An Affair Before Christmas Read online

  “It seems to me that Fletch’s standards are entirely too high,” Jemma said. “Beaumont and I never showed any sort of ability in bed together, but that certainly wasn’t a source of concern to him.” She stopped short, remembering that their marriage had fallen apart when she discovered her husband making vigorous love to his mistress in his chambers at Westminster. “Or perhaps I just didn’t see it that way. After all, Beaumont had his mistress, though I didn’t realize it.”

  “Before I married, Mama told me that Fletch would have a mistress,” Popppy said. Her voice wavered a little but she raised her chin. “I didn’t think he would because—because he loved me so much. But I expect I can get accustomed to the situation. I can become accustomed to anything. I have, after all, lived with my mother for years.”

  “Listening to you, I could almost be grateful for my mother’s early demise,” Jemma said. “I never really knew her.”

  “My mother loves me. She really does. And she sees in me all the possibilities that she lost when she was forced to marry my father. She says he was never clever, and of course, he wasn’t titled.”

  “A distasteful comment to make about one’s husband,” Jemma said bluntly.

  “She told me once that the cleverest thing my father ever did was die young.”

  “Substitute cruel for distasteful.”

  “But when she took over the estates, she made them quite enormously profitable.”

  “How did she do that?”

  “She enclosed all the land and put sheep in the fields where the tenants used to farm.”

  The fate of the tenants hung in the air between Jemma and Poppy.

  “I am not very good at rebelling,” Poppy said with a helpless little shrug. “I am not a strong sort of person.”

  “You might surprise yourself,” Jemma said. “You are certainly surprising me. And I have no doubt but that your mama is surprised as well.”

  Poppy smiled for the first time. “Horrified.”

  “Good,” Jemma said. “Good.”

  Chapter 16

  June 5

  It was the beginning of June; the Duke of Villiers had been ill over a month. Yet still he tossed on the pillow, his cheeks stained cherry red, words tumbling from his lips like leaves from a tree in autumn. Finchley found himself terrified. He scared off Banderspit, who still wanted to bleed him. He shouted at Mrs. Ferrers when she wanted to give the duke sips of fresh cock’s blood.

  “If he doesn’t come out of this by morning,” the doctor said as he departed, “he won’t come out of it at all. Mark my words. A patient can’t survive with that fever if he doesn’t drink.”

  No one could get the duke to take more than the smallest sip of water. The last real drink he’d had had been during that brief period of sanity when Finchley tried the chess gambit.

  “It’s chess,” Finchley said to Mrs. Ferrers. “It’s the only thing that speaks to him. Listen!”

  Sure enough, the duke, voice cracked and hoarse from talking all night, said, “That’s two pawns in return for the sacrifice…” His hands waved pieces in the air: they had to give him chess pieces or he plucked them from the thin air, and that was so ghoulish that Mrs. Ferrers said it quite gave her a turn.

  “I’m going to fetch the duchess,” Finchley stated.

  “The Duchess of Beaumont? I thought as how you said that the master would never forgive you for letting the duchess see him in this condition.”

  “No more he will,” Finchley said, looking at his master. Villiers’s hair was all sweaty again, his face red and pinched. “But he’ll die soon. I have to try it.”

  He took the duke’s own carriage, and stamped up the steps to the town residence of the Duke of Beaumont. But it wasn’t all clear sailing. “I won’t have that,” the Beaumont butler, Mr. Fowle, said, on hearing his request. “The duke has enough to plague him without his duchess calling on Villiers at his home. Half of London is already thinking that they’re on their way to a tryst.”

  “He’s sick unto death,” Finchley said desperately. “No one could think that.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” the butler replied. “You know perfectly well Villiers could be a corpse in that bed, and the stories will have him doing a lively dance in the sheets. The only thing is to speak to Beaumont himself. Because if the duke accompanies the duchess, why then there’s nothing to it.”

  “Do you think he would?” Finchley said. “You know that Villiers and Beaumont aren’t the best of friends.”

