She scowled at him.
“My heart’s steady,” he said. “Here, feel it.”
Her little hands came up to his shirt and pressed. “I can’t feel anything,” she cried, frustrated.
So with a groan of regret he pulled away, stood up and pulled his shirt over his head. She liked to look at him. He could tell the way her eyes darkened, just a bit. In a flash he was back where he needed to be.
“Now you’re going to monitor my heart,” he said, grinning because he couldn’t stop.
She swatted him. “Elijah, we’re making love in the outdoors, in case you didn’t notice that. What if that little monk comes along?”
“In the rain?” He snorted. “The man is snuggled up next to a fire somewhere drinking a toddy. That’s what monks do. They certainly don’t engage in gardening.”
“As if you know!” But she looked better for a little jousting: more like herself, and less like a frightened, white-faced woman he didn’t recognize.
“Now as I said, you’re in charge of monitoring my heart, not that anything will happen.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because, I never faint when my heart is pumping. Exercise seems to make it go in a steady rhythm. It’s only when I’m resting or fighting with Stibblestich that it skips a beat now and then.”
She clutched him. “Oh my God, you’re resting right now.”
“That’s right,” he said, enjoying every evil moment of it. “I’d better stop resting. For my own good.”
Her eyes narrowed. He knew he had her. So before she could start arguing, he slipped back into the cradle of her thighs.
Sure enough, she protested. She had starting thinking in the two minutes it took him to remove his clothing. “Elijah! We really shouldn’t do this. We’re—we’re outdoors.”
“Stay put,” he told her. The sight of her had peeled away all his niceness, and now he was just one growling male again. “I want you.”
Rain was falling like an uncertain melody, just one drop here or there. One fell on her breast, glistening like a diamond.
He licked it off and then gave her a little bite and she apparently forgot that she was outdoors, because even a monk behind stone walls could have heard that shriek. Then he blew on her skin, and gave her another sweet, deep caress.
It seemed that this particular duchess liked making love outdoors.
Finally, when he had her just where he wanted her, he came up on his knees and drove into her with one powerful stroke. She came. Just like that, with a wild cry, and a convulsion that damn near sent him over the edge too.
Being Jemma, she hadn’t even recovered when she began patting his chest, trying to find his heart. He didn’t stop; his whole body was intent on one mission, and one mission only.
“Where is it? Where is it?” she moaned, patting him all over the right side of his chest.
“Wrong side,” he managed. She was never going to settle down, so he took one of her hands and plopped it on top of his heart. Which was beating so hard that he could feel it in his ears—but with perfect rhythm.
“My heart,” he said hoarsely, “is happy, Jemma.”
Her fingers pressed his chest, and then he saw her start to smile.
“Enough,” he said, pulling back.
“But—”
“We’re making love, Jemma. I’m—” But he couldn’t shape the words anymore. Instead he just stared at her as he thrust, at her beauty, at the deep goodness of her. She couldn’t resist either. Her eyes squeezed shut and her arms flew restlessly around his arms, his shoulders, his chest, caressing him, leaving trails of fire, sliding down his back, clutching his rear.
He pumped harder and harder, until neither one of them had a thought for the rain. Not for anything but the two of them: God’s creatures, lucky enough to experience His greatest pleasure.
Elijah lost control. The world narrowed to just the sweet smell of his wife, the taste of her skin, the movement of his hips.
Still, he waited to be sure that her fear was gone. Waited until she cried out and surged against him. And then he flew. The world dissolved into such acute pleasure that his bones flamed with it.
Blissful moments later, he rolled onto the slick stones, enjoying the cool, wet stone against his buttocks and back. His heart beat steadily.
“What are you smiling about?” Jemma asked, but there was a smile in her voice too.
“My body’s happy,” he said, stretching.
She was already sitting up, pulling her bodice into place.
Elijah just folded his arms behind his head and watched her. It felt wonderful to lie there, stretched out in the warm rain. He didn’t give a damn if the monk came along. In fact, he didn’t give a damn if the whole House of Lords decided to go for an afternoon stroll, happened down this particular path, and saw the Duke of Beaumont, lying naked on an old stone path.
No one told you that almost dying was so freeing. “I could live here,” he said dreamily. “In my house the birds would sing day and night.”
“Where will you sleep?”
“Under that huge horse chestnut. We’ll have a bed of eiderdown and make love every morning before the birds rise.”
“I shall miss my morning tea,” Jemma said. She had managed to wrench her bodice up just enough so that it covered her nipples. The plump tops of her breasts looked ready to fall out at any moment.
“That gown will never be the same,” he said, watching her. “That yellow part, that pleated cloth on top, looks as if a dog has chewed on it.”
“One did,” Jemma retorted. “At least it covers my nipples now.” She looked over and seemed to realize that he was making no attempt to dress. “Are you going home like that? Or are you truly planning to sleep under the horse chestnut?”
He was too happy to move. “Why not? My blanket could be made of those little green hearts it throws out in spring, the ones with little crimson centers.”
