Duchess in Love

“That’s absurd!”

  “No, it’s not. I have come to value kindness above all.”

  “He’s plump.”

  Helene shrugged. “I am too thin.”

  “He’s going bald.”

  “I have enough hair for both of us.”

  “He’s in love with his mistress.”

  “That’s the best part about resuming your marriage. Miles will never pester you for displays of affection that you are unwilling to give.”

  Esme looked at her friend curiously. “Poor darling,” she said, taking her arm. “You must be properly blue to consider such a horrid fate. Leave the plump balding men to me. We will find you a willowy man with a passion for music, and kindness dripping from his fingers.”

  Helene laughed.

  “Meanwhile, I’ll introduce you to Bernie,” Esme said, seeing him plowing toward her. “Unfortunately, he has none of the qualities you respect. Given his extraordinary bloodthirstiness on the hunting field, I’m afraid he can’t even qualify for kindness.”

  Sometime later, Esme found herself dancing with her husband. Miles was not a good dancer: he tended to bounce on the tips of his toes, and wipe his face repeatedly with a large handkerchief, but he smiled so gaily and was so complimentary that it was a pleasant experience. He was considerate, Miles was. He never glowered. In fact, she couldn’t remember him ever being in a bad mood.

  “Why did we separate, Miles?” she asked impulsively.

  He looked surprised. “You asked me to move out, my dear.”

  Esme sighed. “I was a horrid little beast, and I’m truly sorry.”

  “No, you weren’t,” he replied. “I was tedious. I wanted too much from you.”

  “Nothing more than a wife ought to give her husband,” Esme said.

  “But those are wives who actually knew their husbands,” he pointed out. “Your father did you a disservice. He should have waited until we knew each other.”

  Esme shrugged her shoulders. “It’s a common state of affairs.”

  “It shouldn’t be.” There was an edge to his voice that made Esme look at him in surprise. “I don’t feel right about it,” he confessed. “I feel as if I bought you. I saw you dancing, and I had to have you. Presented myself to your father the very next morning.”

  “Yes,” Esme said, feeling very tired. “I remember.” She remembered the summons to come down to the library, to answer a plump, yellow-haired baron who had just asked for her hand in marriage. Given her father’s approval, there was no answer other than yes expected, and she had said yes.

  “It wasn’t right.” The dance was over and they walked toward the chairs at the side of the room. “I should have introduced myself to you, courted you, but I was overcome by your beauty. All I could think of was asking for your hand before someone else took you. They were calling you the Aphrodite, that season.”

  “I’d forgotten that,” Esme said, thinking of Gina’s statue.

  “So I bought you,” he repeated. “I shouldn’t have done it. I’ve felt it was a wrongful action ever since I saw you crying before the wedding.”

  “You saw me crying?”

  He nodded. “I came around the church and you were crying and holding on to your mama. I felt shabby. And I’ve felt shabby ever since.” He pressed her hand. “I want to apologize before we try a new life together. Will you forgive me, Esme?”

  “Of course.”

  He looked rather pink. “If it is quite all right with you, I might visit your room day after tomorrow, if you…you—”

  “That would be lovely.”

  “Are you quite certain?”

  “Quite, quite certain. You see,” Esme said, grinning at him, “I am choosing you, rather than my father doing so. And that makes all the difference, Miles.”

  He smiled too, rather uncertainly.

  “Have you spoken to Lady Childe, then?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, turning even redder. “She is most understanding, most kind, most understanding…” His voice trailed away.

  Esme took his hand. He had a beautiful, fine-grained hand, quite unlike his ungainly body. “If you ever change your mind and wish Lady Childe in your life,” she said in a low, clear voice, “I would understand.”

  He shook his head. “That would be shabby as well. I’ve grown too old to behave like a child. My opinion of myself matters a good deal to me these days.”

  Esme leaned forward and dropped a kiss on his lips. His eyes were blue and utterly round. “There are a good deal of people, myself among them, who act like children every day. I am proud to think that the father of my babes is not one of them.”

