Desperate Duchesses (31 page)

But he wasn’t getting much resistance from Roberta. He slid his fingers a bit lower, flicking her nipple with his tongue so that she didn’t notice what he was doing. But then she shocked him because one of her beautiful slim legs slid up and she sobbed, “Damon,” and her knee fel open.

And if that wasn’t an invitation?

Damon was a man who considered making love to be a work of art. You prepared the canvas (kisses) and then threw on some background (special attention to certain parts of the body) and then you painted the main event. With your brush, ha ha.

In other words, he never made love without generous attention to the woman, and in general he believed that she should come before he did.

Which must be why he found himself absolutely mad in this case, unable to stop himself. Because Roberta had the sweetest, reddest, most—

He couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t. He was poised over her and she curled up against him with a little puffing wail of desire and even though he was a man who never came before the woman…

He did.

He thrust where no man had been. Into her plump sweetness, and the only thing he had enough self-possession to do was rub a thumb over her breasts at the same time.

Her eyes got huge, but he wasn’t thinking, he couldn’t think. His entire body was concentrated on the most glorious sensation of his life, on the sleekest, wettest, tightest experience of his life—

She wasn’t saying “yes,” anymore, but Damon didn’t know it. He threw his head back and plunged forward a few times, almost sobbing at the exquisiteness of it. It was al too much, though, and he came with a muffled groan wrenched from his chest.

He col apsed on top of her but managed to catch most of his weight on his elbows. “Oh God”—he was babbling—“you were—that was—Roberta, are you al right? I’m sorry.” She didn’t look angry, just kind of perplexed. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” he said, feeling a rush of protectiveness and affection such as he’d never experienced before. “You’l see, Roberta. Just let me have a moment to gather my strength and next time you’l …see…”

He closed his eyes to recover his strength.

Roberta St. Giles found herself lying next to a sleeping man.

She looked down at herself. There was no sign of blood, which was reassuring. She’d heard various stories about gushing blood and then the opposite, from Selina, who told her that women over the age of twelve never felt a thing.

“Surely not—under twelve?” she had asked. There was something closed about Selina’s face that didn’t al ow her to finish that question.

Roberta sat up. Her body had a faint tingling sensation about it stil . The whole experience was quite interesting, real y.

She looked down at Damon. He was peaceful y sleeping.

She was no longer a virgin. That statement meant about as much to her as she had thought it would. Virginity, like many things connected to men, was obviously vastly over-rated. And frankly, so was sexual intimacy.

No wonder Vil iers didn’t care if she’d had previous experiences. It was al a matter of a minute at most. Yet there was something alarmingly intimate about it, for al its speed.

Damon’s shoulder, for example. He was lying on his side, and his shoulder had a beautiful curve. She ran a finger along it. What she wanted now was a bath. There was a sticky feeling between her legs that she disliked. And, in truth, the experience wasn’t entirely comfortable. In fact, she likely wouldn’t do it again until marriage.

“Thank you,” she whispered, touching his face. The angle of his cheek was beautiful. For a moment she thought about kissing him again; somehow, he’d started touching her breasts, and they’d never real y kissed, and that was her favorite part of it al .

But if she kissed him, he might wake up. And though it was kind of him to offer, she didn’t feel like doing that again.

So instead she teased her gown out from under his body, holding her breath when he seemed as if he might wake up.

When she got it free, she stood up and wrapped the gown around her like an enormous towel.

The servants in her father’s house had been used to al sorts of extraordinary behavior; she could only hope—and in truth, expect—that Jemma’s servants were equal y imperturbable. There was one footman standing in the hal way, so she gave him a smile and sailed up the stairs.

Once in her room she dropped her gown and rang the bel . Her maid appeared, looking rather sleepy, and quite surprised to find her mistress wearing a dressing gown. After al , she couldn’t have removed her stays by herself.

“El en, I’ve left some of my clothing in the yel ow sitting room,” Roberta said, not wasting breath on feeble explanations.

