Jemma raised an eyebrow. “You, the Great Villiers, has that most plebeian of all human conditions—a problem?”
He sighed. “It’s a particularly tedious conundrum, or I wouldn’t bring it up.”
“They all are. Although I was of the opinion that unmarried men with no encumbrances had the fewest problems of any.”
“Alas, I seem to have acquired a few encumbrances, though, as yet, no wife,” Villiers said thoughtfully. “I have fallen into respectability without noticing.”
“Fallen?” Jemma said with a chortle. “Given those illegitimate children of yours, you should boast of the opposite.”
“Vulgar,” he said. “Unworthy of you.”
Jemma grinned at him. “I find vulgarity so refreshing. From what I understand, children are a problem. Though surely the illegitimate type, tucked away out of sight and mind, cannot present very many problems?”
“My thought exactly.” His long fingers played with the pawn she had just knocked from the board.
“But?”
“If you remember, while I was very ill following my regrettable duel last year, I made a promise about my children.”
“The deathbed promise! Oh, the very worst kind.”
“Adding unkindness to vulgarity,” he said with mock severity.
“Precisely,” she said. “To whom did you make that promise, anyway? I don’t remember hearing that any church folk were tenderly waiting by your bedside.”
“It was to Miss Charlotte Tatlock.”
Jemma made a face before she could stop herself.
“No Puritan. Miss Learned Fetlock.”
“The same one who spent too much time adoring your husband,” he confirmed. “I asked her to marry me, you know.”
“I am glad she didn’t accept you,” Jemma said with satisfaction.
“Who said she didn’t accept me?”
“At my Twelfth Night ball I walked into my own sitting room to find her passionately clasped in the embrace of your heir. She wasn’t nearly interesting enough to kiss him and marry you.”
“Then why did you fret about whether she would be successful in pursuit of your husband?”
“I wasn’t fretting. I would never do something as bourgeois as fret.”
“You were fretting,” Villiers said. “Eyeing poor Elijah the way a rat eyes cheese. A true dog in the manger, in fact. ‘I don’t care to have him, but no one else can either.’”
“Let’s go back to your problems,” Jemma said, taking his rook.
“As it happens, I received a missive this morning informing me that my heir has irresponsibly and inappropriately married Miss Tatlock by special license.”
“Very romantic,” Jemma said.
“Your tone is distinctly unkind. Unsympathetic, in truth. Do you know that is the second of my fiancées to marry by special license?”
“My brother’s wife and now Miss Tatlock. Tut tut, Villiers. Is that the problem you wish me to solve? Finding you a fiancée who will actually stay with you, rather than dash off with a swashbuckling passerby?”
“There’s no need to enjoy my plight quite so much,” Villiers said, moving a pawn forward. “And no, I don’t care for a wife. I have other pursuits in mind.”
Jemma caught her breath. He looked up at her, his hand still holding the chess piece, and there was no mistaking which pursuit he was thinking of. All of a sudden her laughing friend was gone; his eyes were smoldering. She raced into speech. “Your problem? What is it?”
He didn’t speak for a moment, letting her know that he saw her flimsy evasion. She couldn’t help it; the flicker of amusement—and recognition of desire—in his eyes made the corners of her mouth curl into a smile. But there was nothing in her smile that betrayed Elijah. Nothing.
“Children,” he said. “I promised Charlotte that I would find her the perfect husband. She showed no faith in my abilities, and insisted that if I managed the task, I would have to turn father, when she turned wife.”
“And she just turned wife!” Jemma cried. “You are caught, Villiers, fairly caught!”
“I thought you were going to call me Leopold. I’m sure we had reached that pitch of intimacy.”
The air stilled in the room again. She fled back to the subject at hand. “The question is, what did she mean by turning father?”
“She said something about learning the children’s names.”
“You do support them, don’t you?” she asked, knowing that he did. Even if he didn’t entertain guilt, Villiers would never shirk a financial responsibility.
He nodded.
“I gather that you need to understand the word ‘fatherhood.’”
“I’m finding the parameters hard to determine.”
“I don’t believe I ever met your father. Mine taught me to play chess.”
“I could do that,” Villiers said, something easing in his expression.
Jemma sneaked a glance at him under her lashes. “My father taught me how to fight off an unwanted suitor, and threatened to kill me if I failed.”
“Dear me,” Villiers said languidly, taking one of her knights. “How very violent.”
Jemma felt a prickle of irritation. Her father had been rightfully impassioned on the subject of rakes like Villiers. “Most of what he taught us we learned from living with him. Fatherhood involves propinquity.”
Villiers didn’t even flinch. “The children are—”
“How many children are we talking about?” Jemma demanded. And, when he didn’t answer, “You do know the number, don’t you?”
“Of course. But there are complications.”
Jemma swept a bishop off the board. “Such as?”
“Six,” he said.
“Six? You have six children out of wedlock?”
His eyes focused on her fingers, still holding the bishop. “Considering the number of women I have made love to in my life, it seems a not inconceivable number.”
“Inconceivable? Who’s vulgar now?”
