Duchess by Night

  “Go,” she said, loving him, loving Eugenia. “I promise I’ll watch and she won’t die. Not yet.”

  He stumbled from the room. She lied, she had lied. It seemed obvious to her, as it undoubtedly was to Jem, that Eugenia was leaving them now. If not this minute, in five minutes, in an hour.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Yet Leave a Kiss But in the Cup…

  March 15, 1784

  Harriet picked up Eugenia and carried her over by the fire to the rocking chair. Her little body was all bones.

  She stayed by the fire, rocking back and forth, tears sometimes falling on Eugenia’s face. The odd, funny little girl with a logical mind and a passionate wish for babies had crept into her heart.

  When Benjamin was alive and they were first married, she had thought they would surely have children. Those unborn children tumbled through her dreams, teething on chess pieces, strutting the way Benjamin did, smiling at her with his eyes.

  But then the children never came and somehow those dreams became faded and tired, rather like their marriage.

  More tears fell on Eugenia’s hair. She had found a child, only to lose her.

  Once Eugenia stirred, but Harriet shushed her, kissing her forehead, and singing a few bars. She slipped back into that deep sleep.

  Harriet was still rocking when Jem came back.

  He walked in the door and she saw the question in his eyes and shook her head quickly. “She’s here, still here.”

  He looked down and despair was written in every inch of his body. “I’ll take a bath and then I’ll hold her,” he said. His voice was toneless.

  Shock, she thought. He can’t let himself face it yet.

  Harriet kept rocking, her arms aching with exhaustion.

  A slanted hint of pearly light came in through a crack in the curtains. Dawn had arrived.

  The light wasn’t gray anymore. Rose, dusted with pearl, played over Eugenia’s closed eyes. She didn’t stir. Harriet freed one arm and put a hand on Eugenia’s forehead.

  Jem entered the room, deep in the cotton wool he had somehow wrapped himself in. He felt like a snowman come to life, cold, emotionless, walking by some miracle.

  Harriet was still by the fire, but she’d stopped rocking. He registered that was a bad sign, walked toward them. Harriet had patches under her eyes like bruises. Her hair was tied back with a simple ribbon, and strands of curled silk were falling about her cheeks. Eugenia was curled in her arms like a baby hedgehog.

  There was something in Harriet’s eyes…He looked at his daughter again. Put his hand on Eugenia’s forehead.

  Harriet’s smile was so beautiful that he felt it in the fiber of his bones. The cotton wool peeled away, left him reeling.

  Morning light came toward him like a blow of color.

  “The fever,” he whispered. “It—is it?” From the earliest days, the fever had waned, but it never really left. But Eugenia’s forehead was cool. Cool.

  Harriet tried to say something but she was crying.

  Eugenia opened her eyes. “Papa,” she whispered.

  He scooped her up. “How do you feel?” He heard his voice crack with no embarrassment.

  “Hungry,” Eugenia sighed, putting her head on his shoulder.

  Harriet’s wonderful, husky chuckle was a shadow of its former self—but she hadn’t laughed in weeks. Eugenia hadn’t asked for food in weeks either. She’d protested every spoonful of soup they gave her. Jem laughed, felt something wet on his cheek and realized he was crying.

  “You’re going to be all right,” he whispered, tightening his arms around his little girl. “Harriet, she’s going to be all right!”

  Harriet laughed again.

  He looked down at her. The joy was almost painful. “I love you,” he said suddenly. “Do you know that?”

  Harriet turned a little pink. “Oh.”

  “Eugenia and I both love you. Our Harry.”

  Eugenia was asleep again, so he tucked her back in bed and then picked up Harriet and put her in his lap instead.

  She put her head against his shoulder and they just stayed like that, staring into the smoldering fire. It took an hour, perhaps. But finally he heard her voice, like a kiss. “I love you, Jem.”

