Duchess in Love

  “I came to look at your blackmailing note,” he said, strolling over to the small table on which stood a decanter of brandy. “May I congratulate you on your taste in beverages? What the devil did they give you a single glass for?”

  He turned around and surveyed the room. Then he gave a satisfied nod and snatched a water glass from beside her bed.

  “They gave me a single glass because I sleep alone.”

  He poured the brandy and thought about the faint hint of a sultry complaint in her voice. Did he hear it only because he wished it was there?

  A moment later, he sharply revised his assumption about virginal innocence. As he turned around, her eye ranged over his body and then caught. She was apparently fascinated by his pantaloons. Cam resisted the urge to rearrange his equipment.

  “See something you like?” he asked.

  She turned her head away without a glimmer of embarrassment. “Certainly,” she said in an offhand, polite way. The way you assure a woman that she has not gained weight when the lady is either enceinte or has recently eaten a side of beef.

  “Good,” Cam said, unable to come up with a witty remark. What happened to the days when virgins screamed with fear at their first sight of a man’s rod? He hadn’t lived outside England that long.

  Gina was gazing into the fire without even a blush. Looked as if she hadn’t a care in the world. In fact, she was brazen in her attention and, rather more galling, in her dismissal. Blood throbbed through Cam’s body. That sort of insult might drive an unprincipled man to toss the wench on her own bed.

  But of course he had no interest in that, except the usual arousal a man feels for a half-dressed woman in his presence. “Couldn’t you put on a robe?” he asked.

  She lifted one eyebrow and took another sip of brandy. “It’s quite warm in here and you are my husband.”

  He stared at her until she rose with a graceful shrug of one shoulder. “If you insist.” She walked past him to reach the bed. The scrap of cloth she was wearing was made of the thinnest, pale yellow silk that Cam had ever seen. It draped and clung to the long line of her thigh in a way that made a mockery of his unclothed statues.

  Of course she didn’t put on a sturdy cotton garment. The robe matched her gown, except most of it was lace. It hid nothing. Granted, Cam was already in a state of arousal. But even so, the faint swish as she walked past his chair was one of the most seductive sounds he’d ever encountered. It spoke of sweet skin and soft belly curves.

  She jumped up again. “I forgot the letter.” She walked over to the cupboard and opened it up; Cam cursed his wayward body and stared hard at the flames, trying to force the pounding in his loins to dissipate.

  His wife was playing games with him. She was the antithesis of a virgin. Probably slept with Bonnington, Wapping, and a hundred other men. Her languid way of walking wasn’t a virgin’s gait. Everyone knew that virgins clamped their knees, crossed their legs at the ankles, and turned pink at the very idea of a man in their bedchamber.

  But here was his wife, having summoned him from Greece so he could inform the entire Parliament that she was still a virgin, drinking brandy and wearing a garment a Cyprian would be proud to call her own. She walked back holding a folded paper.

  “Do you do this every night?” he asked in a fury of resentment.

  “Do what?” There was a look of mild inquiry on her face. Didn’t she realize that the hazy light from the fireplace outlined every curve of her legs? He could even see a round and tender curve on the top of her inner thighs. Cam crossed his legs again. This was getting ridiculous.

  “Do you always sit around like a bird of paradise, drinking brandy and entertaining men while half clothed?” His tone was brutal.

  She chuckled. “Is that the life of a courtesan? I must say, I would have assumed a less peaceful and far more…rigorous evening. But I bow to your greater knowledge, naturally.”

  It was all Cam could do to stay silent. Some virgin his wife was turning out to be.

  “Goodness me,” she said with an air of discovery. “You’re turning quite plum-colored, Your Grace. I warned you that my chamber was overheated. But to answer your question. I prefer to bathe in the evening, and my hair is slow to dry. I have fallen into the habit of drinking a brandy while working. I find brandy so restful, don’t you?” She almost cooed it. “After drinking a small amount, I am utterly relaxed and ready for a sound night’s sleep.”

