Desperate Duchesses (22 page)

Roberta’s heart sank. Sure enough, a moment later her father launched into fifteen verses that began,
For I will consider
my Cat Jeoffry
. Even Roberta, who was wel versed in literature, couldn’t fol ow much other than the rhyming couplets that occasional y popped up like way posts in a dark night.

There was a moment of silence after he finished while (Roberta assumed) the assorted company tried to ascertain whether the poem was truly over.

“I never ask my daughter to critique my work,” her father said, in a magnificent untruth, “as her literary judgment is far harsher than her pleasant exterior promises.”

“Unnatural child,” Damon whispered.

She shot him a squinty-eyed look and he shut up.

Just as Roberta realized with a queer little pang that her father’s feelings were going to be hurt, how could they not be hurt, Damon said: “Immensely moving in every lineament and emotion, my lord. I think the line
he counteracts the powers of
darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes,
and you must forgive me if I have that wrong, was particularly penetrating in its analysis.”

Her father beamed.

“It’s very sad in the end,” Jemma ventured. “Did I understand that a rat bit Jeoffry’s throat?”

The marquess nodded, rocking back and forth on his heels. “A sad demise for such a splendid quadruped.
There is
nothing sweeter than his peace,
” he quoted, heaving an enormous sigh. “He died a few days after. Your father,” he said, turning to Vil iers, “was rather unkind in his assessment of that poem.”

“I can see why,” Vil iers said, his voice as sleek as any cat’s. “Father didn’t like felines. If Jeoffry had been a hunting dog…”

“Ah now, if only he had explained that to me,” the marquess said, beaming. “Some people have unusual fears of domesticated animals, as I wel know. Why, Mrs. Grope is terrified, purely terrified, of camels.”

They al turned like puppets to stare at Mrs. Grope. “Miggery’s Traveling Circus,” she said with a shudder.

Roberta felt like moaning. Thankful y, Jemma was smiling and didn’t seem inclined to throw them al out.

Suddenly a large hand squeezed Roberta’s. “Don’t worry about it,” Damon said in her ear. “This house is big enough for al of Miggery’s Traveling Circus.”

Even as Damon spoke, her papa was delightedly accepting the duchess’s invitation to stay. “But only for a night or two,”

he said. “I’ve made up my mind to open up my house. I have one, you know, child,” he said, turning to Roberta. “I expect you’ve forgotten that.”

Forgotten? How could she possibly have known that?

“A large one it is, on St. James’s Square as I recal ,” he said, frowning a bit. “I inherited it from someone or other. My relatives have dropped like fleas in the past few years,” he told the company at large. “I’m composing a sort of universal poem of commiseration that can be applied to many occasions. It’s the only prudent thing to do.”

“But you wil leave Roberta here with me, won’t you?” Jemma asked.

The marquess frowned. “I hadn’t thought—”

But Mrs. Grope proved herself a true friend. “If—” she said magnificently, viewing them al , a duke, an earl, a marquess, a duchess and Roberta—“I am to achieve the fame which I heartily deserve, I cannot be disturbed by the presence of a young lady in the house.”

“But dearest—” the marquess bleated.

She raised her hand. Just so did Moses part the Red Sea. “No!”

“It
is
for the best,” Jemma said.

“I agree,” Vil iers put in, rather unexpectedly.

“
You
think so, do you? And why is that?” the marquess asked.

“I could not pay my addresses to a young lady living in the proximity of an actress,” he said, “even such an exquisite woman as Mrs. Grope.”

Mrs. Grope bowed her head magnificently, as one receiving her due. Damon’s hand fel from Roberta’s.

“Pay your addresses, eh?” her father said, looking rather deflated. “I suppose the world is coming to a place where I might have to give my only daughter to one who doesn’t understand poetry.”

Vil iers looked at Roberta and she felt the thril of it to the bottom of her spine. “She has not yet accepted my hand,” he said.

Roberta couldn’t think what to say. Was that a proposal?

“Doubtless she wil consider your merits in due time,” her father said. “Roberta can look to the very highest in the land when she decides to choose a spouse.”

