Duchess by Night

  At least, not riding a horse.

  The thought made her smile and she looked up to find Jem’s eyes on her. He abruptly wheeled his horse and left the stable. She followed, wincing as the bitter air hit her face.

  He was waiting and leaned over, took her mouth in a hard kiss. “Don’t ever smile like that if there is anyone else in the room.”

  Harriet’s heart sang. He would never let her go.

  “Jem—” she said, but he was gone, and with a little shout she let her mare leap after him. She was a good rider now, able to go around turns at a gallop, although native common sense led her to slow her horse. Jem simply clung to the side of his mount and went faster.

  Snow was in the air, the smell of it and the taste of it on the wind.

  Harriet was just starting to get tired when a large barn loomed into view to the right. Jem immediately slowed his horse and picked his way across the frozen field. Then he jumped off and led his horse over to a small door in the side, not the huge door that accommodated the hay wagons.

  “Come on, Harry,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  Harriet clambered down rather painfully. That extra bit of gymnastics in the middle of the night—though it was wondrously fun—had taken its toll.

  She led her horse into the warmth, out of the wind. Stacks of golden hay towered over their heads, winding toward the wooden loft far above.

  “This is the largest barn I’ve ever seen,” Harriet said, awestruck.

  “Your husband’s storage barn isn’t so large?” Jem asked. There was just a touch of satisfaction in his voice that made her smile. If she didn’t like Sally, Jem didn’t seem to like Benjamin either. Though she hadn’t told Jem anything much about Benjamin.

  Not that it mattered, not with the true, clear emotion that strung between them. She’d tell him when the moment felt right. Jem tied up the horses, then took her hand and they wound their way through a narrow pathway in the straw.

  “I just have to check the grain,” he said.

  “Where is it?”

  “Back here, in the lofts. We have a terrible mouse problem.”

  “Perhaps rats. You were so lucky with Eugenia’s bite,” Harriet said with a shudder. “By yesterday afternoon I could hardly see the punctures at all.”

  “The shepherd brings his ratters to the barn once a week,” Jem said. “Ironic, isn’t it? I take excellent care of my barn, but I let my own child be bitten.”

  Harriet’s fingers tightened, warm, around his. “It was an accident.”

  “She seems fine. Did she show you what happened to the castle?”

  Harriet laughed. “Trust Eugenia to turn a disaster into a triumph.” A ham-handed footman had dropped a log on one side of her paper castle, crushing it. So Eugenia promptly declared the castle a ruin, and said the rats had won. “Last night she was busily cutting out baby rats.”

  “I saw them,” Jem said. “They looked like little puddings with tails, but I didn’t tell her that. Here’s the grain.” He wrenched open the wooden top and they stared down into a huge bin. “I’ll tell him to buy a bushel or two,” Jem decided.

  Harriet reached out a hand and let the smooth kernels sort through her fingers. “It smells so good.”

  “Not as good as you do.”

  He was looking at her again with longing in his eyes.

  “Do you suppose this will ever go away?” she asked, hearing hunger in her own voice.

  “I doubt it. But why worry? We’re having so much pleasure at this moment.”

  He pulled off her greatcoat and ran a hand under her shirt, only to be frustrated by her bandaged chest. So his hand started to roam downwards instead.

  At first they just stood there, leaning against the rail, kissing until they were both panting a little, until Jem’s heart was pounding under Harriet’s hand.

  “If only they could see us now,” he said, amusement in his voice. “I’m afraid no amount of fibs from Kitty would help.”

  But Harriet wasn’t interested in imagining what they looked like together. She wound her fingers through his and tugged. “Let’s lie down,” she said.

  “A tussle in the straw like shepherds…I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Straw gives me hives. I itch for days,” he said, his eyes on hers. “But I think we could manage standing up, don’t you, Harriet?”

  His hand was doing a slow caress of her hip. “Yes,” she whispered. “I think so.”

