When the Duke Returns Page 12

  He really had ignored all her letters, or not received them.

  “We lived in Venice a great deal of the time,” she explained, “as my family is from that city. But my aunt plays the violin, and so we traveled to various European capitals and performed in the courts.”

  “She is a musician? You were travelling around Europe with a performing musician?” Now he looked surprised.

  “We always had enough to eat, Simeon. In case you were picturing her playing for pennies by the side of the road.”

  “Why didn’t you inform my solicitor if you were in that sort of situation? It was utterly inappropriate for a duchess and I would never have allowed it!”

  Godfrey was halfway through his second glass of wine but paused with the glass halfway to his lips. “Did you travel about in fairs?” he asked eagerly. “I love fairs! One came through the village and my mother allowed me to attend. There was a wonderful fiddler named Mr. McGurdy. Did you ever happen to meet him?”

  “No, I didn’t meet Mr. McGurdy,” Isidore said, enjoying herself hugely. “Why Simeon, are you saying that you would have travelled back to England before completing your investigation of the Nile had you known I was in extremis?”

  He gave her a sour look. “I would have instructed my solicitors to find you an appropriate situation if you didn’t wish to return to my mother’s house.”

  “A nunnery, perhaps?” Isidore asked mockingly.

  For a moment his eyes lingered on her chest. “They wouldn’t have had you.” She felt a flare of triumph.

  “Was it hard sleeping by the side of the road?” Godfrey asked. He had finished his second glass and was sawing away at a piece of chicken in a manner that suggested his coordination was impaired.

  “I never slept by the side of the road,” Isidore said, adding primly, “thank goodness.”

  “I just don’t understand this family!” Simeon said, putting down his cutlery. “Isidore, you had access to whatever funds you wished. Not only did your parents leave you a considerable inheritance, but you could have drawn on my funds at any point. Why were you travelling with fairs? Why is everyone’s attitude toward money so peculiar?”

  “Mother doesn’t know you have all that money,” Godfrey said, turning to his brother owlishly. “She thinks we don’t have any.”

  “She knows,” Simeon said grimly. “She sees the books. She simply can’t bring herself to disperse any of it.”

  Godfrey frowned. “You mean—”

  Isidore shot her husband a look. His little brother had the bewildered look of a child who’s been lied to. “Her Grace showed her respect for her husband by continuing to operate the estate precisely as he had done, I have no doubt,” she said.

  Godfrey brightened. “Yes, of course. Father never allowed any untoward expenditures. He considered it a point of honor.”

  “There’s little honor in not paying tradesmen for their honest work,” Simeon said.

  Godfrey looked stricken again. Isidore took another try. “When I visited this house many years ago, I remember being rather surprised by your father’s frugal attitude. But in a frank discussion with your mother, she informed me that he considered himself merely the guardian of the duchy and hoped to pass on his estates intact, without wasting his substance as so many noblemen do.”

  Godfrey reached for the sideboard and the bottle of wine, but Isidore gave him a minatory look and his arm dropped. He picked up his fork, but a moment later Simeon poured wine into all three of their glasses.

  “I would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me how you and your aunt were reduced to busking at fairs, given your birth, not to mention our marriage,” Simeon said, his voice rather chilly. Apparently, it was her fault that at twelve years old she had failed to voluntarily enter a nunnery while waiting for his return.

  “Some say my aunt is one of the greatest violinists ever born,” Isidore said. Godfrey had finished his chicken and looked a little dazed.

  “She must have been better than Mr. McGurdy, then,” Godfrey mumbled. “Though he played a tambourine with his right foot at the same time.”

  “My aunt played only the violin.”

  Simeon put down his fork again. “I have felt as if I were living in two worlds for the past week or so, and this only confirms it. Are you saying that your aunt was in great demand, and you did not travel fairs?”

