“I have never kept Eugenia from the fresh air. Neither have I unreasonably immured her from our guests. She has come to know a few of the young women very well.”
Too late, he realized this was a mistake. Harriet’s eyes flashed and she made a sound that could have been a growl, on a man. “I gather it is your ambition to turn her to a ladybird, then, since you give her such excellent companionship.”
“Can you please find some other term for this conversation?”
“Doxy?” Her tone was delicate but sharp as knives. “Drab or strumpet? There are so many appropriate words.”
“And as a virtuous woman, you know them all,” he said, pushed beyond endurance. “Good women delight in throwing terms at those less fortunate—even while they gaily engage in precisely the same behavior.”
She paled and he knew that went home.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said, a second later.
“You virtuous women shun and scorn those whom you believe to be weaker, less righteous. And yet—”
“You’re saying I’ve played the doxy in your house, and now I have no right to condemn you for your taste in companionship. After all, I transformed myself into precisely what you always desired.”
He was never very good at sorting out a whole swirl of emotions, and he felt buffeted by them. “I’m not sure—”
“Luckily, I am quite certain. You are right.”
She waited until he said, cautiously, “Oh.”
“I had no right to ask you to change, or to think that you were even capable of it. I thought—” and something flashed across her eyes “—I thought you saw my heart. I thought you knew me. What a fool I was.”
She almost whispered the last.
“Don’t look grieved,” Jem said, catching her arm. “I do know you, Harriet. I love you.”
She didn’t even hear him. “I wove it all in my head, of course, fool that I am. I was playing the doxy and you saw me as a doxy, and that—”
“I never saw you as that! Never!”
“That is that,” she finished.
“What are you talking about?”
Finally, she looked at him again. “I am extraordinarily slow in my understanding, Jem.”
“So am I,” he said. “Because I have no idea what is going on here.”
“This will make you laugh.” There was something empty in her eyes that made him want to scream at her. “I actually thought you would—you would change.”
“I will change! I told you I would change. I want to marry you.”
“Not that.”
“I’ve never asked anyone to marry me, by my own impulse and reckoning. I didn’t think it would be thrown away so lightly.”
“I thought you knew what kind of woman I am. I thought you would—I thought you would become that sort of man.”
“Jesus,” he said. “I am the sort of man for you, Harriet. Don’t you understand that?”
She shook her head. “You are a wonderful companion. I thought you could be something you’re not at all. I thought you could be the sort of man who marries a woman like me—the real me, not Mr. Cope. Not me under a secret name and having a wild affaire. The me who runs an estate, Jem. The me who sits in judgment in the shire court. I did behave like a ladybird.” She must have seen him flinch. “But I thought you knew that it wasn’t the real me…I thought you would come home with me.”
He laughed, heard his own laugh, like a bark. “To the little farm your husband left you?”
“It’s not little.”
“Whatever size it is, darling,” he said, reining in his impatience, “Fonthill is hundreds of acres. It’s not practical to leave my estate and move to yours.”
“I meant—I meant not just physically come with me. Come with me in other ways.”
“Do you mean become some sort of country squire, like your husband?”
“My husband wasn’t a country squire.”
“Whatever he was,” Jem said impatiently. “A gentleman farmer, living off in the country with his hogs. I don’t care if he wasn’t a gentleman, Harriet. I’ve never cared for rank. You should know that about me.”
“I see that,” Harriet said. “But Jem, I haven’t been honest with you. I played the doxy, and I’m not one. I—I frolicked with the Graces, and I led you to believe that I could live in such a way for my whole life.”
There was something in her face, something almost resigned, that made him feel slightly crazed.
“I don’t care—”
“I lied to you by omission.” Harriet said flatly. “My husband was a duke. And I am a duchess.”
The moment she said it, he knew the truth in his bones. Of course, she was a duchess. She had the spine of a duchess, and the natural tone of command.
She didn’t expect people to love her: she expected them to fear her. To bow and scrape before her. That was why she loved being Cope so much. It set her free, in the same way that not being a woman set her free.
“A duchess,” he said, fury burning its welcome into his heart.
She inclined her head. It was a duchess’s nod. But there was a tear sliding down her cheek.
“You pretended to be other than you are—why?” But he knew, he knew. “I’m not good enough for a duchess. You deceived me, day after day—because of rank?”
“It wasn’t rank. You are—yourself,” she said. “And I am a bird of a different feather, for all I pretended to be someone I’m not.”
“You’re saying I fell in love with an illusion.”
“Something like that.”
“And you? Did you fall in love with an illusion too, Harriet?”
“No. You never lied to me. I don’t think you’re capable of lying, Jem.”
He folded his arms because it was ungraceful to clench one’s fists in polite conversation. Especially with a duchess, one had to presume. “Ironic as this may seem, I would have thought it below myself to pretend to a lower rank than my own. I gave you myself, such as I am.”
“I know you did,” she cried. “You have been utterly honest with me. This is your life, and—and that’s wonderful. You love your life. And—and that’s wonderful. Truly. I—I’m a fool, that’s all.”
