When the Duke Returns Page 17

He thought about that.

  She thought about the fact he had to think it over, and decided to try to stop using her favorite epithet, bastardo. Though it reminded her of her mother, a good Catholic woman…

  “On occasion,” he decided.

  “What sort of occasion are we talking about? Is this a lion-chasing-man occasion, or a hit-elbow-on-doorframe occasion?”

  There was a glimmer of a smile in his dark eyes and she thrilled to it like an Italian hearing an opera. “Lion-catches-man occasion.”

  She quirked up the corner of her mouth. “I thought so.”

  Just like that, his eyes went serious again. “If you’re prepared for all eventualities, there’s no need to react with fear or anger to the unknown.”

  “Because there is no unknown?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So you’ll never shout at me?”

  “I hope not. I would be ashamed to shout at my wife. Or at an underling of any kind.”

  Isidore’s brows snapped together and her back straightened all by itself. “An underling of any kind—one of those kinds being the spousal variety?”

  “There’s nothing unusual about my position on marriage, Isidore,” he said. “I do not mean any lack of respect. From what I’ve already learned of you, I think that you are better at managing people, better read, and more generous than I am. I would be honored to serve under you, were you the captain of a ship.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “But I am worried.” He seemed to be picking his words carefully. “It would not have been my choice to throw money in the direction of Mopser’s store.”

  Isidore stood up and then said, “In addition to paying him for the wool, I also gave him twenty-seven guineas.”

  Simeon’s mouth fell open for a moment. “You—what?”

  “I gave him twenty-seven guineas. For delivering the wool.”

  “You—you mean ha’pennies, don’t you? You gave him a—you gave him twenty-seven guineas?”

  Being a great screamer herself, Isidore had never believed anyone who claimed never to shout. She whipped around. “You’re howling at me,” she pointed out, with some satisfaction.

  Simeon had surged out of his chair, but he caught himself. His voice calmed, but his eyes were searing with anger. “Do you know how much money twenty-seven guineas is?”

  “You never returned to claim me as your wife,” she said. “Therefore I took over management of my estate when I turned nineteen.”

  Simeon stared at his wife. “I’m proud of you,” he said woodenly. This was a disaster. A total disaster. Isidore was like a walking version of a succubus, the kind of woman who twisted a man’s resolution and manliness and turned him into porridge.

  “You’re not proud of me!” she shouted at him. Suddenly she sounded much more Italian than she normally did.

  He pulled his mind away. So what if her voice had a kind of husky tinge that made him quiver, like a dog hearing its master? That was it, exactly. She was going on about her dowry.

  Simeon took a deep breath, centered himself, reminded himself that he was nothing more than a small pebble on the shores of eternity.

  “I apologize for not returning and taking care of your dowry myself,” he said.

  “It wasn’t just my dowry!” she shouted.

  “You’re raising your voice.”

  “So are you! And it wasn’t just my dowry. I inherited my parents’ estate, you cretin.”

  “Cretin?” he said slowly.

  “Cretino!” she said. Clearly, she had completely lost control. There were inky black curls flying around her head, and she actually pointed a finger at him, as if she were his governess. “Just what do you think I’m talking about?”

  “Your dowry,” he said, pulling his mind back on track.

  “Thirteen vineyards,” she said, walking a step toward him. “A palazzo in Venice, on the Grand Canal, a house in the mountains outside Florence that my mother inherited from her grandfather, a Medici duke, and a house in Trieste that belonged to my great-grandmother on my father’s side.”

  Simeon opened his mouth, but she walked another step toward him. Her eyes were glowing with rage. “In all, I employ over two hundred underlings.” Her voice was scathing. “None of them live in houses filled with the stink of excrement! None of my houses are surrounded by withered lands. None of my bills are unpaid! None of them!”

  The truth of it felt like a blow. “You’re right.”

  “Those bills should be paid as a gesture of good will, and because at this point you cannot ascertain who is swindling you and who is not. And let me remind you, Simeon, that your father is the swindler in question: it was he who ordered goods and services, and never paid for them.”