  Two seconds later he was kneeling in front of her, she was holding onto the railing for dear life, and he was—he was—

  He pulled back his head. “You know, Harriet,” he said thoughtfully, “I sometimes get the feeling that you would like to scream. May I remind you that there’s no one for miles around this barn?”

  Harriet gulped—but then he pulled her toward him again and that wicked tongue of his turned her knees to water.

  In the end, she didn’t really scream. It was more like—

  “That was a scream,” she heard Jem say. “I knew you had it in you.” But it was her turn, so she slid to her knees before him, and satisfactorily proved that Lord Strange had no control at all when it came to Harriet.

  None.

  Then he was turning her around, belly to the railing, his large hands shaping her bottom. “God, you’re beautiful, Harriet.”

  She wanted to say that no, she wasn’t beautiful. Her hips were too round and her bottom was too round and her breasts were too small, but there was something in his voice that made the comment die in her throat.

  His voice made her beautiful. His hands caressed her and she felt as if they were her own hands: from him, she learned the beauty of a woman’s sweet curve, of a generous hip, of the delicate, mysterious space between a woman’s legs.

  They were so together that her body knew what he wanted before her mind did. She arched back, welcomed him, sobbed when hard velvet stroked into her. His hands encircled her, protecting her from the railing.

  He took it slow, each stroke a promise, to Harriet’s mind. The days strung forward, days and nights with Jem…

  Exclamations aren’t enough. There are times when screaming is called for, especially when Jem slipped a hand in front of her body and began a wicked dance with his fingers. He rode her until she shattered; turned her about so he could kiss her again. Lifted her onto the railing so that her legs wrapped around his hips, saying that he didn’t want to come without seeing her face.

  She cried. What’s a scream, after all, but a prelude to tears?

  He was so deep within her that they didn’t feel like two people.

  Just one.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Fear

  They came home slowly, walking the horses most of the way because Harriet admitted that her thigh muscles hurt.

  “I’d take you in my lap,” he said, “but we’d be seen.”

  Harriet laughed. “I can’t put Kitty’s storytelling abilities to waste.”

  So they walked the horses home through the gathering snow and dark. She gratefully gave her mare back to Nick, and walked back to the house.

  They were met by Povy.

  “A fever, my lord,” he said, without preamble. “Miss Eugenia has a fever and it’s quite high. I’ve sent for the doctor.”

  Jem’s whole body froze. “When?”

  “An hour ago. I sent to the stables, but they said you had to be on the way back home already.”

  Jem pounded up the stairs, gone in an instant.

  Harriet turned to Povy. “What have you done for it?”

  “I’ve ordered the maids to make a snow bath. We’ll use it if we have to. At the moment I have her snug in bed. I’m sure you will be a comfort.” In that instant she realized that Povy knew precisely what she was (a woman), and quite likely, who she was (a duchess) as well. Povy was simply that sort of man.

  “I’ll go,” Harriet said, moving toward the stairs. She was thinking desperately about the laborer on her estate, the man wh
o died of rat-bite fever. It had been a few weeks before the fever came on; yes, just the same as for Eugenia. But he had some sort of rash—

  “Is there a rash?” she asked.

  She saw the same awareness in Povy’s eyes. He probably knew symptoms of every disease. “Not yet.”

  That yet was no comfort.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Hell

  February 23, 1784

  The first two days Harriet tried to stay out of Jem’s way. How long had she known Jem and Eugenia? A matter of weeks, even if it felt like years. She stopped in the morning and the evening to see Eugenia. She asked Povy for news every time she saw him. She wondered if she should leave, and couldn’t bear to go out for a brief walk.

  In case…in case Jem needed her. In case Eugenia needed her. In case something so awful happened that she couldn’t put it into words.

  Most of Jem’s guests didn’t appear to notice that their host was never to be seen. They heard his daughter had a fever, and having ascertained that it wasn’t contagious, continued with their pursuits. The Graces left to travel to the house of the bishop for a week-long “performance.” Presumably the Game continued, though Harriet neither knew nor cared.

