Duchess in Love

  “Do you suppose she’s dancing with him again?” Cam asked. For some reason, he didn’t feel like sitting around in the comfortable male confines of the card room.

  “What do you care? He’ll likely throw her over after you annul the marriage. She’ll have to go live in a cottage somewhere in the north.”

  Cam stood up so suddenly that he bumped the table, spilling brandy onto the polished surface. “Any time you decide to stop moralizing long enough to breathe, just let me know, will you, cousin? I’ve had all the boredom I can take at the moment.”

  He strode out of the room, conscious of a prick of guilt. He shouldn’t have snapped at Stephen like that. But he’d had that lesson drilled into him one too many times—by a master of morality, his own father. His lip twisted. Responsibility! In the name of responsibility his father had locked him in every dark closet in the house, destroyed any reverence he had for the name of his mother, and married him to a woman he had, until the day of his marriage, thought to be his first cousin.

  Gina stood out in the ballroom like a lighted torch among a bunch of squibs. As it happened, she wasn’t dancing with her marquess. Instead, she was partnered with a stout middle-aged man. He leaned against the wall for a moment and watched. She wasn’t strictly beautiful, his wife. Not beautiful the way Marissa was beautiful. Marissa had the deep-set eyes and rounded cheekbones of a Mediterranean goddess. Whereas Gina…Gina had a lovely mouth. His fingers itched to shape it in marble. Although coaxing that sweetness into stone would be a tremendous challenge.

  Marissa didn’t look real in stone. She looked like the embodiment of man’s greatest fantasy about women: placid, sensual, gloriously languid, unspeaking. Gina was like a moving flame. Where on earth did she inherit those tip-tilted eyes? Her spirit leaped so clearly from them that they would be almost impossible to reproduce.

  The dance was drawing to a close and Cam strolled over to the side of the ballroom where she was standing. As he walked up, she turned and smiled.

  He almost caught his breath.

  My God, but Gina had grown up well! At eleven years old, she’d been a lanky, leggy wisp of a girl with big green eyes and hair that was always falling out of its braids. But here she was wearing a gown that barely covered her curves. In fact, what cloth there was seemed no more than a backdrop to her breasts and those long, long legs. No doubt about it: French gowns were made for figures like Gina’s, he thought. Marissa would look positively plump in one of them.

  “Hello, Cam,” she said. “Have you come to dance with me? Because I’m afraid that I promised this dance to—”

  “A husband’s privilege,” he said smoothly, taking her arm. Some couples were putting themselves into a circle so he towed her forward, enjoying the way she wiggled, trying to pull her elbow from his hand.

  “That’s enough! That’s enough! Three couples only, if you please,” an elderly-looking man said fussily. “All right, everyone! We’re set for Jenny Pluck Pears—do watch your slide, if you please!”

  Cam looked down at Gina with laughing eyes. “What the devil is he talking about?” he whispered.

  “Dancing, you fool!” she whispered back. “Eight slides, then set left and turn single.”

  “What?”

  The music started.

  “Follow me!” she said, taking his hand. That Cam liked. He picked up the hand of the portly matron to his right.

  “All right, slide left,” Gina hissed.

  Grinning broadly, Cam slid left. But since Gina hadn’t given him a termination point, he slid until he bumped into her hip. He liked that too. Gina had lovely curves for such a slender woman. She gave him a flustered look and pulled him to face her.

  “Partners face,” she whispered. “No! No, follow me!”

  Cam chuckled. “Now what?”

  “We skip around the outside next.”

  “Skip? I don’t skip!”

  She pulled at him sharply, and he found himself obeying her just for the pleasure of holding hands.

  He was looking around laughing, when Gina hissed at him again. “We’re supposed to flirt, Cam!”

  “What?”

  “I know, it’s a ridiculous notion, isn’t it? But we should speak to each other at this point in the dance.”

  Flirting with Gina didn’t seem ridiculous to Cam, but by then they were back in place and he bowed for what seemed like the tenth time.

  “Well, that was amusing,” he said as they walked off the dance floor. “English society skipping in a circle.”

