Desperate Duchesses (27 page)

She felt giddy. Was she supposed to be honored? “Because…Because I am not a woman to screw?”

“Not by your husband. And please do not think you must share with me the history of pleasure harvested by others.” He flipped the sword and ran it swiftly against the cushion again.

He must have tilted the edge a trifle too much because a gash fol owed the cut of his blade, widened, gave birth in an instant to a cloud of floating feathers. He swore.

“I wish to understand precisely what you are saying,” Roberta said in a smal , wooden voice. “Do I understand you to mean that my chastity—or lack thereof—is of no interest to you?”

He tossed the gaping pil ow to the side. A bridge of feathers briefly shaped themselves in the air before fal ing to the floor, to the couch, and a single feather, to his hair. “You seem to think that chastity adds to your attractions. I assure you that your beauty needs no such ornament. Of course, until we decide to create an heir, I shal expect you to behave in an entirely circumspect manner, using precautions, as I noted before. But I would never have offered for you, Roberta, were I not wel aware that you are a woman of honor. Women of honor do not offer their husbands a cuckoo.”

It seemed that honor—to Vil iers—had everything to do with children, and nothing to do with virtue.

“You must be sensible, of course,” he continued. “Cuckold is such an ugly word, even in this easy day and age.”

“Yet you are tel ing me to cuckold you,” she said flatly.

“Cuckolds are men who are too stupid to realize that their wives wil stray,” he said. “I am not so foolish. Cuckolds are men whose wives make a jest of them by displaying their affections around the town. If I understand your character correctly, Roberta, you wil never flaunt your affections.”

She sat silent, knowing he was absolutely right, knowing that he had picked her as nimbly as she had picked him—and, it seemed, for some of the same reasons.

“I have fought several duels, though never over a woman’s honor. It would be a grave disappointment to both of us if I had to defend your honor, Roberta, since I am generous enough to put it into your own keeping. I trust that you are no sprig from your father’s tree. Do not cuckold me, and I wil not confine you.”

“I should dislike confinement,” she said. Suddenly she couldn’t bear another minute of his emotionless drawl. She rose, as did he. He towered above her, exquisite and control ed as the day she met him, but in truth so much more complex, scornful and erotic than she had understood. She felt young and inestimably stupid. She, who thought that life with Papa and Mrs. Grope had taught her everything there was to know about men and women. She knew nothing.

Her father bel owed and shouted and uttered his ridiculous poetry. He didn’t have it in him to speak with such silken mockery. To discuss unfaithfulness as if it were no more than a moment’s impulse.

Her Papa, her foolish, foolish, Papa, loved Mrs. Grope, with al her terrible headdresses, and her grandiose ambitions to go back on the stage. Papa was the opposite of her husband-to-be. Which was just what she wanted, of course.

“Your Grace,” she said, sweeping her future husband a deep curtsy.

He was so beautiful, complex and devilish, that her heart reeled slightly watching him bow. And yet…

And yet.

T
he windows in the smal back balroom were open to the night air. Lilacs were flowering in the gardens, somewhere in the dark, and their perfume was intoxicatingly sweet.

Caro had decorated the room with lemon trees incongruously hung with crystal pendants. Now she sat at the pianoforte.

Damon hoped he was the only one who realized that the dangerous sparkle in the secretary’s eye had resulted in bawdy French tavern songs, translated into great sweeping dance measures. Damon danced with Miss Tatlock, and then with Harriet.

He danced again with Harriet, because she was at his elbow and he couldn’t say no. He talked to his sister. He talked to his brother-in-law.

Meanwhile he watched for Roberta. Where the devil had Vil iers taken her? If he touched her…

She walked back into the room with a little wicked smile on her lips and his heart sank to his toes. He felt like vomiting.

He decided to leave, and then realized that his shoes were nailed to the floor. Vil iers fol owed Roberta, but veered away to talk to Jemma.

“Not even one dance?” he heard Jemma say. “Oh, come, Vil iers—”

And then Vil iers drew Jemma’s hands, both of them, up to his mouth and said something. About chess, no doubt, because a moment later they were tucked in front of a little table in the corner.

So much for dancing.

Roberta’s eyes were glittering a bit too fiercely.

