When the Duke Returns (6 page)

“Of course not. I was merely explaining my mistaken impression.”

Isidore just stopped herself from tossing her head like an offended barmaid. “During my brief time in your mother's house, she continually expressed her doubt that I would develop the qualities of a good wife. I gather you agree.”

“I'm afraid that she turned her wish into reality.”

“What do you mean?”

“She's written to me regularly over the years, far more so than you have, I might add.”

Her mouth did drop open and she leapt to her feet. “You dare to criticize me for not writing you!”

“I didn't mean to criticize—” Simeon said, rising as well.

Isidore took a step toward him. “You? You who never wrote me even a line? You who sent the letters I did write you straight to your solicitors, since I received answers from
them
? You dare suggest I should have written you more frequently?”

There was a moment of silence. “I didn't think of it in that fashion.”

“You didn't think of it. You didn't think of writing to your
wife?
”

“You're not really my wife.”

With that, Isidore completely lost her temper. “I bloody well am your wife! I am the only wife you have, and let me tell you, annulment will not be an easy business.
What kind of fool are you? When you agreed to that proxy marriage, you agreed to having a
wife.
I was there, even if you weren't. The ceremony was binding!”

“I didn't mean that.”

It only made her more furious that he showed no signs of getting angry himself. She took a deep breath. “Then what precisely
did
you mean?”

“I suppose I have a queer idea of marriage.”

“That goes without saying,” Isidore snapped.

“I've seen a great deal of marriage. And I've spent a great deal of time assessing which marriages are the most successful. It seems absurdly obtuse, but for some reason I thought I had one of those marriages.”

“You just said,” Isidore noted with exaggerated patience, “that we weren't married at all. With whom did you have this perfect marriage?”

“Well, with you. Except it wasn't really
with
you; I see that now. The combination of that miniature and my mother's descriptions—”

“Just what did your mother say about me?” Isidore demanded.

He looked at her.

“You might as well tell me the worst.”

“She never said a bad thing about you.”

“Now I am surprised.”

“She painted you as the very image of a perfect English gentlewoman: sweet, docile, perfect in every way.”

Isidore gasped.

“You are particularly skilled with needlework, and sometimes stay up half the night stitching seams for the poor. But when you aren't engaged in charitable activities, you knot silk laces that are as light as cobwebs.”

“What?” she said faintly, dropping back into her chair.

“Light as cobwebs,” Cosway repeated, reseating himself as well. “I remember actually considering whether I should request further details. I was establishing a weaving factory in India.”

“You were—
what
?”

“Weaving. You know, silks.”

“I thought you were wandering around the Nile.”

“Well, that too. But I'm afflicted by curiosity. I can't go to a new place without wanting to figure out how things are made, and how they might be made better. That leads to shipping them here and there, generally back to England for sale.”

“You're a merchant,” Isidore said flatly. “Does your mother know of this development?”

He thought about it. “I have no idea. I expect not.”

“I truly feel sorry for her. You do realize that I wasn't even living with her during the time when she wrote all those letters describing my domestic virtues?”

“A revelation I find, sadly, unsurprising. I'm afraid my arrival has been a terrible shock to my mother. All the time she was sending me letters about my submissive, chaste wife—”

“I am chaste!” Isidore flashed.

He met her eyes. “I know that.”

A flare of heat went straight down her back to her legs. “So you thought I was a meek little Puritan—”

“Tame,” he said, nodding. There was an annoying hint of a smile in his eyes. “Meek and obedient.”

“Your mother has much to answer for.”

“I formed a picture of our marriage based on that wife.”

“Who doesn't exist.”

He nodded, but his face sobered. “You're obviously far more intelligent than the pliable woman my mother described, Isidore. So I have to tell you that from what
I've seen in the world, the best marriages are those in which a man's wife is—well, biddable.”

Isidore felt her temper rising again but pushed it down. What could she expect? He may not have the outward trappings of an English gentleman, but he was voicing what many a man believed.

“I agree,” she said. “Although I would broaden the category. Were I to choose my own spouse, for example, I would like him to be, shall we say, civilized?”

His teeth were very white against his golden skin when he smiled. “Meek and obedient, in other words?”

“Those are not popular words among men. But I could see myself with a husband who was more quiet than myself. I have—” she coughed “—a terrible temper.”

“No!”

“All this sarcasm can't be good for you,” she said. “You told me in the carriage that you like your every utterance to be straightforward.”

He laughed. “I can see you riding roughshod over some poor devil of a husband.”

“I wouldn't,” she said, stung. “We could simply discuss things together. And come to an agreement that didn't involve my opinion losing ground to his simply because I was his wife.”

“That's reasonable. But the truth of it is that you would smile at him, and crook your finger, and the man would come to you as tame as a lapdog.”