“Would you mind explicating the nature of your foolishness?”
She looked at him for a moment, as if she were memorizing his face. His heart turned over. She was really going to do it. She was going to leave him.
“You’re—you’re the only gentleman I’ve ever met who truly doesn’t care about rank.”
“So?”
“I honor that. But I can’t live like this.”
Jem felt his tone hardening before he even said it. He knew why she couldn’t live in a house without rank: she was a duchess, for God’s sake. That would be like giving away her most precious possession. “Like what?”
“In a house in which people just come and go, like some sort of changing play. You don’t even know all of them, Jem.”
“They’re not good enough for a duchess. I completely understand.”
“It’s not a question of good. Well, perhaps it is.” He could see her make some sort of decision. She looked up at him. “I’m a staid person, at the heart, Jem. All I ever wanted, really, was to have some children and a husband who loved me. That was it. I never—”
She turned away but he saw the gleam of tears again and it tore his heart.
“I never dreamed I would be as wild as I’ve been here. Playing primero for huge stakes, having an affaire…It’s not me. But I also—I can’t live with people like the Graces, not for the long term. I don’t want to be in a house that is an inn for itinerant players and drunk jugglers, not to mention the scientists and politicians. Yet I loved every moment of it. It’s changed me, changed my life. I don’t blame my husband for dying any more.”
Ice and anger slammed into his heart. “I am happy that Eugenia and I could be of use to you.”
“Don’t—Don’t—” she cried, holding out her hand. ??
?Don’t leave in anger.”
“You lied to me. I thought you were the widow of a farmer—” He spat the word. “—and all along you were merely playing with the hoi polloi. Amusing yourself with me.”
“It wasn’t like that!”
Bitterness seized his throat. “Do you know what I think about people, Harriet? I think the worst lie was not when you pretended to be a dumpy widow. I have that phrase right, don’t I?”
Her face was stark white. “I am—”
“Stop it,” he said through clenched teeth. “It was when you pretended to be a squire’s wife. Villiers was having his little duke’s game, bringing along two duchesses. I don’t know why I didn’t see that; it’s just the kind of twisted humor people of your rank appreciate.”
“It wasn’t a joke!”
“It was the kind of joke that only a duke would appreciate,” he said tonelessly. “I know Eugenia won’t.”
“Oh, you mustn’t say that to her. It’s not true!”
He just looked at her, and the silence grew bitter and thick between them. “I’ll try to keep the uglier parts of the truth from Eugenia. You go, back to the duchy. I’ll stay here. And God, I hope that we never meet again.”
Her face was tear-stained, but she kept her chin high. “I don’t see what I did that was so terrible, that deserves this level of rage.”
“I loved you. I thought I knew you. My anger should be at myself, not at you. I will endeavor to make it so.” And then he said, “If you’ll forgive me, I have an appointment.”
“Wait!”
He waited while she tried to say something that got caught on a sob, raised her head again. “Are you sure you—couldn’t you come with me, Jem? I love you. I love you so much.”
It was maddening to feel sorry for her. To still feel love for her, even. She was a liar who entered his house and amused herself with him.
“I’m not a toy that can be bought,” he told her, finally. “I’m a man with a large estate and a child.”
“And a house party,” she said with a touch of bitterness. “Don’t forget all your guests.”
“I have a life. It’s not a perfect life, and it’s not a duke’s life, but it’s my own. I am Lord Strange. I earned my reputation and—”
She interrupted him. “You didn’t! And you know you didn’t! I don’t believe you slept with any woman since Sally died. Did you?”
“My lovers are irrelevant.”
“Did you!” she shrieked at him.
“Only once.”
“So why—why couldn’t you just love me, instead of all these other people?” Her voice choked again. “Why do you need the Game so much?”
“I loved the person you presented yourself as—a funny, wise, intelligent person who loved learning to fence and ride and play poker. But that person’s not real.” He felt merciless, and yet it had to be said. “You’re a duchess. You’re not Harry.”
“You knew I wasn’t Harry!”
“I thought you were someone I could love,” he said flatly. “And someone who loved being here, with me. But you’re right. A duchess can’t have anything to do with Lord Strange. No duchess should ever darken the door of this house. You shouldn’t have come.”
He left her small white face behind him, and walked away. Her voice stopped him at the door.
“I love you.” Her voice didn’t even tremble. “I may have misrepresented myself, and I suppose you can’t forgive me. Or don’t want to forgive me. But I saw you for what you are and could be, Jem, and I love you. I want you to know that.”
His eyes burned suddenly so he didn’t turn around. “You saw me for a loose screw who welcomes riff-raff into his house. That’s not what you want.”
“I saw you for a man with a heart too generous to turn anyone away based on something as frivolous as reputation or rank. A man who loves his daughter so much that he pulled her back from death. A man who honored his wife’s memory by not having careless affaires, though doubtless many were offered him.” Her voice wavered and she steadied it. “A man who loved me.”
He turned around. “Your husband didn’t love you, did he?”
“Oh yes, he did.”