“Cuz!” he said to her. “I gather dancing has gone by the wayside, since Jemma is involved in a game of chess.”

Roberta didn’t even glance in her fiancé’s direction. Instead she smiled at him. “Would you like to strol with me?”

Damon tucked her hand into his and turned toward the door. “Always,” he said. And then: “Jealousy is a dish best served cold.”

She tossed her head. “I have no reason for revenge.” She stopped suddenly and looked up at him. “Were you implying something about Jemma and Vil iers?”

“No!” he said, hoping it was true. “Jemma would never take your fiancé. Have more faith than that.”

“I’m sorry; that was horrid of me,” Roberta said. “I should never have thought such an ugly thing.”

Something that might have been honesty compel ed him to add, “Though if Vil iers wins the chess match, of course, al bets are off.”

They walked for a moment and then Roberta turned a stricken face up to his. “I’m a fool. I didn’t realize the implications of their chess game. I am not sophisticated enough for the life of the
ton
.”

“We Reeves are particularly degenerate. But truthful y, I do not believe that Jemma intends to dal y with Vil iers beyond a flirtation. For one thing, they are both far too obsessed by chess to take a true interest in each other.”

“You said something like that before.”

“Chess is a mania,” Damon said. “There are those who play with such enthusiasm that they think about it al the time, day and night. My father was one of those. He was bril iant at the game, and he devoted himself to teaching his children everything he knew. Jemma turned out to be the only one of us who found any enjoyment in the game, however.”

“I can’t even play whist very wel ,” Roberta said morosely.

“Don’t chal enge your future husband to a game of dol ymop dominoes. I have a feeling that Vil iers wins every game of skil he attempts. Would you mind if we went upstairs to say goodnight to Teddy?”

“Of course…what’s a dol ymop?”

“Mrs. Grope is a refined example of a dol ymop,” Damon said.

“And then what are dol ymop dominoes?”

He glanced sideways at her. “Dominoes with a special twist. Do you know how to play?”

“I suppose so. I played with my governess as a child.”

“Not exactly the same game,” he said, grinning at her. “Every time you draw a double bone, you have to take a drink.”

“Bone?”

“A domino piece; a double bone has a double number. And every time you lay down a spinner, a crosswise double, your opponent has to remove a piece of his clothing.”

“Oh!”

They were on the third floor and Damon pushed open the door to the nursery. “Ransom!” he said. “What on earth are you doing here? Where’s the nanny?” He looked around the room rather wildly. “She hasn’t quit already, has she?”

“Not to the best of my knowledge,” Mr. Cunningham said, looking up from a book he was reading by the fire. “She is eating. Last night while she was at supper, Teddy evaded capture by a maid and ran from the room. So tonight she enquired whether I would watch him. He is asleep.”

“I am not!” said a voice, and a tousled head popped up from the bed.

“Hel o, Pumpkin,” Damon said, crossing the room and plucking his son from his bed.

“Good evening, Lady Roberta,” Teddy said. “Another tooth, I lost it, do you want to see?” And before she could say yea or nea, he pul ed down his lip and showed her a red, gaping hole in his gum.

“That is truly disgusting, Teddy.”

He grinned as if he had achieved something of notable importance. “I can stick my tongue through the space,” he told her, and did so.

Since he seemed to love to see her shudder, she obliged him a few times, and then she and Damon left the room again.

The last thing she heard before she left was Mr. Cunningham’s quiet voice saying, “You’re asleep now, Teddy.”

“Interestingly enough, I didn’t hear Teddy disagreeing with Mr. Cunningham’s statement,” Roberta commented once they were in the corridor.

“Ransom has a way of tel ing Teddy what to do that I find very instructive,” Damon said. “I played spindlesticks with my son this afternoon and I’m afraid he showed rather less than gentlemanly manners when he lost the game. So I told him that he was ashamed of himself, in a very Ransom-esque manner, and Teddy burst into tears and agreed with me. It was al very satisfactory. Of course, it didn’t stop him throwing the spindles across the room the very next game.”

“Mr. Cunningham must have had a great many siblings,” Roberta said, not without a twinge of jealousy.

“Would you like to have many children?”

