The Ugly Duchess

  “Do you see him anywhere?” she hissed a moment later, smiling and nodding at Lady Bower, who seemed distinctly intrigued by the sight of James at Theo’s side. Of course, she would be: she had three marriageable daughters.

  “Who?” James said absentmindedly. He was pulling at his neck cloth again. “I think I’m going to suffocate. I don’t think I can take even a half hour of this.”

  “Geoffrey!” she whispered, pinching his arm. “Remember? That’s why you’re here. You have to introduce me.”

  James frowned down at her. “I thought you already knew him.”

  “But he has never paid any attention to me,” Theo said with remarkable patience, to her mind. “I already told you that.”

  James snorted. “That’s right. I’m supposed to turn the conversation around to dowries and then announce that yours is bigger than—”

  “Hush!” She pinched him again, so sharply that he winced. “I’m counting on you not to botch this up.”

  “I won’t.”

  His eyes looked a little haunted. “It’s not so terrible being here, is it?” Theo asked, rather startled by the strain in his face. “I know you don’t like balls, James. If you just take me to Geoffrey, I promise to leave directly afterwards.”

  They stopped to let pass a herd of people making their way to the refreshments table. “I believe you are making a mistake,” he said.

  “About Geoffrey?”

  James nodded. “I had to live with Trevelyan at Eton, and I wouldn’t want to repeat the experience or wish it on you.”

  “It’s different if you’re married, silly!” Theo said. She could just see herself and Geoffrey sitting opposite each other at the breakfast table, reading the papers. He was so clever, and he would appreciate her wit the way no one else did, including James and her own mother.

  “Marriage would be even worse,” James said. The crowd in front of them cleared, and they moved further into the ballroom. “At least I could wallop him when he was particularly pestilent.”

  “My marriage is nothing for you to worry about. Just please keep an eye out for him, will you? I’m not quite tall enough to see over people’s heads.”

  “All right, I see Trevelyan,” James said, drawing her to an opening in the crowd and motioning in the general direction of Theo’s quarry. “He’s with Claribel.”

  “Naturally,” Theo said with a groan.

  “She’s dashed pretty.”

  “Flirt with her!” she commanded, struck by the idea. “You could do worse than marry her, you know.”

  “You want me to marry cretinous Claribel?” James said, in a not-very-effective whisper.

  “I suppose not.” Theo had just caught sight of Geoffrey, and she found herself clinging to James’s arm in a sudden bout of nerves.

  Lord Geoffrey Trevelyan had light brown hair that he wore tousled in a style known as the Titus, and his clothes were always elegant, though not overly fastidious. But it was his face that fascinated Theo. It was narrow and sardonic, and the edges of his eyes slightly tilted up. You could take one glance and know that his lordship had graduated from Cambridge with a double first in philosophy and history.

  He was just the right sort of man for Theo—not so handsome that she would always be aware that her husband was far better looking than she. (She actually felt a mild pity for whomever James married; that woman would forever remain in his shade.)

  As it happened, Geoffrey was standing at the center of a knot of beautiful people. To a one, they had high cheekbones, deep bottom lips, and finely shaped noses. Even worse, they looked abominably clever, all except Claribel, of course.

  Her stomach sank down to her knees, and for a moment she tried to hold James back. But just at that moment the group caught sight of him, and their faces lit up like tradesmen’s wives seeing the queen.

  There were even a few who greeted her.

  Geoffrey was one of them. “Miss Saxby,” he said, bowing.

  Theo’s heart was pounding in her throat from pure excitement. “Lord Geoffrey,” she said, dropping a curtsy.

  “Oh, Miss Saxby,” Lady Claribel Sennock said in her high, piping voice. “You look lovely. Come meet my cousin, Lady Althea Renwitt.”

  “We’ve met,” Althea said with perfect indifference, her eyes skating over Theo’s bodice and then, without subtlety, riveting on James.

  Watching her simper and hold out her hand to be kissed, Theo decided that there was nothing more rapacious than a young lady in the midst of a huddle of eligible gentlemen. Althea was like a fox with a clutch of hen’s eggs.