  On the third day, Harriet peeked into Eugenia’s room in the evening to find Jem slumped in a chair by her bedside, asleep. He woke with a start.

  The feverish patches on Eugenia’s cheeks told their own story. She wasn’t in a deep sleep: every once in a while she would shake her head, back and forth, as if she were in an argument.

  “What’s she doing?” Harriet whispered.

  “Fighting,” Jem said. His voice was leaden with exhaustion. “She’s fighting as hard as she can.”

  Eugenia shook her head again and said something indistinct. There was a no somewhere in the mumble.

  “She’s a good fighter,” Harriet said. “Where’s her nurse?”

  “Eugenia doesn’t like her. I’ll have to find another one tomorrow.”

  “Is there any way I can help?” Harriet said. She’d asked before, but he said no.

  Now he looked at her, gaunt and exhausted. “I have no right to ask you this.”

  “Please,” she said. “Please allow me to help.”

  “She doesn’t like the nurse the doctor sent. But she likes seeing you. She asked for you once.”

  Harriet came forward in a rush. “I was trying not to be in the way. You should have called me when she asked for me.”

  “It was the middle of the night.” He stood up, rubbing his hands over his eyes. “Could you sit with her, just for an hour or two? I need some sleep.”

  Harriet pushed him toward the door. “Go. Come back in the morning.” She curled up in a chair next to Eugenia’s bed. At some point the little girl woke up and asked for water. She smiled blearily at Harriet. By morning she was fretful.

  “I don’t want water,” she cried. “My side hurts. Where’s my papa? Papa!”

  A maid entered the room and Eugenia’s voice escalated. “Don’t want her here! Make her go away!”

  Harriet cast an apologetic look at the maid, who scuttled away.

  The only thing that settled Eugenia was singing. So Harriet sang.

  She was singing Drink to Me Only when Eugenia woke again. Harriet put a cool cloth on Eugenia’s forehead.

  “Are you ever going to marry someone, Harry?” she asked sleepily.

  “I don’t know.”

  “If you had a baby, I could hold her. When I grow up I’m going to have fourteen children.”

  “Really? Fourteen?”

  “Mrs. Billows in the village has fifteen, and Papa says that’s far too many.”

  “So is—”

  But Eugenia was asleep, a little smile on her face. Perhaps she dreamt of fourteen children. At least she didn’t shake her head. But an hour later she woke again, feverish.

  “I want a different song,” she said fretfully. “A song about papa. Sing me about papa.”

  Harriet panicked. She was singing the refrain of Papa’s Tower is Falling Down for the fourteenth time when Jem entered the room. “I’ve sent for another doctor from London,” he said by way of greeting. “How are you feeling, poppet?”

  “I’m hot,” Eugenia said, her lower lip trembling. “I hate it in bed. I hate it here. I want to go outside. I want to sit in the snow.”

  Harriet stumbled up from her chair and Jem sat down. And that’s how it went. For years, it felt like.

  The fever and the chills chased each other in an endless circle. Harriet sang song after song.

  Nights were so much worse than days. Sometimes the fever waned slightly in the daytime, though it raged at night.

  Sometimes in the daytime when Harriet said, “Hello, sweetheart,” to Eugenia, she would open her eyes. Every once in a while she woke up and seemed completely rational. Even when she cried and said it hurt, they took it as a sign of strength.

  But at night she never slept for more than an hour. When she wasn’t sleeping, she went back to fighting, as Jem described it. She thrashed her head, back and forth, and shouted until her voice cracked. When she did sleep, it wasn’t a natural sleep, but the kind from which people don’t always wake.

  One day Harriet realized that Eugenia had been ill, really ill, for two weeks. She was sitting by the bed, wringing out a cold cloth to put on Eugenia’s forehead when she heard Jem outside the door. “Can’t you do anything?” he asked the new doctor fiercely.

  And the man’s voice, low. “God, and I wish that I could. We just don’t know enough. There’s people studying fevers, but they’ve little to say about rat-bite fever.”

