Desperate Duchesses

  “Beaumont’s cook is definitely French, with the temperament of a devil, or so Ransom tells me.”

  “Isn’t it odd that your school friend would end up secretary to the duke?” she asked.

  “Not at all. I recommended him for the post.” The door opened. “Ah, Fowle,” Damon said. “May we please have a small repast and a bottle or two of champagne?”

  “I do not like champagne,” Roberta said. “Some other drink perhaps?”

  “Do you like wine?”

  “If it’s sweet.”

  Damon shuddered. “Intolerable. We have nothing of the sort in the house, and if we did, you’d have a terrible headache in a couple of hours.”

  “Ratafia?” Fowle suggested.

  “Absolutely not. I don’t want our guest casting up her accounts tomorrow morning.”

  “In that case, I would suggest a gentle concoction of champagne and strawberries, my lord. Strawberries just arrived from the country, and I believe it will make the champagne tolerable to Lady Roberta.”

  “Champagne with fruit doused in it,” Damon said morosely.

  But Fowle was right. It was delicious.

  “I shall ring if we need anything further,” Damon told Fowle and then, turning back to Roberta, “There’s no better way to nurture gossip among the servants.”

  Roberta shrugged. “The servants in this household have so much to occupy them; I’m sure we’re at the bottom of the list.”

  “It is true that your engagement should keep them talking for the evening,” Damon said, cautiously sipping his drink. “It’s pink,” he said with disgust, “and there’s sugar in it.”

  “I like it,” Roberta said. “Champagne always bites the back of my nose, but this is lovely.”

  Damon brought over a small table and placed it between them. “Do you know how to play dominoes?”

  “You asked me that before,” Roberta said, giggling. She had finished her glass and the world seemed a much more cheerful place. “In fact, I always beat my governess.”

  “Superior skill at matching sixes?”

  “I have very good luck,” she said smugly. “I often draw doubles.”

  “I shall prepare to disrobe,” Damon said, loosening his cuffs.

  Roberta froze for a moment. Then she picked up her pieces. Her mind was a little fuzzy but she was quite certain of the important things. Her fiancé had said that chastity was tiresome. That same fiancé was playing a game of chess whose outcome had everything to do with loss of clothing.

  “Let’s just see what happens, shall we?” she said, smiling at Damon.

  He sat opposite her, looking a little perplexed. That was because he was a man. She turned all the pieces face down and prepared to draw.

  “Wait a minute!” he said, and the wicked gleam was in his eye. “I’ll bet you were cheating your poor old governess by memorizing where the doubles were.” He shuffled the pieces.

  She managed to keep a pitying smile off her face because when a man is about to lose all his clothing, he needs his composure.

  She drew the highest piece, a six, so she pulled all her bones first. She didn’t draw a double in her original three, which was a wee bit disappointing.

  She played and sipped her drink.

  Damon handed her a tiny square of iced cake. “You should try this, Buttercup. It’s just as sugary as the champagne.”

  It was lovely, so she ate it while she drew her next piece, a double three. She didn’t tell him, though, until two moves later when she put it down crosswise as a spinner.

  “Wait a second,” he said startled. “You’re supposed to tell me when you draw a double. You have to drink.”

  “I have been drinking,” she pointed out. His glass was still full, but she threw back the last drops of her second glass and fished out the slice of strawberry with her tongue. He seemed to enjoy watching her do that, so she licked the edge of the glass.

  He wrenched his eyes away. “Well, so you put down a spinner—”

  “Which means that you have to take off a piece of your clothing.”

  “No need to be quite so eager. I’m wearing a great deal of clothing.”

  “I’m not eager,” she said loftily. “Just curious.”

  He pulled off his jacket and threw it to the side. Underneath he wore an embroidered waistcoat and a linen shirt.

  “That waistcoat doesn’t quite match your jacket,” she pointed out.

  “My valet made the same comment, but it was too late. I already had it buttoned.” He selected a new piece. “Oh, no. A double. That means I have to drink.” He took a large swallow and shuddered visibly.