“We should probably send someone to fetch it, but not yet.”

El en nodded, showing that she was just as wel trained as Roberta would have expected. “Would you like a bath, my lady?”

“Absolutely,” Roberta said. “Thank you.”

A few minutes later three footmen staggered in carrying a zinc bath and buckets of water, and Roberta was able to climb into the scented water with a sigh. El en helped her wash her hair, and then Roberta told her she could go to bed. “You must be exhausted.”

“Oh, I couldn’t leave you in this state,” El en said, looking sleepy. “How wil you prepare for bed?”

“The same way I got myself into bed these last twenty years,” Roberta said. “My maid at home was quite old and couldn’t manage late nights, and so I always tucked myself in bed. In fact, I prefer it.”

“Wil you cal a footman to remove the water?”

“Of course I wil . You go to bed.”

El en curtsied and left. Then she stuck her head back around the door. “I forgot to say that everyone below stairs is that pleased that you wil be a duchess?”

Roberta smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“And no one wil think the less of you for anticipating the wedding night, my lady…I’l ask Martin, the second footman, to fetch your clothing in an hour or so. He can stow it where no one can see.”

Roberta’s smile was a little crooked this time. One had to hope that Damon would get himself out of that room without being seen by Martin or anyone else.

The moment the door closed she leaned her head back against the edge of the bath with a sigh. She was half asleep by the time she pul ed on a dressing gown and cal ed a footman to remove the bath.

The bath was gone, and she had just sat down on the bed, stil in her dressing gown, and was thinking about where her nightgown might be when the door swung open.

“Oh,” she said, blinking up at him. “It’s you.” And then, with a squeak as she woke up, “What are you doing in my bedchamber?”

V
iliers stood quietly in the doorway, one eyebrow raised.

Jemma deliberately looked him over from head to toe: the sulky bottom lip, the dramatical y streaked hair, the languid yet powerful stance. He was wearing a plum-colored coat embroidered with fire lilies; his hair ribbon matched. He wore one patch, high on his right cheek. He looked inexpressibly elegant even to her, who had lived for eight years in the shadow of the French court.

There was something about Vil iers…about his penchant for clothing embroidered with peacock brightness, about his patch and his colored hair ribbon, about the deep intel igence in his gamester’s eye, and the coiled power of his body.

“Do come in,” she said, indicating the chess board. “A game, another side game, if you are not too tired?”

His heavy silk coat sounded like a distant seashore as he walked. He closed the door behind him and then swept into a magnificent bow, as low as that one might give to a queen. “You do me too much honor, Your Grace.”

“Jemma,” she said.

His heavy-lidded eyes paused on her face for a moment. “Jemma.” Her name sounded odd on his lips, and Jemma suddenly remembered the first time she was unfaithful to Beaumont. It had been in Paris, of course, after she fled England in rage and tears. Two years after she moved to Paris, it final y became clear to her that Beaumont was not coming after her to beg her to come home—fool that she was, she had thought he would. In fact, he didn’t even pay her a visit for three years, and by then it was too late.

She had fal en into bed with a merry French gentleman who taught her the pleasures of her own body and his. And yet that first night, her heart had been as heavy as it was now.

Why should it be heavy? She had the right to do precisely as she wished. She watched him sit opposite her, tossing his coat-skirts behind him so they wouldn’t crease. “You may perhaps think that I do you more honor than I intend,” she said.

“Dear lady,” Vil iers said, “I wil take whatever scraps you throw from your table.”

More of his curfluffle. Perhaps she should just tel him that she disliked his practiced gal antry.

“A game?” she asked. “I have given you the advantage, as you see.”

He played a piece and so did she. Again, and again. The rhythm of the game soothed her, wrapped her in the sweet complexities of knights and rooks and the powerful queen. Slowly her rage and mortification ebbed as her focus on the game sharpened. Her bishop was menaced. She rushed to save him, only to find that her queen’s pawn was threatened. A troublesome move…she slowed to think. Paused, her fingers stil on her rook, until she suddenly saw a path, took his rook.