  A flush jumped up his cheeks. “No need to say that. Ah, here is your next partner, unless I miss my guess.” He stood up and beamed at Bernie Burdett.

  Esme choked back a giggle. Only Miles would smile at the man half the ton believed to be his wife’s lover.

  Carola was still dancing with Neville when Tuppy entered the ballroom. She gave her partner a huge, glimmering smile.

  “Let me guess. Perwinkle has arrived,” Neville said.

  “How did you know?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Remind me never to partner you in whist.”

  “Do you think Tuppy will ask me to dance?”

  “Has he ever danced with you?”

  “I think so. We must have danced when we first met. But he absolutely refused to dance in the year during which we were married. I mean,” Carola said rather confusedly, “during the first year of our marriage.”

  Neville expertly swung her in a circle. “I expect he hates dancing, in that case. The fact that it is your favorite activity might give one pause.”

  Carola nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on his face so as not to look at Tuppy.

  “Are you quite certain that you want to reclaim your boring husband? Because I love dancing.”

  “Thank you, Neville, but no.”

  “I am ten times more handsome.”

  “How very ungracious of you to point it out!”

  “You don’t seem to have noticed my manifold virtues,” he complained. “So I am forced to bring them to your attention. Shall I end this dance next to your beloved, then, and hand you over?”

  “I don’t think so,” Carola said, succumbing to an attack of shyness. “You have to act naturally. I shall die of humiliation if he suspects my intentions.”

  “Of course he suspects. Didn’t he kiss you?”

  “Anyone could have kissed me.”

  “Men rarely kiss women without provocation. For example, I’ve never kissed you,” he pointed out.

  “Perhaps you should,” she said with a speculative gleam in her eye. “Is Tuppy watching?”

  “Carola, kissing on the dance floor is paramount to declaring that we are engaged in an extramarital relationship,” Neville objected. “Not only would it damage your reputation, perhaps irredeemably, but it isn’t the case, more’s the pity.”

  Her mouth set in a stubborn little line. “Will it damage your reputation?”

  “To the contrary.”

  “Then kiss me. Now, please.”

  Neville slowed his dance step to a near standstill and leaned forward so his face was a fraction of an inch from hers. “When I kiss you, I’d like you to think only of me.”

  “I’ll try,” she said with a little giggle.

  He looked over her shoulder. “I think we have achieved the desired resolution without endangering your reputation overmuch. Your husband is coming this way looking like a thundercloud.”

  She gave him a smile so brilliant it looked as if it had been painted on. “Don’t leave me!” she whispered.

  “Only if violence is imminent.” Then he bowed urbanely.

  “Lord Perwinkle, what a pleasure to see you again. How was the—”

  But whatever kindly remark Neville was about to offer was cut off by a solid thwunk of fist meeting chin.

  He flew backward, unconsciously trying to regain his balance by tightening his
grip on the nearest support—Carola. And Carola, being a little pint of a person, flew through the air even faster than Neville, and landed even harder.

  He grunted; she shrieked. The orchestra stopped playing instantly and craned their necks. Tuppy Perwinkle, maker of his own fishing lures and a man resigned to the bachelor state, stood over his two victims trying to figure out what the hell had happened.

  “Carola,” he growled, “get off the floor.”

  But she had landed hard on her bottom. Worse, her dignity had taken an even harder beating. She ignored him and came to her knees next to Neville. “Dearest!” she cried, “are you all right?”

  Standing to her right, Mr. Reginald Gerard rolled his eyes. Amateur actresses invariably overacted, and Lady Perwinkle was no exception. Neville Charlton, on the other hand, was maintaining an enviable calm, and seemed a good candidate for the stage.

  Neville opened one eye and peered at Carola. Then the other eye opened and he regarded the concerned and excited faces that ringed his vision.

  “Ow!” he said, rubbing his chin.