“I’ve never thought about it. I don’t know very much about children. I have to confess that I found Teddy’s gum truly stomach-turning.”

“Children are often stomach-turning,” Damon said gloomily.

“You are a very good father.” She hesitated. “How did you come to bring Teddy into your household?”

He looked down at her, his eyes dark green in the dim light. “His grandmother brought him to me. I took one look at him and, as they say, that was that.”

Roberta was longing to ask about Teddy’s mother, but didn’t quite dare. And she felt dimly ashamed of herself as wel .

Would she have done the same for Teddy? The thought made her feel shal ow and—

Damon took her hand. “There’s no explaining it until you have one of your own,” he said. “It was a moment of madness. If I tel you that his grandmother handed over an infant with a soggy nappy…does that demonstrate just how remarkably deranged I became?”

“Yes,” she said. But she didn’t think he sounded deranged.

“What would you like to do now?” Damon asked. “Shal we rejoin the party or shal we do something utterly scandalous like walking in the garden?”

“No one wil even notice that we are absent,” she said rather sourly.

“I must admit that the young lady whom Jemma presumably invited to be my escort shows little interest in my company.”

His tone was so funny that Roberta started laughing. “She is spending the evening hanging on every word that has dropped from Beaumont’s lips, though it doesn’t seem to bother my sister.”

“No,” Roberta said. “I’m afraid it doesn’t. How the mighty are fal en. I’m sure you were introduced to me as the gentleman whom
all
marriageable maidens desired…except, it seems, Miss Tatlock.”

“And you.”

“I’m not marriageable anymore,” Roberta pointed out. “I’m engaged to the man currently playing a game of chess for the right to your sister’s bed.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that!”

But Damon was laughing. “That’s cal ing a spade a spade.” He seemed to be steering her outside, but the last thing Roberta wanted was to walk about under the smudgy London sky smel ing of coal smoke. Besides, what Damon likely wanted was to push her against a tree and kiss her senseless, and she saw no reason why that couldn’t happen in more pleasant surroundings. In fact…

“Wait here a moment!” she said, and flew back up the stairs.

Two seconds later she was back, a box tucked under her arm.

Damon looked at it, and then his eyes widened.

“I believe,” Roberta said, “there is a chess game going on in the bal room. Shal we take the library, or perhaps my chamber?” She knew ful wel that the diabolical smile in his eyes was echoed on the edges of her mouth.

“A friendly game of dominoes between cousins?” he enquired.

“Dol ymop dominoes,” she said firmly. “I’ve heard it’s played in al the best households.”

“I”—he said, leaning over and taking the box from her—“have made it one of my lifetime missions never to disappoint a family member.”

“Then you’l need to show me a game that’s truly superior,” she said, making her voice into a purr and feeling a thril at her own sophistication. “And not just your skil s at the game either.”

“I live to please,” he said.

And since his voice brought back to mind an image of a beautiful y defined chest, muscles rippling as he threw a cowpat, Roberta had no doubt but that his reputation would be unflawed by a vigorous game of dominoes.

J
emma was a trifle irritated. She and Viliers played a side game of chess, but it was over almost before it began. Viliers set two traps for her simultaneously. She saw the chance to capture his bishop, but missed the chance to capture his knight. Either way, she lost her queen.

The moment she rose from the table, Harriet pul ed her over to a smal sofa. “Things are going so wel ,” she said happily.

“They could be better,” Jemma replied. If she had moved her knight to Queen’s Bishop Three in the fourth round…

“I don’t mean the particular game,” Harriet said. “I mean your strategy. Vil iers is set to be married. It was such a bril iant twist to invite your husband to play a game at the same time.”

“I didn’t invite him; Beaumont chal enged me.”

“Chal enged you! Perhaps he is hoping that your marriage wil improve.”

Jemma shrugged. “I take one look at his John the Baptist face and I feel the weight of every one of my sins. There’s no possibility of that.”

Harriet hesitated. “You wouldn’t fal in love with Vil iers, would you? I should feel terrible if I led you into something that might hurt you.”

Jemma laughed. “You think that Vil iers wil cause some overset of my reason?”

“I don’t know. I stil feel such shame about the night that I—that I gave in to him,” Harriet whispered. “It’s almost as if Benjamin died that night.”