He blinked. “An inadvertent pun, I assure you.”
“I thought you had perhaps two children.”
“Six.”
“You need to be more careful,” she scolded.
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you ever give a thought to the lives of those children, born out of wedlock? Or their mothers, bearing children without marriage lines?”
“No.”
It was Jemma’s turn to move, but she hesitated. She felt a bit sick. She liked Villiers. Leopold. She really liked him. She had even—
“I am a duke,” he said. His voice was like dark velvet, impenetrable. “Why would I give a damn about that sort of thing?”
“At least you pay for them.”
“I could support a foundling hospital, and you would applaud my virtue.”
“I didn’t expect you to populate your own orphanage,” she said, her voice coming out more sharply than she intended. “It’s despicable to think so little of the women that you—”
“Bed,” he supplied. “I think a great deal of some women I bed. Or hope to bed.”
But this bit of gallantry was forced, and she flashed him a look of contempt.
“What is the difference between six and two?” he asked.
“One child out of wedlock is an error. Two suggests carelessness. Three—and six—is simply wrong. Wrong.”
There was something in those dark eyes of his that made her anger diminish.
“You understand that, don’t you?”
“You simply don’t appreciate the mental cast of a duke.”
“Don’t you dare tell me that your children’s mothers were lucky to be impregnated by you, simply because of your rank!”
There was a brief smile in his eyes. “No. I meant that I was brought up to think that everyone below me was unworthy. That my inherited money, power, and title gave me the right to do just as I please. And as it happens, I dislike French letters and I honored my dislike for some years.”
“There’s nothing honorable about that,” Jemma said scathingly. “You’re lucky you don’t have fourteen children! Who are they?”
“The children?”
“The mothers. I know that a child of yours was born to a gentlewoman, Lady Caroline Killigrew. And that you refused to marry her.”
“In fact,” he said, “that particular girl is not mine.”
“You mean she doesn’t count as one of the six?”
“She does, but merely because she is in my care. I told you there were complications.”
“Of course the girl is yours. Lady Caroline told everyone. And her father told my Uncle Edmund that you admitted to bedding her and then refused to marry her. Everyone was so sympathetic and—” She met his eyes and caught herself. “My God. So who was the father?”
Villiers shrugged. “I have no idea. I certainly never bedded her. I think she must have been desperate. It seemed to me that as a gentleman I had to play my part in the script she had written.”
“Perhaps she hoped you would be forced to marry her.”
“I don’t think so. If she wanted to acquire a husband, she would have accused someone of lower rank, someone who would be glad of the large dowry her father would offer.”
“Saved by your dukedom,” Jemma said. “And yet you played the hero.”
“Hardly,” he said dryly. “I refused to marry her. I merely restrained myself from pointing out the fact that I hardly knew her. She, for her part, did a wonderful job of lurking at the side of ballrooms and staring at me tragically, until her father whisked her off to Canada. The child was sent back to England a few months later with a quite disagreeable note about my role in its upbringing. What on earth could I do except accept her as my own?”
“You don’t know where the mother is now?”
“Why should I?”
“Good point.”
“So her child is one of my six.”
“Who are the five remaining mothers? Nightwalkers, all?”
He waved a hand. “Play your piece, Jemma. I intend to win. And no, there are no nightwalkers among them. I have a great deal of respect for myself, and the risk of disease in those encounters is appalling.”
“You’re splitting hairs,” Jemma said, moving her king. “Call them courtesans, if you wish.”
“Their station in life is irrelevant,” he said with emphasis. Just as she hoped, he was focused on the conversation and didn’t appear to notice that her remaining bishop would soon have his queen.
“I wouldn’t agree, given that they are rearing your children. And I imagine they aren’t teaching the children chess. Just imagine all the useful lessons the girls are learning.”
“In fact, only one child is being reared by her mother,” he said.
“Oh? Then who cares for the others?”
“My solicitor makes sure that the children are well cared for.”
“You don’t know.”
“Why would I? Do you—”
“If I had a child, I would know where he was!”
“So far, we have two items on the fathering list,” he said, sighing. He was being surprisingly calm. The old Villiers, the pre-nearly-dead Villiers, would have stalked from the room long ago. “Ascertain who is raising them, and teach them chess.”
“I do believe you ought to take them in yourself, as we discussed a few weeks ago,” Jemma said, baiting him. “Although I must admit that I thought we were talking of two children at that point.” She moved a pawn, calculating the number of moves remaining before she seized his queen.
He looked up. “You were joking then, and I trust you are now as well.”
“Absolutely not! Is your hand on that pawn because you intend to move it?”
He looked down with a slight frown and moved the piece.
“Children ought to live with their parents. It’s part of the duties of parenthood.”
“Don’t be a fool. I have no wife.”
“Didn’t the Earl of Ballston take in at least twelve illegitimate children?”
“He had a wife.”
“A couple of the illegitimate children were hers, by all accounts. So, what we need to do is find you a wife…just the right kind of wife.”