  “No, we did not,” Isidore said. “She had a long-standing arrangement to join the French court for the Easter season; Queen Marie Antoinette is quite fond of music, you know. My aunt would play solos for her in gardens of Versailles. Sometimes my aunt would steal into the great maze, and then begin to play. The ladies would wander into the labyrinth until they were able to find her by following the sound of her music.”

  “I’d love to see that,” Godfrey said.

  “I should like to play a musical instrument,” Simeon said. “Once I was in an Indian bazaar and heard an old gentleman play a sort of violin-like instrument so beautifully that I began to weep.”

  “To weep?” Godfrey said, his voice breaking in a high little squeal. “You cried, where anyone could see you?”

  Simeon smiled at him. “There’s no shame in a man crying.”

  Nor in being a virgin either, Isidore thought sourly.

  “I think it’s shameful,” Godfrey said. “And do you know, Brother, I think it’s a bit shameful that you’re sitting down to supper without a cravat. Or a waistcoat. Her Grace—” he stumbled a little and slurred it together—“Her Grace is a duchess, you know. You’re not paying respect to her. Or you’re not respectful of her.” He looked a little confused, but stubborn.

  Simeon looked over at Isidore in an inquiring kind of way. “Do you agree with my brother that the size or existence of a cravat determines the respect due a woman?”

  “It would be a start,” she said sweetly. “After that would have to come respect for a woman’s opinions, of course.”

  She had to admit: he was intelligent. He knew instantly what she was talking about. “It’s not that I won’t respect my wife’s opinions—”

  “She is your wife,” Godfrey intervened.

  “But that when it comes to an emergency, one person has to assume responsibility.”

  “An emergency,” Isidore said, ladling a generous dollop of scorn into her voice. “What sort of emergency are you thinking of?”

  “All sorts.” He raised his glass, his eyes dark and somber over the rim. “I have been in enough difficult spots, Isidore, to know that dangers flock from every direction.”

  “For example?”

  “Were you ever attacked by a lion?” Godfrey asked. He was definitely slurring his words. He looked terribly sleepy and slightly nauseated.

  “Not lately,” Simeon said.

  “Godfrey, would you like to retire to my armchair for a moment?” Isidore asked.

  He just stared at her, until Simeon said, “Godfrey.” His voice was quiet, but the authority inherent there was absolute.

  Godfrey stumbled to the chair and sat down, his eyes closing immediately.

  “Is that your example?” Isidore asked.

  “I suppose it could be.”

  “The situation also could have been avoided had you paid attention. The third glass of wine was too much.”

  “It was a matter of male pride. I believe this is probably Godfrey’s first dinner in which he was offered sufficient wine to make himself ill. It is far better that he overindulge tonight and learn from it, than that he do so on a more public occasion.”

  “I don’t agree with you that there must be a general in every marriage,” Isidore said.

  “The commonly accepted idea of marriage,” Simeon said, “is that the man has to be that leader. I have seen a few successful marriages in which the reverse was true. One of the two people must be accepted as such.”

  Across the room, Godfrey was making a heavy breathing sound. She would rather assay her first seduction without a drunken thirteen-year-old in the
corner.

  But Simeon really meant it when he said that they would wait until the night of their wedding. He truly would walk away from her. She had to try something.

  She leaned toward him so that the lush weight of her breasts hung forward. “Would you tell the footman outside the door that Godfrey has fallen asleep?” she said. “Perhaps Honeydew should escort him to his bed chamber.”

  “And clear away these dishes,” Simeon said. He sounded as if she were a remote acquaintance, who had offered him a boiled sweet. She’d heard that voice before. He had a way of growing even more calm, more distant. She’d seen it before…

  It meant he felt threatened.

  Good.

  She leaned back, thinking that her breasts had done their job. “Please,” she added.

  He rose, opened the door to the outside and had a brief word with the footman. A moment later Godfrey walked unsteadily from the room, looking rather greenish.

  “He’s going to cast up his accounts in the bushes,” Simeon said.