Isidore shook her head. “It's not the sort of relationship you would understand.”

“I shall enjoy seeing you engage in it.
If
we annul our marriage and I can watch some other fellow experiencing it with you. Naturally I would repay your dowry with ample interest.”

So he didn't want to come anywhere near her. Isidore was so stoked by rage that she could hardly speak. She
was being rejected—
rejected!—
by her husband after waiting for him for years. She got up again and walked a few steps away, the better to regain control of her face.

“I think it's important in any relationship that there be a clearly designated leader,” he was saying. “And I would rather be the leader in my own marriage.” Then he added: “If you don't mind, Isidore, I won't rise this time.”

Cosway would rather annul the marriage than marry her.

She waited for that news to sink in, but the only thing she could feel was the beating of her heart, anger and humiliation driving it to a rapid tattoo.

“As it happens,” she said, schooling her voice to calm indifference with every bit of strength she had, “Jemma gave me the direction of the Duke of Beaumont's solicitor in the Inns of Court. I shall make inquiries as to how we go about an annulment.”

There was a flash of something in his eyes. What? Regret? Surely not. He sat there, looking calm and relaxed, like a king on his throne. He was throwing her away because she wasn't a docile little seamstress, because she would make him angry.

Angry—and lustful. That was something to think about. She could unclothe herself right here, in the drawing room, and then he would
have
to marry her, but that would be cutting off her nose to spite her face. Why would she bind herself in marriage to a man like this? With these foolish ideas learned in the desert?

“Why don't we make a trip there tomorrow afternoon?” he was asking now.

Isidore refused to allow his eagerness to visit the solicitor to throw her further into humiliation. He was a fool, and she'd known that since the moment she met him.

It would be better to annul the marriage.

She sat down opposite him, reasonably certain that her face showed nothing more than faint irritation. “I have an appointment at eleven tomorrow morning with a mantua-maker to discuss intimate attire.”

“Intimate what?”

“A nightdress for my wedding night,” she said crushingly.

“If we visit the solicitor first, I would be happy to accompany you to your appointment
.”

Isidore narrowed her eyes, wondering about the look on her husband's face. She was no expert, but it didn't look like a man who was in control of his lust.

There were three things that no man was supposed to act on, weren't there? Anger, lust…and an idea of marriage that included what?

Oh yes.

An intelligent woman within a ten-foot radius.

That must be where
fear
came in.

Gore House, Kensington
London Seat of the Duke of Beaumont
February 26, 1784

“Y
our Grace.”

Jemma, Duchess of Beaumont, looked up from her chess board. She had it set out in the library, in the hopes that her husband would come home from the House of Lords earlier than expected. “Yes, Fowle?”

“The Duke of Villiers has sent in his card.”

“Is he in his carriage?”

Fowle inclined his head.

“Do request his presence, if he can spare the time.”

Fowle paced from the library as majestically as he had entered. It was a sad fact, Jemma thought, that her butler resembled nothing so much as a plump village
priest, and yet he clearly envisioned himself as a duke. Or perhaps even a king. There was a touch of
noblesse oblige
in the way he tolerated Jemma's obsession with chess, for example.

Naturally, the Duke of Villiers made a grand entrance. He paused for a moment in the doorway, a vision in pale rose, with black-edged lace falling around his wrists and at his neck. Then he swept into a ducal bow such as Fowle could only dream of.

Jemma came to her feet feeling slightly amused and thoroughly delighted to see Villiers. She used to think that he had the coldest eyes of any man in the
ton
. And yet as she rose from a deep curtsy and took his hands, she revised her opinion. His eyes were black as the devil's nightshirt, to quote her old nanny. And yet—

“I have missed you during my sojourn at Fonthill,” he said, raising her hand to his lips.

Not cold.

His thick hair was tied back with a rose ribbon. He looked pale but healthy, presumably recovered from the duel that nearly killed him a few months before. She felt a small pulse of guilt: the duel had been won by her brother, after which he summarily married Villiers's fiancée. Much though Jemma loved her new sister-in-law, she wished that the relation could have been won without injuring her favorite chess partner.

“Come,” she said, leading him to the fire. “You're still too thin, you know. Should you be upright?”

“I could challenge you for that insult. I've knocked on death's privy and came back to tell the tale, and you're saying I'm too thin?”

She grinned at him. “Do say that you came to play chess with me? It has been over a month since your fever broke, and that was the length of time for which your doctor issued an embargo on the game, was it not?”

He sat opposite her. She leaned forward, began rearranging the pieces; his large hand came over hers. “Not chess,” he said.

“Not—chess?” If not chess, what? She knew him to be a master at the game, just as she was. What did a master do, but play? “I thought your doctor decreed merely a month without chess; have I mistaken the date?”