  Carola ignored her husband’s outstretched hand and scrambled to her feet.

  “You must be cracked!” she said, fists clenched. The circle of faces around her nodded. They agreed. The provocation (while notable) was not equal to the punishment.

  Then everyone looked back at Neville, still on the floor. He came to his feet in a leisurely kind of way and began to repair his neck cloth.

  Tuppy was beginning to feel like an almighty fool. “You look all right.”

  Neville fingered his jawbone. “I believe I shall survive,” he said, as if discussing a fall from an apple tree. “Do you intend to air your reasons for this assault?” He said it in the nicest possible tone.

  “No,” Tuppy replied. “I do not plan to do so.” Despite himself, his hands curled into fists again when he saw how Carola was fluttering around Neville, brushing his coat.

  Neville pushed her away. “Let’s not provoke the maddened bull, shall we?”

  But Carola was beside herself with rage and humiliation. She flew back to Neville’s side and clutched his arm. “How dare you assault my future husband!” she shouted at Tuppy, her voice high. “The man I love more than anyone in the world!”

  Tuppy turned even paler. “I foresee a small problem—” he began.

  “As do I,” Neville put in.

  But Carola was almost panting with rage. “You had the temerity to assault the man I love! You must apologize at once!”

  There was a dreadful moment of silence.

  “All right, I apologize,” Tuppy said, turning to his victim.

  Neville was still rubbing his chin and trying to pretend that he was elsewhere. He dropped his hand and raised an eyebrow inquiringly. Surely Perwinkle was saner than his wife? But alas, not so.

  “You can have her,” Tuppy snapped. “Take her. I don’t want her. I can’t imagine why I tried to protect her reputation.” With that he turned on his heel and walked from the room. Bystanders fell back in utter silence as he walked by.

  Helene stepped forward and took Carola’s arm. She smilingly looked around at the fascinated eyes of the women surrounding them. “Lady Perwinkle must refresh herself,” she announced. “Men are exhausting, are they not? So much passion. Only a woman as beautiful and chaste as she could provoke so much passion!”

  Lady Troubridge nodded, and everyone else followed their hostess’s lead. Helene drew Carola from the room.

  Gina felt her husband’s presence at her elbow before he made a sound. “Good evening,” she said. “Did you see your friend Perwinkle’s remarkable performance?”

  “Make sport of the throes of passion at your peril,” he said with mock gruffness.

  “What do you know about the throes of passion?” she laughed.

  “Too much,” he said, his voice taking on a husky undertone. His wife was wearing an absurd evening dress. It was extremely tight in the upper body and trimmed with a little frill around the neck. With her red hair and white skin, she looked like a seductive Queen Elizabeth.

  “And when was the last time you defended a lady’s virtue?” she asked.

  She had eyes the color of a piece of glass fished from the Greek ocean. And hair like an early sunset.

  “Do you want to go back to the library and pick up where we left off?” he said. “It would be a shame not to answer Bicksfiddle’s letters promptly. Perhaps there are emergencies we should be discussing.”

  Her smile transformed into something altogether more mysterious and seductive. Damn! He had better watch his step. Unless he wanted to sign up for a life supervising bridges over Charlcote Stream, he couldn’t go much further than—

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  He couldn’t remember what she was talking about.

  “I would rather not continue working on estate papers in the library,” she clarified, a thread of laughter in her voice.

  Cam grimaced. The orchestra had started up again. “Let’s dance,” he said, taking her by the hand.

  “We can’t,” Gina protested. “This is a roulade, and Lady Troubridge has not yet arranged sets.”

  “It’s a waltz.” He flipped a coin to the conductor that shone gold as it turned over and over. The roulade turned abruptly into a waltz.

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Gina said, looking up at her husband. “We’re supposed to be awaiting our annulment, not dancing together. People will talk.”

  He considered that idea for a moment. “If you don’t dance with me, I shall kiss you, right here on the dance floor.”