  “I never—” He stopped. “I didn’t think of it in that light. I should have known that my mother was unable to run this estate. Had I paid more attention to my solicitors’ letters, I probably would have discovered that my father had lost his mind.”

  The anger in her eyes turned to sympathy. He hated that. In fact, he hated her. He bowed. “If you’ll forgive me, I have an appointment.” Then he turned and left, not waiting for her permission.

  He headed straight outside. It was raining, but the air smelled sweet and clean. Birds were ignoring the rain and singing anyway. A footman tumbled through the door behind him, bleating something about his greatcoat. He ignored him and headed into the dilapidated gardens.

  There was a scamper of feet behind him and he turned around, ready to snap a reprimand. Honeydew had to learn his place—

  But it was Isidore.

  She was trotting down the path after him, holding an absurdly coquettish, pink, ruffled umbrella in the air. Her hair was still in disarray, and little ringlets bobbed on her shoulders as she ran toward him. He almost stepped off the path, behind a bush, but he stopped himself.

  She skidded to a halt in front of him. He braced himself, but there was no sympathy in her eyes. Instead, she looked rather annoyed.

  “I think we have to make a rule,” she said.

  “What?” His lips felt numb. He felt slightly unbalanced. He often felt like that around Isidore. “What sort of rule?”

  “No walking out and leaving a person in the midst of an argument.” She tucked her arm into his and cocked her umbrella. Her face was shiny with rain. A drop ran down her cheek.

  Simeon put a finger on the raindrop and brushed it away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “So am I.”

  “I expect it was wonderful in Africa, away from here,” she said.

  Simeon sighed inwardly. From the sympathetic strain in Isidore’s voice, she was clearly coming to understand the reasons that he fled to the East the moment he turned seventeen.

  “I don’t walk out in the rain,” he said, all evidence to the contrary. “I am practical, thoughtful, and controlled.”

  She laughed and it was terrifying how much he liked the sound.

  “I myself never walk in the rain, and particularly never sit down on wet benches,” she said, plumping herself onto a wrought-iron bench shining with water. She laughed up at him and he sat down beside her.

  The rain was merely sprinkling now, rolling down his neck in an unconvincing, yet cold, manner.

  “When my mother died,” Isidore said, “I was so afraid that I couldn’t breathe correctly.”

  He stopped thinking about how cold his bottom felt and curled his hands around her fingers instead. They were small and warm.

  “I used to lie awake at night and think that my breath was filling the room, so there wouldn’t be any air left for me to breathe.”

  Simeon thought of saying the obvious, that her fear didn’t make sense, but choked it back. Isidore was not a person who appreciated the obvious. “When did that feeling go away?” he asked instead.

  “I finally told my aunt.”

  “And she was able to reassure you?”

  “No. She couldn’t convince me that I wasn’t right.”
He turned to see her smiling up at him, her lips soft and ruby-colored, like a flower on the banks of the Ganges River.

  “Ah,” he said hopelessly, falling into that longing state that gripped him around Isidore. She was right in her initial assessment of his sanity. He’d waited too long to sleep with a woman, and now he’d lost his wits.

  “My point is that I am not very good at changing my mind,” Isidore said. “I am trying to tell you…”

  “How did you get over it?” he asked abruptly. “Was that happening when you were brought here to live, to this house?”

  She nodded. “I really was a little crazed. I used to lie in bed and hold my breath, hoping to save enough so that I wouldn’t die before morning.”

  He dropped her hand and put an arm around her. “Isidore.”

  She sighed and put her head on his shoulder. He smelled flowers and that other thing: Essence of Isidore.

  “What did your aunt say?”

  “She told me to sing. She said that singing actually created air, that when you filled your lungs and let it out in song, the air in the room expanded.” She looked up at him. “Aren’t you going to tell me that the whole idea is deranged?”

