“It is the privilege of the uncaring.” There was a bit of a snap in his tone.
“He’s a great deal more sanctimonious than he allows. I believe that he finds a reputation for immorality useful.”
“He makes being on the side of the sinners look extremely attractive,” Elijah admitted, pulling off a cover and putting a helping of plaice on his plate.
“Whereas you make being on the side of the saints look very exhausting,” Jemma replied, seizing the opening.
He looked at her over the table. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“Then I shan’t ask it, because there’s nothing worse than a nagging wife, saying the things that one knows already.”
His smile made her heart beat suddenly faster. “I quite look forward to being nagged by you.”
“You mustn’t give me encouragement of this sort,” Jemma said, striving for a flirtatious tone. “We’ve lived apart so long that you’ve forgotten what a shrew I can be.”
“You were never a shrew,” he said, his voice low. They stared at each other a moment. “You didn’t even scream at me after walking into my office when I was—with my mistress.”
“I didn’t?” In all honesty, Jemma couldn’t remember anything but Sarah Cobbett’s yellow hair, hanging over the edge of Elijah’s large desk.
“You just looked at me, your face white. You dropped the picnic hamper you held, and you fled.”
Jemma gave him a little smile. “Don’t think I’d be as silent again. If I ever encountered such a scene now, I would bring the walls down around your ears.” But she said it knowing perfectly well that Elijah would never do such a thing again. That he’d changed, and she’d changed, and no woman stood between them.
“The look on your face was like a dagger,” Elijah said.
“Surely, you—”
“I’m not exaggerating. I’d seen that look before.”
“You had?”
He waved his fork at the walls. “You’ve taken down all the evidence.”
Jemma blinked at the walls. She’d had them repaneled and painted a dark crimson while they were in the country for Christmas. “They were oak,” she said confusedly. “I would hardly call that evidence of a crime, though they were rather old-fashioned.”
“A large and detailed picture of Judith and Holofernes used to hang directly before my father’s desk,” Elijah said, returning to his plate. “It was a particularly vivid tableau in which Judith waved Holofernes’s severed head with a distinct air of glee. I think my mother liked to believe that it would force my father to notice her rage, but I doubt she succeeded. He was not an observant man.”
“Your mother was angry about your father’s mistress?” Jemma asked cautiously.
“Something of that nature.”
The conversation was not going where Jemma had planned. The former duke’s dubious intimacies were interesting, but not relevant.
“In truth, I had a horrid day,” she said abruptly.
Elijah immediately put down his fork. “I am very sorry if the state of my health caused you any distress.”
“Distress?” For a moment she couldn’t continue; it felt as if her throat were closed to words. “I was quite unkind in the morning to a woman who is an acquaintance, if not precisely a friend. And I topped that piece of goodwill by goading Villiers into taking his illegitimate children under his own roof.”
“He can’t do that,” Elijah said, frowning. “Even his rank won’t inoculate him from becoming a pariah. What were you thinking, Jemma?”
“I wasn’t thinking.” She raised her chin, willing herself not to cry. “I was so angry at you for leaving this morning without even a note, that I behaved—” Despite herself, her voice wavered. She swallowed and continued. “I behaved like the worst sort of person, determined to win in both encounters no matter the damage I caused.”
“Win? What on earth did you hope to win from your friend?”
“It’s unimportant, and I’m afraid that that friendship is at an end.”
“It was most unkind of me to leave you no personal message, particularly after the shock of last night. I apologize.” His eyes were warm and sympathetic. “I shall not behave in such a discourteous way again.”
She was a shrew and he was the perfect husband. “Thank you,” she said. “But I do have a request.”
“I believe I can anticipate you,” he said, raising his wineglass to his lips. “I know we need to have a serious discussion; of course, you wish to address the question of an heir. The next duke. I have already informed Pitt that I will not be available tomorrow.” His eyes caressed hers. He clearly meant to spend the day in bed. With her.
“In fact, that is not my request,” she said carefully, trying not to dwell on the cold-blooded fashion with which Elijah referred to the question of children.
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow.
“I would ask that you give up your seat in the House of Lords. For your health.”
The words hung in the air. The sensual warmth in his eyes disappeared as if it had never been, and she was faced by the consummate statesman. Being Elijah, he didn’t dissemble. “The government faces ongoing prisoner riots, a coming election, an impoverished citizenry. Fox and the Prince of Wales risk the health of the entire nation with their drunken exploits; the king seems unable to rein in his own son. I could not consider such a drastic move.”
“I would not argue with their need for you,” Jemma said. “But I wonder that you need them.”
“I’m afraid that I don’t follow your point.”
“I have no doubt that the Prime Minister faces a difficult year. But Mr. Pitt seems to me to be amply, if not eagerly, able to take on those challenges. In fact, he was elected for just that purpose. But you, Elijah, were not elected.”
“Responsibility is not incurred only from election.” His eyes were grave but utterly resolute.
“Your heart is giving out because of the pressure of being roused at dawn to argue problems that most of your peers merely read of in the papers, if they bother to do so. Villiers never took up his seat in Lords. When he was so very ill last year, after his duel, he recovered in bed.”