Jemma being Jemma, she didn’t break into a chorus of little remonstrances. Instead, she surprised him. Again. She turned around and lay down, her head on his bare stomach as the rain spattered her face.
“I never imagined, ever, a duchess lying on the ground, being rained on,” he said, after a time.
“It’s not really raining. But you’re right. I suppose duchesses don’t lie about in the rain.”
“With their naked husbands,” he added.
“That makes it even worse,” she agreed. Her hair was all rumpled and fallen from its nest of curls, so he picked a spray of flowers and started poking blossoms in it.
“What are you doing?” she asked, twisting her head so she could see him.
“Turning you into a pagan goddess,” he murmured.
“Why?”
“See Apollo there?” In the center of the little stone courtyard was a statue of the god wearing little more than a shawl. He stood on a stone pedestal, its latticework woven through with knot grass and other weeds.
“Poor soul. What’s happened to his arms?”
“Knocked off,” Elijah said. “He kept his fig leaf, though. A man—even better, a god—likes to keep some things covered through the centuries.”
“He looks a bit scrawny,” Jemma said critically. “I like your legs better. Who knows what’s under that fig leaf? You would need a fig leaf twice that size.”
“Hush. You’ll insult the god, and right in his own backyard. There.” He poked in a last few flowers. “I’ll have to be very lucky or Apollo will come to life and claim you for his own.”
“If you remember, Apollo had no luck with women. Didn’t Daphne turn herself into a tree rather than be with him? And now we know why. It was undoubtedly due to those bony little knees of his, not to mention the tiny fig leaf.” Jemma started to sit up, so Elijah got up and pulled her to her feet. “I am ready to return to being a duchess, if it means that my bottom can warm up.”
“I can do that for you,” Elijah said with an exaggerated leer, cupping his hand over the part of her body
in question. Her skirts were soaked, and he could feel her intoxicating, soft curve. “God, I’m so lucky.”
Her eyes contained such a beautiful smile that he had to stop and kiss her. “And happy,” he said a moment later.
She leaned her head against his chest. “I love you,” she said, but not: I’m happy.
“I love you,” he said, the words rising from his heart naturally. “I love you, Jemma. I love you.”
The joy in her face shamed him. “To find all this bliss, at the end,” he said, holding her tightly. “I don’t deserve it, Jemma. God knows, I don’t deserve you.”
“Maybe it’s not the end,” she said fiercely.
“If it is, I’ve had more joy in the last week than in the rest of my life.”
Her arms tightened around him and she said something, so low he couldn’t hear. But he thought she said she loved him, and he knew that already.
He dressed, and kissed her a few more times, and they walked back to the little door where the carriage waited.
Chapter Twenty-three
That evening
Elijah had banished Fowle and the footmen, and there were only the two of them, down at one end of a long mahogany table with a great deal of silver reflecting the candlelight.
“I don’t know how to live like this,” Jemma said after a few minutes of moving her food around her plate. Every time she looked at her husband, her throat tightened and she felt ill.
“I don’t think about it,” Elijah offered.
He was eating. How could he eat? How could anyone eat, sleep, think in his situation? There had to be some way, someone, who could help Elijah’s heart.
“Have you seen a doctor?” she asked.
“There’s no point.”
“But have you seen one?”
Her annoying, stubborn husband shrugged. “Villiers dragged me to a physician who studies hearts. The man said I may live for years.”
“Or not.”
“There’s a doctor in Birmingham who’s apparently doing miraculous things with hearts like mine. Villiers sent a carriage up there to get him.”
“How uncharacteristically generous of him,” Jemma said, ringing the bell. “Fowle, send around to the Duke of Villiers and find out when he expects his carriage to return from Birmingham. Wait for a response, if you please.”
Fowle disappeared with all the efficiency of a man who recognizes a woman on the verge of hysterics.
“Darling—” Elijah said.
“Don’t. Not now.” Her mind was racing. “There must be a way to cure this. There must be. The doctor in Birmingham will come here and cure you.”
“Eat your supper,” Elijah ordered.
She shook her head. “When did Villiers send the coach? I heard of a very good doctor the other day. Siffle, I think his name was.”
“It was in the Morning Post,” Elijah said, taking another bite of asparagus. “He’s doing miraculous things with broken limbs.”
“Well, perhaps he—”
“Come here,” Elijah said, pushing back his chair and holding out his arms.
She responded, then sat nestled against him, only to feel her heart beating furiously in her chest. Regularly. A scream threatened at the back of her throat.
He was stroking her hair as if she were a cat. “It’s all right, Jemma.”
“No, it isn’t.” She forced out the words.
They were both silent a moment. “Well, it’s not all right, but it is—”
“Don’t tell me it’s acceptable,” she said fiercely.
“This is not acceptable.”
“There’s nothing I can do about it.” The raw pain in his voice silenced her. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me as soon as I returned from Paris?” She whispered it into his chest. “You’ve known…alone. You could have told me!”
“You had the chess match with Villiers. And I wanted to win you, Jemma.”
“You already had me,” she said painfully. “You always had me, Elijah.”