  He kissed the end of her nose. It was a small, straight nose. A very beautiful nose. He was aware of a feeling in the back of his head that said that lust for a woman’s nose was probably the beginning of a long list of absurdities. “No.”

  She put her head back on his shoulder and he tightened his arm. “I sang and sang. Your mother found it particularly difficult when I sang at the table. But you see, I had to sing because every time that I felt a tightening that meant there wasn’t air enough in a room…” Her voice trailed off. “I know it’s crazy.”

  “I never grieved for my father,” Simeon said. “I don’t think I really believed in his death until I came back here, and found the estate as it is.”

  “You must be very angry at him.” She said it matter-of-factly.

  “I am angry at myself,” he said. “Obviously he was losing his mind, and I never came home to find out. Had I been in England, I would have realized. I would have known.”

  “You couldn’t have done anything, though,” Isidore said. “I saw your father at the opera four years ago. He was perfectly sane.”

  “To all appearances, perhaps,” Simeon said, rather bitterly.

  “And in his own mind. What could you have said to him? Father, I think you’re mad; why don’t I pay the bills?”

  Simeon thought about that. Then he thought about how cold his bottom was and pulled Isidore to her feet. She twisted about to look at her backside.

  “You’re wet,” he said, and then shocked himself. He put a hand directly on her wet skirts. “And cold.”

  She was wearing petticoats under her skirts, of course. And some sort of apparatus that kept her skirts billowing out at the sides. Her skirts were all wet, though, and they collapsed against her skin. He could feel a round, warm curve of flesh under his palm.

  With a groan, he put both hands there and pulled him against her, taking her mouth.

  “What—” she said, startled, but he took the word away from her, kissed her until she was pressed against him, arms around his neck.

  But he didn’t move his hands. He didn’t think he could. She kissed him and talked at the same time. He could hear little bits of words, here and there, his name, a phrase, a little moan. He tried nipping her lip and she pushed against him…she liked it.

  Suddenly she put her lips around his tongue and sucked and his blood flared in his body. From some distance he heard the groan in his throat, and ignored it. He was intoxicated by the plump sweetness under his hands. His head was swimming and his blood was on fire. He could take her home now. He could take her to the bedchamber and throw her on the bed. She was his wife, his wife, his—

  The word beat sanity into him He forcibly uncurled his fingers and let her dress fall free. She murmured something and pulled him even closer. He waited for one heartbeat and then raised his head.

  She looked up at him, her eyes hazy with desire.

  “I think you’re right,” he said. “I waited too long.”

  She blinked at him. “To bed a woman,” he clarified.

  Her arms fell to her sides. A raindrop ran down her cheek. “Why do you say that?”

  He answered her honestly. “I don’t feel sane when I’m kissing you.” She liked that. The bleak look went away and her dimple appeared, like a gift. He wanted to kiss it, but stopped himself.

  “Perhaps that just makes you one of the family?” she suggested.

  He was caught watching her lips and didn’t understand.

  “When I was singing all over this house and half the night, I was cracked,” she said, a smile teasing her lips. “When your father was refusing to pay bills, he was cracked.”

  “My mother?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Grief,” Isidore said. “Grief. She’s not cracked, but she honored his memory as best she could.”

  “Ah.” There was something important there, but he couldn’t think about it now, so he took her arm and turned back to the house. Raindrops were caught on her long eyelashes. He could see them shining like shattered diamonds. “What did you sing?” he asked, rather desperately. Of course he couldn’t stop here in the path and lick her eyelashes. He was losing his mind.

  “Whatever came to me,” Isidore said cheerfully. “I wasn’t very musical, you understand. I wouldn’t want you to think that I added to the general charm of the house.”

  “Did it already smell?” he asked, aghast.

  “Oh, no!” Isidore said. “Not at all. Didn’t Honeydew say that the water closets were put in five years ago? This was eleven years ago. I remember that your mother was particularly vexed when I would sing a ballad about a forlorn lady who jumped from a cliff because she found herself with child. I learned it from my nanny at some point, but your mother considered it quite indelicate.”