  “Is he your escort for this evening?” Claribel whispered. “How lucky you are to have grown up with him.”

  Theo really wished that Claribel was more of a beast; it would be easier to dislike her. Instead she was like tepid milk at bedtime. “James is very dear to me,” Theo said, trying to sound romantically inclined.

  Just then Geoffrey made some sort of joke about the deposed King of Imeretia, who had been visiting the English court for the last fortnight, and everyone laughed. Theo turned, resolved to be as witty as he was, no matter the subject. James, of course, was right in the middle of the group, entirely at ease.

  It would be very easy to resent James. Wherever he went, people liked, if not loved, him, and he didn’t even bother to be witty.

  “In truth,” Geoffrey was saying, “Her Royal Highness is by all accounts discreet, of admirable temper, and guilty of not a single vice.”

  “When someone is said to have no vices,” Theo said, before she could lose her courage, “it generally turns out that they have as many sins as hairs on their head.”

  “You think that the Princess of Imeretia has that many sins?” Geoffrey drawled. “Do tell us more, Miss Saxby.”

  Theo was aware that the entire group was listening, and her heartbeat grew even faster, though she managed to keep her expression casual. “Avarice is one of the seven deadly sins, and Her Highness bathes, it is said, in a solid silver bathtub,” she said with a careless wave of her fan. “She has a private quartet that lulls her to sleep on restless nights. And surely you have noticed that she has a lover? Baron Grébert, the man with drooping mustaches and too much hair. He looks like a lion pretending to be a lion-tamer.”

  Claribel tittered nervously, but Geoffrey’s eyebrow shot up and he looked at Theo more closely, a little smile curling his lips.

  “And Her Highness,” he asked. “How would you describe her?”

  “A fox terrier in skirts,” Theo said.

  Geoffrey threw back his head and laughed, and all the other young men echoed him. Except James. He scowled, because he never liked it when she was malicious, even when the malice was funny.

  “I think I’m rather afraid of you,” Geoffrey said. His eyes were warm and admiring.

  “Yes, you should be,” James stated.

  “Lord Islay, you know Miss Saxby better than anyone,” Claribel put in with a girlish squeal. “Surely she is not dangerous!”

  Claribel was so dim that Theo thought there was a good chance she wasn’t even joking.

  “Theodora has a tongue as sharp as a cracked mirror,” James said.

  “Pish. I have sweet moments!” Theo said, flirting with Geoffrey over the edge of her fan.

  “Yes, and they’re about as convincing as Marie Antoinette pretending to be a shepherdess,” James retorted. “It’s bloody hot in here.” He yanked at his neck cloth again, this time managing to untie it.

  “Perhaps you should take yourself off, Islay,” Geoffrey murmured. “You are looking conspicuously ungroomed; it quite reminds me of school, and not in a good way, either. Miss Saxby, that is a remarkable pendant.”

  Theo met his eyes just as he raised his from her cleavage—a moment they both enjoyed. “A gift from my grandmother,” she murmured.

  “The same grandmother who turned Theodora into an heiress,” James said with the air of someone getting an unpleasant duty over with. “Well, I think it’s time to leave, d
arling.”

  Geoffrey’s eyebrow shot up at this, and he took a step back.

  “Oh, but James,” Theo said, “I’m not ready to leave.” She smiled at Geoffrey, but she could see James’s face from the corner of her eye. He looked as if he was going to explode, and she hastily decided that perhaps she had made sufficient inroads on Geoffrey’s attentions for one evening.

  She had the feeling that he would look for her the next night, and the one afterward.

  Feeling magnanimous, Theo dropped a curtsy in the general direction of Claribel and the unpleasant Althea, and allowed James to tow her away.

  James strode through the crowded ballroom like one of those Greek gods in a bad mood.

  Theo trotted along beside, feeling too happy to protest.

  Five

  “I think that went very well,” Theo said, once they were in the carriage on the way home.

  “No, it did not,” James said shortly.

