“I expect you’re wondering just how we shall manage the bedding part of it.”
Roberta stifled a nervous giggle. Talking to the duchess was like talking to no one she had ever encountered before. “I—” she said.
“I assure you, I share your concern. The imagination quails, truly it does. Beaumont and I rarely exchange words that could be described as civil. But there, Lady Roberta, a woman’s life, etc. etc. Do you play chess by any chance?”
That question caught Roberta off-balance as well. “No. I’m afraid I never learned. My father doesn’t play, and my governess had strong views on appropriate activities for women.”
The duchess waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Spend your time sorting embroidery yarns and generally boring yourself to tears? If you are lucky enough not to spend your days scrubbing a man’s breeches.”
Roberta couldn’t help it; she started to smile. When Jemma laughed, one simply had to laugh with her.
“The only problem I can see with you living here,” the duchess continued, “would have to do with your standards.”
“My standards?” Roberta asked. The duchess was looking at her expectantly.
“Ethics…morality…that sort of thing.”
“Well, I have them,” Roberta said cautiously. Adding: “I suppose.” In truth, she couldn’t claim a great knowledge of moral strictures, given her father’s propensity for lively companionship.
“Well, I have only a few.” The duchess smiled at Roberta with an odd, crooked little smile. “If you are going to live with me, I simply won’t be able to bear it if you are constantly peering at me in a disappointed kind of way. And if you criticize me, I’m afraid that we would quarrel directly. Among my many faults is a quite simple inability to accept that I’m wrong. Do you see how awful I am to live with?”
Roberta laughed. “I could not be disappointed, not unless you metamorphosed into Mrs. Grope, who has been my constant companion these two years. In truth, Your Grace, I can’t imagine reprimanding you for anything!”
“Oh, you’ll think of something. But we’d better go on intimate terms, don’t you think? My name is Jemma, which is short for the worthy name of Jemima. May I address you as Roberta?”
“I’d be delighted!”
“Well, Roberta, I shall just enumerate my faults, shall I? And let me be quite clear that if you feel unable to stay with me, I have any number of relatives who will bring you out with all the appropriate rites and ceremonies. In fact, it’s quite possible that you should do that. I’m not at all certain that young, unmarried girls are supposed to be living in houses featuring centerpieces akin to what Caro designs.”
“Perhaps not the completely naked ones,” Roberta admitted. “But there is a certain educational value, as your brother noted.”
Jemma gave a delightful chortle of laughter. “Who knew that it would take so much gold paint to cover one chest?”
“Exactly!”
“I am just realizing that you managed Caro as beautifully as you deflected my annoyance over my husband’s dictates. I suppose you are used to people of artistic temperament?”
“Life with my father was—has been—”
Very kindly Jemma cut in. “I can guess,” she said. “Living in France for years, I was often behind the times with English gossip, but your father’s escapades are always in circulation.” Her smile was so cheerfully nonjudgmental that Roberta found herself smiling back. “So, do tell me, did you feel faint when you saw my centerpiece?”
“Not in the slightest,” Roberta assured her. She added, unable to resist, “But perhaps I shall once you enumerate all your faults.”
“It’s hard to know where to begin,” Jemma said.
Roberta raised an eyebrow.
“Well, let’s see. For one thing, I’m a duchess.”
Chapter 3
“A duchess!” Whatever Roberta had been expecting in the way of Jemma’s faults, this wasn’t one of them. “What’s wrong with that? I have always believed it is a—a consummation devoutly to be wished.” And given that she herself had every intention of being Duchess of Villiers, come hell or high water, she really meant it.
The door opened and the stout butler, his face returned to a normal hue, entered with a silver tea tray. “Oh thank you, Fowle,” Jemma said. “That is so kind of you.” After a moment of fiddling with the tray, he left. Jemma poured tea very carefully into fragile tea cups and asked, “Were you quoting poetry just now?”
“Yes, although I couldn’t tell you who wrote it. My father says the phrase frequently and it stuck in my head.”
