When the Duke Returns Page 21

  Isidore frowned.

  “Oh, don’t be such a fool,” the dowager said, in her cracked, breathy way. “He’s my blood, God knows it to be so. And Godfrey as well. But Godfrey is off to Eton, and I’m tired of all this. I did my best!”

  “Of course—”

  “I was a good wife, a proper wife. I never questioned the women. The jewels were given to me from guilt, you know. At least he felt that.” She looked at Isidore accusingly. “That was something.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t want to be in this house full of memories, and letters I haven’t answered, and the stupid, stupid things he did.” Her voice was savage. “That stink—it’s the stink of stupidity.”

  Isidore nodded.

  “My sister, the Dowager Countess of Douglass, keeps an old-fashioned house, perhaps, but it’s the sort that I’m comfortable with. This son of mine, with the way he looks and he acts…I can’t do it anymore. I can’t be here and pretend that I don’t care when traditions are violated, and stupid, stupid men do just as they wish. He runs about the country naked.”

  “Not precisely,” Isidore managed.

  “They live to humiliate us. Over and over. My husband never trotted about in diapers. But when I think of it now, he might as well have been naked. You may leave now.” She waved her hand.

  Isidore backed out of the carriage.

  “You’ll find out,” the dowager said. Her gaze was not unkind. “Send my things after me once the maids are able to enter that wretched house. I’ll write Godfrey with my consolations and instructions for his future welfare. You’ll have to cope with the duke’s unkempt ways and his foreignness. God knows I tried but he was never mine. Not really mine.”

  Isidore curtsied, the deep, respectful curtsy that one gives to a deposed queen.

  The queen didn’t notice.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Gore House, Kensington

  London Seat of the Duke of Beaumont

  March 3, 1784

  It was as if the world froze for a moment. He shook Elijah—and Elijah’s head flopped forward, like a poppy on a broken stalk.

  “No!” Without even thinking, Villiers shook Elijah again, hard. “Wake up!” Fear suddenly wrenched his gut.

  Elijah woke up.

  For a moment he stared straight ahead, as if into a country no one else could see. Then his eyes slipped to Villiers and he smiled. “Hello.”

  Villiers stumbled backwards, feeling for a chair, and fell into it. “Christ and damnation.”

  Elijah’s smile faded.

  “What was that?” Villiers said. “What just happened?”

  And, when there was no answer: “Elijah!”

  They hadn’t used first names with each other since they were both fifteen, sixteen…whenever that was that they quarreled over a lass and never spoke again.

  “I collapsed,” Elijah said bluntly. “I must have fainted. It’s my heart. I’m thirty-four.”

  “Thirty-four?” Villiers shook his head. “Thirty-four? What’s that, a terminal date for hearts?”

  “My father died at thirty-four,” Elijah said, putting his head back on the chair and looking up at the ceiling. “His heart failed him. I had hopes of surpassing his span, but I have, increasingly, these small episodes. I see no reason to fool myself.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Not quite yet,” he said, that beautiful half-smile of his quirking the corner of his mouth. He shook his head. “There’s nothing more to say about it all, Leo.”

  Villiers hated being called Leopold. He hated being anything other than Villiers, and he never was, to anyone other than Elijah. The very sound of the name made him feel unbalanced, as if nearly twenty years had vanished.

  “I don’t accept that,” he said. The words felt harsh in his throat. “Have you seen a doctor?”

  Elijah shrugged. “There’s no need.”

  “You blacked out.”

  He nodded.

  “Damn it!”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been trying to seduce your wife and you never said a word.”

  Elijah smiled at that. “What difference would it make?”

  “All the world,” Villiers said. His voice grated in his own ears so he got up and walked to the side of the room and stared unseeingly out the window.

  “I don’t see why it should. You and I have always had disagreements over women.”

  “The barmaid,” Villiers said, making a vain attempt to get hold of himself and yet keep the conversation going.

  “You chided me with it when you were in the grip of fever. You told me that I had the barmaid, the dog, and Jemma. I couldn’t make you understand that the dog was long dead. But I could certainly understand why you’d like to take Jemma.”

  Villiers turned around. Elijah was still seated, looking at him with that patient, courteous curiosity that was a hallmark of his dealings in Parliament. “Damn it, aren’t you angry?” he demanded.

  “Because you allowed my old dog to die while you saved my life?” Elijah raised an eyebrow. “I was angry when I was sixteen and foolish. I’m sorry I retaliated by stealing your barmaid away.”

  “Not that. Aren’t you angry about your heart failing?”

  Elijah fell silent.

  Finally Villiers said, “I am sorry that your dog died.”

  “She was all I had, and all that really mattered to me.”

  Villiers moved sharply, then forced himself to be still.

  “Except for you, of course.” Elijah raised his eyes. “You were my dearest friend, and I stole your mistress and pushed you away because you were ungracious enough to save my life in a river, and not manage to save that of my dog as well.”

  “We were both fools,” Villiers muttered.

  “There were few things that I treasured in life, and I threw away one. Then I sated myself with government and flurries of power, and I threw away my wife. It seems a remarkable waste of years; I certainly agree in your judgment of my foolishness.”