“But not enough.”
“Not as much as he loved chess. He was always honest about that. And you—you are honest too. It seems I have a genius for finding men who care more for a game than for myself.”
“I’m certain that you will find someone of your rank,” he heard himself say. The flash in her eyes could have been agony—or dislike, so he opened the door.
He wasn’t walking away, because she had left him, really.
He wasn’t good enough for her. And she didn’t even know the whole of it. His mouth twisted. His valet took one look at him and practically threw his clothing toward him.
Then he was away: pounding down the road, down the slick road, hating her, hating himself, his heart bleeding for Eugenia. How would he explain to her? Harriet didn’t love us enough? What do you tell a little girl who thinks—
Actually, what did Eugenia think?
She knew that Harriet was a woman. But she’d never said much other than that. He hadn’t told her that he meant to marry Harriet.
Although he always meant to marry her, he realized with another sickening lurch of his stomach. Almost unconsciously, he had decided long ago that he was going to do Harriet a favor by marrying her and rescuing her from her boring little backwater of a farm. Bring her to a life of luxury. He kicked his horse and they went faster, until the wind screamed in his ears.
A life of luxury, he was offering. In a tawdry house full of strangers and primero games. While she probably lived in a castle.
If he cried, which he never did, his tears would have turned to icicles on his cheeks.
Chapter Thirty-seven
To Be Better Than a Game
March 18, 1784
Berrow House
Country Seat of the Duke of Berrow
Harriet got home, all the way home, by two days later. Villiers’s man, Finchley, gathered up her clothes, and Harriet gathered up the shards of her self-esteem and her love, and took it all home in the carriage with her.
She didn’t even cry until her spaniel, Mrs. Custard, ran to meet her. And then she dropped right down on her knee in the dirt and hugged him. His tail wagged furiously.
“He checked the front door for you every day, Your Grace,” her butler, Wilson, said from somewhere above her right shoulder.
Harriet bit her lip hard. She couldn’t cry in front of the servants. She never cried in front of the servants, not when Benjamin died, not when…
When had anything worse than that happened?
Besides having her heart ripped out and rejected, thrown back in the dirt at her feet.
You’d think she’d be used to it. Benjamin didn’t really love her; neither did Jem. They both loved their games better—the game of chess, with all its intricacies and power struggles, the game of—of being Lord Strange. With all its odd generosity, male camaraderie, celebration, and the game of primero, with all its intricacies, power struggles, and bets.
A tear dropped into Mrs. Custard’s graying fur.
Once, for once, she wished that someone would love her more than a game. The way she loved him.
“The servants await you, Your Grace,” her butler said. He meant they would be all lined up inside the front door, waiting to curtsy.
“My goodness, Wilson,” she said, striving for a light tone. “It isn’t as if I’ve been gone for months. Disperse them, please.”
“But—”
“Disperse them.” She didn’t use that tone often.
“You have a visitor,” her butler continued. His training did not allow him to betray a wounded tone, but she could tell he would have liked to.
“A visitor? How odd. No one knew I was coming home today.”
“She arrived two days ago and has been awaiting your arrival,” Wilson said.
“And?” Harriet said, rising an
d brushing fur off her hands. “She is?”
The butler pulled himself to a standing position. “The Duchess of Beaumont.”
“Oh, goodness,” Harriet said, walking toward the great stone arch that led to the inner courtyard. “Where is she now?”
“In the conservatory, I believe, Your Grace.”
Harriet walked into the courtyard, and through the west door that led to the conservatory, avoiding the front entry and the waiting servants. She was conscious of resentment. She didn’t want to see Jemma, fond though she was of her. She wanted to fall into the nearest bed and cry. She wanted to cry until she had hiccups and couldn’t stop. She wanted to cry as many tears as she had for Benjamin.
Which was ridiculous.
Jem was not dead. He just didn’t love her enough. A tragedy for her, for no one else. And yet she could feel her blood beating to the rhythm of the tears she wanted to shed.
Because she thought—she really thought—that he would come home with her. That he loved her truly, saw her truly. But he didn’t.
She found Jemma sitting in the section of the conservatory that Harriet called the orange arbor. She had tried to grow oranges, but they flowered and never grew fruit. She couldn’t bear to discard the trees, so they stayed in a corner, all scented shiny leaves.
By the time she saw Jemma, tears were hanging on her eyelashes.
Jemma was seated on a bench under an orange tree, playing chess, apparently by herself. Harriet walked up quietly. It felt odd to be in a dress. Slippers were much quieter than boots. As she watched, Jemma moved a white piece, and then one of the blacks.
She glanced up and sprang to her feet. “Darling Harriet, you’ve come home!”
Then Jemma had her arms around her, and a white handkerchief out, and Harriet collapsed against her. “It’s just—It’s just—”
“I know, I know,” Jemma murmured. “Isidore told me.”
“She told you that he doesn’t love me? She knew? Why am I the only dunce? Why am I the only one who never knows?”
“Isidore didn’t say that,” Jemma said. “She said that you were having a lovely time together but that—”