  “How could you not like it?” Roberta said. “It’s absolutely delicious. I feel quite swimmy.”

  Damon put down a piece but it wasn’t his double. “There’s no place for my spinner, but you should beware.”

  Meanwhile Roberta drew another double and put it down directly as a spinner.

  “I can see there are benefits to your sort of luck,” he said. His waistcoat followed his jacket.

  She glanced at him from under her lashes. His shirt was so fine it was almost transparent. He had beautifully cut muscles in his shoulders. As she watched he rolled up his sleeves. “Though why I bother,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose I’ll have this shirt on my back much longer.”

  Roberta smiled to herself.

  But to her vexation, it was she who began to lose clothing next. Damon put down the spinner he drew earlier. She was experiencing the most deliciously fuzzy feeling, so rather than lean over, she simply pointed a foot at Damon.

  “Very small feet,” he said, holding her ankle. “And sweetly turned ankles.” He drew off her right shoe.

  A moment later she lost the left one as well.

  “I had better not lose any more,” she said, sitting up straight.

  She put down a spinner. “It seems that I’ll have to take off my shirt,” Damon said. His voice was as sweet as strawberry champagne and far more dangerous.

  Roberta put down her drink. After all, this was her very first male chest, and she might as well have a good view.

  He played right along, smiling at her as if he exhibited himself to young ladies every day. First he took his time pulling the shirt from his breeches, and then he slowly pulled it up over his head.

  Roberta’s lips made a silent O. He was so beautiful. Smooth muscles rippled as the shirt flew to the ground. Her fingers twitched, wanting to touch them.

  “Your move,” Damon said gently.

  Roberta dragged her eyes away from his body. She reached forward and picked up a domino piece, cool and long in her fingers. She knew it was a double without looking. She turned it over, thinking that he would have to take off his breeches—

  It was a three.

  She made a little, disappointed sound before she realized and he let fly with a bellow of laughter. “One of the things I really like about you, Buttercup, is that you’re almost transparent.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said, stung. “I can be very Machiavellian when I want to.”

  “Oh really?” he asked, his eyes dancing over the edge of his glass. “I bet you’re no good at lying whatsoever. You look like a girl who never told a decent lie in her life.”

  “I certainly have,” she protested. “Why, I regularly tell Mrs. Grope that her hair is remarkably elegant.”

  Damon visibly shuddered. “So you tell white lies. But have you ever told a lie about something you really felt deeply about?”

  “Yes! I feel deeply about Mrs. Grope’s hair!”

  “I can understand that. Now look me in the face and tell me a lie about something you really care about, something you feel desperately about.”

  What did she feel desperate about anyway? The champagne had made her so cheerful that she didn’t feel desperate about anything…except, perhaps, seeing Damon take off his breeches.

  She must have looked blank, because he said, “Tell me that you’re not in love with Villiers. Go
on!”

  “I’m not in love with Villiers,” she said slowly.

  “Terrible!” he said. “Your eyes went all soft and moony even mentioning his name.”

  In Roberta’s opinion, her eyes went soft and moony because—the horror of it—for a moment she couldn’t remember who Villiers was. Champagne was dangerous.

  “I don’t want to draw another double,” she said, keeping her voice firm. “Absolutely not. I will simply faint if I draw another double.”

  Something flared in his eyes that made her belly fire in response.

  “And why is that, Buttercup?” he asked. He pulled a two from the pile and played it.

  She kept her voice casual. “I’m afraid that you’ll take this game too seriously. That you might have misunderstood me.”

  “What?” Apparently this took him by surprise.

  “I’m afraid that you’ll think I’m like all those other young women, chasing after you in hopes of marrying you.”

  He gave a bark of laughter. “I can distinguish a mountain from a molehill, Roberta!”

  “Just so long as we’re in agreement. Now if I could just draw a two…” She turned over the piece.