He leaned his head back against the chair. “I've gone off the game.”

“Impossible!”

“Believe it. I missed it at first, of course. I dreamed of chess pieces, of moves, of games I played or thought I played. But then slowly the urge left me. I've decided to take another month at least before returning to the board.”

“You're voluntarily eschewing chess?”

His smile was a bit rueful. “I can tell you that it lengthens the days. How do people occupy themselves if they're not chess players?”

Jemma shook her head. “I've never known. So how is the party at Fonthill? Wait! Tell me about Harriet.” And she held her breath, not knowing if Villiers was aware that her friend Harriet was having an
affaire
with the owner of Fonthill, Lord Strange.

“Happy,” he said, “with Strange. But I'm afraid the festivities are dimmed at the moment, as Strange's daughter is quite gravely ill. I felt it was rude to tax the household with my presence under the circumstances, so I slipped away. I shall return in a day or two when, one hopes, the crisis will be over.”

“Oh dear! What sort of illness has she?”

“A fever caused by a rat bite,” Villiers said. “But the girl is apparently quite strong, and the doctor is sanguine that all will be well. Harriet is spending her time in the sickroom.”

“Of course Harriet would do that,” Jemma said. “It's the
affaire
with Strange that I can't imagine. Isidore said that the air scorched around them.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I had no idea that the duchess was so poetic in her assessments. I gather Strange and Harriet are in love, a foreign emotion for me.” His eyes rested on Jemma. “And how are you?”

She smiled faintly. “Not in love.”

“But not unhappy?”

“No.”

He seemed to take some answer from that, perhaps to a question he wasn't ready to put into words, for he nodded.

“So what of our match?” she asked, surprised by her own keen disappointment in his refusal of chess.

“One move a day…that match?”

“Yes,
that
match,” she said. “Do you have so many outstanding matches that you don't remember? To bring it to your recollection, I have won one game, and you have won one game. That leaves one game to break the tie.”

“I
do
remember now,” he said, watching her under his eyelids. “Let me see…if our match went to a third game, the last one was to be played blindfolded and in bed.”

“Precisely.” Jemma folded her hands. “I'm so happy that it's come back to you. I have been training my maid, Brigitte, so she can stand next to the bed and move our pieces appropriately.”

“I did not picture the bedchamber occupied by others than ourselves.”

“Life is positively full of disappointments.”

“Precisely so. I'm sure your maid could use more training. I'd prefer not to play chess for at least another
month. Besides, I must return to Fonthill; I didn't even say goodbye.”

“I feel like an old drunk who'd been sitting on a pub stool next to a man for thirty years, only to be told his comrade has chosen sobriety,” Jemma said, feeling distinctly nettled.

“Chess is better than alcohol…more addictive, more inflammatory, more intelligent.”

She looked at him for a moment, and the edge of her mouth curled up. “You'll play again.”

“I will trust you to wait for me.”

“I was never very good at waiting for men.” Jemma was startled to hear the words come from her mouth. In one sense, she meant her husband. She waited three years for Elijah to fetch her from Paris when they were young, after she had flung herself across the Channel in a rage. He didn't visit until the fourth year, and by then it was too late. She had found a lover, and put her marriage behind her.

Villiers's heavy-lidded eyes dropped. “I, on the other hand, am very good at waiting. For you, Jemma…I would wait quite a long time.”

Jemma woke up. The conversation was happening—perhaps had been happening—on two levels for quite a while and she only now realized it. “Beaumont should be home from Lords within the hour,” she said, watching him. “Will the two of you take your
rapprochement
from the sickroom to a drawing room?”

Villiers smiled faintly. He didn't look in the least disappointed by her implicit rejection, which rankled her. Surely he ought to show more response to the invocation of her husband? “Unfortunately, I have a previous engagement. But I wanted your advice. I may have temporarily lost my interest in chess,” he said,
“but I am compensating by an increased interest in humanity.”

“You?” she asked, startled.

“Yes. I, the eternal bystander.”

“I always thought you found the affairs of others exhausting and uninteresting. My goodness, Villiers, you're not planning to reform? I shall be so disappointed if it transpires that the only reason to invite you for an evening is because you lend an air of respectability.”

“It would be a terrible come-down,” he said thoughtfully. “But in truth, I feel no Puritanical leanings.” There was a flare of something deep in his eyes that made her want to smile back, reach out her hand…

“Do ask my advice, then,” she said. “I'm sure I'm capable of wise pronouncements on almost any subject, and yet no one asks for evidence of my wisdom.”

“Beaumont doesn't come to you with knotty matters of state?”

“Odd, isn't it?”

“You can mock yourself, Jemma, but he couldn't find a better mind to consider those affairs.”

Jemma could feel herself growing faintly pink—and she never blushed. Never.