  The vixen, Cam thought. She’s deliberately trying to drive me to distraction, God only knows why. But two can play at this game.

  He gave her a brazen look that was a kiss in itself. “What sort of work do you find so exhausting, my dear? As your husband, I would be happy to take some of the burden from your shoulders.” He took a meditative sip of brandy. “I find a shared burden at bedtime even more relaxing than liquor.”

  Gina choked on a sip of brandy.

  “For example,” he continued, “should I ever have the good fortune to be married—and here I refer, of course, to a consummated marriage—I shall insist that my wife calm herself each evening. Or rather, that I help her in that worthwhile endeavor.”

  She gave him a limpid smile. “What a lucky woman she will be. Will you manage the estate business yourself, or will she be doubly burdened?”

  He met her eyes with a gleam of pure enjoyment. Then he frowned. “What estate business?”

  She pointed to a large heap of papers, stacked untidily on a stool next to her chair. “Your estate, which I currently manage. Once our marriage is annulled I will, naturally, cease to do so.”

  Cam blinked. “I thought Rounton and Bicksfiddle handled all that. Why on earth are they bothering you?”

  “Bicksfiddle cannot make important decisions himself, Cam. You must know that I handle most of the estate business. I’ve written you about various things.”

  “But I didn’t think you were working on those problems. I thought that Bicksfiddle consulted with you once or twice a year.”

  She snorted. “Once or twice a year?” She pointed to the heap on the stool. “Bicksfiddle’s inquiries for this quarter. All of them need immediate attention.”

  “Damnation!” Cam exclaimed. He snatched up a sheet. It was a note from Bicksfiddle requesting hardship funds.

  “Who are these people? Henry Polderoy and Albert Thomas from Upper Girton. Eric Horne and Bessie Mittins from Lower Girton.”

  “Oh dear,” Gina said. “Bessie must be the family way again.”

  “Is she a servant at the house?”

  “No, those are people living in the village. You do remember that the estate includes two villages, don’t you? Henry Polderoy used to be the blacksmith, but he suffered an injury to his right arm last winter, and he hasn’t been able to keep up with his work. He has three little sons, all born on the same day. It was the funniest afternoon, Cam!”

  He met her green eyes, dancing over the rim of her glass. “Mrs. Polderoy had very kindly asked me to be the godmother. And as luck would have it, I was in the village when the first babe, Henry, was born. So I paid a visit to see my new godson. Well, Mrs. Polderoy was still feeling distressed, and out came a second son! We named him James. He was the sweetest little poppet, and was just bathed and wrapped up, when Camden arrived.”

  “Camden?”

  Gina nodded. “He’s yours. Let’s see, I think there are two or three Camdens in the village, counting Camden Webster in the next parish.”

  “What the devil are they doing, naming their children after me?”

  “They name their children after you because you are the owner of the estate. You own the land they live on; they depend on you for their support and their livelihood. If you withdrew herding rights, they would starve. If you ceased hardship funds, they would find themselves in the poorhouse.”

  Cam didn’t know what to say. He looked back at the sheet in his hand. “What’s the matter with Bessie Mittins?”

  “Nothing’s the matter with Bessie besides the fact that she
keeps having babies.”

  “What does her husband do for a living?”

  “Oh, she doesn’t have a husband,” Gina replied cheerfully. “I’m afraid she’s the proverbial loose woman. She says that she can’t resist a good pair of legs—and I gather the men of Lower Girton are well endowed.” She giggled.

  “In that respect.”

  But Cam only smiled. He was thinking. “Do you mean to tell me that you were present at the birth of Henry Polderoy’s children?”

  “Not for the first one. But yes, I was there for James and Camden.”

  “Have things changed since I left England?” he demanded. “I could have sworn that young virgins would not be allowed to attend a lying-in.”

  “An unmarried women is unlikely to,” Gina agreed.

  “But you are not married, at least not in the important respect!”