He fought back, but her bishop took his queen…four moves later it was over. She won.

Then they parsed the game, playing it backwards.

“When your rook took my pawn…that was a beautiful play,” Vil iers muttered.

“What if you had threatened my queen, so?”

“No, because knight takes bishop…”

It was almost more fun dissecting the game than playing it. Almost, but not quite. At the end, he leaned back and smiled at her. “Sometimes I think that chess is better than sex.”

“I think so always,” she said, startling herself.

“Someone should change your mind on that subject.”

She reached out and turned his hand over. “Perhaps you could be the one to change my mind,” she said, tracing a path on his palm with her finger. “That is, I would be pleased, but you are Roberta’s fiancé, and the bonds between friends are stronger than those between lovers, in my opinion.”

“I have few friends. The closest friend of my life was your husband, and that many years ago.”

She glanced at him, but he was staring at her fingers on his hand. “I know that you were close once…”

“In the way of boys and smal animals. Without thought for the future nor our differing personalities. But stil , I find I have a fragment of honor left in me. I am not the person to show Beaumont’s wife that the body is greater than the mind, and games of chess pale next to games in bed.” He took her hand and kissed it, and there was something so sad in his eyes that she didn’t even mind the fact she had been turned down.

Though that had never happened before.

“Why don’t you speak to him?” she asked impulsively. “Elijah needs friends. He needs someone to tel him to slow down, to drag him away from his work.”

His smile was rueful. “He and I are centuries apart, in personality and taste. In al honesty, and without offense, I wouldn’t wish to be particular friends with the Duke of Beaumont now. If it were a matter of being fourteen again, and playing a game of chess by the river…that I do miss. But those days are gone.”

“I have no wish to be fourteen again.”

“Life was simpler. I do not let myself entertain regrets nor think about mistakes. My father always said, and he was right, that regret is a useless practice. But I find that in my thirties, regrets chase me down the street sometimes. It’s not so easy to shrug them away.”

He was talking about Benjamin, perhaps. She thought about whether to mention his suicide too long, because Vil iers asked her, “What do you regret, Oh Duchess?”

That made her grin. “So many things!”

“Such as?”

“The absurd Italian hat I bought yesterday in Bond Street with Roberta.”

“Ah, Roberta.”

His eyelids dropped and she couldn’t see his expression. “Your fiancée,” she prompted.

“A charming young lady.”

“I gather,” she said wryly, “that the dew is off the rose, for you.”

“Yet another regret.” He sighed. “They are like bad dreams; once you al ow one, they come as thick and fast as leaves in autumn.”

“She wil make you an excel ent wife.”

“I did it to make you angry.” He raised her hand and put one kiss in her palm, and then replaced it on the table, al without looking at her. “I admit with some shame: You won our first game of chess.”

She shook her head at him. “You asked someone to marry you out of pique?”

“Are you suggesting that I take this game too seriously?”

She found herself laughing, and then he joined in.

“One never knows,” he said a moment later. “There’s many a slip between an engagement and the church.”

“She loves you, you know.”

“Or something of that nature,” he agreed.

“It would take an act of God,” Jemma said. “But I think she wil be the making of you, Vil iers. Perhaps you wil have the real marriage that I can only imagine.”

“Unfortunately, I cannot imagine such a thing,” he said with some disdain. “I shal pray for an act of God.” He was at the door when he turned and said, “I have had many lovers, Jemma.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I am the more disconcerted to be left out of the legion, then.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’ve had many lovers…but few friends.”

And he was gone, before she thought how to reply.

“W
hat happened to you? Where did you go?” Damon demanded.

Roberta blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“Why did you sneak off like a housemaid in the night and leave me in the sitting room?”

She couldn’t help laughing a little. “Are you tel ing me that you wanted me to stay around and watch you snore? Perhaps until the footman came in to bank the fire? I took a bath, just as you apparently did,” she said, looking at his wet hair.

“I didn’t get a chance to show you what making love can be like.”