  “Double two’s,” she said cheerily. “And—how lucky!—I can create a spinner from the two you just played.”

  His eyes were unreadable. “I seem to have lost track of this conversation. Were you exhibiting an unexpected brilliance at fibbing, or are you really afraid that I’ll consider you a marital prospect?”

  “I’m hardly a marital prospect,” Roberta said. “I’m in love with someone else, and I’m engaged to marry him.”

  Damon reached down and pulled off a shoe. “Then why are you here?”

  “Shall we make a bet that you won’t be able to tell whether I’m lying or not?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve lost all faith in my ability to read your mind.”

  Roberta took another delicious swallow of champagne. “My fiancé and I are going to have a sophisticated marriage,” she told him.

  “Sophisticated?”

  She nodded. “That means that we don’t have to be prudish and chaste and tedious things of that nature. It’s not as if I’m a baker, you know!” She opened her eyes very wide.

  He pulled off another shoe, even though it was his turn to move, but she decided not to mention it. It was too much fun to look at his chest.

  “Your muscles are quite beautiful,” she said. “Do you take exercise?” He didn’t seem to hear her, perhaps because he was putting his stockings to the side.

  Roberta’s heart was beating quickly.

  “We’re being absolutely straightforward here,” he said with a slow smile. “I will not fear that you are hunting my considerable assets—”

  She giggled.

  “Instead, I take it that you are here with the laudable desire to gain some experience before encountering Villiers in an intimate setting. After all, such an older man—”

  “He’s not old,” she protested.

  “Perhaps it’s just his style. He always strikes me as bored by life. Enthusiastic only about chess. Though, of course, perhaps it will all change when he gets you alone in a bedchamber. God knows, we’re not in a bedchamber and I’m finding it a challenge not to leap on you like an untamed dog.”

  He sat down and pulled a five from the pile.

  Roberta felt a flash of chill. It went without saying that Villiers would never compare himself to an unmannered mongrel. He would never sit opposite her, wearing nothing but a pair of breeches, looking as easy as if he were born to be naked.

  Damon put down his piece and then looked up at her. Her heart almost stopped at the look in his eye. “I dare you to pull a double from that pile,” he said.

  “Maybe I should go to my chambers,” she said. “It’s late.”

  “Bedtime?”

  Roberta wasn’t sure what she was doing. She was teasing him, even though she didn’t mean it, or did she? Her mind seemed to be drugged by the very sight of Damon. And it wasn’t as if there was anyone who thought she shouldn’t be here. Villiers had said—had said—

  “I suppose we ought to finish the game, since we started it,” she said. Her heart was thudding against her ribs.

  “I always finish a game once it begins.”

  Roberta didn’t think Damon was talking about dominoes. Was she ready for this?

  “The world is a different place than I believed it to be while growing up,” she said, pulling a four from the pile.

  One of the intoxicating things about Damon was the way he looked so interested in her opinion. “Really?” He pulled a blank. “What did you think the world would be like? It must have been rather remarkable, growing up with Mrs. Grope. I would hardly have thought you had a conventional upbringing.”

  “Well, it wasn’t conventional,” Roberta said. She couldn’t fit any of her pieces onto the board. “We’re getting all cramped on the right side of the table.”

  He ladled a bit more strawberry champagne into her glass and pointed. “One of us needs to start a spinner with that four.”

  Roberta was feeling suddenly shy. She drew a one. “Mrs. Grope has only been a friend of my father’s for the last few years.”

  “Before that?”

  “Well, there was Selina…an actress.”

  He looked up at her, startled. “You can’t mean Selina Trimmer, currently the lead actress at Drury Lane, not to mention inamorata of the Prince of Wales?”

  She nodded.

  “I gain a whole new respect for your father,” he said, snagging a three from the pile. “Selina is remarkably beautiful. Is she as temperamental in person as in reputation?”

  “Oh yes,” Roberta said. “She found it very hard to live in the country and I’m afraid it had a wearing effect on her composure.”

