Desperate Duchesses

  “Mrs. Grope is a high-spirited woman,” Papa was saying as they entered. With his hands clasped behind his back, the marquess looked like a rather dapper magistrate. Roberta always found it interesting how very sensible her father appeared to be, though five minutes of conversation were generally enough to convince people of his unique views.

  “Papa,” she said, dropping a curtsy. “What a lovely surprise this is, to be sure. Mrs. Grope.” She dropped another curtsy.

  Mrs. Grope had dressed her hair enormously high for the occasion. It towered in a series of curls and arabesques before being topped off by a small replica of London Bridge.

  Damon came forward and swept a bow. “Papa, Mrs. Grope, this is Damon Reeve, the Earl of Gryffyn.”

  “My darling daughter,” her father said, catching her into a hug that ignored her curtsy altogether. “Lord Gryffyn, I remember seeing you in the Tête-à-Tête series, was it a year ago?”

  “Papa,” Roberta interrupted. “This is a most unexpected pleasure and yet I must ask…why are you paying me a visit?” That was bald, but straightforward.

  “The most delightful thing, dear child!” he cried. “My book, my magnum opus!”

  “A publisher?” Roberta asked, feeling truly startled.

  “Not exactly—not yet—not entirely—but soon!”

  “We were positively longing for some entertainment,” Mrs. Grope said, putting a hand to her bosom. “Withering in the country, that’s what I said to your dear father.”

  “But Papa, you said that London was nothing more than a nest of vipers,” Roberta said, feeling as if sand was shifting under her feet.

  “But then I bethought me,” he said, beaming at her. “If I accompanied you to London, I could follow up on this matter of a publisher. A publisher is a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

  “Indeed,” Damon said, amusement underlying his voice. “And you, Mrs. Grope?”

  “I am a creature of the theater,” she said, striking an attitude. “I live for the moment when we enter Drury Lane, scene of my triumph.”

  Roberta shuddered. Mrs. Grope had “trod the boards,” as she had it, before meeting the marquess in Bath and returning home with them. After one quick glance at Damon, she had turned herself at a right angle to him and stood with her elegant, if rather long, nose pointed into the distance. She was wearing more rouge than usual, Roberta thought uncharitably; her flush went from her jaw to under her eyes. “Ah, the days of yore when I conquered the boards!” she cried.

  “The role of Elisabetina in The Clandestine Marriage,” Papa explained to Damon, who was doing a very credible job of keeping a sober face. “’Tis a sad comedown for a woman of her beauty to leave the stage, especially when the Prince of Wales himself delivered his commendations in person. Yet she did me the inexpressible joy of allowing me to become her patron.” He went down on one knee to kiss Mrs. Grope’s hand.

  “Papa,” Roberta began.

  “Don’t worry,” he beamed at her. “We won’t get in your way. I’ll assure the duke himself of that. And his lovely duchess. I’ve seen her picture many a time in the Tête-à-Tête column. Many a time! I expect now we’re in London, it’s a matter of time before my own Mrs. Grope is appearing there, but I certainly hope my picture will be opposite hers.”

  “In my sister’s absence, I welcome you both to Beaumont House,” Damon interjected, bowing. “Fowle?”

  “If your lordship would allow us a few more minutes, Mrs. Friss is readying chambers for our guests. I will ascertain her progress,” he said, bowing himself from the room.

  “Papa!” Roberta said pleadingly. “I really don’t—I don’t want you here.”

  His face fell, of course. That was the worst of it, and the reason why she was unmarried at one-and-twenty. His face fell, and he looked as if he were about to cry. “Don’t say that, dearest. I haven’t been able to sleep since you left.”

  “No more he has,” Mrs. Grope said promptly.

  Roberta threw her a beseeching look. She thought that Mrs. Grope, at the least, had understood how important it was that she find a husband. But Mrs. Grope sent her a rueful smile that admitted her total lack of influence.