Vil iers’s sardonic look indicated that he
was
the very highest in the land, but luckily, Fowle reentered the room and announced that the chambers had been prepared if Mrs. Grope and the marquess would be so kind as to fol ow him.

Jemma led the way, the marquess’s hand tucked in her arm, and Vil iers held his arm out to Mrs. Grope. So Roberta and Damon fol owed. For some reason she felt rather shy about meeting his eyes.

He pul ed her back as they were about to leave the room.

“Damme,” he said and she could hear incredulity in his voice. “What the devil are you about, Roberta?”

“What do you mean?”

“Vil iers? How did you manage that?”

She bristled. “Need there be an explanation that involves trickery?” Although to tel the truth, she couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

Neither did Damon, obviously. He raised an eyebrow at her. “What in Hades did you do to the man, to get him to the point without witchcraft?”

She turned up her nose. “Why wouldn’t he wish to marry me? Don’t you think I’m desirable?”

The moment she said it, she knew she had said the wrong thing.

“You’re particularly desirable now that you’re almost engaged to someone else,” he said, and sure enough, there she was backed up against the silk paneled wal of the drawing room as Damon pushed the door shut behind Mrs. Grope.

“There’s nothing more desirable in the world than a woman planning to marry someone else,” he whispered, brushing his lips against hers.

She felt as if heat struck her in the face the moment he tasted her. Or perhaps it was the moment she tasted him. There was something deliciously wicked about kissing one man when another has almost asked you to marry him.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered back. He kissed her harder. She discovered she was breathing in little pants.

“I should be doing this,” he said. His hands were on her breasts as if they belonged there. Her bodice skimmed below her nipples without putting up a fight. Damon was looking down at her with an odd little smile on his mouth and doing something with his hands.

“That—” she said foolishly.

“Feels good?” he asked, crooking one eyebrow.

“Interesting,” she choked.

With one swift movement he pul ed down on her bodice again and it slipped below her right breast as simply as if it weren’t designed to do precisely the opposite. Her breast spil ed into his hand.

“Roberta,” he said, and the huskiness in his voice made a strange warmth grow between her thighs. Or perhaps it was what he was doing with his thumb.

Roberta clutched his forearms. “This is scandalous,” she whispered.

“You’re not engaged yet,” he said, sounding happy. And uncaring. “Besides, it’s al the more delicious for being surreptitious.”

And then, while she was stil figuring out what he meant because her brain seemed to have taken a little holiday, he laughed and said, “I’m writing poetry!”

Just when she would have kicked him in the ankle, his mouth replaced his hand at her breast. Roberta was no fool. There are times in life when sagging against the wal is exactly the right thing to do, and luckily one of his arms held her up.

Arching her back toward his mouth felt like the right thing too. And whimpering when he took that delicious warm mouth away.

“Darling,” he whispered

Her eyes opened lazily. “Yes?”

He pul ed up her bodice and rather to Roberta’s surprise, it slid back into place as if it had always been there.

“Your father is doubtless wondering where you are. He is endearingly fond of you.”

Roberta didn’t feel like being a daughter. She felt like lying down, and she saw the same thought in his eyes. So she scowled at him. “You were no help to me whatsoever. I thought you were going to help me steer my father toward returning to the country.”

He tucked a stray curl back into the elaborate nest of curls her maids had created that morning. “It was impossible.”

“Why impossible?” she asked, feeling churlish.

“He loves you too much. Jemma and I never saw much of our parents except when my father lectured us about chess, but I can recognize parental love when I see it.”

“Because of Teddy,” she said as he opened the door.

“I should warn Teddy now,” Damon said, looking faintly horrified. “I’l embarrass him in public, fal ing on my knees and imploring docile young ladies to marry him.”

Roberta sighed. “If only papa wasn’t so demonstrative. If only he didn’t
cry
so frequently.”

“The worst is over. Your beloved Vil iers met him and he didn’t flee from the room shrieking, so what do you care about the rest of the
ton
?”

“I would like to go to parties,” Roberta said wistful y. “Our neighbors stopped sending us invitation years ago.”

“Oh, you wil be. Your papa wil take the estimable Mrs. Grope to his house and have a lovely time guarding her against the entreaties of al those gentlemen who wil want to take her away from him—”

“Don’t be cruel.”