  “I can imagine,” Simeon said, feeling slightly cheered.

  “Your mother did not feel that I was very ladylike. And I’m not, Simeon. I still sing in the wrong places and at the wrong times. Even if you don’t swear, I do. I take after my mother, and she was a passionate Italian woman.”

  “I know.” Simeon knew he should probably take this moment to point out that she wouldn’t want to be with a dried-up old stick like himself, that she would be happier with someone more passionate. But instead he said, “I’m so sorry about your parents, Isidore.” And he put his arm around her again.

  She didn’t say anything, and they walked home through the rain. By the time they arrived at the cottage it had turned into a proper English downpour, the kind that slants sideways.

  Honeydew met them at the door to the Dower House and said, “The silver has been removed, as have all small movables, the smaller pictures in the West Gallery, and the Sèvres china.”

  “Where have you put them?” Simeon asked, watching Isidore walk away from him. Her skirts were wet and clung to her legs in the back. Now that he knew what she felt like under his hands he would never be the same again.

  “The west barn,” Honeydew was saying. “The footmen will sleep there, of course. The maids have all been sent home for a few days. The cook will be in the village, as the bakery kitchen has been kindly opened for our use.”

  Simeon dragged his eyes away as Isidore closed the bedchamber door. “My mother?”

  “The dowager duchess refuses to leave Revels House. She also refuses to allow her jewelry to be removed; nothing in her room has been touched.”

  “I’ll stay with her, of course,” Simeon said with a sigh.

  “I took the opportunity of sending all the furniture in the master bedchamber to London for refurbishing,” Honeydew said smoothly. “You and the duchess must stop here in the Dower House. It will be rather intimate quarters, I’m afraid.”

  Simeon looked sharply at Honeydew, but his face was impervious.

  “Set up a b
ed in the sitting room,” he said. “I trust you can find me something of that nature, Honeydew?”

  He could tell the butler didn’t like it, but Simeon merely left. It would be a sad day when he cowered before his own butler.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Gore House, Kensington

  London Seat of the Duke of Beaumont

  March 3, 1784

  Jemma stared sightlessly into the glass above her dressing table. Then she pulled open the crumpled piece of foolscap and read it again.

  It read precisely as it had a moment ago.

  His Grace the Duke of Beaumont asked to be remembered to the duchess, and apologized for the fact that the note was written by his secretary, but he was unavailable today. And unfortunately tomorrow looked just as busy. With regrets, etc. Signed Mr. Cunningham, Elijah’s secretary.

  Elijah had never done that before, never actually written her through his secretary, when they were living in the same house. The note had been delivered, along with a letter from her sister-in-law and an invitation to dine from Lady Castlemaine, as if her husband were no more than another acquaintance.

  He had withdrawn. Elijah had retreated back to his chambers in the Inns of Court.

  Obviously he had misunderstood her.

  Not seeing him was a torment. She’d just come from breakfast, and Elijah wasn’t there. And she had driven her maid to distraction, trying on two breakfast gowns before she chose just the right one, before she tripped into the room looking as fresh and elegant as she possibly could.

  Only to be told by the butler that His Grace had eschewed breakfast. Jemma had pretended total indifference, naturally.

  Can there be anything more humiliating than living out one’s life in front of servants who are both observant and intelligent? Sometimes Jemma felt as if she were acting in a play, and she seemed to have lost her ability to dissemble. Brigitte, her maid, surely suspected. Her butler, Fowle, quite likely.

  It was humiliating to hanker after one’s husband. To be dazzled by his eyes and his attention, until he suddenly withdrew it.

  Perhaps Elijah has an appointment with his mistress, she told herself, just to test the pain of it. But she was no better at believing in mistresses now than she had been when they were first married. She would never, ever have thought Elijah had a mistress. She couldn’t have imagined that he rose from her bed only to welcome the woman to his chambers at noon.