“Have you had much to do with duchesses?” Jemma didn’t seem to mean that question unkindly; she was fussing with the sugar bowl.
Roberta glanced down at her badly sewn skirt. “No, I have not.”
“Well, I assure you that we are an abominable sort. The very title gives us license to make the worst of ourselves, and we so frequently do.”
“Really?” Roberta accepted a steaming cup of hot tea.
“I have several duchesses among my acquaintances; in fact, we have formed something of a friendship based on the title itself. You see, to be a duchess means that every person you meet will fawn, if he does not positively grovel.”
“Ah,” Roberta said, wondering if this was a veiled way of pointing out that she had not groveled appropriately.
“It is beyond tedious. It makes one stupid.”
“I believe,” Roberta said, “I would hazard the loss of my intelligence. And I am fairly certain,” she said, putting down her cup, “that a small amount of fawning would be a pleasant antidote to Mrs. Grope’s opinions.”
“Dear me, Mrs. Grope does seem to enter your conversation with some regularity,” Jemma said. “Who is she?”
Roberta hesitated and then prevaricated. “I have had a limited circle of acquaintances in the past few years, and I would love to excise her from my mind.”
“And I am dithering on about duchesses. Therein another of my faults: I am incurably shallow. Truthfully, Roberta, my duchess friends are quite like myself.”
“And that is so terrible?” Roberta was happily conscious that Jemma seemed almost a friend already—which surely implied that she, Roberta, was natural duchess material.
“Shallow. Fickle when it comes to men—and you should take that in the worst possible light. This is not a household in which I can imagine a gently reared vicar’s daughter being comfortable. We are desperate in our affections and even more so in our general dislike for our husbands. Well, those of us who have husbands.”
“What happened to the dukes?”
“Oh, the usual sort of things,” Jemma said with a shrug. “Beaumont and I separated years ago, as you must know. My friend Harriet will pay me a visit today; her husband died two years ago, so she’s a widow. I have one friend, Poppy, who is so new to the duchess-business that she is barely wet behind the ears; she’s married to the Duke of Fletcher. Of all of us, I’d say Poppy is our only hope for a happy marital relationship, but she’s going about that all the wrong way. And then finally there’s my friend Isidore. She doesn’t quite count as a duchess, since she hasn’t married her duke yet. They’ve been engaged since birth, and she lives with his mother so if he ever returns from the Orient, or wherever he is, she’ll take the title along with the man.”
“Since I am not a duchess,” Roberta offered, “are you quite certain that you wish my company at all? Your acquaintances sound rarefied in the extreme.”
Jemma opened up her mouth to reply but the door opened and Fowle appeared. “Your Grace,” he said, “His Grace begs the kindness of a moment of your—”
Belying the courtesy of the butler’s request, the duke’s voice rose in the near distance, his words muffled but his fury clear.
Jemma put down her teacup. “I always forget how much I loathe living with a man,” she told Roberta. “Please do stay here comfortably with your cup of tea, while I reacquaint myself with the pleasures of ma
rital strife.”
“Oh dear!” Roberta exclaimed, coming to her feet.
Jemma paused for a moment, obviously taking in the details of Roberta’s costume for the first time. “Tell me that your Mrs. Grope is a seamstress and you have my everlasting sympathy.”
Roberta felt herself turning pink. “No.”
“We shall clothe you,” Jemma said severely. “Though it pains me to say it, I would believe half the eccentricities ascribed to your father merely by examining your gown.” She was at the door before Roberta could answer. But what could she say? She too thought that Mrs. Parthnell had made a mistake by pairing a bodice of melon-colored stuff with a burgundy silk skirt.
A gently bred young lady would stay in the sitting room and ignore the fracas. Roberta headed directly after the duchess.
The duke was standing in the marble entry, looking remarkably like the illustrations depicting his impassioned speeches to the House of Lords.
“He should go to the country,” the duke roared. “Where he can be apprenticed to learn a decent trade.”
“The child certainly will not go to the country,” Jemma announced. “That is, unless Damon wishes him to do so.”