  “I haven’t slept, and I haven’t written a single poem in three days,” the marquess said, opening his eyes very wide. “How could I, when I had no idea with whom my child was consorting? How can I have allowed my own duckling, my little chicken, to wander the cold streets of London by herself?”

  “I am hardly wandering the streets of London,” Roberta said, controlling her voice to a reasonable level with difficulty.

  “I woke in the middle of the night, and I knew I did wrong,” her father wailed, a tear sliding down his cheek. “What would Margaret say, I asked myself?”

  Damon nudged her.

  “My mother,” she told him.

  She folded her arms and waited; from long experience she knew that her father was only now getting into his stride. “Margaret would say I was wrong—wrong—wrong.” More tears fell down his face. Mrs. Grope patted his face with her handkerchief.

  “That is likely true,” Roberta said, feeling not a whit of sympathy. “Mother would not have been pleased with my journey.”

  “How could I have let that happen?” the marquess said, with a sniffle. “My child…the dearest to my heart…my jasmine blossom—in the second best coach escorted only by servants!”

  Roberta opened her mouth to say something about the poem he sent to Jemma, but Damon nudged her again. “Give over,” he whispered.

  Her father put a hand in his pocket and took out an enormous bundle of banknotes. “For you, dearest, for you. I know you don’t like Mrs. Parthnell’s sewing skills, though I cannot but ask myself who will employ her now that you are gone? But still, Mrs. Grope’s patronage counts for something.”

  Mrs. Grope smiled grimly. Before Roberta left, she had very kindly tried to make Mrs. Parthnell’s creations into something worth wearing to London. But there was the unmistakable odor of Mrs. Parthnell around Mrs. Grope’s current garment. It was fashioned from lovely striped fabric, but the lines were designed to come to a V in the front of the bodice—and they didn’t. It was odd, to say the least, and as Roberta watched, Mrs. Grope adjusted her arms across her chest the better to disguise the defect.

  “It’s for you, all for you,” her father was saying, pushing the banknotes at her. “The St. Giles family has never taken charity, and there’s no need to do so. After all, you are an heiress according to the mercantile standards by which people judge these things.”

  “Thank you, Papa,” she said. The roll was far too large to fit into her pocket. Damon stuck out his hand, and she read deep enjoyment in his eyes. She handed the notes to him.

  “Papa,” she said, but he looked so uncertain she couldn’t bring the words to her lips.

  “I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it before,” he said quickly. “London is the path to all of our deepest hearts’ desires. I expect publishers never accept a manuscript until they have made the acquaintance of its author. Why, it might be a work of the very weakest moral fiber and they wouldn’t know without personal assessment. Don’t you agree, my lord?” He turned to Damon.

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Were I a publisher, I would insist on a personal interview.”

  “There you are,” the marquess said, as Roberta shot Damon a murderous look. “I shall be published, you shall be married, and Mrs. Grope…ah, Mrs. Grope.”

  “And what of Mrs. Grope?” Damon asked.

  “She tried to persuade me against this, from the depths of her loving kindness,” the marquess roared. “But I know she has ambitions. I know the truth of it. Rather than be oppressed in the country, a lady as beautiful as Mrs. Grope should be celebrated in every bookstore window, and I’ve no doubt but that she will be. Look at her, my dear sir, just look at her!”

  Mrs. Grope was doing a very credible job of keeping her gaze on the far distance and her chin high in the air.

&nb
sp; “I cannot fool myself that she will stay under my protection,” the marquess said with a heavy sigh. “But I cannot but be oppressed by the idea that I may have caused distress to the two women I love most in the world: my daughter, and my dear Mrs. Grope, the love of my bowels.”

  At this propitious moment, the door opened and Fowle appeared. “Her Grace, the Duchess of Beaumont,” he said. And: “His Grace, the Duke of Villiers.”

  Roberta would have fainted, if she’d known how.

  “Please allow me to introduce my sister, Her Grace, the Duchess of Beaumont,” Damon said to the marquess. “Jemma, this is Mrs. Grope, and the famed poet, the Marquess of Wharton and Malmesbury.”