  Gina looked at him. “I am the duchess,” she stated. “For Bessie Mittins or Mrs. Polderoy, it doesn’t matter whether you fled from my bedroom the night of our marriage or the next night. They need a duchess, and I’m the one.” She finished her brandy.

  Cam looked back at the sheet in his hand. “Why are we paying hardship for the neighboring parish? Isn’t that Stafford’s land?”

  “He’s an absentee landlord,” she explained. “Doesn’t give a rat’s tail for his people. They’d starve, unless we helped. And luckily the estate is quite solvent.”

  “I thought we were absentee landlords,” Cam said, stunned. “I thought you lived in London.”

  “I used to.” She shrugged, with an easy, elegant rise of her shoulders. “But for the past five years I’ve spent at least half the year at Girton. I find it too difficult to keep the estate running smoothly without close attention.”

  “Damned if I don’t fire Bicksfiddle,” Cam snapped. “My instructions were clear enough. After father was bedridden, I instructed him to handle everything himself.”

  “I am the Duchess of Girton,” she repeated simply. “I have been the duchess for twelve years, and I’ve run the estate for eight, since your father became incapacitated.”

  “I know how long we’ve been married!” He snatched a second sheet from the stool. “What’s all this about tweed?”

  “I’m trying to revive the homespun tweed industry in the village. We’ve had droughts repeatedly in the past few years, and sheep farming is not sustainable without better harvests.”

  Cam was growing aware of an unpleasant ball of guilt swelling in his belly. He tossed the letters he held toward the stool, but they drifted to the ground.

  “You’re turning the estate into a charity concern,” he said.

  “My father would have loathed that.”

  “If your father hadn’t extracted every cent he could without returning any to the land, we wouldn’t have so many impoverished tenants.”

  Cam felt another twinge of guilt. Luckily, he was a past master of ignoring uncomfortable feelings, and he deliberately put them out of mind now, letting his eyes drift from Gina’s scarlet lips down her long, slender neck.

  When he looked back up, startled by his own fierce reaction to what was, after all, just a neck, she handed him another piece of paper. “My blackmailing letter,” she said, rising from her chair. “May I give you a touch more brandy, Your Grace?”

  “Why are you suddenly ‘your gracing’ me?” he asked irritably. “You called me Cam a moment ago.”

  She poured a little golden liquid, just a drop or so, into her own glass. Then she turned around and reached for his glass. He waited, eyebrow cocked.

  “I am annoyed with you,” she said composedly. “I daresay it is a feeling that your near acquaintances suffer from daily, and so I shall not make more of it than that.”

  Cam almost apologized but caught himself. He never apologized. The most useful thing his father ever taught him was never to admit guilt.

  “You’re likely right about my annoying my acquaintances,” he said. “I’m afraid that Marissa complains quite loudly sometimes.”

  “I’m certain that she does,” Gina said, just a trace of sympathy in her tone.

  He waited, but that was all she said.

  “Don’t you wish to know who Marissa is?” he demanded, finally.

  “I expect she is the buxom young lady who has served as a model for your goddesses,” she replied, handing him a hearty dose of brandy and sitting down. She stretched her pale yellow slippers toward the fire and wiggled her toes comfortably. “She must be a close friend of yours.”

  He felt a shock of disbelief that stretched to his fingertips. “Don’t you give a damn whether Marissa is my mistress or not?” he growled.

  Gina considered. “No. As your wife, I should greatly dislike it if you fashioned my naked body into a hat rack. But if Marissa does not mind being shaped into a useful occupant of the cloakroom, who am I to object?”

  “Damn it! Not all my sculptures are used to display hats!” Cam roared. “Only one of my statues does that duty.”

  A small smile curled at the edges of Gina’s mouth. “I fear that your hat stand has achieved a level of notoriety in London that none of your previous works—at least those to reach this shore—has done.”

  “I never should have sold the piece to Sladdington. Proserpina wasn’t meant to be a hat rack, you know. If you look under all the hats, she is holding flowers. I should never have let a bumbler like Sladdington buy her. But it never occurred to me that he would transform her into a hat rack.”