Roberta blinked. Who could the child in question be? Given that Jemma explicitly announced her mandate to produce an heir, it could hardly be hers.
“Well, he isn’t coming into my house!” the duke snapped.
“My brother is coming to stay with me for a time,” Jemma retorted. “And his child, my nephew, naturally comes with him.”
“For Christ’s sake, send him to the care of a farmer!” Beaumont said. “You can’t bring him up to your own feckless ways, Gryffyn.”
Lord Gryffyn was lounging against the door to the drawing room with a muscled grace that bespoke a lighthearted demeanor rather than sober industry. “Teddy will never be a farmer,” he said, apparently not turning a hair at Beaumont’s fury. “You haven’t yet met him, or you’d realize there’s nothing of the farmer in his veins.”
“What is in his veins, then?” Beaumont snapped. “Don’t tell us you’re finally going to reveal the name of his mother?”
“Attila the Hun,” Lord Gryffyn said without blinking an eye.
“Not known for his maternal instincts,” Beaumont said scathingly.
“Nevertheless, Teddy has Attila’s blood in his veins,” Gryffyn said. “I can’t send him to the country because I have to keep him under my eye.”
“May I respectfully request that you keep him under your eye in your own house, rather than mine?”
Jemma intervened. “I asked Damon to live here, Beaumont, at least for a time, because I have missed him while I lived in Paris. And I have a nephew whom I have never met.”
“Did it occur to you that the presence of an illegitimate child in my house is not precisely helpful to my career?”
Roberta could sympathize with the duke. The London papers were bound to find the presence of Lord Gryffyn’s illegitimate child interesting, especially in combination with the naked centerpiece and the return of the duchess.
“Your career, Beaumont, will have to survive the presence of your family. May I remind you that we are that family?” Jemma said with acid indifference. “Teddy is your nephew.” Her smile, a marvel of kindness, was met by Beaumont’s glowering fury. She waved toward Roberta. “You mistook my relative, Lady Roberta, for a charity worker, Beaumont. I shall be bringing her into society.”
Beaumont bowed frigidly in Roberta’s general direction. “And precisely how will you do that?” he asked. “I can hardly believe that my notorious wife is going to curb her activities to suit the sensibilities of matchmaking mamas.”
“I shall consider it if it would stop you from bleating about your career,” Jemma said, turning away.
A look of such rage went across Beaumont’s face that Roberta blinked. Then he bowed to his duchess’s back, and once to Roberta, and was gone.
When Jemma turned around again, her cheeks had gone red and she was breathing quickly. “How shall I ever live with him?” she said, looking at her brother. “You see why I want you to move in, Damon? I can’t do it, I really can’t.”
Her brother straightened. “I will come for a visit if you truly wish me to, Jemma, but I think it would be easier for both of you if I didn’t.”
“I shan’t survive here otherwise, Damon. I can’t live with him.” Her fists were clenched. “You must stay with me so that I can have a greater acquaintance with my nephew. And—And I need you.” She smiled a little tearily at Roberta. “I’m so sorry about the scenes we’re played you today. We’re as good as a farce. Or perhaps I should say a tragedy.” Her voice wobbled a little.
Lord Gryffyn put his arm around his sister and bent his head close to hers, murmuring something.
Roberta felt an odd twinge in her chest. She’d never had a brother or sister. Since her mother died, her closest companion had been her father, and whichever of his consorts happened to be living with them.
She backed into the sitting room and sat down. A moment later Jemma followed with Lord Gryffyn.
“You must think us hopelessly ill-mannered. I do apologize. Don’t take all those cakes,” she said, snatching the plate away from her brother. “My guest hasn’t even had one yet. Roberta, you must have one. Beaumont has an excellent cook, and his ratafia cakes are delicious.”
“I haven’t even met Lady Roberta properly,” Lord Gryffyn pointed out.
“This is Damon Reeve, the Earl of Gryffyn,” Jemma said. “If I tell you that his best friends call him Demon, you’ll know precisely how unworthy he is. Beaumont was absolutely right about his laziness: he never does a worthy action all day.”