  And then she heard Jem walk away, down the hall, break into a near run. He never cried in front of her. But every day his face was more strained, the lines by his mouth more cruel.

  When he returned, later that day, Harriet went to take a bath. The house was quiet, just a huge house and somewhere in it the rat that had given Eugenia a fever.

  Just a house, and a father and his dying daughter.

  She stopped and rested her forehead against the corridor wall.

  Days stretched into another week.

  Eugenia was shrinking every day. Her little face grew more peaked and tired, her eyes larger.

  One day Harriet went out for a walk, and when she came back, she saw with fresh eyes what she had known inside for days. Eugenia was dying. It literally felt as if her heart stopped, and not silently, but with some great screeching pain.

  Eugenia was shaking her head again, back and forth, back and forth. Her cheeks were red and she was moaning, a little slipstream mumble of words, but Harriet knew what they were: a litany of pain.

  She stumbled forward and fell on her knees by the bed.

  Jem was perfectly stark white, his eyes surrounded by black circles. “It’s not going anywhere,” he said hoarsely. “It’s taken hold for good.”

  “You can’t know that,” Harriet whispered. “No one can know.”

  “She can’t bear this much longer.”

  Harriet swallowed, buried her head in the covers, as if not to hear.

  “The doctor says perhaps today.” Jem’s voice didn’t even sound like his own. It sounded like a voice echoing from far away.

  Harriet’s tears burned her hands, burned the inside of her nose, burned her heart. “Would you like to be alone with her?” she said, raising her head. Tears dripped from her cheeks.

  He shook his head. “Stay with me. With us.”

  So they sat together.

  The day wore on. Toward evening, Harriet found herself thinking the oddest thoughts: that twilight is not really dark. It’s gray. The sun gone, the world turns gray, without emotion, without color. It seemed a fitting time for a little girl to slip free of all this pain, to let go.

  But Eugenia never did. She would fall into silence, and panic would grip Harriet’s heart, and then she would start shaking her head again.

  “She’s fighting it,” Jem said suddenly, after hours of si
lence. His voice cracked mid-sentence. “She won’t let go.”

  Harriet managed to smile at Eugenia. “Good girl,” she said.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “She has to know it’s all right to go. It’s all right, darling, it’s all right.” His voice broke, and tears were rolling down his face. “Your mama’s waiting for you. There’s just too much pain here, poppet. It’s all right. You can let go, Eugenia.”

  “She can’t hear you,” Harriet said.

  “Yes, she can.” He bent over the bed, cradled his daughter’s little face, told her again. And again.

  Harriet buried her head in the covers and wept. Then she suddenly heard him say in a different voice: “Hello, poppet.”

  She reared up her head. Eugenia was looking blearily, irritably, at her father. “’Lo, Papa.”

  They were the most beautiful two words that Harriet had ever heard.

  Eugenia frowned. “Stop telling me to go, Papa. I’m too tired to go anywhere.”

  “Of course you are,” he said. “Of course you are. I know that.”

  “Where’s Harry?”

  Harriet leapt up and tangled on her own feet and half fell on top of Eugenia. “I’m here.”

  “Sing me that song,” Eugenia said, closing her eyes again. “I want that song, Harry. My favorite song.”

  So Harriet sat down on the bed and started to sing. Her voice wavered and cracked. “Drink to me only, with thine eyes…” she sang. “And I will pledge with mine.”

  “Put your hand on my cheek,” Eugenia ordered. “Like you did before, Harry.”

  So she did. “Yet leave a kiss but in the cup—” She couldn’t manage the high note and slid low instead. “And I’ll not ask for wine.”

  As they watched, Eugenia fell into sleep. It was a deep sleep this time. She was so far away that her chest hardly moved.

  “I can’t take it,” Jem said suddenly, stumbling to his feet. A great cracked sob came from his chest. “I can’t—Harriet—”

  “Go for a walk,” she said, looking up at him. “She won’t die, not this hour. Not this moment.”

  He stood, frozen in the door. “I can’t watch. I—can’t—watch.”