  “Didn’t you have a dancing master as a boy?” she asked with some curiosity.

  “Sporadically. Father had trouble retaining servants, if you recall.”

  “And I don’t suppose there’s much dancing in Greece.”

  “Oh, but there is! The whole village dances.”

  “You dance with them?” Gina looked up at her husband in some bewilderment. He was so different from the boy she remembered. She remembered very little of their wedding, so she had always thought of her husband as a bigger version of the lanky, twiglike boy who used to whittle dolls out of wood.

  Now here he was, grown broad in the shoulders and big—big all over. He’d grown into his father’s frame, she thought. He looked muscled all over, perhaps from the sculpting. She hadn’t thought of sculpting as physical labor. He stood out in the elegant ballroom like a sore thumb, with his wild, beguiling smile.

  “You used to be quite normal,” she said wonderingly.

  “But now—”

  He waited, eyebrow raised.

  “You don’t fit in here,” she said, hoping that wouldn’t offend him.

  “Wouldn’t want to,” he said promptly. “I do remember all the folderol of the ballroom though, Gina. Would you like me to claw my way to the drinks table?”

  “Actually, I would,” Gina said, enjoying the notion of sending this barbarian on an errand. “I should like a glass of champagne, please. The pink kind.”

  He looked about and poked one of the footmen standing next to the door. “You! Fetch me two glasses of pink champagne, if you please.”

  The footman looked around, startled, but leaped to obey.

  “You’re not supposed to do that,” Gina said, laughing despite herself. “The butler has positioned those two men at the doors in case they are needed.”

  “For what?”

  “What if someone faints?”

  He looked her over from head to foot. “You look hearty. Are you feeling like fainting?”

  “No, of course not.” Something about his leisurely gaze send hot blood to her cheeks and made her a bit dizzy.

  To her relief Sebastian appeared. He bowed punctiliously. She could tell he wasn’t pleased to find her with her husband. He had said earlier that he thought the duke should return to London so as to avoid complicating the annulment proceedings.

  Cam thought of bowing and decided to skip it. He was getting tired of looking at the floor. Just then the footman reappeared, holding two glasses. “Thank you very much,” he said, taking them and handing one to Gina. “Sorry we don’t have a glass for you, Bonnington.”

  Gina sighed. Sebastian’s mouth closed like a steel trap. Clearly he thought she’d had more than enough to drink and, to be honest, she had. There was nothing she disliked more than feeling sluggish in the morning. “I don’t wish for any champagne. Would you mind terribly fetching me some lemonade, Sebastian?”

  He gave her an approving nod and plucked the champagne out of her hand. Then he bowed again and began making his way out of the room.

  “How the devil did he manage to bow without spilling the champagne?” Cam asked. “Damn! Now you’ll have to share mine, and I was looking forward to swilling the lot.” He held the glass out to Gina with such a merry, wicked look in his eyes that she took it without thinking and drank some.

  He comfortably leaned against the wall next to her. “Shouldn’t some man be pestering you for this dance?”

  “I had promised it to Sebast
ian.” She took another sip of champagne, wondering why her pulse was racing.

  “But you can’t dance twice with the same man,” he said.

  “Remember those letters you wrote me when you just came out?”

  “I can’t believe you remember that! Why, that was years ago.”

  “I have a good memory,” he said lazily. “So are you risking scandal by loping around the dance floor with your betrothed twice?”

  “Oh no,” Gina said. “Those rules only apply to girls just out of the schoolroom. Although Sebastian does restrict himself to three.”

  He turned his head and looked at her. “If I was betrothed to you, rather than just being your husband, I wouldn’t let you dance a single dance with anyone else.”

  Gina felt a lick of fire in her stomach. “Oh,” she said lamely. Her conscience prompted her to defend her betrothed. “Sebastian feels we are in a very precarious position. Here I am, married, after all.” She took out her fan and waved it gently before her face. There was nothing worse than a flushed face with red hair, as her mother had repeatedly told her.

  “Yes,” he said meditatively. “Here you are, married, after all.” He reached over, plucked the champagne glass from her hand, and took a drink.

