“I think, Spears,” he called up, “that you need to send down some sort of long flat stretcher with ropes attached so we can pull it up. It’s very heavy, so make the ropes and board stout. Our dummy here is stuffed with treasure, a veritable king’s ransom in treasure.”
30
“DO YOU HAVE any idea how deliciously decadent you look?”
She just grinned up at him, the luminous loop of pearls around her neck, dipping down past her navel to rest on her white belly. She wasn’t wearing anything else, her husband having insisted that with the pearls lying on her flesh—ah, nothing more was necessary. She was, he told her now, to consider it his birthday present to her, perhaps for the next three years, so grand were the pearls.
“Yes, I know you think me wonderful, and I am. I found out from Aunt Gweneth that your birthday’s in September, just around the corner.”
“And I found out from Fanny that your birthday is in early October. Just perhaps I’ll manage to find a fitting bit of jewelry for you to wear. Ah, about dear Fanny, I believe she’s making you something very special for your birthday, Marcus.”
“She’ll get over this infatuation with me, or perhaps she’ll go to her grave an old doddering woman still carrying a worn-out torch for me.”
“She’ll get over it,” the Duchess said. “Just two more years and both the Twins go to London. She’ll see you then as a drooling old man and dismiss you out of hand. Now, about my birthday. Three years, you say?”
“Yes, a good three years.” He picked up the pearls over her stomach, looked at them closely and said, “They’re more luminous now, just for these few minutes on that white belly of yours.” He then bent down, and began kissing her stomach. She tugged at his hair and he raised his head, grinning at her. She said, “Very well, Marcus, I’ll dress myself in the pearls again on the fourteenth. I will consider this my first birthday installment. And what shall I have you pose in, Marcus? I know, I want you to wear that incredible ring with the huge ruby.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.”
“When did you say your birthday was, Duchess?”
“I believe it begins in just about ten minutes. Actually, you’ve already begun it on my stomach.”
He laughed, leaned down and kissed her, and began playing with the rope of pearls. “Damn,” he said, between kisses, “we will wait until you are perfectly well again. You’re still sore and I hate it, but there it is.”
“I’m not at all sore. It’s been well over three weeks. I’m perfectly well now, even my side.”
He frowned at that, lightly tracing his fingertip over the still pink scar on her flank. He could still see the marks from the thread and remembered all too clearly how George Raven had stuck the needle in her white flesh then pulled it through, again and again. He gulped. The Duchess said, “Stop it, Marcus. It’s over. I’m well. We both survived. Your hard head and your hand healed, albeit more quickly than I thought fair.”
He shook his head. “You’re right. It’s in the past, thank God. You may be certain that I will take excellent care of you from now on. As to anything else, sweetheart, we’ll wait until you’re beyond perfectly well. No, don’t argue with me, Duchess, though I want you to, just about more than anything, even more than Badger’s splendid Carbonnade of Beef or his very splendid medaillons de veau poches à la sauce au Porto.”
“However do you know that French name with the poached veal?”
“My dear wife, Badger and I did the menus together during your illness.”
She gave him a disbelieving look, but could only giggle.
He said, “By all the gods, to hear you laugh again. Do you know I want you to want me so much in return that you’ll burst into tears, swear you’ll poison me unless I take you right this moment?” When she started to speak, her eyes sparkling, he put his fingers over her mouth and sighed a martyr’s sigh. “No, don’t do it.” He quickly rose from the bed again and put a good ten feet between them. “No, I’ll just gaze upon you wearing those pearls, and sweat. Perhaps kiss your belly some more, but it hurts, Duchess.”
“I hate to see a man sweat, Marcus. Hurting is quite another matter.”
“Be quiet, Duchess. No, don’t move, just lie there like a courtesan in a sultan’s bordello, but I will migrate my mind to other things. I’ve a strong mind, I can do it. I’ve been thinking that the two chalices, that Bible, and the other Church pieces—including that relic which is some saint’s finger bone, I suppose—should go to Rome. As for the rest of it, it stays here.”
“Yes,” she said. “I was thinking the same thing. I like what you gave to Maggie too.”
“I wonder if she’s lying quite without a stitch on in her room at this moment, wearing only that emerald necklace.”
“No, she’s sitting in front of her mirror brushing her glorious red hair, admiring the emeralds with her coloring. Your mother told me she was wearing her diamond tiara tonight to the dinner table. Ah, and the Twins are in alt over those bracelets you gave them.”
“As for Spears and Badger, I told them they could both retire with the coins that were their share, but they were both quite put out with my suggestion. Spears looked down his nose at me, quite like your father would do to both Mark and Charlie when he’d caught them in a bit of mischief, and told me that he feared for my well-being were he not to be here to see to things.
“As for Badger, I fear for our dinner, given his black looks at my well-meant suggestion. He gave me this pursed look, his mouth all puckered like this, and said that such a worthless suggestion wouldn’t go unpunished in Heaven. When I asked him what that meant, he said he would think about it.”
“That’s quite interesting to be sure; however, enough. Husband, I would like you to put on that ruby ring.”