“I think what would be truly cruel is if Mrs. Grope doesn’t get at least one lure thrown out to her. He’s so hoping for rivalry.”

“He doesn’t truly want rivals.”

“A rival or two would make for some excel ent poetry. At any rate, my point is that your papa and Mrs. Grope wil take themselves off, and you wil be chaperoned by Jemma. No one wil close their doors on Jemma, for al she’s flaunted her indiscretions for years.”

“Has she indeed?”

“The fault of her foolish husband and his mistress,” Damon said. “Of course, she is a Reeve. Wil the strain breed true in you, do you think?”

“Why I—” She stopped. Would she have
affaires
?

“Of course you wil ,” Damon answered her unspoken question. “Vil iers is not the sort of man to demand or even desire your entire attention. You see how lucky you are that I did not appear at your New Year’s bal ?”

“Why?” she asked, startled.

“Jemma can tel you that I was a most annoying brother,” he said. “I never share. And—I would never share you.”

Roberta opened her mouth to reply but there was nothing to be said.

E
lijah came home after the cloth makers and before the Americans, instructing his coachman to dash across London as if the hounds of hel were after him, while inside the coach he bent his head over pieces of foolscap covered with Pitt’s smal , crabbed writing. They danced before his eyes: notes about French connections, about the mood in the House of Commons, about the recent election.

He strode into the house with a headache, to find his butler, Fowle, dancing before him in an ecstasy of impatience. “If you’l please, Your Grace.”

“I have no time,” he said automatical y, al owing a footman to take his cloak from his shoulders and tossing his hat on the chair. He didn’t take off his wig. It was beastly hot, but what was the point? Play the chess piece and leave the house within ten minutes and he had a chance of getting to the Americans at the appointed time.

“Your Grace,” Fowle said, “I must speak to you!”

His tone was so desperate that Elijah paused with one foot on the bottom stair.

Two moments later he pounded up those same stairs and threw open the door leading to his chambers. She was seated before the chess table, of course.

He sat down, calming himself with a fierce interior command. Jemma looked up with a smile, but her greeting died—at the look on his face, presumably.

“Am I to understand that you have moved a woman of il repute into the house?” he said, sitting down and moving a pawn to Queen Four. He had thought out that move in five minutes between one meeting and another, and he certainly didn’t have time to reconsider it now.

She echoed his move just as quickly. Then she sat back, hands folded. “The Marquess of Wharton and Malmesbury arrived this afternoon. Surely, you were informed of his imminent visit this morning, as was I?”

“I was not informed that he arrived with a doxy in tow.”

“An unfortunate omission,” she said. “A Mrs. Grope does indeed accompany him.”

The immense injustice of it blocked his throat for a moment. “Do you have any idea,” he final y said, hearing the harsh sound of his voice behind his teeth, “what this wil do to my career?”

“I don’t know. Wil it cause injury?”

Her look of enquiry fueled his rage. “Don’t play the fool with me, Jemma,” he hissed at her. “You and I have been married far too long for that. I know that you are intel igent; I know that you can easily conceive why it would be a bad idea for a member of the House of Lords to invite a woman of il repute to live in his house!”

She looked genuinely sorry. “There was nothing I could do about it, Beaumont.”

“Send them to Nerot’s Hotel!”

“I could not be so rude. There may possibly be a few straitlaced matrons who wil not visit the house during her stay with us, but I am perfectly happy to hold no entertainments. That way no such matrons can have an opportunity to announce their qualms.”

“How long does she stay?”

“A few days only. The marquess talks of opening his house here in London.”

“I have a dislike of opening myself to entirely valid criticism of my household arrangements,” Elijah said. His throat closed before he could say anything further.

“I could not turn her out. But I assure you that I hadn’t the faintest idea that the marquess might pay a visit to his daughter, nor that such a person as Mrs. Grope existed.”

“How could you, indeed?” he said it woodenly. His wig felt as if it weighed a good stone.

With one swift look at him, Jemma rose and walked behind him. Automatical y he began to rise, but she pushed his shoulders down and pul ed off his wig. It came away with a little cloud of powder. She fluttered her hands to make it go away.