Elijah put down his wine. “We are very different men. The ethical compass of Villiers’s life is bounded by the chessboard.”
“You are not listening to me,” Jemma said, feeling her hold over her temper slipping. “Villiers nearly lost his life last year, but he is here today because he retreated to his chambers. Had he pushed himself out of bed at dawn under the mistaken impression that there was no one else able to deal with a public furor, he would be dead.”
Elijah’s jaw was set. “Surely you are not suggesting that I live the remainder of my life in bed? Lying flat, as Villiers did in the grip of fever? Perhaps playing a game of chess now and then?” He pushed his plate away, the food half-eaten.
“That seems an exaggeration.”
His tone was courteous as ever, but she could see the leashed fury in his eyes. “You suggest that I should treasure life so much that I preserve it, as a fly in amber? That I should add to my allotted minutes by staying on my back, by giving up every ambition I had to do something of value with those minutes?”
“You needn’t—” Jemma began, only to be overridden by the steady voice of a man used to shouting down a chamber full of howling statesmen.
“In fact, you would have me become a man like Villiers, a man whose children are negligently scattered about the countryside, a man who cares for nothing but his next game of chess. Though perhaps you consider that an unjust appraisal. After all, Villiers does care about his appearance. So I would be allowed sartorial splendor and chess.”
Jemma straightened her back, trying to force air into her lungs.
“I could walk about with a sword stick and make absolutely sure that every man on the street understood that I was a duke, a man who by the fortune of birth considered himself just under the rank of the Archangel himself. Without lifting a fing
er to gain that status.” He picked up a silver cover and put it precisely on top of one of the serving platters with a sound like a slap.
“Let me put this as clearly as I can, Jemma.” His mouth was a straight line. “I will shoot myself before I become the man that Villiers is.”
“You are unkind,” Jemma said, hearing a slight shake in her voice and hating it. She wasn’t used to battles of this nature. In fact, she never argued with anyone but her husband. Her sanctimonious, infuriating husband.
Elijah obviously heard the tremor in her voice. He rose, walked to the cabinet and poured two tiny glasses of ruby-colored liqueur. Then he returned and handed her one. “It’s made by monks in France, from cherries. Or cherry blossoms.”
Jemma took a taste and choked. The liqueur burned to the bottom of her stomach.
“The particular pastimes of the Duke of Villiers are not relevant,” he said, sitting down again. “But he and I are very different men. I cannot conceive of a life in which I drift around London, impulsively stopping for a game of chess with a friend. Or did you summon him this afternoon?”
He waited, one eyebrow up. Jemma shook her head.
“So the duke happened by and you spent a delightful afternoon together, sharing a bit of light banter about his bastard children, a bit of flirtation, I have no doubt.”
Jemma heard the naked anger in his voice with a shock of surprise. “You couldn’t be jealous of Villiers! Not after I gave up the chess match with him.”
“Jealous of a man who spends the afternoon telling my wife how beautiful she is?”
She opened her mouth and he held up a hand.
“Tell me that Villiers didn’t compliment you, Jemma. Tell me that, and I’ll acknowledge myself a fool.”
She was silent.
“He’s in love with you,” Elijah said flatly.
They were at some sort of queer crossroads. “That doesn’t mean that I would be unfaithful to you. With Villiers or any other man.”
“I know that.”
She took another sip of liquor. It was like a fiery stream of sugar. She hated it.
“Last night Fox called out the Artillery Company and told them to open fire on rioting citizens in Lambeth, his district,” Elijah said.
“That’s terrible,” Jemma murmured.
“I have no doubt it seems a remote problem. But tell that to the young mother whose babe was shot in her arms last night, when she thought they were safe inside her own house. A stray bullet from the company.”
“I am deeply sorry for that poor young woman,” Jemma said. “But must you be so self-righteous, Elijah? Listening to you, one would think that you are the only thing stopping Fox and Pitt and everyone else in the government from turning to a snarling mass of savages. Your sense of importance seems a trifle overblown. After all, you too gained your position due to an accident of birth. Or do you think that you would have the same influence, the same power, were you not a duke?”
She couldn’t read his expression. There was nothing in his eyes. “Has your opinion of me always been this low?” he asked. He sounded curious, as if he were asking about a preference for peas over potatoes.
“I do not have a low opinion of you,” Jemma stated.
“I merely suggested that you might wish to rethink the extent of your personal capacity to cut short the world’s injustices, including Fox’s authorization of an artillery man who accidentally shot a child. Did you personally sanction Fox’s unfortunate decision?”
Anger flared in his eyes, and she welcomed it. There was nothing worse than a dismissive Elijah, the statesman who made her feel like a fool easily quelled by a patronizing word or two.
“Do you want to know what happened today, Jemma?” he demanded. “Do you really want to know?”
“I wait with bated breath,” she said.
“I suppose your sarcasm is warranted. I can imagine it is much easier, and certainly pleasant, to stay at home and win a game of chess.”