“The kind who won’t object to my children, you mean, because she has some illegitimate offspring of her own?”
“It would serve you right,” she said, breaking into a laugh at the look on his face.
“You think I should live with these children?”
“Well…no.” She moved her bishop. “Check and mate.”
He stared down at the trap she’d set. “Christ! You distracted me!”
“But it was so delicious to see your face when I suggested that you move the children into your house. Delicious!”
He blinked at the board and looked at her. “I might take in one child.”
“What?”
“I could take in one. Do you think that would be enough?”
“Enough for what?” Jemma stared at Villiers as if she’d never seen him before. “I was merely trying to win the game. And I won. Do you wish to trace your mistaken move?”
He shrugged. “No. You won. If you’ll excuse me, I must think.”
She sprang to her feet. “Think about bringing illegitimate children into your house? I was only joking, Villiers! Truly. No respectable woman will marry you under those circumstances. I should never have said such a thing.”
He rose and came one step toward her. He was tall, almost as tall as her husband, and she had to tilt her head up.
“I don’t want to marry a respectable woman,” he said. Slowly.
Oh God. There was something in those black eyes of his that she’d never seen before. They had been flirting for almost a year now, ever since she had returned from France and challenged him to a chess match…A match that was never finished, and never would be. A match designed to end in bed.
“Leopold,” she whispered. “You mustn’t—”
“I must be serious,” he said. “You’re married. You’re married to my childhood friend, Elijah. And Elijah—” He seemed to change his mind and took a breath.
“He’s got you and I haven’t. I’m just saying, Jemma, that there aren’t a lot of places a man can go after he has met you.”
Jemma felt the pleasure of that compliment deep in her gut, in her backbone, in all the silly places that a person can feel a compliment. And she knew why, too. Somewhere in her was still the forlorn young woman, desolated to find that her husband enjoyed the company of his mistress over that of his wife.
She shook her head. She would never be unfaithful to Elijah again. “We plan to have a child,” she said, pretending there was nothing wrong with her husband’s heart.
“I already have some children, and I think it’s time I came to know them.” Villiers stepped back, and she found herself reaching out a hand without conscious will. His tone was so sad and yet so self-accepting, with that flare of humor.
“You will fall in love with someone, Leopold. Someone will steal your heart before you notice it.” He shook his head. “I plan to visit Vauxhall tomorrow night; come and I will introduce you to the loveliest women of my acquaintance.”
He bowed, said all the right things, and left.
Jemma sat in front of the game board for a long time, thinking that Villiers had changed. After finishing a game of chess, they used to play it backwards, dissect it three or four different ways, argue over moves. Now he’d walked away after she’d played the oldest, silliest ploy in the book, distracting him with a lively conversation.
The thing that made her uneasy, made her sit staring at the discarded pieces, was that she knew what was in his eyes when he looked at her. Not that she’d seen it all that often.
It wasn’t something he was supposed to feel. Not for her. Not for…not for anyone, except his wife, when he had one.
Chapter Seven
By evening, Elijah had not yet returned to the house. Jemma ate in solitary splendor at nine; sh
e dallied over her meal until ten and then retreated to the library. She fiddled with a chess problem and went over the household accounts.
But in reality, she watched the clock. She felt torn in two: one moment desperate just to see Elijah, the next torn by resentment and a furious determination to make him leave the House of Lords.
When her husband finally walked into the library, his face gaunt and exhausted, she wanted to throw herself into his arms, at the same time that she wanted to rail at him. Fortunately, she didn’t have to choose: the presence of Fowle and the footmen made either an impossibility.
Elijah bent over her hand, kissing it as if she were the merest acquaintance. Fowle bustled across the room before they could exchange a word, followed by three footmen carrying a small table, covered dishes, and china.
Jemma walked back to her seat, feeling as if she were walking on broken glass. She, who was never at a loss for words, was struggling to formulate even the most trivial comment. They sat in silence as Fowle set the table before Elijah, uncovered a beefsteak, and poured him a glass of wine.
“If you would be so kind as to leave the dishes, I will serve myself,” Elijah said.
Fowle pursed his lips in a scandalized kind of way, but Elijah sent him from the room with one look.
“How was your day?” Elijah asked as the door closed behind Fowle and the footmen.
Jemma took a sip of brandy. “Oh, quite enjoyable,” she said lightly. “I paid a visit to a friend in the morning, and I beat Villiers at a game of chess in the afternoon.”
A shadow crossed his eyes. “How is the duke?”
“Fine. Though he confessed that he has six illegitimate children.”
Elijah’s hand froze, a piece of steak halfway to his mouth.
“Six,” Jemma repeated. “What’s more, he did not actually father Lady Caroline Killigrew’s child. Do you remember all the fuss when he refused to marry her?”
Elijah nodded.
“It was astonishingly generous of him to allow that story to circulate. He said that he felt it was the gentlemanly thing to do.”
“Not an impulse he feels on a daily basis,” Elijah said dryly.
“Only Villiers would be so careless of his reputation that he allowed himself to be besmirched by a young lady he hardly knew.”