  Mr. Fowle drew himself up. “His Grace may not approve of Villiers’s actions, but he would never desert a man in need.”

  No more would he. A moment later Finchley’s story was tumbling out before the duke.

  “Damn these duels,” Beaumont said. “And damn Gryffyn for challenging Villiers in the first place. Bring me my greatcoat, Fowle.”

  “The duchess?” Finchley asked.

  “The duchess has retired to bed,” Beaumont said. “If Villiers needs to play a game of chess, I’ll play with him.”

  “He must drink water,” Finchley said, feeling desperate. “I tried to play chess with him, Your Grace. It’s not just that he needs to play chess; I’m afraid that no one but the duchess will do. Please, could we rouse her? Please?”

  Beaumont looked at him for moment. “You’re a good man,” he said. “If I don’t have Villiers drinking within the hour, I’ll drive back here myself and cart my wife over to the house. Will that be sufficient?”

  Finchley bowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  It was only a few weeks since Elijah had watched Villiers’s grand entrance to Jemma’s party. But now Villiers’s eyes seemed to have sunk into his head. There was a horrible lividity around his forehead that made the red spots in his cheeks burn brightly.

  The duke walked forward, pulling off his greatcoat and throwing it behind him. Villiers was holding a rook in the air and as Elijah cocked his ear, he heard him mumble something about a backward queen’s pawn.

  “I’ll try,” he had told Finchley. But he couldn’t talk to Villiers, not with a footman bathing Villiers’s forehead, and Finchley breathing heavily to his right, and the house keeper peering in from the stairs. “I’ll ask you all to leave.”

  Finchley started to say something, so Elijah hit him with the look he gave recalcitrant legislators in the House of Lords.

  Once the room was quiet, Elijah pulled the chair closer. “Villiers,” he said.

  There was no appreciable response. “Your Grace!” he said more loudly. “Villiers!”

  “His white queen is being smothered,” Villiers said. He didn’t even glance in Elijah’s direction, just waved the rook in the air.

  Elijah picked up a glass of water and tried to bring it to Villiers’s lips, but the rook struck the glass and he almost dropped it onto the covers.

  “Smothered,” Villiers said hoarsely. “It’s being…” His voice died into a cracked mumble.

  He’s going to die, Elijah thought. Villiers—Villiers, who’s that? They hadn’t really spoken in years, but this was no Villiers. This was Leopold, his oldest, dearest friend. Somewhere under that mop of sweaty hair and reddened eyes was Leo, the first person he had ever loved in the world.

  He put down the glass and snatched Villiers’s rook. That got a response. Leopold’s reddened eyes swung about and he said, “Black is desperate. He has no more checks.”

  “Leopold,” Elijah said, using his most forceful voice. “Leopold, I’ve come to play a game of chess with you.”

  Villiers tried to pull the rook away.

  “That’s my rook,” Elijah said. “I always play white, don’t you remember?”

  For the first time, Villiers’s eyes fixed on him. “Who are you?” he said.

  “Elijah,” he said. “I’m Elijah.”

  “Elijah,” Villiers said dreamily. And then: “Oh no, Elijah’s a duke now. He’s married to a duchess.”

  “You are a duke too,” Elijah said firmly. “I’m come to play chess with y
ou.”

  Villiers struggled to sit up, so Elijah hauled him up on his pillows. “First you must drink some water. Then you may make a move.”

  There was something different about Villiers now; he was inhabiting his own body again. Elijah avoided his eyes and picked up the chess board, swiftly putting the pieces in their places. Then he picked up the glass of water and put it to his lips. Villiers was staring at him over the glass, but he opened his cracked lips—and drank.

  “Who are you?” he said suddenly.

  “Elijah. The Duke of Beaumont.” Elijah smiled a little. “Jemma’s husband.”

  “Jemma doesn’t have a husband,” Villiers said.

  “She doesn’t?”

  Elijah moved a pawn to Queen’s Four.