  Gina looked at him sympathetically. “It—she—looks quite comfortable in his front hall.”

  “You’ve seen her? Damn it, she’s naked, Gina! What were you doing in Sladdington’s house anyway?”

  “I wished to see my husband’s triumphant piece of art. I must have heard about it from a hundred people. I believe Sladdington traveled to Greece solely to obtain one of your statues, and it certainly has raised his consequence.”

  “Bastard,” Cam said. “What’s he doing exposing young women to naked statues, anyway?”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. She’s not naked,” Gina corrected him.

  “She’s not?”

  Gina shook her head. “He’s wrapped something about her waist.”

  Cam was silent, appalled. “He’s given Proserpina a nappy?”

  “Not a nappy. More a—a—” She stopped, clearly at a loss for words.

  “That’s perfect,” Cam said gloomily. “I’m known in London as the sculptor of Proserpina in a diaper.”

  Gina barely stifled a yawn. “I’m sorry,” she apologized.

  “Might the Marquess be miffed?” Cam read aloud. “The Duchess has a Brother.” What the devil is this?”

  “The blackmailing letter. It was sent to my mother, at her house in London.”

  “Very odd,” Cam said, frowning. “This letter is nothing like the first.”

  “I never saw that one.”

  “When I wouldn’t believe the letter existed, Father had to show it to me. I can’t remember exactly, but I think the handwriting was different. And it was in French.”

  “But it must be from the same person,” Gina objected.

  “How many blackmailers are there who know this particular piece of information?”

  Cam shrugged. “Could be many, by this time. Who have you told about your real mother?”

  “Only my closest friends.”

  “Well, that was damn stupid if you wanted to keep your birth a secret!”

  “I prefer not to be called stupid,” Gina remarked. She tossed off the few drops remaining in her glass and stood up. “This has been an absolutely charming interlude, but I am growing weary.”

  Cam looked up at her from under heavy-lidded eyes. “No need to take a snit.”

  “Your comment is preposterous. No matter how many people I told about Countess Ligny, none of them had any idea that I have a sibling.”

  “If you do have a brother. The phrasing is extremely odd. Don’t you think so?”
/>
  “I thought it was rather amusing.”

  “That’s what I mean. Might the Marquess be miffed? The first letter was awkwardly phrased. I remember that my father came to the conclusion that a servant in the countess’s household was responsible. No person who writes uncomfortably in his native tongue could turn out a pertly alliterative question in English.”

  Gina leaned against the fireplace. Cam pretended to study the letter while he watched the line of her thighs. She had the prettiest legs he’d ever seen. She was fine-boned and slender, from the tips of her elegant fingers to the tips of her slim feet.

  He didn’t want to leave. So he kept pretending to look at the paper in his hand and, at the same time, reflecting on how much he would like to have those legs wrapped around his waist.

  After a while she cleared her throat.

  He looked up.

  Their eyes met: green, mocking female eyes and darkly lustful male ones.

  “See anything you like?” she asked, gently.

  He stood up and took one step forward.

  16

  The Bedchamber of a Spurned Woman

  Carola Perwinkle was not resting peacefully. She was reclining on her bed, to be sure. But she was clenching her teeth and quivering with rage. Her husband—her despicable, dislikable devil of a husband—had not only ignored her, he had not only forgotten to say hello or goodbye to her, he had committed the cardinal sin.

  “Fiend!” she whispered to herself, under her breath in case her maid heard from the other side of the room. “Satan! Devil!”

  She lapsed into silence, staring at the gathered silk canopy that topped her bed. There was a light knock on the door. Her maid bustled over to answer it, standing in such a way as to shield her mistress from the open door. But Carola recognized the voice and sat upright. “Please, do come in,” she called.

  “Good evening,” Esme said, strolling into the room. “I saw a light under your door, so I thought I would check on our little project before going to sleep.”

  “It’s no use.” Carola looked at her in anguish. “Tuppy has fallen in love.”