“I wanted all of you. When you made the match with Villiers, I seized the opportunity to try to win you myself.”
“You could have just told me.”
“And then what? Would you have fallen in love with me again, as you have?” She said nothing, and he gave her a little shake. “As you have, Jemma?”
“I loved you already,” she said.
“I wanted you in love with me.”
“That was selfish. You didn’t think that I wanted time with you.”
“Forgive me?”
She sniffed and buried her head in his shoulder.
“No.”
“I’ve never been so happy as the last days. When you were wooing me, Jemma. When you were loving me. When you were laughing at me, or letting me make love to you. When you were making love to me.”
Huge tears were burning in her eyes. “I could have done all that a year ago.”
“We may have another year. My faint in the House of Lords occurred over a year ago.”
She heard the slightest note in his voice, knew he was lying. He knew, he knew. There was saltwater on her cheeks, the taste of it on her lips.
“You’ve given me what I thought I’d never have,” he continued.
“Don’t talk as if you’re dying tomorrow,” she said. “I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it!”
“You’re my Jemma. You were strong enough to leave me when I had to be left, and strong enough to come home when I needed you. You will care for my house, and my lands, and my poor Cacky Street men. You can bear it.”
“No.”
His arms tightened around her. “Don’t cry.”
“I shall cry if I want to,” she said fiercely. “Oh God, I suddenly understand widows’ weeds.”
“You mustn’t—”
But she didn’t listen to him. “Because if you die, I shan’t want to wear anything but black,” she said, a great sob rising in her throat. “I shall cry for a year and a day in my blacks, and no one can fault me. I didn’t understand why Harriet was still grieving for her husband although it had been almost two years.”
“No!” He was almost shouting now, but Jemma was convulsed by grief, bending at the waist, ugly sobs tearing through her lungs. Elijah bent over with her, his strong, warm body curved over her back, holding her, warming her.
“It can’t be true,” she sobbed. “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true.”
He picked her up then and carried her away to bed, and they lay there together while sobs shook her body. Because it was true. He was leaving her.
He had to leave her unless some sort of miracle happened…and neither of them believed in miracles. They were chess players. They were logical, and rational.
And thus, brokenhearted.
After her sobs had quieted, Elijah said, “Jemma, I think you should leave me.”
She sat up, her eyes burning, and stared at him incredulously. “What did you just say?”
“It’s horrible that you should have to live through this with me. You—”
He broke off because she was slapping him, great, open-handed slaps to his chest. “You don’t get to send me away again, Elijah! Don’t you understand? Why don’t you understand?”
She was sobbing again. “You never get to send me away again!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “I’m a fool, Jemma. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Her face was stricken but her eyes blazed at him. “You made a mistake and you broke us in half,” she said. Her voice was quieter, but still passionate. “You keep saying that I’m yours, Elijah, but the truth is that you are mine as well.”
He heard the urgency behind her voice and he suddenly understood. She loved him. Loved him enough to forgive him for his mistress, for not following her to Paris.
But there was one thing he had to know. He cupped her face in his hands, noting absently that his fingers were shaking. “Will you forgiv
e me?”
She blinked. “For what?”
“For not being able to stay with you forever. Because I would, Jemma. I promise I would.”
“I know,” she whispered, brushing his lips with her own. “I know.”
Chapter Twenty-four
April 2
The next morning, Jemma retired to the morning parlor and began trying to understand how one lived with this kind of knowledge. It wasn’t healthy for her to follow Elijah about, nervously demanding to listen to his heart. He disliked it. Besides, every time she listened to his chest, she heard skipped beats and her own heart felt as if it were filled with hot coals.
Yet she was wrung with fear. Her fingers trembled as she picked up the chess pieces. She was on the point of giving up, and joining Elijah in his study, when Fowle entered, a grim look on his face.
She sprang to her feet so quickly that she knocked over the chessboard. Pieces rolled on the ground. “Is he—”
Reading her mind, a look of deep sympathy crossed Fowle’s eyes. “He is fine, Your Grace. Should His Grace faint again, I shall call you from outside the room, as I approach.”
She sank back down into her chair. “Thank you, Fowle.” Her fingers were shaking like leaves in a high wind.
“The dowager duchess has arrived,” he announced.
She’d forgotten that there had to be a reason for his entry. “The—The dowager? The duke’s mother?”
“I have placed her in the rose chamber,” Fowle said.
“She expressed the wish that you would join her immediately. Apparently she intends to return to Scotland very shortly.”
“Return to Scotland?” Jemma asked. “That’s impossible! I am certain she will change her mind. She will be making a prolonged stay with us. Please inform Mrs. Tulip.”
Now Jemma understood the grim look on Fowle’s face when he first entered. Her own memories of her mother-in-law were distinctly unpleasant. The dowager duchess was tall and angry. She carried herself like a man, and Jemma found her alarming.
Jemma had lived the first weeks of her marriage in a house full of portraits of Judith holding Holofernes’s head (minus his body) because she was worried about the dowager’s reaction if she removed them.