An Affair Before Christmas Read online

  She couldn’t stand that anymore.

  Chapter 10

  Two days later

  April 24

  The Duke of Villiers lay in bed. His shoulder burned in the spot where the rapier thrust had gone through, with an intensity unabated by cold compresses. “The brandy makes it worse, dammit,” he said through clenched teeth.

  It was mortifying to discover just how much he did not like pain. At the moment, for example, he was pretending to be lying down simply due to surgeon’s orders but in truth he wasn’t sure he could rise. It must be blood loss.

  “Brandy kills infection, Your Grace,” his valet told him. As if he were some sort of idiot child.

  “I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be done; I’m just saying that it increases the—the discomfort.” Surely men didn’t suffer pain. Anyway, this didn’t feel like pain. It felt like something on a much higher magnitude, like a red-hot poker straight to the gut.

  “More barley water, Your Grace?” Finchley said.

  Villiers narrowed his eyes and watched his valet sweep about the room. Finchley was the sort of valet who would have made a better duke than Villiers himself. Villiers knew it; Finchley knew it. Villiers had presence, arrogance and blood lines. Finchley had presence, arrogance, a ducal way of walking, a penchant for wigs and high heels, and—alas—no blood lines.

  Finchley turned around and Villiers realized he had forgotten to answer. The odd thing was that Finchley’s face looked exactly like his old nanny’s. In fact, for a moment, he saw her broad disapproving face superimposed over Finchley’s long-jawed one. He watched in fascination as Finchley and Nanny’s nose wavered and seemed to come together.

  “Your Grace?”

  “Finchley, do you have any relatives in Somerset?” Villiers said, narrowing his eyes again to try to bring Finchley’s noses down to one. Which—he was fairly certain—was the right number of noses for a face like Finchley’s.

  “None whatsoever, Your Grace. Why do you ask?”

  “You share a great deal with my childhood nanny,” Villiers muttered, not wanting to admit that what Finchley shared was a nose.

  Finchley didn’t like the idea of sharing anything with a nanny; Villiers could see that. His back became even more erect, and his chin went further into the air. In short, he looked even more ducal, barring the fact that he still had two noses.

  “I’d forgotten Nanny’s nose had that wart on it,” Villiers said, almost dreamily. “I loved her anyway, you know. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never married…do you think it was because I’ve not found a woman with a wart on her nose, Finchley? Do you suppose that’s the reason? If you, Finchley, were a lady with a wart on your nose, do you suppose I would marry you?”

  Finchley’s mouth fell open for a heartbeat and then he said: “Your Grace, I shall summon the surgeon.”

  “I would get that nose removed, if I were you,” Villiers said, squinting at him. “After all, you had a fine nose before. A ducal nose, really.”

  “Yes, Your Grace. If Your Grace will excuse me.” He moved toward the door.

  “Not yet,” Villiers said. “I’d like a glass, Finchley.”

  “Your Grace?”

  “A glass! Bring me that small mirror. I need to see how many noses I have.” That seemed to get Finchley moving. He plumped a small mirror into Villiers’s hand and left the room as if the bats of hell were after him. In fact, Finchley looked rather like a gargoyle, not a bat. It was the two noses.

  For a moment Villiers was almost afraid to look in the mirror. Would he too have grown an extra nose?

  But no. There he was…big nose and all. He felt it cautiously. There was only one. He still didn’t look like a duke. Dukes had pale complexions and long delicate features, like a superior kind of hunting dog. Or they were remarkably beautiful, like his old friend Elijah. But he’d grown practiced over the past few years at not thinking about Elijah, otherwise known as the Duke of Beaumont, and so he dropped that thought immediately.

  In contrast, Villiers looked like a docksman. His hair was jet black—except where there were streaks of pure white. His hair would probably turn all white now. The shoulder didn’t seem to be burning quite as much. In fact, he felt a floating sensation, which was a pleasant change.