  Gina licked her lips. There was something incredibly intimate about sharing a glass. Perhaps the bubbles were going to her head again.

  “Shall we sit down?” he asked.

  “All right,” Gina said.

  He walked straight across the room and ducked into one of the little alcoves off the ballroom. Heavy ocher silk swung closed behind them.

  Gina sat down on the little velvet sofa, flustered. “I never enter these alcoves.”

  Cam looked around and then sat next to her. “Why on earth not? It’s a little airless, to be sure. And I don’t think much for Lady Troubridge’s artistic sense.” He peered at a picture of a lackadaisical Cupid sitting on a buttercup.

  “Curtained alcoves aren’t considered proper.”

  He looked at her with frank amusement in his eyes. “I’d just as soon spend all my time in an alcove and none of it skipping around. Have some more champagne.” He handed her the glass. “I think we should finish it before Bonnington returns, don’t you think?”

  She pushed it back into his hand. “I don’t care for any, thank you very much.”

  “How are you, Gina?”

  “Absolutely fine,” she answered, startled.

  He leaned toward her. Gina smelled his soap. Her heart beat a rapid tattoo against her rib cage.

  “No, I mean how are you truly?” he said. “After all, we are intimately related, though I haven’t seen you for twelve years. We were first cousins for years. Then when it was suddenly revealed that you were not my blood relative, you became my wife.”

  “I’m just fine,” she said, getting more flustered. She tapped her fan closed and looked at it rather than meet his eyes.

  Marissa’s face was a perfect oval. When Gina’s eyes were hidden by those sooty eyelashes—she must color them, he thought absentmindedly—her face looked almost as perfectly oval as Marissa’s. Odd he hadn’t noticed that earlier. It must be her eyes. They led him astray. She was smoothing each stick of her fan with a delicate finger.

  He was jolted by a stab of lust. Did she touch the lofty Bonnington with those long fingers of hers? With that smooth a stroke? If she hadn’t, she would. He pulled his thoughts back from that image.

  “Gina,” he said.

  She looked up. Her eyes were a bewitching green, the color of a deep pool of Mediterranean water.

  “Aren’t you going to welcome me home?” he said, rather huskily. And then, before he thought twice, his lips drifted down on hers. He tasted surprise on her lips. He was surprised too. What the devil was he doing? Still…a woman’s lips, a curtained alcove, a waltz playing dimly in the background. England at its best, he thought dimly. He cupped the back of her head in his large hand and relaxed into the kiss.

  Except that one moment he was feathering his lips over hers in a sweet, welcome-home kind of way, and the next his wife gave a startled little squeak and so, of course, he took the invitation and—her open mouth.

  At which point waltz, curtains, and champagne fell away. His groin tightened; he tilted her face so that he could crush her mouth under his. He cupped that delicate oval of a face in his callused hands and drank from her as if she were nectar. The mating game. Not nostalgia anymore, nor greeting. In the flick of an eyelash, their kiss had transformed into a bewildering, lusty meeting of mouths. He had a sweep of her hair in his right hand and her hand was curved around his neck. His mouth was hard on hers, sweet kisses, hot kisses that burned the air between them.

  Except she stopped kissing him back and shoved at his shoulder, hard.

  He pulled back. For a moment they just stared at each other. Then she reached out a hand and pulled open the curtains. Sure enough, her fiancé was making his way across the ballroom floor.

  “You must excuse me,” Gina said. “I believe I momentarily forgot who you were.”

  Cam felt a bolt of anger. No one forgot who he was when he held her in his arms—no one. Especially not his own wife.

  “It appears that Bonnington is about to save us from a spot of marital embarrassment,” he drawled.

  “Are you embarrassed by something?” she asked, raising a delicate eyebrow.

  He had to admit it. She was as cool about it as he was. Damned if he believed that she’d never been in an alcove before. He answered without pause for thought. “I’ve always thought it must be unpleasantly embarrassing to feel desire for one’s wife. Rather like a disreputable longing for the bread pudding served in the nursery.”

