Desperate Duchesses (35 page)

“It’s a series of chicken scrawls,” he explained. “BK4, for example, means that someone moved his bishop to King’s Four.”

“Are we going to swim today?” Teddy enquired.

“
You
are going to swim,” his father said. “Phil ips, who is poling the boat with the marquess in it, was kind enough to offer to take you in the water. We’l drop you off at the mud flats.”

Teddy whooped with joy, and in the resulting mêlée he rocked their boat so much that it would have fal en over except for its wide bottom. A few minutes later they handed him off to a cheerful-looking footman.

“Shal we fol ow the river al the way to the end today?” Roberta enquired, when Damon settled back into the boat. It had been easy when Teddy was with them, but now she felt prickly and strange because they were alone…alone except for a footman and the cheerful voice of her father in the boat just in front of them. He was reciting a poem that had to do with fish and fins.

Damon sprawled next to her, al easy grace and muscle, and didn’t answer, just picked up her ungloved hand. His thumb played a tune on her wrist, and his touch, that little touch, turned her blood to liquid gold. She couldn’t even look at him, so she looked straight ahead, at the way the shadows flowed over the side of the boat, reflecting off the water in pale sparks of light.

She was wearing a gown of cherry muslin, one of those sewn by Mrs. Parthnel , which meant it was of very simple construction and had no hoops. Her hair was tied up and fel in ringlets; she had blackened her eyelashes. She had never felt prettier in her life.

“What do you do al day?” she asked impulsively. She wanted to know everything about him: what he ate for breakfast, and what he named his mare, and where he met his friends.

“When I’m not making love to you?” His voice was low, so the footman couldn’t hear it.

But a flush struck her face as if she had a sunburn. “Don’t!”

He chuckled, and the low sound of it made her feel breathless. “I own a great deal of property.”

She nodded, trying to fix her mind on property. Of course he did. It was like her father’s eleven peach trees: Damon would have some peach trees of his own. After al , he was an earl. The thought slipped away from her mind and was replaced by a memory of the night before, a memory of how smooth and hot he felt in her hand.

“You see,” he said, “I never could make myself care about chess pieces, but I do like to play with money.”

“Hmm,” she said, and peeked at him.

A slow smile curved one side of his mouth. “Why do I think that you are uninterested in my financial pastimes?”

“I am interested,” she said hastily. But she could feel pink spreading down her bodice. Down to the drawstring that awkwardly separated her bodice from her skirts.

“If you look at me like that,” he said, “I’l kiss you.”

She couldn’t not look. His green eyes fascinated her. A mere glance from him caused a tender warmth between her legs to blossom. She wanted to giggle—and gasp.

“Damn,” he said, and the back of his hand touched her cheek for a moment. Then he stretched, his arms suddenly flashing up into the air. But the footman behind them was balanced on the smal platform at the back of the boat, wielding the great pole.

Before Roberta could blink there was a flash of crimson livery and a splash. Cool water dashed the boat, hit the muslin roof, sprinkled her dress. She yelped, but Damon was already standing, leaning over the side.

“I can’t pul you in or we’l go over,” he was shouting to the footman, who was treading water and pushing sodden hair from his forehead. “Best make your way to shore and go back to the house.”

The footman gurgled something that sounded like an assent, and managed to maneuver the pole into Damon’s hands.

He leaped onto the smal platform and pushed the boat forward again.

“I didn’t know you knew how to do that,” Roberta said, changing places so that she was facing Damon, sitting with her back to the current. He was poling the boat forward with long smooth strokes.

“Push footmen in the river, or punt?”

She was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe. The two other boats, now far ahead of them, turned around a corner of the river and vanished altogether. “Did we arrange a spot to meet them?” she enquired.

“No, we didn’t.”

She watched his smooth, powerful movements as he poled the boat.

“Damon, who is Teddy’s mother?” she asked suddenly. “I know why you took him in…but who was the grandmother who brought him to you? Is he the child of your mistress?”

“I don’t have a mistress,” he said, shaking back a lock of hair that had fal en over his head. “I haven’t had one for the past five years.”