Jemma sprang to her feet and walked quickly to the fireplace. She turned around a moment later, certain that she had her breathing under control. She’d be damned if she started panting from pure rage. “Given that women are allowed no part in government, your insults are not only unkind but unfair.”
He had risen to his feet, of course. Elijah would never sit while a woman stood. “I apologize. That is an entirely valid point. In that case, let’s not talk of your day, but of Villiers’s.”
“Oh for goodness sake!” Jemma exclaimed.
“The duke spent a delightful afternoon telling you a sad tale of his children, and his newfound resolution to be a good father. Rousing your sympathy and your interest, he opened his heart. True, he lost the game of chess, but he gained so much more in becoming closer to you. Closer to you than he is to any other person on this earth, I expect.”
His tone was dispassionate. Jemma took a deep breath. “Either you believe that I will be unfaithful or—”
“You’re a fool if you think that infidelity is a matter of bodies alone, Jemma!”
His insult burned in her stomach. “I have always thought that infidelity took forms beyond the obvious! From the moment I—”
“I know. I know. From the moment you found me on the desk with my mistress. What you have never understood is how unimportant that relationship was compared to one of true intimacy.”
“If you’re trying to say that you and I were truly intimate all those years ago, I must disagree.”
“No, we weren’t. In fact, I expect that you and Villiers are now better friends, more intimate, and in sum, more loving to each other, than we were in our early marriage. And yet I know perfectly well that you and Leopold have never entered a bedchamber together.”
Words burned on Jemma’s tongue, but Elijah didn’t wait for her to formulate a response.
“Let me make this very clear. I would not wish for the duke’s pleasant afternoon, idling away his time and yours, even should I die tomorrow. I realized when I was eight years old that either I could die knowing that my life had changed the world around me—or I could die like any trout on a string, leaving the world precisely as it was before I was born. I chose not to be that sort of person, and you will never be able to turn me into Villiers. Never.”
“I didn’t ask you to become Villiers!” Jemma cried. “I merely thought that even in the face of the world’s injustices, there might be a point at which a man is allowed to retreat from the fray. It’s not that you would eke out your remaining moments in bed, but that this life is actually killing you.”
“I consider that unimportant,” Elijah said, after a moment.
“Your life is unimportant?”
“I have always known my life would be short. Why should I betray everything I hold dear in order to gain a few extra, lazy minutes?”
She stared at him, unable to even begin a sentence.
“I see that you would prefer me to throw away the world to stay at your side,” he said, restlessly walking away from her, across the room.
“I would—”
Never had Elijah interrupted her so many times. He swung about and faced her. “We are too old to prevaricate, Jemma. I have no doubt but that after I am gone, you and Villiers will find great happiness together.”
“How dare you say such a thing!”
“I dare because it is true.”
“You suggest that I am simply waiting for you to die!” she cried furiously. “You insult me as well as Villiers!”
“Leopold is my closest friend in the world,” Elijah said quietly. “Even when he and I were estranged, I still considered him so. The fact is that I have never been and cannot become the charming companion you deserve. But my disinclination to nurse my health doesn’t mean that I am afraid to acknowledge that Villiers would be a better mate for you.”
“I cannot believe your arrogance,” Jemma said. “As you see it, I will prance away from your grave and turn directly to my partner in lazy crime, living the rest of my lif
e in happy indolence?”
“Your characterization is not helpful. What you call arrogance, I would call logic.” He took another quick turn and stopped just before her. “I am merely trying to be honest with you, Jemma. It would be patronizing of me to not share my opinion.”
“I see,” she said, striving to get a grip on her temper.
“But just to make certain that I understand your point of view: although you consider Villiers to be a lack-wit, you have every belief that I will turn directly from your grave to his arms.”
“Poetically put,” he said dryly.
“Moreover, you refuse to take any action that might prolong your life, preferring instead to gallop recklessly toward that grave without a thought for—for those you leave behind.”
“I think of you, Jemma.”
“Do you? Why? I am nothing but a frivolity ensconced at home, a woman who can be quickly dispatched into Villiers’s arms the moment your brief candle burns out.”
“Not only poetic but Shakespearean.”
Jemma turned sharply and stared out the dark window, biting her lip savagely to control tears that caught at the back of her throat. Her heart was beating heavily, in harmony with her new—and wretched—understanding of her importance to her husband.
“I truly wish that I could be the man you’d prefer.” His voice came from somewhere behind her.
She controlled her voice with an effort. “I wonder, Elijah, that you bothered to summon me from Paris at all.”
He cleared his throat. “I do not understand your bitterness, Jemma. If you don’t wish to marry Villiers, you won’t do so. I merely—” His voice broke off and suddenly his large hands were on her shoulders, turning her around to face him. “Damn it, Jemma, the truth is that I envy him. I envy him your cozy afternoon, the chess game, the sympathy in your eyes, the affection between you.”
Jemma angrily dashed a tear away. “You just scorned such intimacies!”
“I am not made to be a courtier.”
What could she say? That she’d been fool enough to think that he was falling in love with her?
She leaned her head back against the cool dark window behind her. It wasn’t Elijah’s fault that his honor came before his wife. She should admire him for it. God knows, the world admired his nobility.