  He tightened his arms.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Games

  March 16, 1784

  The following evening

  Jem walked out of Eugenia’s room and his feet turned of their own accord toward Harriet’s bedchamber. Eugenia was well.

  She would live. The doctor agreed. She would live.

  Mr. Avery was strolling down the corridor. “We’ve missed you at the Game,” he said. “How’s your daughter?”

  “Better. Perhaps I can join you tonight.”

  “Children are pesky creatures. I’m quite proud of myself for not spawning any. Will Cope join us?”

  “Of course.”

  Avery accepted that without a blink of an eye.

  Jem’s heart sang. Everything could go back to normal now. Except of course it wouldn’t be the same, it would never be the same. He had Harriet now.

  He pushed open the door of her chamber without knocking, hoping to find her undressed. Bathing.

  She was writing a letter. He knew there was a smile in his eyes, saw it echoed in hers. He came around behind her and pulled Harriet’s hair out of its ribbon.

  “I need you,” he said fiercely.

  She stood in his arms and turned, silent and sleek.

  He pulled her to the edge of the bed, standing before her, so that he could make love to her, and still see her, all her sweet curves and delicious roundness. Harriet had no shyness, no modesty. She lay before him like a gorgeous feast, her legs wrapped around his hips.

  Being Harriet, she never really stopped talking. “Deeper,” she said. Her lips, crimson and plump, caught his attention and he bent forward, taking her lips without missing a stroke.

  Making love to Harriet was like nothing he could describe.

  So he didn’t try, just tugged her out of a nap a few hours later. “Come on, Harry, on your feet.”

  She rolled away into the pillow. Her lips were bruised and swollen from his kisses. His body flared and did one of those instant calculations men can do in their sleep. Do it again now, or wait? Wait.

  “Put on your breeches,” he said. “The boys are waiting.”

  “What boys?”

  “The Game,” he said, giving her a kiss just because he could. “They’ve missed us. I promised we’d go tonight.”

  She blinked at him. “The Game has kept going? Without you?”

  “Of course.”

  “And they think we’re going to join them tonight?”

  “They think their host and Mr. Cope are going. I told Povy that we’d take the seventh and eighth seats.” Her thighs were irresistible. He ran a hand up her right leg, stopping right where her sweet plumpness began.

  She frowned at him and turned away. But that just meant that the curve of her bottom caught his eye.

  He ran a hand slowly over her hip. “Have you ever played master and slave girl?” he asked, not expecting a yes. Whoever that gentleman farmer was Harriet married, he didn’t sound like a master.

  She gave him a look and sat up. “Are you really telling me that the whole cohort of wastrel Game-playing men are still here and you agreed to meet them tonight?”

  He thought she phrased that quite succinctly. “Exactly. Let’s go.”

  “Jem, don’t you think—” she started. And then lapsed into silence.

  “If you’d rather stay here,” Jem said, having a change of heart, “I’m perfectly willing. I can teach you a lovely game called Master and Slave.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “I suppose you’re the master and I’m the slave.”

  “Other way around,” he said, pulling her legs to the edge of the bed and then falling to his knees. “Command me, O Master.”

  He loved her chuckle. It made his heart dance; it m
ade him harder than a rock.

  But she was persistent too. “Get up, Jem. You don’t really think that we’re going back to—to the Game this very night?”

  “Are you tired of primero?” He got to his feet. “I can go by myself, though they’ll miss you. Povy can easily find someone for the eighth seat.” He wandered over to the fire. “Eugenia had two eggs for supper tonight.”

  “That’s wonderful,” she said.

  But something was sinking into his mind. He knew that tone. Every man in the world knew that tone.

  “Harriet?” he said warily.

  She was standing with her arms folded. “You don’t think everything is going to go back to exactly as it was, do you?”

  He cleared his throat. “Um.”

  After a moment or two, she prompted. “Jem.”

  “Of course, it won’t be the same,” he said. “I love you, Harriet. I mean, I loved you before but now I know I love you. That’s different.”