“And Teddy is just five, so—”

“No, Teddy is six. I pensioned my mistress after Teddy came to my house, and no, she wasn’t his mother.”

She looked at him.

“I can’t tel you who his mother is,” he said final y. “I promised I wouldn’t tel anyone.”

“Oh,” Roberta said, disappointed. “I am very good at keeping secrets.”

He pul ed the pole from the water and an arch of water drops flew like shining diamonds back to the water. “I’l tel my wife, of course,” he said conversational y.

“Oh,” Roberta said again. But the word sounded different in her mouth this time.

There was a bump and she squealed. “You’ve gone aground,” she cried, adding hastily, “not that I mean it as a criticism.”

They had scooted right under the vast sheltering branches of a wil ow tree hanging over the edge of the bank and trailing its boughs in the water. Dappled light slid through the boughs, covering the boat with the shadows of the wil ow’s slender spear-leaves.

Damon drove the pole deeply into the bottom of the river, and then he slung a rope over it.

Roberta didn’t say a word. In fact, the whole lazy river seemed to hold its breath. She couldn’t hear a sound other than the dul and smothered voice of the water, and somewhere, a lark singing.

“Our boat,” Damon said, with a glance so suggestive that she felt herself grow even pinker, “has run aground.”

“I see that.”

“What a shame. I may have to undress in order to save us from sinking.”

“Real y?”

He pul ed off his coat.

Roberta could feel giggles rising inside her, faster than the bubbles rising from the bottom of the river. “What do you think you’re doing?” she enquired.

“Undressing.”

His eyes sang to her in some language that she had just learned, but seemed to know instinctively.

“Hadn’t you better fol ow suit?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“I?” Roberta said. “I? Undress in a public river, in a flat-bottomed boat?”

“Be grateful it’s not another kind of boat,” Damon said, sitting down on the little platform and pul ing off his boots.

“You can’t real y mean it,” Roberta said, feeling very sure that he did mean it. “Anyone might happen by.”

“Nonsense! Almost no one travels this river, since it goes nowhere. We’re tied up to yet another cow pasture. This one has actual cows, and one must assume, fresher cowpats. It is, therefore, unlikely to host picnickers as wel .”

“Impeccable logic,” she murmured. He pul ed off his shirt. He was al sleek muscle, dappled by leaves, dusted golden by the sun, strong…

She reached out without even realizing and then froze again. “I can’t do this,” she cried. “What if someone saw us!”

“No one wil ,” he said and his voice was as potent as brandy. He was beside her now, throwing cushions onto the floor of the boat. But he took his time unlacing her gown, and after a time she fel into the sweetness of the shaded little room they had found under the wil ow.

“I suppose,” she whispered, “if we sit on the floor no one could see below our waists.”

“If we lie down, they can’t see anything at al . Don’t you think it’s done al the time?” He waited for her answer, eyebrow raised.

“No!” she said, with half a gasp because her dress was gone and he didn’t seem to be bothering to remove her stays, his hands were running up her legs seeking that sweet spot, and she was arching toward him.

He lay down in the boat and pul ed her toward him. She gave up the battle—what battle?—and fel on him with a little cry as her softness came onto his hardness, his muscles, his demands. He was unlacing her stays while he kissed her, deep and hard, and she couldn’t help squirming against him, gasping against his lips.

One of his hands was between her legs, playing a rhythm that matched the sound of the water. She didn’t even feel out of doors. It was as if her smal cries and the deep sounds he made when she touched him were swal owed into the vast stil ness of the watery afternoon, leaving their smal boat as enclosed and private as a wal ed room. Just the lark broke its invisible wal s as he kept singing, spiraling higher and higher into the sky.

“Touch me,” he commanded, his mouth finding her waiting, taut nipple.

She cried out and her hands flew blindly about his body, touching him here and there, the smooth curve of a shoulder, the rippled muscles on his back. She couldn’t concentrate though, not when he was doing that, so she simply let her body twist against his, begging.

“
Now
touch me,” he said later, his voice thick.

He said it twice, and the meaning of it crept through her smoky brain, made her open her eyes and look down at him.

“You want me to—”

“Touch me. I love it when you touch me, Roberta. No one has ever felt as you do.” His eyes were so dark that they weren’t even green any longer; they looked black in the dappled light.