  The little house drew around them again, sheltering, sweet, romantic. Then the door opened and Honeydew swept in with dishes of pear stewed in port. He was gone in a moment, leaving them with glasses of sparkling wine.

  Isidore had been flirting for years. She let her eyelids droop and threw Simeon a sleepy glance from under her lashes.

  He was busy cutting up his pear and didn’t notice. She waited a moment but he seemed as concentrated on the pear as if he were boning a pheasant. Fine. She turned to her own pear, trying desperately to think of a seductive topic. Nothing came to mind, so she found herself saying the least romantic thing possible: “When do you think that the water closets will be repaired?”

  “Honeydew and I investigated the pipes today,” Simeon said, looking up. “They are completely rotted. If you can believe it, the original piping was done in wood. Naturally the water rotted them through within the year.”

  “Your father must have been one of the first to install a water closet at all,” Isidore said. “That was rather progressive of him.”

  “It appears from the correspondence I found that he was offered the water closets for a pittance,” Simeon said bluntly. “He was supposed to allow the fabricators to use his name and express his approval. I think they probably discarded this idea when he refused to pay that pittance, saying that the pipes didn’t work sufficiently. After that, the pipes rotted and there was no one to fix them.”

  Isidore finished her bite. “It must be quite difficult to be in a position to judge one’s parents as an adult,” she offered. “Since mine died when I was very young, I knew them only as parents, never as people.”

  “Were they good to you?”

  “Oh yes. They were Italian, you know, so they had a different idea of family life than do many English parents. There were nursemaids, of course, but both of my parents visited the nursery every day. I spent a great deal of time with my mother, in particular.”

  “And when they died, you were sent here, to my mother?”

  “Until my aunt took me away again.”

  “Probably even if your aunt had been busking at the side of the road, it would have been the right thing to do,” he said, putting down his fork and knife.

  “The wife of a future duke playing for pennies along with Mr. McGurdy?” she said, laughing a bit.

  “My mother has a difficult character,” Simeon said. “Your aunt was right. I had no right to criticize her earlier. It is no one’s business how you spent your time with your aunt, and certainly not mine, given my lengthy absence.”

  Isidore was conscious of a warm glow under her breastbone. It wasn’t a seductive glow, though, and some time later her so-called husband began making his way out of the cottage without taking even the smallest liberty. In fact, without a single flirtatious comment.

  “Wait!” she said, when he had a hand on the door.

  He turned.

  She walked toward him, not with her signature sleepy look, nor with a little smile of interest, none of the tricks she had used to reduce men to their knees in the past. Instead she just walked to him and looked up, assessing the strong line of his jaw, the slightly wild cut of his hair, the breadth of his shoulders. He looked like a man, an adult. A grown man.

  It gave her a little pulse of anxiety, as if she’d been playing with boys up until now. There was something different about the intensity and the fire inside Simeon.

  “Will you kiss me good-night, please?” she said.

  “Kiss you?”

  “Yes. It’s customary for married couples.”

  She thought he would say they weren’t married, but he didn’t. Instead, he just moved forward and lowered his head, kissed her.

  It was over in a second. She had a fleeting sensation of firm lips, a tiny scent of something…him…male, slightly spicy. And he moved back.

  She blinked at him, thinking that kissing wasn’t what she expected; it wasn’t as good.

  “Damn.” His voice was quiet, but the night was quiet too.

  “What?”

  “That wasn’t your first kiss, was it?”

  “Actually, it was,” she said. “Though—” She caught the words back. Why had she waited, evaded so many lips, never allowed herself to be kissed? It was nothing. Nothing special.

  But then he moved closer again. “It’s all right,” she said hastily, sensing that he meant to kiss her again.

  This time his arms came around her slowly, and she had time to see the planes of his face, the way he looked straight into her eyes, the way his body loomed over hers…This time when his lips touched hers, they didn’t slide away immediately.

