told her to throw away her gloves.

He was in control again. Hatred of that fueled Isidore all the way to London the next day, all the way to Jemma's house.

Where she discovered a houseful of servants, but no Jemma.

Gore House, Kensington
London, seat of the Duke of Beaumont
March 8, 1784

I
sidore spent the two days before Jemma returned unsuccessfully attempting not to think about her marriage. Or, to be more exact, the lack thereof.

“Simeon doesn't like me,” she told Jemma, once she finally came home. “Well, he may be right. That is, he likes things to be calm and ordered. And I'm afraid I don't take directions—”

“Take directions?” Jemma said, sounding rather stunned. “What sort of directions? And what do you mean, he doesn't like you?”

“He wishes I were someone else,” Isidore said, look
ing about for her handkerchief. “You see, he had the idea that his wife would be sweet and docile.”

Jemma snorted.

“His mother wrote him bundles of letters describing me as some sort of virtuous seamstress, even though I had left her household years before.”

“Lies are never helpful in a marriage,” Jemma observed.

“I suppose not,” Isidore said, wiping away a tear. “But it wasn't my lie. At any rate, I've been a terrible shock to him. I make decisions quite quickly, you know, and I don't always think beforehand.”

“You are darling, if impulsive,” Jemma said.

“That's a nice way to put it. I think Simeon's assessment is more harsh.”

“He's a fool,” Jemma said, interrupting. “But darling, you're going to have to forgive him for that sort of foolishness. It's endemic in the gender.”

Isidore pressed her lips together. “I wouldn't mind, but—”

“He hurt your feelings,” Jemma said.

Tears fell on Isidore's hand. “I've been so stupidly foolish, Jemma, and I think I fell in love with him. But he doesn't even
like
me, I mean, the kind of person I am. And I just can't take that. I feel so hurt.”

Jemma wound an arm around her. “Quite rightly, darling. I like you and love you too, and so does every sane person in Europe.”

“Every time I want to—you know—I feel as if I'm having to seduce him. You can't imagine what that's like, Jemma. It's so humiliating!” Her voice trailed into a sob.

“You mean he doesn't approach you?”

“No. The fi-first time was because I took off my clothing in front of him.”

Jemma laughed.

“And that was your fault! You told me that men don't—well—I can't remember, anyway, you were absolutely right. I took off my clothes, and he couldn't resist me but then he wasn't happy about it afterwards.”

“He wasn't? Are you sure?”

“Well, he was, but then he wasn't. The second time, his brother was staying in the Dower House, so I asked Simeon to go for a walk with me.”

“And you took off your clothing again?” Jemma sounded fascinated.

“No, but I made it quite clear…I mean,
I
had to ask him to go for a walk!”

Jemma was tapping her lips with one finger. “Very unusual.”

“He didn't really ever want to make love to me, but I forced his hand. And now he says that I'm impulsive and I don't obey him. I really think he'd be happier with someone far more docile,” Isidore said. “He would. And he doesn't—”

“Don't tell me again that he doesn't like you,” Jemma said hastily. “I don't believe it for a moment. It sounds to me as if he lost his temper.”

“Oh no, Simeon never loses his temper.”

“Never?”

“Not even when workmen attacked his mother and myself. He didn't show a bit of passion. He was absolutely calm, and he simply knocked out two of them and kicked down the third and—”

“He did?”

Isidore twisted her handkerchief. “And then he said it was all my fault because I hadn't waited for him.”

“How very unpleasant. It sounds to me as if the duke needs to lose his temper, so that he descends from his sanctimonious heights.”

“Oh, he never will,” Isidore said dispiritedly. “Why, I expect that I could kiss another man directly in front of him, and he would just watch me in that unemotional way he has.”

“I'd like to see that,” Jemma said. And then, thoughtfully: “I truly would.”

“What?”

“See you kiss another man in front of your husband—that same husband who thinks that bedding is all a matter of the body and not the heart.”

“He'd probably just turn away. And that would—” Isidore sniffed.