  “How can you say that? Geoffrey was quite taken with me!”

  “He might have been taken with your bubbies.”

  “Bubbies? Bubbies? James, you really shouldn’t be using that sort of slang around me,” Theo said with some delight. “Bubbies. I love that word.”

  He leaned forward, and she realized with a start that he was furious. “Don’t ‘James’ me. You could not have been more obvious flirting with Trevelyan.”

  “That’s true. I meant to be obvious.”

  “Well, do you want to know something? You don’t belong with your darling Geoffrey. Not at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “His tongue is even more spiteful than yours. He used to poke at me, just for fun, and if I had paid him any mind, he could have proved a pain in the ass.”

  Theo broke into a laugh. “You, upset?”

  “I said, if I paid him any mind. You’re not me, Theo. You would listen to him, and he would cut you to pieces.”

  “He will love me,” Theo explained. “I shall quite enjoy watching him dissect our fellow man, but because he will love me, I’ll be out of bounds.”

  “Nothing and no one is out of bounds for Trevelyan. I’ve heard him make jokes about his own mother. To be utterly frank, Daisy, he’s the kind of man who is most himself when he is dressed as a woman.”

  “What!”

  “Just what I said.” James leaned back and looked at her with an insufferably smug expression. “I know him and you don’t.”

  “Are you saying that he’s interested in men?”

  “Is there anything you don’t dare to say aloud?” James yelped. “No, I am not! I’m just saying that he’s an odd bird, that’s all. Very odd. Not for you. I won’t let you marry him.”

  “You won’t let me marry him? You?” Theo was incensed. “Well, let me remind you that you have absolutely nothing to do with whom I marry. Nothing!”

  James narrowed his eyes. “We’ll see about that.”

  “There is nothing to see,” she snapped. “If I want Geoffrey, I’ll marry him.”

  “Not unless you want to share your silk stockings.”

  Theo gasped. “You’re being unspeakably rude, and you should apologize. I don’t know why you would say such a thing of Geoffrey.”

  “Because it’s the truth. I lived with him. Only when he put on skirts—which he did at the slightest pretext—did he stop being so nervy that he bit at someone every five minutes. But go ahead. I gather you think you know him best.”

  “I do know Geoffrey best. You may have played at charades when you were at school. But he’s grown up now, even if you haven’t.”

  “Right. It’s all my fault.”

  “Not your fault,” Theo said. “But I think I understand men a bit better than you do, James. After all, you’re still thinking of Geoffrey as a boy. I see him with a woman’s eyes.”

  James scowled at her. “Woman’s eyes! Piffle.”

  “If you accompany me just one more time,” Theo coaxed him, “just to the royal musicale tomorrow night, after that I’m certain I will not need the attention I get from dragging you with me. Geoffrey has noticed me now, you see. One more encounter will be enough.”

  “For what? True love?”

  “Perhaps,” Theo said, thinking of the way Geoffrey’s mouth curved up on one side and not the other. “Maybe.”

  “You wouldn’t know true love if it hit you on the side of the head,” James said, folding his arms over his chest.

  “Well, you are no more of an expert. Don’t tell me that you feel true love for Bella, because I know perfectly well you don’t. You are infatuated with those enormous bubbies that she was displaying to everyone on Oxford Street.”

  “Look here,” James said, looking a bit alarmed. “You mustn’t start using that word. It’s not polite.”

  “Bubbies!” Theo repeated, just stopping herself from sticking out her tongue at him. She was seventeen, after all. She had to act like a lady. “I know what you see in Bella,” she contented herself with saying. “And it isn’t love.”

  “Bella’s attributes are not a matter for our conversation,” James retorted.

  Theo laughed. “Then her pretty face? I don’t think so!”

  “No more!”

  “Who’s going to talk to me about this sort of thing, if not you?” she said, relaxing back into the corner.

  “Not me.”

  “Too late. You’re the closest thing I have to a brother,” Theo said, feeling a little sleepy. “Can you wake me up when we’re home?”