  “So you think that Mr. Cope will be coming out to play primero tonight?”

  It was starting to feel like a stupid decision to wake her up. Harriet’s eyes had darkened. Even though she was so angry, she was standing there naked.

  He couldn’t help noticing.

  And she saw that he noticed. Her eyes slid down his body and then narrowed. “I suppose there’s an alternative to a night of primero.”

  “Yes,” he said, warily, feeling he was walking into a trap. “We could play a different game,” he added hastily. “Chess, for example.”

  “Or Master and Slave.”

  “That too.”

  “Life is not all about games, Jem.”

  He couldn’t help what his body thought, so he grabbed a dressing gown and wrapped it around himself.

  “You said you loved me,” she stated.

  “I did. I mean, I do love you.”

  “Don’t you see that things have to change?”

  “How?” He could feel tension building in his chest.

  “I can’t be Mr. Cope forever,” she said.

  Relief flooded his chest. He grabbed a dressing gown and gave it to her, because he still couldn’t concentrate. “Of course, I don’t want you to be Mr. Cope. I want you to be Harriet. I have an idea about that. We’re going to kill off Cope, in an unfortunate carriage accident. I’ll go away for a few days and meet you. Then you can come home with me, and just be Harriet.”

  “I can’t be just Harriet.”

  “Why not?” He could feel himself almost gabbling, but there was a look in her eyes he didn’t like.

  “I can’t live like this.”

  “But—”

  “Like this, Jem,” she said sharply. “With the Game, and the Graces gallivanting around the house when they’re not out entertaining bishops. I’m not—”

  The truth slammed into him like a brick wall. Of course she wanted to get married. And he meant to do that, of course he did. He’d only asked her once, through the door, and she hadn’t answered.

  He walked across to her, cupped her face in his hands. “I know what you mean, darling,” he said. “You don’t have to ask me.”

  “I don’t?” She sounded pretty stunned. He had meant to ask her to marry him again, because he’d known from the very first time they made love that she was his. That he would never let her out of his sight.

  “You know, when I married the first time, I thought of marriage as some sort of jail. Like a little cage. A prison sentence.”

  “Charming,” she said and he loved her dry wit so much that he almost smiled, but the moment was too important.

  “Marrying you will be completely different.”

  “Not a jail sentence?”

  She still looked a bit peeved.

  “I love you. I mean, I did love Sally, but not when we first married.”

  “Yet Sally was so amusing to be with.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’m guessing she enjoyed the Game, if she was allowed to play.”

  “Well, actually she was very—”

  “Good at primero, was she?” He didn’t like the way her eyebrow shot up. And how on earth had he got onto the topic of Sally? The love he felt for Harriet was far deeper than what he had felt for Sally. She seemed like a long-ago playmate.

  “I can’t remember whether she played primero well or not,” he said, going for a safe bet. “We were like two puppies together, Harriet. Not like you and me.”

  “Oh? And what are we like?”

  “Grown up,” he said firmly.

  “Grown up.” She said it slowly, as if she were tasting the words. “And how do such aged people as ourselves behave?”

  She was obviously furious. Jem’s self-preservation instincts finally took over and he said, “I think we should discuss this later.”

  “You might miss the Game if we actually discussed the future,” she said.

  “I’m happy to discuss the future!”

  “So…the future. Harry Cope dies. Harriet, who happens to have an unusual resemblance to Harry Cope, appears at your estate and after a brief flirtation, we marry. A nine-days’ wonder.”

  “It could work.” But he could feel anger building in him too. What had he done to deserve her scorn? Ask her to marry him? Only that. Ask her to marry him.

  “We’ll spend our days learning a little fencing, riding, trading quips with the Graces or their ilk, greeting any new people who happen to appear uninvited—”

  “I invite everyone who comes here!” he said, stung.