  She turned a little pink at that. “Bread pudding?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Bread pudding. Because one can go without bread pudding for long periods of time, can’t one? In fact, it is hardly seen on a civilized table. But then sometimes one has an alarming”—he paused—“lust for just that homey concoction.”

  There was a moment’s pause as Gina untangled his metaphor and discovered she was being compared to a soggy concoction that she hadn’t willingly eaten in years. Fury polished her tone to a smooth honey. “I understand your embarrassment,” she cooed. “Because it is embarrassing, some would even say humiliating, to experience an unreturned lust, is it not?”

  He smiled at her, one eyebrow raised. “Then why on earth are you engaged to that man?” He nodded toward Sebastian.

  Gina gasped.

  It was much more comfortable to have her in a state rather than himself. “Do you know, a flush really isn’t very attractive on a red-haired person,” he said with an air of discovery.

  Bonnington approached, holding a glass of sickly yellow liquid. Gina walked into the ballroom, giving him a melting smile.

  Cam was amused to see that the slightly hunted look in Bonnington’s eyes only increased. If she wasn’t careful, she’d flush that partridge too early.

  “I have been longing for some refreshment. Unfortunately, I am beginning to find this assembly has become quite tedious.” She paused. “Perhaps it is the sedating effect of reacquainting oneself with childhood playmates. I’m sure you won’t take offense at that, sir. I’m afraid that I’ve quite lost my taste for the nursery.” She favored Cam with a cool smile. “Shall we stroll into the garden?” She slid her hand into Bonnington’s elbow with a jolt that brought her body up against his jacket.

  Cam watched with hooded eyes as Bonnington automatically edged back so as to achieve a proper distance between their bodies. “I trust you will excuse us,” he said.

  Deep in his eyes Cam saw a glimmer of manly panic that made him feel much kinder toward the fellow. After all, why judge a man based on his finicking deportment in public? Some of the most polite fellows he knew were outrageous in private.

  If anything, he should feel sympathy for the poor blighter. Caught, he was. He watched as they strolled away. Unfortunately, Bonnington had gotten
himself into the mess by proposing. He would soon find himself walking down the aisle of St. James and, in the natural course of marriage, would be driven around the bend by his wife.

  A jaundiced, beery voice sounded at his ear. “Hello there, duke,” it said.

  Cam looked about.

  “Richard Blackton, second cousin on your mother’s side,” the man said, swaying and catching his balance with the ease of a habitual drinker. “Recognized you at once. You look just the same as your father, you know. What’re you here for, then? Annulling the one marriage, are you? Going to take on younger game? Why don’t you try one of Deventosh’s daughters? They’ve got red hair too. Not so many women with red hair in the ton, you know. If you have an penchant for the color, well, beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Cam’s head had begun to pound in an unpleasant fashion. “I am honored to meet you,” he said.

  The drunk looked confused and said, “What? What’d you say, son?”

  “I am ravished with pleasure to meet you.”

  That silenced him. “Foreign manners,” he said, looking suspiciously at Cam. “Foreign manners and red hair. I need a brandy.” And he turned and tottered back to the decanters lining the sideboard without another word.

  Cam retreated to the chambers allotted him by Lady Troubridge, trying to dismiss a nasty suspicion that was creeping into his mind. Marissa had black hair. Midnight black. So black it was…black.

  Gina had hair the color of a ripened orange.

  Perhaps he did have a penchant for red hair. It was a bewildering thought and didn’t fit his vision of himself as an Englishman who lived in a cheerfully godforsaken country and fashioned plump naked women out of marble, a man who spent most of the day covered with gray marble dust.

  There was no room in his life—in that life—for an irritating duchess.

  For a wife.

  7

  The Afflictions of Memory Following Lady Troubridge’s Ridotto

  The following morning Gina could not bring herself to visit the breakfast room. She huddled in bed, reliving every exchange with her husband. He was so very different than she remembered. How male he had become, she thought with a shiver. The way his shoulders—but no. It was more his eyes. There was something about the way he looked at her, as if she were a delicious private joke. She curled deeper under her covers, ignoring the way her stomach tingled at the memory of their kiss.