  Villiers reached out his hand but Elijah stopped him. “Not unless you drink.”

  Villiers took a gulp and then picked up a black pawn. His hand trembled, but he managed to move his pawn to Queen’s Four as well.

  Elijah took out a knight. Once prompted, Villiers drank and then, his hand shaking terribly, managed to move a pawn to Queen’s Bishop Four.

  “Jemma is not married,” Villiers said, when the glass of water was almost gone. “I know she’s not married because she doesn’t look married.”

  “How does she look?” Elijah asked with interest.

  Villiers gulped the last of his water and held out his glass. “I seem to be unaccountably thirsty.” He moved his queen forward.

  Elijah found it rather vexing to realize that he was playing a man who was verifiably out of his mind, and yet that madman was spinning a pretty web around his queen. “Why do you say that Jemma doesn’t look married?” he asked again.

  “She looks like a woman who’s never been properly loved,” Villiers said. “You wouldn’t know this, but she’s actually married to a fellow I used to know.”

  Elijah cast him a quick look, but Villiers was frowning at the board.

  “We’re no longer friends,” he said, making his move and taking an unprompted drink of water.

  “Perhaps the fellow loves her,” Elijah said.

  “Oh no,” Villiers said. “She told me that he loves his mistress, which is a bloody strange thing under the circumstances, but apparently he told her so himself.”

  Elijah ground his teeth. Of course, he had said such a bloody foolish thing but it was years ago. Could it be that Jemma remembered? One had to suppose…

  “I should like to be married to her myself,” Villiers said, sounding quite chatty now that his voice wasn’t so hoarse. He had almost finished the second glass of water, so Elijah poured more into his glass.

  “Would you?” His own voice sounded like two pieces of iron rubbing together.

  “She knows her way around a bed,” Villiers said. “Did you really move your rook to King’s Seven? That was remarkably foolish.” He promptly took the piece. “She knows her way around a bed, and yet she’s remarkably intelligent. I would bed her, but I’m afraid I would lose her. Stupid, isn’t it?”

  “No, why?” Elijah managed. His queen was in danger; he saw his queen was in danger and he could do nothing. Even in a fit of fever and madness, when Villiers couldn’t seem to recognize who he was, he had spun a web of black pawns around him and now a black rook was looming.

  “I want her, but I want her friendship more,” Villiers said. “I’m afraid you’ve lost this game. What did you say your name was? The doctor, aren’t you? I do feel better.” He picked up Elijah’s queen and lay back against his pillows. His eyes drooped closed but he said something.

  “What is it?” Elijah said, bending over.

  “Lord, what fools these mortals be,” Villiers said.

  Could he be quoting from Shakespeare in the midst of a fever? Elijah ventured to put the back of his hand against his forehead and he seemed cool enough. It was Elijah who felt as if he had a fever. A fever of rage.

  Villiers opened his eyes again. “Just be sure to take Betsy out before you leave, would you?” he said.

  “Betsy? Betsy?”

  “My dog,” Villiers said. “She’ll need to go out. She’s been keeping me company.”

  “She’s not your dog,” Elijah managed. “She was my dog, though she died many years ago!”

  For a moment Villiers’s eyes opened all the way and he looked at him. “Why, so she did,” he said, sounding surprised. “Is that Beaumont? Did you keep the dog and the woman as well? Are you married to the barmaid now? Lucky sod.”

  “No, I’m not,” Elijah said. “Drink some more water.” There was something in his voice that seemed to snap into Villiers’s consciousness because he frowned. But he drank the entire glass Elijah handed him.

  Elijah took the glass back, then picked up his greatcoat.

  “If you have Betsy,” came the voice from behind him, “and you have Jemma too, then…then you have everything, don’t you?”

  It was not the first time in Elijah’s life that he realized how unimportant “everything” can feel.

  Finchley was outside the door. “He drank five glasses of water,” Elijah said. “I expect he needs to piss. I’m not prepared to hand him a chamber pot; I’ll leave that up to you.”