  At least his eyebrows were still black. A woman had told him once that he had the eyes of a snake. By closing one eye, Villiers discovered that he could almost see what she meant. The one open eye was black as midnight. Peculiar, really.

  He only had one nose, but he was a damned ugly specimen, anyway.

  The door burst open as that hopeless fool of a surgeon, Banderspit, charged in, followed by Finchley. Finchley had lost a nose and looked entirely normal. Banderspit, on the other hand, was sprouting red feathers from the back of his head. It looked most peculiar.

  “Your Grace,” Banderspit said, moving over to the bed and pawing at Villiers’s forehead in a distasteful way, “a fever is come upon you. We shall have to bleed you.”

  “Too late,” Villiers said, laughing. “I was already bled. Fought a duel, didn’t I? And lost. Damn it!” He sat up. “I have to get to Beaumont House. It’s time for our next move!”

  A few seconds later he found that he was struggling against Finchley and Banderspit, who were holding him down to the bed.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he roared. “Take your hands off me.”

  “Your Grace?” Finchley asked in a quavering voice that was unlike his usual ducal drawl. “Are you yourself again?”

  “I am always myself,” Villiers said promptly. “It may not be pleasant, but it’s the only choice I have.”

  Banderspit wiped his forehead. “We’ll have to do it immediately,” he said to Finchley.

  “Do what?”

  “Bleed you, Your Grace,” Banderspit replied.

  “Like hell,” Villiers said, suddenly remembering again that he had to go play chess with the duchess. “I must play my piece! I must play my piece.” He started to rise, only to find that Finchley was practically throwing himself onto his uninjured side.

  “Really,” Villiers said, rather coldly. “I have always shown you a measured amount of affection, Finchley. Do you keep to the same boundaries. I have no wish to share a bed.”

  “What are these pieces he’s talking about?” Banderspit asked Finchley.

  “Surely you know that His Grace is playing a chess match with the Duchess of Beaumont?” Finchley said.

  “I am,” Villiers interjected. “And she won the first game, dammit.”

  Finchley ignored him. “His Grace is anxious to continue their current game.”

  “One move a day,” Villiers said. “If we go to a third game, it’s in bed and blindfolded. Surely you can understand that I must win this game.” He grinned at the portly doctor. “If only to blindfold the duchess.”

  Banderspit looked appalled. “The Duchess of Beaumont? Are you talking about the Duke of Beaumont’s wife?”

  “Not the dowager duchess,” Villiers put in. He was beginning to feel a most unpleasant spinning sensation. “I’d never bed her. Nor play her at chess either. Though the two activities aren’t so far apart as you might think.”

  “I can see that,” Banderspit said, snapping his mouth shut. “It is not for me to comment on the morality or immortality of your games, Your Grace. Though I cannot but comment that the Duke of Beaumont is a highly respected man in the Parliament, and one working night and day to bring about a change in government—to give En gland a government that will be respected and free of corruption!”

  Villiers blinked at him. “I like those red feathers you have coming from the back of your wig,” he said. “I’ve seen women doing that sort of thing with their wigs, but never a man.”

  Banderspit’s hand touched his wig briefly, and then he straightened up. “Fetch me my assistant,” he snapped at Finchley. “We must proceed at once.”

  Chapter 11

  The Duke of Fletcher’s town house
/>   April 30

  “I have listened to you for years, Mama,” Poppy said calmly. “Luce, please be careful with my enameled brushes. I’m very fond of them.”

  “You stop packing those things this minute,” Lady Flora snarled at Poppy’s maid. Luce froze. When Lady Flora commanded, people around her tended to stop short, as if a celestial command had been visited on them. “We do not trot away from a husband, in some sort of ignominious retreat! I did not raise you for this!”

  “I know that, Mama,” Poppy said. “You raised me to be a duchess.”

  “A duchess is the wife to a duke,” Lady Flora said with clipped logic.

  “So I understand.”

  “I trust that is not an insolent tone I hear.”

  Poppy looked at her. From years of practice, she knew that her expression would appear open and inquiring, the epitome of innocence. “Of course not, Mama.”