  She had seen kissing. She knew that it was done with open mouths, that it made women cling to their lovers, as if their knees were failing them.

  She knew that, all that, and yet—

  He kissed her hard this time, not a fleeting caress, but a command. His arms slipped past her, braced against the wall, and his body came against hers. She gasped at the strength of it, the heat, and then their mouths were open together. It was like an open flame that rushed through Isidore’s body—the taste of him, the feeling of it, the kiss, his body.

  She shivered, made an inarticulate murmur, a noise, a cry. Their tongues met and sang together. Her mind reeled and she wound her arms around his neck. Gone were all her thoughts of seduction, of fragile English brides.

  “Yes,” she whispered into his mouth, her body against his. Her breasts didn’t feel like large objects meant to attract men now. They were on fire, tingling from where they rubbed against his coat. He pulled her tighter, and another little moan came from her throat. He kissed her hard, pushing her against the wall. She wanted to open her eyes, but desire swamped her, betrayed her voice and her logical mind and her plans. She could only cling to him and kiss him back, her tongue touching his and retreating.

  Growing bolder, responding to the muffled groan that seemed to come from his chest, not from his mouth.

  Finally he pulled back.

  “Was that your first kiss?” she asked, when she could speak again.

  He stood for a moment, the firelight cascading off the gleam of his hair. Half his face was in shadow.

  Finally, he said quietly, “No.”

  “Ah.” She didn’t know what she had wanted to hear. Of course he was experienced at kissing. How could he—how could they have—

  “It was my second,” he said. “The first was a moment or two ago, but I’m not sure they belong in the same category.”

  And then he was gone, the door closing on a swirl of evening air.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Revels House

  March 1, 1784

  The next morning Isidore rose to find a light rain falling. She had a bath, sat by the fire, and read Tales of the Nile while Lucille fussed with her clothing.

  But it was no good. She didn’t want to sit in her cottage while Simeon was off in the main house by himself. She didn’t want to wait for him, like
a docile little mouse waiting for the cat to pay a call, to find time to discuss the end of their marriage. Besides, their marriage wasn’t over, even if he didn’t know it yet.

  A few seconds later she was shaking the rain from her plumed hat, and handing it to Honeydew. “Your Grace,” he was saying. “May I serve you some tea?”

  Isidore shook her head. She was looking around the high entrance hall. It wasn’t in terrible shape, though the marble was cracked, and the paneling on one door looked scuffed. “What happened to this?” she said, walking over to inspect it before she even off took her pelisse.

  “The late duke’s dog was a terrible scratcher,” Honeydew said. She was getting to know him now, and that quiet tone implied severe disapproval.

  “We need some foolscap,” she told him, giving her dripping pelisse to a footman. “And a quill. I shall make lists of what needs to be done, and I might as well start with the entry.”

  She began prowling around the walls, looking at the pictures, the paneling, and the moldings.

  “If Your Grace will allow me to act as your secretary,” Honeydew said in a tone mingled with astonishment and gratitude.

  “Yes, thank you,” she said. She had discovered a small painting next to the door leading to the drawing room. It was hanging askew and its frame was broken. But it was a lovely treatment of a dog with a pigeon. “Is this the dog in question?”

  Honeydew turned from sending one of the footmen running for paper. “Exactly so, Your Grace. The former duke had his dog painted in a variety of poses.”

  “This is lovely,” Isidore said. “Was the artist ever paid?”

  “Yes,” Honeydew said, rather surprisingly.

  Isidore nodded. “Is the duke in his study?”

  “He is working. I’m afraid that the maids discovered a great nest of papers in one of the cupboards in the master bedchamber,” Honeydew said. “It appears they include some bills in arrears.”

  “And the duke’s mother?”

  “Her Grace rarely makes an appearance before late morning,” Honeydew said. “She spends the morning in prayer.”

  Isidore tried to imagine Simeon’s mother praying, failed, and walked into the largest sitting room.