He shook as he looked quickly at her. “I’ve been amusing you,” he said slowly, so hungry for her that he shook even more, “and all you’ve done is think lascivious thoughts about my tender self. Just look at you, all draped with those pearls around your breasts, and now you’re lying on your side, and let me tell you, Duchess, that pose is more than wanton, thank the good Lord.”
She took his hand and laid it over her breast and said very softly, “Marcus.”
He gaped and swallowed with some difficulty and gaped some more. He stared at his hand, hard and large and brown against her smooth white flesh.
“Listen to me and cease trying to amuse me. I’m very well now. George said so just this afternoon.”
“I wouldn’t let him really examine you. He doesn’t know, how could he? He’s not a woman.”
“Neither do you know and neither are you a woman. However, I’m a woman and I do know. You’ll be gentle; even when you’re not gentle, it’s gentle enough for me, because all I can think about is what you’re doing to me and how it makes me feel, and that’s all that matters. Please, Marcus, put on that ring.”
He muttered, gave her dark looks, and put on the ring. But she kept after him until he was quite as unclothed as she was, that large ruby sparkling in the late-afternoon sunlight pouring through the window. After that, he played with her pearls, each one of them, and the white flesh beneath each one, and when he came into her he was gentle, perhaps more than he’d ever been, and the sweetness of it filled her until it changed, becoming more, as it always did, until she couldn’t bear it, and then she was in a frenzied place, filled with light and excitement that was unbearable yet she didn’t want it to end. He was with her and she knew as she kissed his throat, his shoulder, her hands caressing his back, that he always would be with her.
When the Duchess entered the library the following Friday morning, looking for Marcus, she paused on the threshold, listening to him sing. His voice was a mellow base, not as beautiful as Spears’s, but very nice nonetheless. He was singing the bawdy sailors’ song.
He turned as he finished the last line, and grinned at her. “Isn’t that a wonderful ditty?”
“It’s certainly graphic. Th
e tune is nice, don’t you think?”
“Actually,” he said looking down at his thumbnail, and worrying at it a bit, “I don’t much like the tune at all. I was just thinking that I could have done much better. I have a talent, you know, for music, for tunes specifically, especially tunes for bawdy words and verses. I wish I knew the man who writes these songs. We could form a partnership. It’s a pity. These wonderful words and rhymes, and they must be sung with these miserable tunes.”
“Miserable! That’s ridiculous, they’re superb, well, not all of them, but most are quite acceptable, even occasionally exceptional. As for the “Sailor’s Shore Song,” I’ve heard that it’s already sung everywhere, that it’s popular, nearly beyond popular, and it won’t be forgotten. It will live forever in the King’s Navy. There, so much for your criticisms, Marcus. Miserable indeed.”
“It’s not bad, as I said, but I doubt it will be remembered beyond next month, beyond October at the very latest, surely not after my birthday. Why I’ve very nearly forgotten it already, particularly the tune.”
She picked up a thick tome of Tom Jones that was laid atop a marquetry table, and hurled it at him. He caught it handily, remarking, “Goodness, I hadn’t realized that TomJones was so heavy. Such a light tale for so many pages. Just like those silly ditties, so very light they are, meaningless really, just brief stupid diversions. And without sharp and bright tunes to make them memorable. Such a pity I don’t know the fellow who writes them. Poor thing, trying to survive without the valuable assistance of such a talent as mine.”
She turned red, looked about for another thick book, didn’t see one, and began running at him, hopping actually, because she was trying to pull off her left slipper.
She forgot the ribbons. When she looked down and tried to pull the bow free, she succeeded only in knotting the ribbon all the more. She cursed and he laughed. She shrieked at him even as she sat on the floor and began furiously pulling at the bloody knot, “You wretched sod! Those ditties are wonderful! How many do you know, anyway?”
He looked down at her there on the floor—utterly enraged, not at all the old Duchess, but his precious new Duchess, and she would surely kill him if she ever got that slipper unknotted—and he looked back to his thumbnail, saying in a drawling voice and enraging her all the more, “Oh, I suspect I know all of them, more’s the pity, since they aren’t really all that well done, just sort of well done, barely on the edge of being well done. Yes, I do know all of them.”
“That’s impossible, you sod. I know Spears is always singing them, but certainly you can’t know more than just a few, not more than five at the very most.”
The thumbnail received more concentrated study. He said, “I’ve been thinking I should go to Hookhams and see if they can’t give me this Coots fellow’s direction. Being a man, he’s probably reasonable and would look at my offer of partnership as a gift from God. What do you think, Duchess? Ah, that knot is stubborn, isn’t it? Do you want me to help you? No? I see, you’re going to try the other one. It’s about time. Anger is just fine, but the outlet for it is more important. Without the outlet, what is anger anyway?”
She’d switched to the right foot and the bow melted apart in her fingers. She jerked off the slipper, leapt to her feet, and ran right at him.
He was laughing when she began hitting his chest with the slipper, then he gathered her against him, pinning her arms at her sides. He nuzzled the side of her neck, whispering in her ear, “Do you think I should write to this fellow Coots? Inform him that I’ll make him a success? Surely he’s barely surviving now. What do you think, Duchess?”