  “A wife never leaves her husband. Not even if he’s as much of a dunce as your own father. I never left him.”

  Poppy nodded obediently. From what she understood, her mother had discovered that marriage did not agree with her approximately one hour after the ceremony, and she had always freely imparted her wisdom in that arena to her only daughter. “There’s no use marrying unless it’s to a duke,” she had repeatedly told Poppy when her daughter was just a mop-headed babe toddling through the nursery. “A duke, Poppy.”

  As was often the case for Lady Flora, events had aligned themselves precisely as she wished.

  “I always wanted you to marry a duke,” she said now. “And for once you did as I requested.”

  “Mother, I always do as you request,” Poppy said, handing the prayerbook from her bedside to Luce.

  “Not at the moment. Have you given any thought to this decision to leave your husband?”

  “I have thought of nothing else for a week.”

  “You’ve always been a foolish little thing,” her mother said dispassionately. “I thought you were a fool when you were burbling of love for Fletcher, but I shall think you worse than a fool if you leave him. Your role in life is to be a duchess. I did not raise you to be a disgrace.”

  That was true, Poppy thought. In fact, her role as a duchess was to be precisely what it was when she was a mere daughter: to support, compliment, adorn and otherwise support one Lady Flora, the mother of a duchess.

  “I told you to stop packing,” Lady Flora snapped at Luce. “Are you as deaf as you are ugly, girl?”

  Poppy drew herself to her full height, which was a little higher than her mother. “Luce will continue packing, Mama, because she is my servant and I have instructed her to do so.” She looked steadily into her mother’s steely blue eyes. “And Luce is not ugly.”

  “How dare you contradict me!” Lady Flora’s eyes had been compared to a soft summer sky and a delicate pansy; if her wooers could see how those eyes bulged they might have rethought their sonnets.

  Poppy almost quailed, so she turned away to gather up her journal to give to Luce instead. Then she took a deep breath.

  “Face me when I’m speaking to you,” her mother shrilled. “For God’s sakes,” she turned on Luce. “Will you leave the room rather than lurking here like an untrained dog?”

  Poor Luce turned a stricken face to Poppy, who nodded. The maid fled, closing the door behind her with a clap that made Poppy jump.

  “Untrained,” Lady Flora remarked. “I would have terminated her employment long ago, for all she’s got a good hand with hair. She has an insolent look and she is ugly with that potato nose. I don’t believe in lying to the lower classes. It isn’t good for them. It would be better for her to understand her place in life.”

  “I’m leaving this house,” Poppy stated. “I am leaving my husband. You can either accept that, or not accept that, Mama.”

  “I do not accept it, and I shall never accept it. You are a duchess.”

  “I’m still going to be a duchess. I’m just not going to be a duchess going through the sham of a marriage.”

  “A duchess belongs in her husband’s town house. Do you think I ever contemplated leaving your father’s house? Why should I? Because he was an idiot? Men are idiots; he was hardly alone in his shame. Because we disliked each other? A woman who doesn’t grow to dislike her husband is a simpleton. How long do you think I liked your father?”

  Poppy shook her head, wishing again that she remembered her father. Wishing that he had stayed alive long enough to know whether he liked his daughter: that would have meant one of her parents did.

  “I thought he was a fool before I married him,” her mother said. “I grew to dislike him after our first night together. I’ve told you about that, haven’t I?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “The man was a disgusting reprobate,” Lady Flora said. “Disgusting. He smelled like a stoat and he acted like a bull. But I didn’t let you go into that night unprepared, the way I had to, did I?”

  The lurid shudder that accompanied her words had the same effect on Poppy as it had ever since her mother began talking of marital intimacies. She felt sick. “No, Mama,” she said.

  “I’ve always told you the worst, prepared you. I told you men were tedious, if useful. I prepared you for their revolting habits in bed. I would consider myself to have failed as a mother—yes, failed—if I had allowed you to marry anyone below a duke, or if I had sent you into marriage without knowing what lay ahead of you.”