  “How I enjoyed the poem that dear Roberta brought me,” Jemma said, curtsying.

  “A trifle, a mere trifle,” the marquess said, blotting a last tear. “I am not yet entirely happy with it…I believe I shall take out the bear and the swearing parson, when all’s done. I won’t publish it until it’s in its finest state, when I bring out all my collected works in a folio edition. This version is for your eyes only. My gift for your kindness in sheltering the pearl of my bosom, my only daughter.”

  “Are your collected works forthcoming?” Jemma asked, curtsying to Mrs. Grope. “A pleasure, dear madam,” she said, as Mrs. Grope’s curtsy took her nearly to the floor.

  “I have no doubt it will happen, in leather with pearl bindings,” the marquess said. He made a leg to Villiers. “I knew your father of old,” he said.

  “Not always an unmixed blessing to make my father’s acquaintance,” Villiers allowed.

  “I fear he did not understand literature. Not at all. I was in my salad days, you understand, but I already had a fine grasp of music and rhythm. Your father said something abominably rude; I shan’t repeat it. But I remember every word.”

  “We are more and more in sympathy every moment,” Villiers said. “I too have several signal lectures delivered by my father emblazoned in my memory.”

  “Be that as it might,” the marquess said, “it was an excellent poem. A light subject, but heartfelt in its every pentameter. I still remember it.”

  Roberta’s heart sank. Sure enough, a moment later her father launched into fifteen verses that began, For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. Even Roberta, who was well versed in literature, couldn’t follow much other than the rhyming couplets that occasionally popped up like way posts in a dark night.

  There was a moment of silence after he finished while (Roberta assumed) the assorted company tried to ascertain whether the poem was truly over.

  “I never ask my daughter to critique my work,” her father said, in a magnificent untruth, “as her literary judgment is far harsher than her pleasant exterior promises.”

  “Unnatural child,” Damon whispered.

  She shot him a squinty-eyed look and he shut up.

  Just as Roberta realized with a queer little pang that her father’s feelings were going to be hurt, how could they not be hurt, Damon said: “Immensely moving in every lineament and emotion, my lord. I think the line he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes, and you must forgive me if I have that wrong, was particularly penetrating in its analysis.”

  Her father beamed.

  “It’s very sad in the end,” Jemma ventured. “Did I understand that a rat bit Jeoffry’s throat?”

  The marquess nodded, rocking back and forth on his heels. “A sad demise for such a splendid quadruped. There is nothing sweeter than his peace,” he quoted, heaving an enormous sigh. “He died a few days after. Your father,” he said, turning to Villiers, “was rather unkind in his assessment of that poem.”

  “I can see why,” Villiers said, his voice as sleek as any cat’s. “Father didn’t like felines. If Jeoffry had been a hunting dog…”

  “Ah now, if only he had explained that to me,” the marquess said, beaming. “Some people have unusual fears of domesticated animals, as I well know. Why, Mrs. Grope is terrified, purely terrified, of camels.”

  They all turned like puppets to stare at Mrs. Grope. “Miggery’s Traveling Circus,” she said with a shudder.

  Roberta felt like moaning. Thankfully, Jemma was smiling and didn’t seem inclined to throw them all out.

  Suddenly a large hand squeezed Roberta’s. “Don’t worry about it,” Damon said in her ear. “This house is big enough for all of Miggery’s Traveling Circus.”

  Even as Damon spoke, her papa was delightedly accepting the duchess’s invitation to stay. “But only for a night or two,” he said. “I’ve made up my mind to open up my house. I have one, you know, child,” he said, turning to Roberta. “I expect you’ve forgotten that.”

  Forgotten? How could she possibly have known that?

  “A large one it is, on St. James’s Square as I recall,” he said, frowning a bit. “I inherited it from someone or other. My relatives have dropped like fleas in the past few years,” he told the company at large. “I’m composing a sort of universal poem of commiseration that can be applied to many occasions. It’s the only prudent thing to do.”

  “But you will leave Roberta here with me, won’t you?” Jemma asked.