“A charming introduction,” Lord Gryffyn said. “Please call me Damon. After all, we’re family members, as I understand.” He took another cake.
The duchess took the plate away and put it on the floor between herself and Roberta. “Eat as many as you like,” she said to Roberta. “I know him of old, and if I don’t act quickly, there’ll be none left for us.”
Gryffyn threw her an affectionate grin. “Beaumont had a point about his career, Jemma. Both of our reputations in the same small space may well damage it, not to mention Lady Roberta’s marital aspirations.”
“I missed you all these years,” Jemma said. “I’m not giving you up so soon, and I want to meet Teddy properly.” She turned to Roberta. “Damon’s son Teddy is just five years old.”
“He turned six last week, you unnatural aunt,” Gryffyn said. “I missed you too, Jemma. But I hardly want to cause the fraying of your marriage.”
Jemma snorted inelegantly.
“Beaumont doesn’t mean to be such an ass,” Gryffyn added.
“He just acts that way?” his sister said. “But enough airing our linen, dirty and otherwise, in front of Roberta. You must bring Teddy and his nanny this very afternoon.”
“Unfortunately, he has no nanny at the moment. Teddy has an annoying habit of escaping and the latest nanny stomped away in a temper yesterday.”
“Escaping? Where does he go?”
“Anywhere but the nursery. Generally he goes to the stables during the day. And he wanders the house at night until he finds my chamber, and then he climbs in my bed. Last night he couldn’t find it, so he slept in the vestibule until I came home. Marble floor. Cold, I should think.”
“My father had a dog like that,” Roberta said. And then clapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean to compare your son to a dog, my lord!”
“Please, you really must call me Damon,” he said, looking absolutely unmoved by the slur to his offspring. “Children are slightly doggish, don’t you think? They need so much training, and they have a dislikable habit of urinating in public places.”
“I suggest you bar the nursery door,” Jemma said, “particularly now that you remind me of children’s indiscriminate attitude toward hygiene.”
“Can’t do that,” Damon said. “What if there was a fire? And Tedd
y, by the way, is past the age of indiscriminate peeing. He’s very good at seeking out a tree, just like the well-trained puppy he is.”
“Perhaps you could carpet the vestibule,” Roberta suggested. “If you mean to allow him to continue in this habit.”
“Remarkably uncharitable on both your parts,” Damon complained. Then he looked back and forth. “How odd! I suddenly see quite a resemblance between the two of you. Don’t tell me! My illegitimate child is only matched by our father’s own indiscretions!”
“Actually not,” Roberta said. “I’m legitimate, but from a far branch of the family tree. I only wish that I resembled Jemma.”
“You have her blue eyes,” he said, grinning at her.
“Roberta is going to be my project,” Jemma said. “I’m going to dress her up to look absolutely gorgeous, which of course she is, and then marry her off to whomever she wishes. It’ll be great fun.”
Roberta felt a queer compression around her chestbone. “Are you sure?” she asked. “It will be frightfully expensive. I’m not sure how much I can persuade my father to contribute.”
“Jemma’s husband can manage a dozen debuts and not notice,” Damon said. “I don’t know why Beaumont bothers with his speechifying; he could just buy the votes he needs to get a bill passed, in the time-honored fashion. That’s what father always did.”
“I’m afraid that the third earl—our father—was a tad disreputable,” Jemma said. “You interrupted me, Damon. I was trying to warn Roberta that she might not want my chaperonage.”
Damon looked her over so carefully that Roberta felt herself getting pink. “It’s true that your reputation was marred by merely walking into this den of inequity, or it will be once the English ladies get the measure of my sister. Jemma is unlikely to be a prudent chaperone. The Reeves have been disreputable back to the days of King Alfred, and though I regret to say it, the tendency bred true in both of us.”
“Jemma has neglected to tell you that I am the only child of the Mad Marquess, to use the term the popular press prefers,” Roberta said. “So the ton will have more hurdles than Jemma’s reputation to consider when it comes to my marriage.”