  “I won’t go near Jemma again. It wasn’t for revenge; truly, it wasn’t. It was just that—”

  “She’s Jemma,” Elijah said simply.

  “Yes. Does she know that you’re ill?”

  “No! And she mustn’t.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “There’s no fairness in life,” Elijah said, his voice heavy. “I’ll be gone whether she has time to grieve and fear for it, or not. I want the time I have left with her without grief.”

  “Of course.” Villiers cursed himself for ever trying to entice Jemma.

  “I’m winning, you know.” Elijah’s smile was a beautiful thing. It had helped him triumph during many a difficult battle in Parliament, that smile. It had won the heart of a prickly, ugly young duke by the name of Villiers, back when they were both nine years old. “She’s planning to concede the remaining game in your match when she sees you next.”

  “You are winning,” Villiers said. “You are.”

  “I’ve been very slow, very tactical,” Elijah said. “I wasted so much time in my life. I’ve planned this like a campaign, the most important campaign of my life. And you played a part, Leo.”

  “I—”

  “I needed formidable opposition,” he said. “You provided it.”

  Villiers sat down opposite Elijah again. “You must tell her. How often do you have these spells?”

  “Oh, once a week or so. More frequently of late.”

  “Do you have any idea how much time you have?”

  Elijah shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”

  “I’ll leave,” Villiers said. “You’ll have an open field. God, I…”

  “Don’t leave. I wish you would play chess with me. Now and then.”

  “I would be honored.”

  There was a silence during which, had they not been English noblemen, the men might have embraced. Might even have cried. Might have said something of love, of friendship, of sadness. But being English nobleme
n, they didn’t need to say those things: their eyes met and it was all there. Their boyhood friendship, their childish rages, the blows they dealt each other.

  “I won’t go anywhere near her,” Villiers said. It sounded like a vow.

  “You must.”

  “No—”

  Elijah smiled at him, but his eyes were shadowed. “You have to be there for her, Leo. I need to think you will.”

  “You want me to continue to woo her so that…”

  Sometimes even an English gentleman feels sorrow catch him like a wicked pain in the back of the throat. At times like that, he might walk to the window and look out at a garden in the first stages of spring.

  Until he was sure he wouldn’t be unmanly.

  But then, being English, he would eventually turn around and find his oldest friend sitting in the same place, waiting. And he would pull over a chess table and start laying out the pieces.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The Dower House

  March 3, 1784

  As the dowager’s carriage drove away, Isidore walked back to the Dower House with one thought in her mind. She was a fool. Simeon may not love her, but he was the man she had. And she could not allow him to be in this fetid, empty house by himself. He could learn to love her. She thought of the way he whirled and struck, and knew the feeling in her heart for what it was. She was halfway to being hopelessly in love with him, for all the same reasons that drove his mother to despise him: for his strength, for his uniqueness, for the Simeon-ness of him.

  Simeon rose from the desk when she entered. “You entered Revels House without my permission,” he stated, by way of greeting. “I asked you to wait for me because I knew those men posed a danger.”

  “I thought you were accompanying me in order to add your voice to my entreaty.”

  “And you thought that my participation would be a disadvantage,” he said. His jaw was set, his shoulders rigid.

  “Yes.”

  “I commanded you.”

  “I don’t recognize commands,” she stated, making sure that he knew exactly what she was saying.

  “I didn’t want to frighten you by mentioning the Dead Watch.”

  “I don’t frighten easily.” But she didn’t feel like squabbling, so she said, “Simeon, I just want to say that you were magnificent!”

  “That is very kind of you.”

  “I think your mother was flustered by the shock, the horror of all that had happened,” Isidore said, galloping on without any encouragement from his expression.

  “She was horrified by my exhibition of foreign skills,” he said. But his voice was dry, and not wounded.

  “I thought the way you whirled and struck was amazing.”

  He met her eyes, and she could read them, if no one else could. “She’ll never like me.”

  “That is her weakness and her loss,” Isidore said firmly. “As Honeydew may have informed you, she left to stay with her sister. I think she will be much happier for a visit.”

  “Honeydew does not believe she is ever coming back. She asked for all her things, including the furniture in her bedchamber.”

  “Then we will be happy to send it along,” Isidore said. “That will save it a trip to London, though it may fall apart on the journey, of course.”

  “If you entered my aunt’s house, you might think you’d stepped back two hundred years.”

  “In that case your mother’s furniture will feel right at home.” Isidore drifted closer. Yes, she deserved love and courtship. But sometimes a woman had to take what she could get, especially if it came in a muscled, beautiful, and entirely desirable package.

  “Doubtless.”

  Isidore took a deep breath, remembering Jemma’s various lessons regarding men. Then she reached down and pulled off one of her slippers. Simeon watched as she dropped it on the floor. She pulled off another and placed it precisely next to the first.

  “Isidore?” he asked. Naturally, his voice held the kind of mild curiosity with which one might inquire if the vicar was staying for supper.