  James sat rigidly in his own corner and stared at her. Even with the dim lantern that lit the carriage he could see the line of her thigh. Not to mention her bubbies, breasts, whatever.

  Trevelyan had certainly noticed them. James had to stop himself at the ball from reaching over and jerking the man’s head out of Daisy’s décolletage.

  She would not marry Trevelyan. Not under any circumstances.

  Even—even if he really did have to marry her himself to prevent it.

  Six

  The next evening

  Carlton House

  Residence of the Prince of Wales

  To Theo’s extreme annoyance, James not only didn’t accompany her to the Prince of Wales’s private musicale, but also didn’t bother to show up until it was almost time for supper.

  “Where have you been? You were supposed to be here hours ago,” she hissed at him, pulling him away from the group to the other side of the drawing room, out of earshot. “Claribel has turned herself into a plaster and applied herself to Geoffrey; he’s hardly had a moment to breathe, let alone notice I am in the room.”

  “Well, I’m here now,” James said.

  Theo took a closer look. He wore a beautiful indigo coat with dark green velvet lapels, entirely appropriate for a private musicale hosted by the Prince of Wales. But there was something about his face, and his eyes . . .

  “You’re tipsy!” she exclaimed, with some delight. “I’ve never seen you three sheets to the wind. Are you about to cast up your accounts, or will you just sway gently all night? You look like a hollyhock that someone forgot to stake.”

  “I never sway!” He sounded indignant.

  “You’re swaying now. For goodness’ sake, look at that,” she cried, nodding toward Claribel, who was leaning on Geoffrey’s arm. “You’d think they were already betrothed. Or that she was as bosky as you are. I don’t suppose you got a chance to mention my dowry to Geoffrey at White’s this afternoon?”

  “Funny, that,” James said. “Trevelyan wasn’t at the club, or in my carriage . . . wait . . . because he was here making sheep’s eyes at Lady Claribel. How in bloody hell do you think I had the chance to drop your inheritance into the nonexistent conversation I’ve had with him? Besides, I mentioned it yesterday. That’s good enough.”

  “He’s not making sheep’s eyes; she is. Oh well, it’s probably better, since you’re drunk anyway and would make a hash of it.”

  “What’s better?” James said, looking more than a little o
wlish.

  Theo looked up at him and felt a wave of affection. “I do adore you, James. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Don’t say that I’m like a brother to you. Because I’m not your brother, and you should keep that in mind. We should both keep that in mind. That is, we’re not siblings, even though we may feel like siblings. Sometimes.”

  “Perhaps you should take my arm,” Theo suggested. “You’ll be embarrassed tomorrow if you fall at the royal slippers like a chopped tree.”

  “Just back up a trifle,” James said, looking distinctly inebriated. “I’ll lean against the wall and pretend I’m speaking to you for a minute. I may have drunk a bit more cognac than was ad . . . ad . . . advisable. Is my father here?”

  “Certainly he is,” Theo said. “And he’s peeved that you didn’t come home to escort us here. You’re lucky he hasn’t seen you yet.”

  They stood to one side of Carlton House’s music room. Most of the company was grouped in straight-backed chairs, listening raptly to the command performance of the evening. No one seemed to have noticed the two of them at the other end of the room.

  “That fellow is pounding the keys in a way that will give everyone a headache,” James complained, too loudly. “He sounds as awful as you used to, back when your mother still thought you might have a musical bone in your body.”

  “You mustn’t say such a thing! That’s Johann Baptist Cramer,” Theo exclaimed. But she instantly realized there was no point in being shocked that James didn’t recognize the celebrated pianist. He would never willingly sit through an evening of music.

  If she didn’t do something, he would create a scene. She took his hand and pulled him around the far side of a tall Chinese screen carved in lotus blossoms; at least anyone casually turning about wouldn’t see him collapsing into an inebriated heap. Then she backed against the wall, tugging him over to her.

  James swayed gently toward her, bracing himself by putting his hands against the wall, one on either side of her, creating a little cave that smelled like the best cognac and the outdoors, with just a note of soap.