The Ugly Duchess

  She didn’t reply.

  “They truly believed I fled the country because I thought you were ugly?” He sounded stunned, which was gratifying. After her mother, James had always been her blindest supporter.

  “It took me a few years to stop listening,” she continued. “But once I made the estate profitable again, I went to Paris, and when I returned to London last year, I wore a cape of swansdown to Cecil’s ball.”

  He didn’t even smile.

  “I was a success,” she insisted, leaning back against the wall.

  “You are gorgeous no matter what you wear,” he said flatly. There was no compassion in his eyes; as he had never accepted that she was less than beautiful, he couldn’t celebrate her triumph as a swan.

  “My point is that when you appeared so suddenly in Lords, it played into my rather overwrought sensibilities, and I did become angry. I do accept that you attempted to contact me in the morning, but the fact that I had no idea you were alive until the moment you identified yourself will confirm the impression that you couldn’t bear to live with such an ugly woman. Still, I’m not angry about that anymore,” she added, striving for a bright tone and not succeeding in the least.

  “That is absurd.” His face was utterly expressionless.

  “I’ll move to France,” she said with sudden urgency. “I’ll move anywhere, James. Just please, let me be who I am now. I can’t pretend that the girl you married will ever come back. I can’t—I could not go to bed with you.” Despite herself, a drop of liquid disgust curdled in her voice.

  His shoulders tightened. After a moment, he said, “Because you despise me for leaving or because of the way I have changed?”

  “I told you to leave. Believe it or not, I accepted blame for my rash statement long ago.”

  “I had no intention of slighting you in front of the House of Lords.”

  “So you said, and I believe you,” she said, ladling on reassurance. “So I think—I hope—we can simply be honest with each other, like the friends we once were, and with respect to the affection we once shared.”

  He muttered something.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It was love, not affection,” he said, raising his head.

  “Of course,” she said lightly. “I’ve come to think of our marriage as being very like Juliet and Romeo’s in its brief intensity. I expect it was a good thing that we were never tested by life. Our love was too passionate, like a summer storm that quickly dies down.”

  “I disagree. I think we would have had children by now,” he said evenly. “We would have fallen more deeply in love. I would have confessed why I married you, at some point, and you would have forgiven me, because that’s what people in love do.”

  There was a fierce, intense spark in his eye that made a shiver streak down Theo’s spine. “It might have happened that way. My point is that we can’t pretend that those emotions can be reawakened. They cannot. I truly think that the courts would be willing to grant us a divorce, even if they rarely grant divorce. They do so in extraordinary cases.”

  “The extraordinary case being my career as a pirate.”

  Her voice came out a little apologetic. “Even if you never walked anyone down the plank.”

  “Or forced any women.”

  “Yes, even though. You see, it’s enough that they think it is so.”

  She didn’t care for the tight control he kept over himself, she realized. It was almost better when he used to lose his temper and shout. Now the very air around his head seemed to shimmer with feeling, and yet he didn’t raise his voice an iota.

  “You want me to pretend to be a rapist and murderer so that our marriage can be dissolved.” He said it flatly.

  “No!” She half-shouted that.

  He didn’t reply.

  “Of course I don’t want anyone to think that you are—that you are those things. Indeed, I’m so relieved that you are not. I think just the fact that you . . . well, you look quite different than you used to, James. You’re so large. And you’re tattooed. Your voice . . .” Her own voice trailed off and she gestured aimlessly. “We don’t belong together.”

  “Why not?”

  She almost laughed. “I would be willing to wager that I am the most organized woman in all London. That’s how I managed the estate and built the ceramics and fabric concerns. I make lists. No”—she corrected herself—“I make lists within lists. Life is so much more pleasant and efficient when everything has a proper place.”

  “I do not understand why your abilities as an estate manager preclude marriage to me.”

  It was not said aggressively, so she tried to explain. “I take a great many baths, and I like them to be precisely the right temperature. I had the pump in the bathing room installed so that the servants didn’t have to haul water up the stairs; this way it comes straight from the copper in the scullery. My baths are scented with three drops of primrose oil. Not just any oil, but a particular fragrance that’s made for me on the Staffordshire estate.”

  James didn’t look impressed.

  “Life is easier, much easier,” Theo told him, “if you eliminate questions that other people dither about. My bath is scented with elderflowers throughout the winter, but I switch to primrose on April first.”

  “You’re rigid as a picket fence,” he stated. It wasn’t the first time something like that had been said to her.

  “I suppose I am,” she said, nodding. “I prefer to think of myself as logical. I know precisely what I want to put on for any type of occasion. I don’t own more gowns than I can use, and I wear them exactly the same number of times before I give them to my maid. I never have to worry about finding myself in a gown that’s out-of-date or showing wear.”

  He tilted his head slightly, and she felt a tiny pang of sorrow for the young James of her memories. That was one mannerism he’d had since boyhood.

  “Is such a level of rigidity necessary?”

  “No one is harmed by it. My household runs like clockwork. I am comfortable and happy. My employees know precisely what is expected of them, but in return, I don’t ask more than they can achieve.”