  “Your Grace,” Finchley said, and there were tears in his eyes. “Will you come again?”

  Elijah tightened his lips. “If you need me, I’ll come,” he said. “Send me word in my chambers. You say he doesn’t have the fever in the mornings?”

  Finchley nodded.

  “Make him drink five to six glasses of water. Not just sips. He has to drink enough for the whole day.”

  Finchley clasped his hands. “I will, Your Grace. I will. And you’ll—”

  “If you need me, I’ll come.”

  Chapter 17

  July 13

  Poppy wasn’t used to being angry. Now she had a little coal of rage under her breastbone. She’d been nurturing it ever since Fletch sent a note indicating that he intended to pay her a call.

  A call! It had been over two months and her husband had decided to pay her a call.

  What had she done to Fletch that he should be so rude to her? Loved him, that was all. Loved him even when he grew that little beard, and became so bewilderingly elegant, and stopped breakfasting with her.

  There were limits to any woman’s patience. Although patience didn’t seem to be the word for the twist of poker-hot anger she felt on remembering how Fletch smiled at Louise. He smiled at Louise the way he used to smile at her. And then it all dropped away when he saw her, and there was nothing but scorn and dislike in his eyes.

  “He used to love me,” she told her reflection in the glass. It looked back at her, precisely the same face that Fletch first fell in love with. She wore the same clothes—or near enough as made no matter. She maintained appropriate standards when they were married. She tinted her lips before coming to breakfast, and was never seen in dishabille.

  But the weight of Fletch’s silent demands was always with her. More French, she thought. He wanted her to be French, even though she wasn’t French.

  Her marriage had turned out to be just like her relationship with her mother. Her mother’s demands were different. Be beautiful. Be powerful. Be obedient. But the important ones were the ones Poppy could never achieve: you’ll never be as beautiful as I am, her mother had remarked many a time. You’ll never charm men the way I do. I would have married a duke…

  An awful thought struck Poppy: what if she had never been in love with Fletch? What if she had simply obeyed her mother’s command to marry a duke…and he was an available duke? Now she thought of it, Fletch was the only unmarried duke she met in Paris after her debut.

  She didn’t understand Fletch. She didn’t even feel as if she knew who Fletch was—so how could she be in love with him? The awful pressure in her chest eased a little. She had only thought she loved him.

  She had no choice but to love her mother, no matter how badly she disappointed her. But she could choose not to love Fletch, and she c
ould choose to make his disappointment irrelevant to her.

  I need to make my own choices, Poppy thought. Decide for myself. What do I want to do with my days? Never go back to that house, said her heart. Stop trying to please my husband. Stop trying to love him.

  What she really wanted was time to be Poppy, rather than the Duchess of Fletcher. With a sudden rush, ideas crowded into her head: things she wanted to do, books she wanted to read, places she wanted to see. She almost felt giddy with the joy of it. She didn’t need to be a duchess. She could be just herself. Poppy.

  She could live alone. Look at Jemma. Jemma had left her husband and set up her own house. She could do that as well. And she could travel! Giddy images of Paris, the Nile, the wild Americas, came to mind.

  There was a little tap at the door, and her maid said, “His Grace requests your presence.”

  She turned toward her lip color, and dropped her hand. She didn’t love Fletch. She had never loved Fletch. Why should she make herself beautiful for him?

  She walked down the stairs and found she was actually smiling. How long had it been since she genuinely smiled in Fletch’s presence? Probably over a year. She had spent all that time wound tight as a top, trying desperately to figure out how to please him, how to make him love her.

  Walking into the drawing room was a bit difficult because—though it was unimportant, she quickly reminded herself—Fletch was so beautiful. His hair was like ebony, with a sheen like midnight. His nose was straight and his eyes slanted under his eyebrows, making him look just faintly exotic. If he wasn’t so infernally beautiful, he wouldn’t be so demanding.

  “Poppy!” he said, turning around with a frown. That made it easier. He was always frowning at her, and she was sick of it.