“Damn you, what if Coots isn’t a man at all? I don’t suppose you ever considered that, did you? Not everything that’s creative or original, or, or, clever and imaginative is done by men, you witless sod.”
He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, but was careful not to let her free. “But of course it is, sweetheart. Face it, you’re a woman, an above-average woman, a beautiful gracious woman whom I love, but still, just a woman and surely you must recognize that this Coots is a man with a man’s talents, woeful though they be with regard to the tunes themselves. But only a man could produce songs that actually were worth something.”
She growled, red-faced, utterly furious at him, and he began to laugh. He threw back his head and roared with laughter. Suddenly she became utterly still.
“You know.”
“Know what?” He laughed harder.
“You know all about Coots.”
“Of course I do, goose.” He stopped laughing, hugged her so tightly against him that her ribs creaked. “Lord, I’m very, very proud of you.”
“I could have hurt you throwing Tom Jones at you.”
“Yes, you could have knocked my head off, but you didn’t.”
“I wish you’d stop laughing at me, Marcus.”
“I did, just a moment ago. But you deserved it. You should have told me about R. L. Coots and the wonderful success you’ve gained. You should have told me when I first visited you at Pipwell Cottage and accused you of being kept by a man. Your pride, madam, makes me want to strangle you, that is, if I didn’t have the same pride myself. Tell me, is there another song in the works?”
“Yes,” she said, studying her own thumbnail, “but I seem to be having trouble with the tune. The words are clever, truly, but the tune is floundering.”
He looked down at her, cupped her chin in his palm and kissed her, then just looked some more. He was thinking about those pearls and which was more luminous, the pearls or her breasts.
“All right, Marcus, either we go to the music room right now and you prove your mettle else I’ll never let you forget it, never.”
“Let’s go,” he said, then lifted her, set her on his desk and put her slipper back on her foot and deftly tied the ribbon. “Shall I knot the ribbon on that brutal slipper, or have you regained your control?”
“You’d best knot it.”
It was very late, a late-summer rain pounding against the windowpanes. They were sitting in front of the fireplace even though the fire had quite died down to glowing embers, but they didn’t care, for they were writing another ditty, this one about Napoleon and all his mistresses, a song the Duchess swore would never leave the bedchamber. Marcus told her the rumor of the emperor’s lack of majesty in his male part. She stared at him and said quite seriously, “How odd. I thought that all men were the same in that area. I mean, couldn’t that song apply to all of you? There are differences, really?”
He turned red with outrage, yanked her against him, and kissed her until she was panting and laughing at the same time.
A knock came at the door, and Marcus cursed, then sighed. He called out, “Enter!”
It was Antonia and she was carrying a silver tray on her arms.
“Goodness,” the Duchess said, leaping off Marcus’s lap. “What do you have there?”
“A present from Badger. He said you were both to drink it down. He called it a por-ency drug, not to me, but to Spears, who was with him. I just overheard it and Badger looked very uncomfortable and he cursed.”
“A potency drug?” Marcus said, trying to keep the smile off his face.
“That’s right. When I asked him what that was, he said it was an aphrodisiac. What’s that, I asked him, but he just wagged his finger at me and told me to make myself useful, so here I am. Spears looked as if he would cry he was so embarrassed. I think he was mad at Badger for telling me words I want to know but probably shouldn’t. It was very curious. Fanny wanted to bring it so she could look at you and get all moon-eyed, Marcus, but I wouldn’t let her.”
“Thank you, Antonia.” He said to the Duchess, “Just two more years.”
The Duchess took the tray from Antonia and set it on a tabletop. She sniffed. “It smells like hot chocolate to me, with something in it I can’t identify. Perhaps it’s chopped snail toenails.”
“Badger said you were to drink it and then do what you normally do. He
said you’d know what he meant.”
“The bugger. Yes, Antonia, we know. Thank you, muffin. Go to bed now.”
When Antonia was gone, Marcus raised a cup and gave the Duchess the other. “To us, to snail’s toenails, and Badger’s attempt at heir-making.”
“Hear, hear,” she said and drank deep. “An heir. I surely like the sound of that.”
They were asleep soon, snuggled together, her head tucked against his neck.
31
THE BRIGHT MORNING light shone in her eyes. Odd, but she didn’t want to open her eyes, the light was too bright, it hurt, but finally, she did slit her eyes open.
“Hello, Duchess, it’s about time you joined us. As you can see, your dear husband is already awake, unhappy with me and with his headache, and naturally he’d kill me if it weren’t for the tight ropes around his hands and feet. Your bonds aren’t quite as tight. I don’t intend for you to suffer, not you, never you.”
She stared in blank astonishment at Trevor. “I don’t understand. Where are we? What are you doing here?”
“To begin with,” Marcus said, his voice so calm it frightened her, “he somehow drugged that hot chocolate Antonia brought to us last night.”
“Yes, certainly. She said Badger made it. I don’t believe it. It’s not possible, not Badger.”