  “Wander down to greet our guests around twilight, have a bite to eat, start the Game—oh wait, I won’t be part of that anymore, will I? I suppose I’ll teach the Graces how to embroider or something ladylike.”

  Tenderness seized his heart. He would hate to be shown a glimpse of the freedoms allotted to men—and then be forced to give them up. It would break his heart.

  Obviously, it was doing the same to Harriet.

  “We’ll change the rules,” he said, putting a hand on her cheek. “All men…and Harriet.”

  She struck his hand away from her face and spun away. Surprised, he stumbled back.

  “You don’t understand at all!”

  He caught his balance on a chair. “I would have to agree,” he said finally. “I asked you to marry me. I offered to change the rules of my household so that you could continue to join the Game because I know you enjoy it.”

  “You don’t understand anything!”

  He felt a swell of rage but he caught it back. “Why don’t you try to explain it to me?”

  “It’s all games with you. Life is not a game!”

  “Are you suggesting that I don’t work hard enough?” he said. His lips seemed to be numb. “I assure you that I manage my holdings.”

  “I’m certain you do,” she said scathingly.

  He waited a moment to see if she wanted to explain herself. Then he said, “It takes a great deal of work to keep a vast estate and income the size of mine afloat, Harriet. You wouldn’t understand that, but I don’t see why your ignorance should result in scorn.”

  “I manage an estate as well,” she flashed.

  Of course, the farmer probably left an estate. It must not have been entailed, which suggested that Harriet’s husband was a commoner. Not that it mattered to him.

  “It’s the way you approach life,” she said. “As if it were one long game.” Her face had a stony look to it.

  “I don’t understand your criticism. I assure you that I take no unnecessary risks with my estate.”

  “Just with your child,” she flashed.

  He felt himself growing paler. She dared—dared—to say that he took risks with Eugenia? Still, he forced himself to respond calmly. It was almost like a miracle, the way he heard his own voice enquire mildly, “And how exactly should I have protected Eugenia from the rat, Harriet?”

  “I’m not talking about that! Anyone could have that happen—but she was alone when it happened.”

  “I
gather you’re criticizing my ability to hire nursemaids.”

  “That governess was as feckless and beautiful as the rest of the women in this house,” she said flatly. “She had no real care for Eugenia: none.”

  “She was in love. That could happen to anyone.” Though he was starting to wonder if it had really happened to Harriet.

  “She was part and parcel with the women who pay you visits,” Harriet snapped. “My mother would have called her a wag-tail. She was nothing more than a ladybird, looking for her next meal!”

  Jem could feel himself growing rigid. Ice poured down his back. “I regret that you think I willingly hired a ladybird to care for my daughter.”

  “You didn’t hire her willingly,” Harriet cried. “I suspect you simply don’t know what a decent woman looks like.”

  “I am not a hermit,” he pointed out, counting to one hundred in the back of his mind. “I frequently visit London, which is stiflingly full of boring woman who must, therefore, be virtuous.”

  “Oh, of course virtue is boring!”

  “Exactly. And it makes such claims for itself. The very smell of virtue makes a woman utterly tedious, and at the same time, utterly conceited.”

  “I am a virtuous woman,” Harriet said through clenched teeth.

  “We’ll have to agree that you are an exception,” Jem said. He was vibrating with rage over her criticism of his childrearing. “I shall do my best to engage a truly virtuous nanny for Eugenia. Or else I’ll just try to find one like yourself.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You came to my house under a false name, dressed in breeches,” he pointed out. “When it became clear to both of us that we were of compatible genders, you fell into bed with me without showing an undue amount of virtue. Thank God.”

  “In short: you think I’m a strumpet.”

  “Only in the best meaning of the term.”

  “A ladybird.”

  His back stiffened again and his jaw tightened. “There would be nothing so terrible about being a ladybird, Harriet.”

  “So is that the future you have in mind for Eugenia? Is that why she is locked in the west wing, hardly able to enjoy fresh air—while all the ladybirds trot around your estate?”