  He still didn’t appear to have been won over.

  “My system allows me to be far more productive than most women—or indeed men,” she pointed out. “Generally speaking, gentlewomen are required to do little more than run a household.”

  “I apologize for leaving you with the responsibilities of the estate,” James said quietly.

  Theo smiled, quick and sweet, and suddenly his own Daisy was there again, if only for a moment. He had a sudden feeling of vertigo, as if the world had tilted slightly to the side.

  “I liked being left with the estate,” she admitted a bit sheepishly. “My mother told me before she died that I had no right to whine over the end of our marriage, and she was right. I am happy telling people what to do. I probably never would have made a very good wife, but I do make a good duke.”

  James thought about that for a moment or two. One had to assume that there was room for only one duke in any given duchy. “I am very sorry about the death of your mother,” he said at length. “When did that happen?”

  Theo’s face clouded, and she looked back at her feet. “A few years ago. I still miss her.”

  “I miss my father.” He said it conversationally, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, so he turned and put his fingers in the water. It had turned cold, so he began pumping again.

  “I am so sorry about his death,” Theo said. “He was quite confused when they brought him home after his heart seized, but he didn’t seem to be in pain. He simply drifted away during the night.”

  James swallowed. The water was throwing up steam into his face. He could feel it beading on his eyelashes. “Well. One of my many errors. I should have liked to have been with him.”

  There was nothing she could say to that.

  “And I would like to avoid another error and remain married to you,” he stated. He stopped p
umping, still not looking at her. Annoyingly, his voice was not as even as it could be.

  She didn’t answer, so he glanced at her and thought he saw pity in her eyes. He straightened and wiped away the drops of water that clung to his skin.

  “You are my friend,” he said, rising and walking to the side of the room farthest from her. “I would like to be married to a friend. You knew my father, all the bad and good sides of him. I would like to be able to be honest with my wife, to have her understand that it is possible to love someone and hate him at the same time. Even though he’s dead.”

  She gave a little huff of laughter. “You changed while you were gone, James.”

  “There’s not much to do on board ship but read and think. I fell into the habit of reading philosophy.”

  “But you were a pirate! Pirates don’t read philosophy. And I thought you hated reading.”

  “We were not pirates. We were privateers who attacked pirates. We spent a great deal of time lurking in navigational routes, pretending to be innocent vessels, flying the flag of the kingdom of Sicily, waiting for a bunch of cutthroats to hoist the Jolly Roger, as their flag is called. Most of the time life at sea is rather boring; I chose to occupy that time with reading.”

  “But you always hated being bored,” she said.

  She looked a bit better. Her eyes weren’t as red, and her mouth was curving in a little smile. When Daisy smiled, she was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.

  With an effort, James reminded himself of his plan. Trevelyan would never lunge across the room and kiss away a smile. She hadn’t taken well to his kiss in the breakfast room. The kiss that had sent him reeling merely seemed to throw her into a panic.

  “I had to learn to control myself,” he said. “On board ship, you can dive from the railing and swim beside the ship if you feel restless. That sort of frequent physical exertion was very beneficial to me.”

  Her eyes drifted over his chest and she nodded. “I see that.”

  “I am not so large,” he said, a little defensively.

  “I didn’t mean to imply it. I think we’re talking at cross-purposes, James. I would also like to be friends with my husband. But I know you too well. You do not really want to be merely friends with your wife. You want more.”

  “I do want children.”

  She nodded. “Yes, and more than that.” She held her body so still that it might have been carved from wood. “You want all that heat and passion, and I cannot do it.”

  “Why not?” He involuntarily snapped the question, so he took a breath. “I realize my appearance has changed, but you might become used to it. Or is it because I was not faithful?”

  “No.” She had begun pleating and repleating her sheet, which pleased him because it showed some sort of reaction to what he was saying.

  “No to infidelity, or no to my horrific appearance? And voice,” he added, remembering how she loved to be sung to. If he sang to her now, it would probably frighten her out of a good night’s sleep.

  “Neither. That is, none of the three. You’re as James-like as you ever were, I can see that now.”

  He could feel the corner of his mouth curling. Many women had called him beautiful; he preferred James-like. “In that case, why won’t you consider bedding me?”

  She gave a little shudder, and to his shock, he realized that what he had seen was a genuine sensation of distaste. Disgust, even.

  “I can’t do that again. My feelings partly stem from the shock of what happened with your father. But I would have come to this realization even so,” she said more confidently.

  “Come to what realization?”

  “I am simply not that sort of person. All those things you asked me to do—not wear drawers under my gowns, leave my hair down although the servants would surely see—those sorts of things are abhorrent to me.” She was being utterly truthful. He could see it in her eyes. “I can’t imagine what came over me to acquiesce in something so distasteful. Although I don’t want you to think that I am being critical of you and your needs. I am not.” She sounded very earnest. “It’s just not for me.”

