Desperate Duchesses (28 page)

“Listen to me,” Jemma said, leaning forward. “You did not betray Benjamin. You were close to it, but that is not the same. I know. I’ve betrayed Beaumont several times, though never before he did so to me. And the first time was shocking.”

“Do you know what grips me to the heart?” Harriet said. “What if Vil iers told Benjamin? What if—”

“Benjamin did not end his life because of a stolen kiss in a carriage,” Jemma snapped, truly alarmed at the strained look in Harriet’s eyes.

“But what if he did? What if Vil iers did not tel the truth of that evening?”

“Do you accuse Vil iers of embel ishing his account?”

Harriet’s eyes were agonized.
“What if he did?”

“I don’t think it of him. He is not an unscrupulous player, nor is he a canny one. His play is actual y similar to mine, which is why I wil win the match.”

“I know it’s petty, but would you dedicate the match to Benjamin? No one talked of the fact that Vil iers drove Benjamin to it. No one.”

“I wil do my best,” Jemma said. “Please don’t worry, Harriet. Would you like me to ask Vil iers if he spoke to Benjamin about you?”

“Of course not!”

“Chess is the most intimate game in the world. It’s like making love. By the time we finish our first slow game, I wil know al his thoughts.”

“What’s different about a slow game from a quick one?”

“I think about his move, and my move, al day long,” Jemma said. “It lurks in the back of my mind, a hundred intriguing possibilities. I shal know him to the core when this game is finished, let alone when we have played out a match.”

“Good,” Harriet said. “Stab him in the back!”

“Bloodthirsty wench.”

“The engagement went off just as you planned,” Harriet said, changing the subject. “But you’re right about Damon. I had a hard time getting him to stop looking at Roberta for al of five minutes.”

Jemma frowned. “My brother is so used to being chased by marriageable maidens that I’m afraid he can’t quite accept the fact that Roberta thinks herself in love with Vil iers.”

“Does she?” Harriet was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry for her.”

“I’m not. Being in love is great fun, don’t you think? It may not last forever, but she’s enjoying herself.”

“I don’t know,” Harriet said sadly. “I have only been in love with Benjamin, and now I’m so angry at him that it poisons al my memories. Isn’t that awful, Jemma? To be so angry at someone who is dead?”

“I am angry at him too. He should never have treated you so lightly. Nor life either. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t love him, Harriet.”

Harriet’s eyes were al shiny with tears, but she gave Jemma a kiss and made her way out into the darkness. The door of the carriage slammed shut and it moved off through the fog, the sound of horses’ hooves growing indistinct immediately.

Of course she would win. True, Vil iers had beaten her today, in a very pretty stratagem. But she would win the match.

Jemma went inside, but when Fowle stepped back, thinking she would rejoin her guests in the bal room, she shook her head and asked Fowle to give her excuses. She had seen enough of Miss Tatlock giggling at her husband’s every word.

Roberta and Damon had disappeared at some point, possibly together, which was a complication she didn’t want to consider.

And frankly, a little of Mrs. Grope’s company was more than enough, although her tip about using ceruse to prevent wrinkles was interesting.

What she would prefer would be to work through a few of Francesch Vicent’s
100 Chess Problems
. She headed up the stairs.

Forty minutes later she was bathed and wrapped in a comfortable dressing gown, with her hair bundled up in a towel.

“You may go, Brigitte.”

“Your hair, Your Grace,” Brigitte said. “It wil dry with curls in it.”

But Jemma was seated before her chess board, with a glass of French brandy and her copy of Vicent. She smiled apologetical y, and Brigitte (who had strong views about the supreme importance of appearance) banged her way out of the room.

“Come in!” Jemma cal ed impatiently, an hour later, or it might have been two. She expected a weary maid, but instead her husband stood there, looking as perfectly groomed and attired as he had at the beginning of the evening.

“Beaumont,” she said, moving her bishop. “Is there something I can do for you?”

He walked over and looked down at her book. “Vicent?” he asked. “I haven’t thought about that book in years. Vil iers and I worked our way straight through it at some point.”

Which was al the more reason for Jemma to do just the same if she meant to beat Vil iers as soundly as she wished. Not to mention Beaumont himself.