  She didn’t answer. She pulled up her skirts and snagged one stocking from its garter. It flowed to the ground and pooled at her ankle. She put out a toe and the stocking rolled off of its own accord. She thought that Simeon’s eyes looked less calm, so she made an event of the second stocking.

  “Isidore,” Simeon repeated. “What are you doing?”

  “Undressing myself.”

  “Honeydew will likely enter at any moment.”

  Isidore pulled up her skirts and undid the little ties that held her panniers around her waist. They collapsed silently to the floor and she stepped out of them. “You had better send him away,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to be embarrassed by your wife.”

  “You don’t want to be my wife,” he said, but his voice had a husky undertone.

  “No, I don’t,” she said agreeably. She was wrestling with her petticoat now. “I deserve better than you.”

  “You do.”

  “I deserve to be courted.” Her petticoat fell and she kicked her way out of it. “With flowers, jewels, and poetry written specially for the occasion. I deserve to be adored. Someone should be kneeling at my feet.” She looked pointedly at Simeon, but he showed no signs of abasing himself, so she began unlacing her bodice.

  “I deserve,” she finished, “to be loved.”

  “Yes,” he said. Still he didn’t move.

  Inside, Isidore felt as if a drop of ice water was running down her back. He wasn’t panting at her feet the way Jemma had promised. Perhaps he thought her thighs were too plump, but men liked plump thighs, didn’t they?

  He just stood there, saying nothing although she had finished unlacing her bodice. She could back silently into the bedroom, pretending that none of this had happened, or she could drop her gown. She looked at Simeon again. He could have been carved out of wood.

  Like a flash flood, Isidore felt a wave of red coming over her face. Her bodice was open all down the front, though of course her breasts didn’t show due to her chemise. That was one saving grace.

  A second later she had fled into the bedchamber and closed the door. She tripped on the threshold and fell to her knees with a hard thump. A sob was rising in her throat but she cut it off. She would pretend that nothing happened. Nothing. She just happened to partially undress before him, and if he heard even a whisper of a sob, then he would feel sorry for her and—

  Though she hadn’t heard the sound of footsteps, he spoke just outside the door. “Isidore?”

  “No,” she said, thankful that her voice didn’t tremble. She knelt on the hard wood, her hands shaking, holding her bodice together.

  “No?”

  She cleared her throat. “I’m not available at the moment.”

  “Why aren’t you available?”

  A flash of rage had her off her knees. “Why? What did you think I was available for?”

  There was silence. He was a gentleman. It wasn’t his fault that she had listened to Jemma and thought that all men were at the mercy of their loins. Obviously, she had the remarkable bad luck to be married to the one man who was in control of his body. Wonderful.

  Though, of course, it was likely that men controlled their bodies best when they didn’t feel true desire. A tear slipped over her clenched fists.

  “Isidore, I’m coming in.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” she snapped. “This was all a misunderstanding, and may we please just forget it ever happened?”

  “No.”

  She swallowed. “Just go away, please.”

  There was a muffled thump. But it wasn’t the door. He was probably leaving. Isidore sat down on the bed, her back to the door. He could go to blazes, for all she cared. Any number of men in London would look faint when she took off a glove, never mind dropping a petticoat.

  “Isidore, will you open the door?”

  “For God’s sake,” she shouted back, losing her temper. “Will you leave me alone? Ha
ven’t you embarrassed me enough?”

  “How much revenge do you intend to take?”

  What a stupid question. “You are quite safe. Now if you would just please leave!”

  “I can’t. I took my clothes off.”

  “You—”

  “I’m quite naked. And while it’s not very chilly today, there is a good likelihood that Honeydew will enter at any moment.”

  Isidore’s hands fell from her mouth. Being Simeon, he sounded entirely practical. “I think I hear voices on the garden path,” he added.

  “No, you don’t,” Isidore said, but her voice was weak. She was consumed by a blaze of curiosity. “You’re really naked? Naked?”

  “I’ve never stood naked in a sitting room before,” he said.

  “Well, enjoy it,” she said weakly.

  There was a moment’s silence while she thought about the fact that Simeon was out there without clothes. He had taken his clothing off?

  “Isidore,” he said quietly, “Honeydew is walking toward the Dower House. I can see him through the window.”

  She threw the bedchamber door open, grabbed his arm, and jerked him forward.

  There he was.

  Afternoon sun was slanting onto the wide planks, stained dark with years. At first Isidore just saw his feet. They looked just as large and male as they had after his bath. He dropped the clothing he held on the floor.

  Her own toes curled. Of course she should meet his eyes. She should look higher than his knees. But—

  She was staring at his thighs when they suddenly moved in her direction. “I suggest,” came a voice somewhere above her ear, a rather strained voice, she thought, “that we retire to your bed.”

  His voice had no semblance of control. It was rough like velvet and his eyes were half closed, but not slumbering. It was as if the beast inside him had woken up. “I never meant to embarrass you,” he said.

  She smiled, a bit tightly.

  “I don’t think very quickly,” he said. “No, listen to me, Isidore.”

  She raised her eyes. Truly, it was rather fascinating—

  “When things happen quickly, as when you took off your clothes, I can’t think what to say. It wasn’t that I didn’t—”