But Jemma's eyes were shining. “It will be good for you too. I think you're letting that husband of yours get away with far too much. He's making you feel small, and less than your wonderful self. He needs a lesson.”

Isidore raised her eyes. “You think—”

“I think,” Jemma said firmly. “It'll be a matter of one beckoning glance and you'll have all the gentlemen you want on their knees before you.”

Isidore sniffed again. “Then why isn't my own husband that way, Jemma? I've tried kissing him, and putting my arms around him like the most frightful hussy, and he just pushes me away.”

“I don't know,” Jemma admitted. “I've never encountered anyone precisely like your husband, Isidore.”

“I suppose I should be glad he's unique.”

“It would be much easier if he weren't,” Jemma pointed out. “I prefer the lapdog model of husband myself.”

Isidore managed to smile at her. “The kind of husband you have, you mean?”

“I didn't say I had one of them. Just that they were enormously appealing.” Jemma's smile was a rueful acknowledgment that her husband, Elijah, had never come at her whistle.

“Lady Farthingward is having a ridotto tonight,” Jemma said. “You can bask in adoration.”

“But Simeon won't be here to see me get kissed. He bid me goodbye, in the politest of fashions. It's been two days and he hasn't come to London.”

“Perhaps not tonight,” Jemma said. “But soon. It won't take him long to think through your final conversation, Isidore. He'll be here.”

 

Simeon didn't come to London that night. Nor the night after, nor the night after.

A whole week had passed.

Fine, Isidore told herself. It was fine. She wanted a man who would care about her. Simeon said he loved her, but she started to doubt her memory. Had he said he loved her? Was it a fevered creation of her brain?

Probably. Because if he loved her, he wouldn't have let her go. He would lie awake the way she did, thinking about the way he smiled, or the way his brow furrowed when looking at one of his father's absurd letters. He would wake damp with sweat, the sheets twisted around his legs, having dreamt that she was caressing him.

She longed with an ache that seemed not in the heart but in the bones, for something she couldn't have.

For a husband.

For wasn't that what she always wanted from him? To be a husband. To come back from Africa, bed her, love her, acknowledge her.

After another week she set her jaw and started looking at men in earnest. There were men, lots of them. All of England seemed to know that her marriage was to be annulled, thanks to the dowager duchess's vivid descriptions of her son's brain fever. Isidore hardened her heart against worrying about what Simeon thought about his mother's betrayal.

He had made his own bed, as the dowager had said. He must lie in it. Alone. Of course, he was likely happy, practicing the Middle Way, organizing the household…

Another week passed. He was never coming. Jemma finally admitted that she must have been wrong.

“It's not his fault,” Isidore said helplessly. The nights of lying awake had clarified things. “He really can't help being a person who hates disorder. I think it must be because he sensed what his father was like, even as a boy.”

“How could he not, given the stench of the sewer?” Jemma said. She had taken a sharp dislike to the entire family. “His mother is extremely common, given those letters she is writing.” The dowager had not been sparing in her description of Simeon's fighting skills. “His father was a complete rotter and cracked to boot. And he is—”

“Don't,” Isidore said swiftly. “Don't.”

Jemma sat down on the bed. “Marriage is an enviable state,” she said. “You will enjoy it, the next time.”

“I've thought so for years,” Isidore said.

“How long will this annulment take?”

“The solicitor says that since His Majesty himself has taken an interest, it should take only a month or so. He already met with the Archbishop of Canterbury, given the king's request for prompt action. Lady Pewter annulled her marriage in a month once her husband started dressing in women's clothing on the open street. The solicitor sent a note that he will like to visit tomorrow. I expect he has news on that front.”

Jemma nodded. “Is Cosway aware that matters are moving so quickly?”

It was all so humiliating. “I expect so.”

“Then it's over.”

Isidore could feel her body drooping, like a plant without water. Which was foolish, foolish, foolish. “I feel like taking to my bed and never getting out,” she whispered.