  As Poppy watched, her mother caught sight of herself in the mirror and turned to the side for a better view. Because she couldn’t see her entire hair style, she bent her knees; even then she couldn’t see the whole of it, as it had three distinct stories, the first ornamented with blue bows, the second with loops of pearl and the third with a blue satin ribbon. She looked ready to be presented at court, and never mind the fact that it was a mere morning visit to her daughter.

  Poppy sat down, even though it was a disgrace to do so in the presence of her mother. But then, she thought wearily, duchesses can sit before mere ladies.

  As if her mother heard her thoughts, she erupted into a tide of anger against her parents for handing her to Mr. Selby when she could have commanded the highest in the land, if only they’d had faith in her. “Look at me!” she demanded. “Just look at me!”

  Poppy looked.

  “I’ve never lied to you, daughter, and I won’t lie now. You married a duke but I’m more beautiful than you ever were, even at this grotesquely advanced age of mine. If there was an appropriate duke, I could marry him now. If I wished, of course.” She straightened up and patted one last blue ribbon in place.

  “My point,” she said, “is that you’re a fool to even think of leaving your husband. What will you gain? You won’t be free until he dies, and he doesn’t show any sign of that.”

  Poppy thought it was most unbecoming of her mother to sound so disappointed at the prospect of Fletch’s good health. But then her own father had given up and died fairly shortly after marriage, and her mother likely thought that was the natural way of things. “I don’t want Fletch to die,” she pointed out.

  “Then why leave him? Explain that, Perdita. I see absolutely no reason for the two of you to part. You should simply allow him to go his way, and you go yours…” She paused, with a frown. “Is it a matter of the bed?”

  Poppy had the oddest sensation that her mother had been struck by a moment of sympathy.

  Sure enough, her mother made a grimace that might have been compassion on any other woman’s face, and sat on the edge of the bed. “I know it’s disgusting. I remember, Perdita. I do remember. A woman can never forget the pain and indignity of it.”

  “It wasn’t—”

  But her mother was properly in stride now. “His engorged instrument, so purple and revolting in every way…it made me vomit, you know. I vomited, right there in the room. That didn’t even stop him. It didn’t. No, he—he laughed and proceeded. It’s hard to believe now, but it took me at least three months befo
re I gathered enough strength to bar your father from my bedchamber.”

  Poppy had never heard that before. “You barred him? I thought you said Father visited you once a week.”

  “Oh, he did, after I readmitted him. In the beginning, though—he didn’t take me seriously, can you imagine?”

  Poppy shook her head. It was hard to imagine anyone not taking her mother seriously.

  “I crowned him with a full chamber pot,” her mother said.

  “Ug!”

  “And I had had my monthly,” her mother said with satisfaction. “I planned it so.”

  Poppy felt as if she, too, were going to throw up.

  “The point is that once I readmitted him to my presence, he was chastened and understood precisely what his role was in the bedroom,” her mother said. “I allowed him to visit me once a week until you were conceived. Then since his land wasn’t entailed, and you could inherit it all, I told him that I never wanted his disgusting male organ to touch my skin again.”

  Poppy organized her features into something like a smile.

  “I can see that your husband would likely be not as easy to tame as mine,” her mother said thoughtfully.

  “I—”

  “I have not been thinking enough of you, child.”

  Poppy just stopped her mouth from falling open. Her mother patted her on the shoulder. “How often does he visit his mistress?”

  Poppy shook her head. “I don’t believe Fletch has a mistress.”

  “No mistress,” her mother gasped. “Surely you don’t mean that you’ve been forced to ser vice him all these—how many years is it?—by yourself?”

  “We’ve been married four years. But it’s not—”

  “Revolting!” her mother spat. “A sordid way for a duke to behave. One has to suppose that he’s trying for an heir. Yet if he’s been trying this long with no fruit, the man is almost certainly incapable.” She patted her shoulder again.

  “Perhaps I am,” Poppy said wretchedly.