He sat down without being asked. “What about moving your rook to King’s Four?”

“Two moves with his rook and I would be in check. Are you thinking of setting up that young woman as your next mistress?

”

He raised his head from the board, and the look in his eyes almost made Jemma flinch.

“She’s a wel -bred young woman,” she said. “I thought you hoped to avoid a scandal.”

“I have no need of a mistress.”

Heat scorched Jemma’s spine. “Of course not,” she said, nodding. “I was not implying that the position was open, but I didn’t expect such loyalty on your part. Your mistress is stil with you, then?” She schooled her face to an expression of benign enquiry.

“She is not.”

“But she’s been replaced. You soothe my spirits, Beaumont. Watching you with Charlotte Tatlock I feared that you were about to flare into true scandal.”

His mouth barely moved when he spoke. “I am not intending anything untoward with Miss Tatlock. I merely enjoy speaking to her about politics. She is, you see, interested in what goes on in England.”

She gave him a faint smile. “Unusual in a woman.”

“Quite.”

Without looking at the board again, he said, “Queen to King’s Three and you have him in four moves.”

She frowned at the board, saw what he was talking about. “Not if black moves his rook to block me.”

“It’s possible, but it’s the only move I see that wil open up your board.”

“You like it because it counters black’s attack,” she said.

“I dislike finding myself under attack, it’s true. At the moment, I am one move away from open warfare on a number of fronts.”

“Due entirely to my return from Paris?”

“Immanent scandal,” he said. “I now house a woman of il repute and an il egitimate child, and my last bal featured a nearly naked Helen whose songs were hardly proper. My wife is widely believed to be playing a game with the Duke of Vil iers, in which she herself is the prize.”

She felt anger sweeping up her spine, making her head reel. “You simply wish everything to be kept silent, is that it? You have your mistress, and flirt with a young unmarried lady until she looks at you with stars in her eyes, but that’s not a scandal, because to you neither woman matters. Al I do, Beaumont, is live my life without hypocrisy. Perhaps that is something a politician cannot understand.”

“You live your life with the easy arrogance of someone who has never cared a damn for anything or anyone except yourself.” His tone was crushingly blunt. “I suppose you care for chess, Jemma, but from what I gathered, you never real y gave a damn for those men you partnered in Paris.”

She sprang to her feet. “How dare you suggest that I didn’t care for them? You know
nothing
of my relations!”

“I know you were sleeping with Monsieur Philidor for a matter of years,” he said, rising in his turn. “I could only hope there was no payment involved; his regular visits to your house suggested a relation embel ished by francs.”

“How dare you!” she cried. “Philidor—”

“I real y don’t wish to know what Philidor was to you. Let’s just assume that I underestimated your ability for emotion and you care a great deal for the man. Should I, as your husband, applaud that?”

“Let me see if I can get this straight. You are suggesting that Philidor was my courtesan? Forgive me; I don’t know the correct term for a male. Paramour, perhaps. Could I ask exactly how my taking a paramour would differ from your relation with Sarah Cobbett?”

And when he didn’t reply, “It’s only been eight years, Beaumont. Surely you remember the name of your former mistress?”

“I am merely surprised that you know it,” he said.

“Believe me,” she said with a shrug, “there were many people happy to tel me al her circumstances after I realized the truth of our marriage. Did you think to keep it secret?”

And when he said nothing, “I see you did. How very odd. Even had I not discovered the two of you in such an awkward way, someone would have told me in the near future. I found myself glad of it, afterwards. Do you know: I was so stupid and young, that I might not have believed it without visual proof? I don’t believe I would have understood that you might bound from my bed to hers—at least figuratively, since you bedded her on a desk.”

She was possessed by an icy fury that no one except her husband had ever inspired in her. “That is quite different from you, Beaumont.
You
have no difficulty whatsoever believing that Philidor was somehow in my employ, even though you never saw me lying beneath him.”

“That’s enough.”

“Since you show so much curiosity, I wil reward you with the gift of information. I have never paid a gentleman for his favors; unlike you, I seem to be lucky enough to attract lovers who need no payment. And I have never led on a man who did not understand the game at hand. Perhaps you are blind enough that you did not see the way Charlotte Tatlock looked at you tonight. I don’t know why I was so surprised. Surely I could simply look back at myself eight years ago and recognize her stupidity.”