Of course Villiers didn't miss it. His mouth curled into a mocking smile. “I like blushing,” he said. “Women do entirely too little of it, to my mind.”

“It can be very useful.”

“Useful?”

“There's nothing more disarming than a woman's blush.”

“I'll take your word for it. Most women wear so much face paint that blushing is not an option.”

“I often wear a great deal of face paint,” Jemma said. “Particularly if I think there is the slightest chance that
I shall be shocked. If you are bent on reform, Villiers, I shall take to wearing it regularly.”

“Reform…” he said. “Or not.”

He had so much charm. He'd never wielded it on her like this before. When he smiled at her, it was almost like a caress.

Suddenly she remembered his drawling voice saying that he gave her fair warning that he meant to have her.

She almost shivered. Villiers was beautiful, depraved, tired…her husband's enemy, though she never understood precisely why. She had offered herself to him last year and he had refused on the grounds of being Elijah's oldest friend. And then he had changed his mind.

Now Villiers apparently meant to woo her, if that word was appropriate for a married woman.

She swallowed. She had promised Elijah that her scandals were over. She had come back from Paris to give her husband an heir. She felt dizzy.

Villiers didn't seem to notice her silence. Instead he took out a piece of paper. “Read this, Jemma.”

She opened it. The letter was headed with the Duke of Cosway's crest. “Isidore's duke!”

“He's back in the country.”

“I knew that. Isidore is staying with me at the moment. He left her at a hotel, if you can countenance it, Villiers. A hotel! He left his duchess at a hotel and proceeded to drive to the country to see his mother.”

“I find that story unsurprising, given my acquaintance with him. I actually played a game of chess with Cosway on the deck of some rapscallion prince's boat,” Villiers said.

“On the Nile river?”

“The same hemisphere. If you can imagine, it was twilight and stiflingly hot, around seven years ago, I
suppose. I had decided for a number of reasons that I wished to travel to Arabia—”

She shook her head. “No.”

“What?”

“You wanted to play chess, of course. You had no redeeming reason for your journey, such as a love of exploration.”

His smile was a wicked thing, the kind of smile that lured a woman. “You have me with a pawn, Jemma. I wanted to go to the Levant and play the chess masters there. But it was so damned uncomfortable!”

“Sand?”

“Heat.” He stretched out an arm and looked at his lace. “I am a duke. It has been my charge since I was a mere boy, and while it has undoubtedly spoiled me, it has also marked me. I like to be clean, and I like to dress. Even in my bedchamber, if you can believe it, Jemma, I choose my garments with great care.”

She had a sudden entertaining vision of Villiers wrapped in silk. Instinctively, she struck back. “You are so thin after your illness…I wonder that you do not need an entirely new wardrobe.”

“It is a cruel truth,” he sighed. “I seek to build myself up, of course. I am so hopelessly vain that I could never allow myself to visit a lady's chamber until I am more fit.”

Perhaps that was why there would be no third game in bed. It was to be a long campaign, she thought. The Duke of Villiers was setting himself out to entice her, before he allowed that last game to be played.

Of all the men who had ever assayed that goal, he was the most dangerous.

“So what happened during the chess match with Cosway?” she said, wrenching her mind away from the question of Villiers's allure.

“Oh, he beat me.”

“That must have been disconcerting.”

“Very. I played like an idiot, and I knew why. It was just too bloody hot for an Englishman, though Cosway showed no signs of discomfort.”

“What kind of man is he?”

“Imagine, if you will, a rather magnificent vessel, belonging to the Bey of Isfaheet. There we sat, with a table of tiger-striped wood between us, the chess pieces carved from the same board. The bishop rode on a rearing lion; the queen was an African princess; the rook was a camel.”

“And you were there, in embroidery and lace…”

“The picture of a proper English duke. No one else on board had a fifth of the clothes I did. And yet I had forsaken my waistcoat.” He opened his eyes very wide. “No waistcoat, Jemma.”

“I appreciate the seriousness of your sacrifice,” she said, laughing.

“It was twilight and the air lay on the river—for we were on a river wider than I've seen in England—the air lay on that river like a fat whore on a six-penny bed.”

Jemma snorted.

He looked at her innocently. “Did I say something amiss?”

He was potent…he was so potent in this mood. Wicked and sly and funny. “No,” she said. “Please continue.”

“Every time I reached out my hand to move one of the pieces, drops of sweat ran down my arm.”

“And yet Cosway was not discomforted in the least?”

“Have you met him?”

Jemma shook her head.

“I think it would be fair to say that he's my opposite. No powder. His skin is brown from the sun, of course
and he's muscled to a degree that is vastly ungentlemanly. But I think it's the great tumble of inky black hair, unpowdered and not even tied back, that truly marks him. One can easily imagine him fighting off four or five savages at once.”