  “Then why on earth—” he said, and checked himself.

  “She was in the grip of a passion for my father,” Roberta explained, feeling a little thrill of parental pride. “She met Papa when the Drury Lane traveling company visited our estate. He persuaded her to stay for a brief visit.”

  “How brief?”

  “Two years.”

  “You lived with Selina Trimmer for two years!”

  “She wasn’t a Trimmer at that point,” Roberta explained. “This game is so irritating, Damon. I don’t think I can move anything.”

  “Yes, you can. Put your one there,” he said, pointing.

  “We knew her as Selina Le Faye. But Selina felt that she would do better with a more English-sounding name, so when she decided to go to London, we concocted the name Trimmer.”

  “You mean that it was an amicable parting?”

  “There was no rancor. Of course, my father wept voluminously.”

  “My dear Roberta,” Damon said, “why on earth are you the least bit surprised by the goings on in this house? To put it bluntly, you have grown up in a household whose attention to conventional mores seems to have been fragile, to say the least.”

  Roberta had to think about that for a moment, which was just as well, because Damon had drawn a piece that he didn’t seem to know what to do with. “It’s not that I’m surprised by intimacy outside of marriage,” she said finally. “But my father was deeply in love with Selina, and then with Mrs. Grope. He loved them, both of them. It broke his heart when Selina decided that she could not continue to be happy in such a remote location as our home.”

  “But he didn’t take her to London.”

  “I believe that Selina felt it was time for something new, perhaps?”

  Damon grinned. “Nicely put.”

  “The truth is that I know something of what goes on between men and women,” Roberta said. She could feel herself going a little pink. “I hadn’t actually seen anything until the other night, but I have—”

  She broke off, seeing the utterly fascinated look on his face.

  “You have what?”

  “I suppose that I am in possession of a rather unique amou
nt of information about pleasuring men. At least for someone like me.”

  “A virgin, you mean.”

  She nodded.

  He put down his piece. “It seems that I, Roberta, have drawn a double four, which I shall place as a spinner in the one available spot.”

  “Oh,” she said, feeling her heart speed up again.

  “What will you take off?” he asked. His grin was absolutely devilish.

  But Roberta had already thought this through. She stood and pulled up her skirts in the back, where he couldn’t see. With a sharp pull, she untied the ribbon that held her hooped petticoat in place. It fell to the floor, and Roberta stepped neatly out of the frame.

  Damon’s face fell. “That was sneaky,” he said, getting up. Before she realized what he was doing, he picked Roberta up in his arms and sat back down on his chair.

  “What?” she yelped.

  “I love holding a woman who isn’t wearing an iron-wrought frame around her body,” he said.

  “My hoops aren’t made of iron,” Roberta said. He smelled so good that it was hard to think. Instead she just snuggled into his chest. It was soft, like velvet but not velvety. She ran a finger over the contours of his chest.

  “Buttercup,” he said in a husky whisper. “It’s your turn to move.”

  “In a moment.”

  He busied himself by kissing her ear, and Roberta flattened her hand against his chest. He was warm, hot, in fact. And smooth chested.

  “Will you grow hair as you age?” she asked, running her hand over his chest again. It was intoxicating. He had a nipple, which she wouldn’t have expected. His was flat, not like hers. She ran her fingers over it again. And again.

  His voice sounded a little strained. “I don’t think so. Why? Do you hanker after chest hair?”

  She giggled. “No. The only male chest I’ve ever seen belonged to a groom, and he had white hair all over his front.”

  “I’m sure Villiers will have all the white hair you want,” he said. And then: “I’m sorry, Roberta. That was entirely uncalled for.”

  She squeaked. “What are you doing?”

  “Making up for my rudeness,” he said, his voice entirely serious. “It’s the least I can do.”

  Roberta thought about that, but none too steadily because his fingers were sliding up her leg, and farther. It was as if she could feel her skin as he felt it, curved, smooth, rounding under his fingers. His breath was coming faster and his fingers—