“Those are harsh words.”

“I am sure that you wil be able to dismiss my criticism of your private life. It caused you no distress in the past.”

“If you wil forgive me,” he said, “I have many appointments tomorrow morning.”

She fel into a deep curtsy. “Good night, Your Grace.”

He bowed, and was gone.

Jemma stood for a moment, chest heaving with rage, and then pul ed on the cord. Brigitte appeared a few minutes later, correctly interpreting that angry peal as commanding haste.

“Tel Fowle that you wil deliver the chess moves to him every night,” Jemma said. She scribbled on a piece of paper.

“Here are the moves so far. There are perhaps four days left in each game, possibly longer in Beaumont’s case. I don’t suppose that Vil iers is stil in the house?”

Brigitte dropped a curtsy. “If you please, my lady, he has been partnering Miss Charlotte in a game of whist with the marquess and Lord Corbin, and they are just leaving now.”

Charlotte Tatlock? Why not? Why shouldn’t the woman play with both Beaumont and Vil iers? It made sense in a queer sort of way.

“Ask him to step upstairs, if you would,” she said.

Brigitte was far too wise to ask any questions. She dropped into a curtsy and left the room before Jemma could say another word.

Jemma swept the chessboard clean and sat down to wait for Vil iers.

I
n the end, they settled in a smal sitting room, the same one to which Jemma had first brought Roberta. Damon rang the bel while Roberta wandered over to say hel o to Judith’s foolish, tipsy face, but she had been removed.

“If we’re going to drink,” Damon said, “and since it’s an essential part of dol ymop dominoes, we are, you should eat something. You didn’t touch your food at supper.”

“I’m not fond of ornate food,” Roberta said. “I would grow very thin living with a French cook.”

“You prefer apples and hard-boiled eggs?”

“Not that, but our cook at home is gifted at simple dishes.”

“Beaumont’s cook is definitely French, with the temperament of a devil, or so Ransom tel s me.”

“Isn’t it odd that your school friend would end up secretary to the duke?” she asked.

“Not at al . I recommended him for the post.” The door opened. “Ah, Fowle,” Damon said. “May we please have a smal repast and a bottle or two of champagne?”

“I do not like champagne,” Roberta said. “Some other drink perhaps?”

“Do you like wine?”

“If it’s sweet.”

Damon shuddered. “Intolerable. We have nothing of the sort in the house, and if we did, you’d have a terrible headache in a couple of hours.”

“Ratafia?” Fowle suggested.

“Absolutely not. I don’t want our guest casting up her accounts tomorrow morning.”

“In that case, I would suggest a gentle concoction of champagne and strawberries, my lord. Strawberries just arrived from the country, and I believe it wil make the champagne tolerable to Lady Roberta.”

“Champagne with fruit doused in it,” Damon said morosely.

But Fowle was right. It was delicious.

“I shal ring if we need anything further,” Damon told Fowle and then, turning back to Roberta, “There’s no better way to nurture gossip among the servants.”

Roberta shrugged. “The servants in this household have so much to occupy them; I’m sure we’re at the bottom of the list.”

“It is true that your engagement should keep them talking for the evening,” Damon said, cautiously sipping his drink. “It’s pink,” he said with disgust, “and there’s sugar in it.”

“I like it,” Roberta said. “Champagne always bites the back of my nose, but this is lovely.”

Damon brought over a smal table and placed it between them. “Do you know how to play dominoes?”

“You asked me that before,” Roberta said, giggling. She had finished her glass and the world seemed a much more cheerful place. “In fact, I always beat my governess.”

“Superior skil at matching sixes?”

“I have very good luck,” she said smugly. “I often draw doubles.”

“I shal prepare to disrobe,” Damon said, loosening his cuffs.

Roberta froze for a moment. Then she picked up her pieces. Her mind was a little fuzzy but she was quite certain of the important things. Her fiancé had said that chastity was tiresome. That same fiancé was playing a game of chess whose outcome had everything to do with loss of clothing.