  “What?”

  “On the other hand, if you dance with me, I won’t kiss you…at the moment.” His eyes glinted with promise.

  “You had better dance, because I don’t think that Bonnington will appreciate the kiss. Given Tuppy’s example, he might feel honor-bound to protect your reputation by trying to floor me. And”—he grinned—“I’m not sure he’s up to it.”

  He danced the way he spoke, the way he lived: in bold impetuous dashes and wild seductive turns. Gina could tell that people were staring at them. She felt a prickling in her shoulders. She wrapped composure around her like chilly velvet and dared onlookers to make a comment.

  Cam felt the change in her body and looked down to find that he was holding a Duchess in his arms. A Duchess with a capital D. Gina’s beautiful lithe body was as rigid as a board. No one could possibly interpret their dance in a suggestive light: in fact, her chilly indifference was positively marital. He felt a ripple of extreme annoyance. He preferred his wife with a blush and a giggle.

  “I believe your brother might be a member of the house party,” he said.

  “Why on earth do you think that?”

  “Just because.”

  “Remarkably poor reasoning. If my brother were here at the party, he would have identified himself.”

  “What would he say?” There was more than a trace of scorn in Cam’s voice. “How do you do, Your Grace? I’m your illegitimate brother?”

  “Why not?”

  “What if your brother sent the blackmailing letter? Pardon me,” he said over his shoulder as they bounced off another couple.

  “I don’t think we should speak about this in public,” she hissed. She had lost her composure. One curl had fallen from the complicated arrangement on her head and was bobbing against her neck.

  Cam thought about kissing that neck, and white-hot lust shot through his limbs. “Let’s retire to the library and discuss it at liberty,” he said silkily.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” Gina hissed, having discovered that her husband’s crooked smile had the disconcerting ability to make her blood race. “We’re getting an annulment. We are annulling our marriage. Our marriage is ending. Our marriage is—”

  “I agree,” he interrupted.

  “Then why are you courting me?”

  When Gina was uncertain, she turned into a duchess extraordinaire. Her qu
estion sounded like a royal proclamation. Her eyes had never looked more commanding, her tone more utterly self-possessed.

  He wanted nothing more than to shake that composure from her and return her to the impulsive, shrieking girl he had once deserted in a bluebell wood.

  “I’m not courting you,” he said, condescension intentionally underscoring his tone. “I’m seducing you, Gina. There is a difference.”

  There was a fractional pause. The music came to an end.

  “Seduction would be remarkably foolish, given your wish to be rid of me.” Her tone was thoughtful. “In fact, I think it could fairly be said to be the opposite of what you desire.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I do not wish to be rid of you. And if you are not certain about what I desire, I would be happy to illustrate it at great length.”

  The corner of her mouth curled up unwillingly.

  But she caught Lady Troubridge’s interested eyes and remembered the more important subject. “What do you mean, you don’t wish to get rid of me? We are not even in a real marriage, for goodness’ sake.”

  “You asked me for the annulment. I like having you around—well, I like reading your letters.”

  “You don’t want me as a wife,” she pointed out. “Merely as a correspondent.” She colored slightly, but continued. “Seducing me will not encourage me to write you letters. You don’t want me to be your wife, Cam.”

  “Only because I’m not the wiving sort,” he replied. “I think the more pertinent fact is that you don’t want me as a husband. I’d be perfectly happy to continue as we are. In fact, with a few modifications in our arrangements—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Our marriage,” he explained. Then he wondered what on earth he was saying. So, in the way of all men, he retreated.

  “I hadn’t found our arrangement too onerous.”

  “That is not what you said. You said something about making modifications—in fact, it sounded to me as if you suggested that we halt the annulment.”

  Cam felt the blood drain from his head. Had he really said that? Surely not. His eyes drifted to his wife’s creamy, delicate shoulders and long neck. He had said that.

  “Well?” she demanded, voice as sharp as any Shakespearean heroine.