“I can understand that,” Jemma said.

They sat in silence for a while.

“It smells,” Jemma said, finally. “I don't mean the water closets, Isidore. I mean your husband. There's something off here.”

“You know what I don't understand?” Isidore said. “He said that he loved me. He
said
that.”

“You never told me that before!”

“I didn't believe him.”

“You should have believed him,” Jemma said. “Men never say that sort of thing unless they mean it. They have rigid defenses prohibiting displays of emotion.” She was smiling. “He is just being a fool.”

“He's not a fool,” Isidore said.

“He doesn't know what he wants. Well, I expect he knows just what he wants, but he's afraid to reach out and take it.”

“Simeon is not afraid of anything,” Isidore said, almost sadly.

“He's afraid of you.”

Isidore snorted.

“He's afraid of you because his mother is an old cow who is telling all of England that he's crazy. And his father was even worse, with all his mistresses, and irresponsibilities.”

“That has nothing to do with me.”

“Then why didn't he come back, all those years, when his mother was writing him letters describing the paragon waiting for him at home?” Jemma pounced.

“Because he was looking for the source of the Nile,” Isidore offered.

“Nonsense! Years passed. He could have nipped back here, snatched you up and taken you back to die of a Nile fever. He could have come back here, annulled the marriage, and returned to paddle around the river some more. He never came back.”

“I'm aware of that,” Isidore said, thinking that Jemma could be awfully dictatorial at times.

“I think that he's afraid to own you. To own anything.”

“He doesn't
own
me,” Isidore said, with dignity. “I am a human being, not a heifer.”

Jemma waved her hand. “Think like a man, Isidore. Think like a man! I expect he never really wanted the paragon. You saved him from the tiresomeness of perfection.”

“I'm too much,” Isidore said glumly.

“I think you may have been just a wee bit overbearing,” Jemma said. “Men like to conquer, you know.”

“It's so stupid,” Isidore said, feeling tears prick her eyes. “If I understand you, you're saying that he's throwing me away like yesterday's tart simply because he finds me too overbearing. I—I—” She meant to say that she deserved better, but she forgot the sentence and floundered into tears instead.

“He needs to take charge. That's why he tried to redo the wedding. That's why he hasn't come to London, because it would mean following your whistle. He's no lap dog.”

“No,” Isidore said, sniffing.

Jemma was smiling. “We have to make him understand what he might lose.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I found that my husband had a mistress, I packed up my bags and fled.”

Isidore narrowed her eyes. “I'd kill him first and then flee.”

“That's always an option, of course,” Jemma said.

“But with the wisdom of hindsight, I think I should have just given Elijah a taste of his own medicine.”

“You should have taken a mistress? Or a—what would the word be?”

“A lover. I have decided in the years since that perhaps had I flaunted a lover before Elijah in the early days of our marriage he might have cared.”

“Why?” Isidore bit her lip. “It doesn't seem logical, Jemma, though I wish it were true. If the only concern your husband had was to do with his heir, I really don't see how three years one way or the other would change things.”

“I know much more about men than I did. I was
his,
when we lived together in London and were first married. Three years later, he'd practically forgotten about me. Men do that. If you allow Simeon to return to Abyssinia and start rootling around looking for another river basin, he'll forget you.”

Isidore felt tears welling up in her eyes.

“And you don't want that,” Jemma said gently.

“It's so awful!” Isidore said, drawing a ragged breath. “I—I—”

“I fell in love with Elijah, who didn't show any interest in returning the favor. It took me forever to get over it.”

“I'm afraid I never will,” Isidore said shakily. “It's the most ridiculous thing in the world. It's just that I love the way he's taken on the house, and doesn't even blame his rather hateful mother, or his father, who was a positive criminal! I know he didn't like the way I dashed into things, but I thought…”

“I expect he's madly in love with you,” Jemma said consolingly. “Who could not be?”

“I just can't let him return to Africa,” Isidore said. “And I don't want to marry anyone else!”