  He cleared his throat. It was a shock to realize that the world could give you guilt of so many kinds, some that pierced the heart, others likely to fade. The fact that he had somehow been party to killing Daisy’s joy in intimacy, the delight with which she had welcomed his touch and found pleasure in their bed . . . that guilt didn’t seem likely to fade, the way his response to his father’s death had.

  On the other hand, he was no nineteen-year-old, crippled by his own remorse. He could change her mind. Even if it took him fifty years. He couldn’t do anything about his father, but he could try to mend this.

  “I think you’re wrong,” he said, keeping his voice gentle.

  “I know myself.” She said it with utter assurance, the confidence of someone who had had no one but herself to rely on for years. “You and I always were opposites in that respect.”

  “I am comfortable with my body,” he said.

  “You always were.” Her face was drawn and too severe, but for just one moment he caught sight of the dimple in her right cheek again. She had always had only one dimple, as if a pair would be too exuberant. “If your tutors had simply driven you around the stables like a horse that needed breaking, in between Greek lessons, you would have been a happier student.”

  “I got in a lot of fights at Eton, and that helped.”

  The dimple again. “Piracy, I suppose, was just an extension of the schoolyard and its squabbles.”

  “Piracy played to the recklessness that I inherited from my father.”

  She nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “Unfortunately, danger is not as exciting as it looks. I learned that exercising the mind can be as interesting as exercising the body.”

  She nodded.

  He chose his next words very carefully. “It seems to me that you responded to the unfortunate end of our marriage by going entirely in the other direction. I threw myself into danger, you surrounded yourself with sterility.”

  “Sterility is not a very nice word, but I see what you mean. I am quite happy without demeaning myself on an intimate level,” she explained, again with that air of utter confidence. “That is why we should dissolve our marriage, James. I know you want a woman who will submit to you. And again, I do not mean to be critical. I will never be that woman, and I cannot be that woman. I would hope that neither of us would want the other to be in a perpetually unhappy arrangement.”

  “No.” But he found himself in the grip of one of the fiercest emotions of his life: he wanted Daisy back. Not Theo—or rather, because he admired Theo, he wanted parts of Theo. But he didn’t want to be responsible for having snuffed out Daisy’s joy. He couldn’t bear it.

  And he needed her. Without her, he might as well walk the plank himself. Not that they ever did that to a man. He’d be the first.

  She smiled at him obliviously. “You will find a woman who likes your sort of intimate play. And I may find a man who is more akin to my temperament. Or not.” She shrugged. “I would like to have children, but I am quite happy by myself.”

  From what he had seen of her so far, Daisy was probably the most lonely person he’d seen in years. After he had left England, Griffin had become his right arm, his boon companion, his blood brother.

  But Daisy had remained alone.

  If he agreed to her tomfool plan—not that he ever would, because the mere suggestion made him want to smash his fist into the wall—she would marry Geoffrey Trevelyan or someone of his ilk. Trevelyan was completely uninterested in sensuality. If they ever had children, it would practically be a miracle.

  If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that he would die before he allowed Daisy to make love to anyone except himself. Ever.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t want to marry the sort of woman you’re talking about,” he said bluntly. “And you might think that you want to wed Trevelyan, but y
ou would find bedding him to be incredibly distasteful. Even worse than you seem to imagine bedding me.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But—though I would point out that I never said anything about Geoffrey as a possible consort—he would understand my disinclination to submit to the sort of feverish embraces that you prefer. I would actually guess,” she said thoughtfully, “that Geoffrey would find marital congress as objectionable as I.”

  “ ‘Marital congress?’ ”

  She ignored his interjection. “Geoffrey and I are both adults. Distasteful or not, we would engage in carnality as required in order to procreate. Actually, I would say that Geoffrey and I are alike in that. I’m not so much disinclined to bedding sports as I think I am incapable of responding in the way that you desire. I cannot stay married to you, James. I think it would tear me apart.”

  James was thinking as quickly as he ever did in the heat of battle. None of his reading on board ship—in Machiavelli, in the arts of war, in the philosophy of the ancient Greeks—was helping him in this most crucial moment of his entire life. He could have bellowed with pent-up fear and rage, but instead, he closed his eyes, ignoring Theo for the moment.

  Then he tried to sort through the tendrils of shame, guilt, rage, and—yes—love that bound them together. There was a reason he could speak of his father only to Daisy. There was a reason he was able to express his own self-loathing and regret to her, and feel cleansed and forgiven by a glimpse of her dimple.

  They were bound together, and probably had been from the summer when he was blind and she became his eyes.

  He couldn’t imagine how he had lived without her for seven years. She was like sunlight. Like food and drink.

  He walked toward her, every bit of his body concentrated on her. She was his. She was all that he wanted, all that he had ever wanted, even though he had lost track of that truth for a while.

  “James,” she said, a slight warning in her tone.

  He closed his hands around her slender waist and plucked her to standing, careful not to disturb her sheet.

  “I want you,” he said. For the first time, his altered voice sounded just right. He should be growling at the wife who didn’t want him, who thought she never wanted to be in bed with him again. The sound was fitting.