Roberta reared back, back onto her knees and looked down at him. He lay before her, like a great feast. The wood of the boat was dark brown, rubbed smooth by years. Damon lay there like a figure carved from marble, warm and golden: long powerful thighs, a flat stomach, a chest that swel ed into muscles. She started there, with a fingertip, just touching.

She knelt over him, careful, her hands slipping from one set of muscles to another. He shivered when she stroked his chest, groaned aloud when she touched him with her tongue. She sat back, looking down—

“No, you don’t,” he said hoarsely. “I can’t survive that, not in a boat.”

She giggled, al the laughter inside her spil ing out. She was kneeling in a boat, wearing a chemise that was made of fine lawn.

“Now touch yourself,” he said, fol owing her glance down to her chest.

She colored. “What are you talking about?”

His grin was the grin of a sweet devil. “Where you’d like me to touch you.” And when she hesitated, “
Please
.”

T
he two boats carrying Jemma and Viliers and the marquess and Mrs. Grope poled their way along the drowsy stream.

Jemma and Vil iers paid no attention to the water whatsoever. Lord Wharton was composing a simple little ditty, along these lines:

All along the River Fleet,

Through the rushes green,

Swans are a-dabbling,

Up tails all!

He didn’t pretend that it was a great work of literature. But it had a pretty rhythm and he knew a certain mermaid who might think it was interesting. He sang it to himself, and sang it to Mrs. Grope, and sang it again, and then set to work on another verse.

It wasn’t until the poem had grown to some six stanzas, and included ducks, drakes, minnows and swifts, that he realized that his daughter was missing. Moreover…she was missing with that charming brother of the duchess. The earl who had quoted back a line of his poetry, and had a clear look about his eye.

That
brother.

He hadn’t said anything at the fair yesterday, but he wasn’t blind. He saw exactly how the duchess’s brother looked at his daughter.

The marquess may be mad (at least to unrefined minds) but no one could accuse him of being stupid. It was the work of a moment to stand up and roar so loudly that the boat just ahead of them, and indeed, everyone on the bank as wel , paid instant attention.

“My daughter!” he roared. “She’s been abducted!”

Now you may think that there was nothing but cows to hear the marquess’s howl of parental distress, but in fact, he was lucky. The boats had gone so far along the river that one of those pleasure gardens stretching to the very bank belonged to a Mrs. Trimmer, sometimes known as Selina, now known as the prince’s delicious tidbit (when she wasn’t playing lead roles at Drury Lane).

Selina leapt to her feet the moment she heard that familiar bel ow. She and the Prince of Wales were lying on the grass, recovering after a bounteous luncheon
al fresco
. The prince had had three bottles of champagne, and Selina was considering, rather sadly, that he was probably no longer fit for an afternoon dance in the sheets, and yet she was due at the theater in less than two hours.

“Marcus!” she cried, running down to the water.

Behind her, the prince stumbled to his feet like a water buffalo emerging from a pleasant mud bath. “What! Ho!” he said, waving his arms. Three footmen chased each other down the lawn toward him and steadied him on his feet.

Meanwhile, Selina ran straight out onto the dock to which was tied her pretty little craft, the
Selina
. It had been given to her by an adoring theatergoer who hoped that a large gift would make inroads in her affection. But Selina had been loved by the best, and she no longer considered economics when choosing her bed partners. Lord Wharton had taught her that.

“Marcus!” she shrieked, dancing up and down at the end of the wharf. “It
is
you! Oh, what are you doing in London and on the water?”

“Looking for my daughter!” the marquess roared back. “Selina, my love!” He waved his arms at her.

Selina was stil hopping up and down as Prince George appeared, accompanied by a whole throng of footmen. “What, ho!” he shouted.

“Your Majesty,” Lord Wharton shouted back.

“In the boat!” Selina screamed. “Some vil ain has abducted Lord Wharton’s daughter. We must go immediately.”

The prince scrambled into Selina’s boat fol owed by a flock of footmen. “Pole it lively!” he shouted at them. “Some of you swim over to those other two boats and make them move at a fine clip.”