  The marquess frowned. “I hadn’t thought—”

  But Mrs. Grope proved herself a true friend. “If—” she said magnificently, viewing them all, a duke, an earl, a marquess, a duchess and Roberta—“I am to achieve the fame which I heartily deserve, I cannot be disturbed by the presence of a young lady in the house.”

  “But dearest—” the marquess bleated.

  She raised her hand. Just so did Moses part the Red Sea. “No!”

  “It is for the best,” Jemma said.

  “I agree,” Villiers put in, rather unexpectedly.

  “You think so, do you? And why is that?” the marquess asked.

  “I could not pay my addresses to a young lady living in the proximity of an actress,” he said, “even such an exquisite woman as Mrs. Grope.”

  Mrs. Grope bowed her head magnificently, as one receiving her due. Damon’s hand fell from Roberta’s.

  “Pay your addresses, eh?” her father said, looking rather deflated. “I suppose the world is coming to a place where I might have to give my only daughter to one who doesn’t understand poetry.”

  Villiers looked at Roberta and she felt the thrill of it to the bottom of her spine. “She has not yet accepted my hand,” he said.

  Roberta couldn’t think what to say. Was that a proposal?

  “Doubtless she will consider your merits in due time,” her father said. “Roberta can look to the very highest in the land when she decides to choose a spouse.”

  Villiers’s sardonic look indicated that he was the very highest in the land, but luckily, Fowle reentered the room and announced that the chambers had been prepared if Mrs. Grope and the marquess would be so kind as to follow him.

  Jemma led the way, the marquess’s hand tucked in her arm, and Villiers held his arm out to Mrs. Grope. So Roberta and Damon followed. For some reason she felt rather shy about meeting his eyes.

  He pulled her back as they were about to leave the room.

  “Damme,” he said and she could hear incredulity in his voice. “What the devil are you about, Roberta?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Villiers? How did you manage that?”

  She bristled. “Need there be an explanation that involves trickery?” Although to tell the truth, she couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

  Neither did Damon, obviously. He raised an eyebrow at her. “What in Hades did you do to the man, to get him to the point without witchcraft?”

  She turned up her nose. “Why wouldn’t he wish to marry me? Don’t you think I’m desirable?”

  The moment she said it, she knew she had said the wrong thing.

  “You’re particularly desirable now that you’re almost engaged to someone else,” he said, and sure enough, there she was backed up against the silk paneled wall of the drawing room as
Damon pushed the door shut behind Mrs. Grope.

  “There’s nothing more desirable in the world than a woman planning to marry someone else,” he whispered, brushing his lips against hers.

  She felt as if heat struck her in the face the moment he tasted her. Or perhaps it was the moment she tasted him. There was something deliciously wicked about kissing one man when another has almost asked you to marry him.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered back. He kissed her harder. She discovered she was breathing in little pants.

  “I should be doing this,” he said. His hands were on her breasts as if they belonged there. Her bodice skimmed below her nipples without putting up a fight. Damon was looking down at her with an odd little smile on his mouth and doing something with his hands.

  “That—” she said foolishly.

  “Feels good?” he asked, crooking one eyebrow.

  “Interesting,” she choked.

  With one swift movement he pulled down on her bodice again and it slipped below her right breast as simply as if it weren’t designed to do precisely the opposite. Her breast spilled into his hand.

  “Roberta,” he said, and the huskiness in his voice made a strange warmth grow between her thighs. Or perhaps it was what he was doing with his thumb.

  Roberta clutched his forearms. “This is scandalous,” she whispered.

  “You’re not engaged yet,” he said, sounding happy. And uncaring. “Besides, it’s all the more delicious for being surreptitious.”

  And then, while she was still figuring out what he meant because her brain seemed to have taken a little holiday, he laughed and said, “I’m writing poetry!”

  Just when she would have kicked him in the ankle, his mouth replaced his hand at her breast. Roberta was no fool. There are times in life when sagging against the wall is exactly the right thing to do, and luckily one of his arms held her up.