An Affair Before Christmas

by Eloisa James

  He was devilishly charming. If it weren’t for her husband’s reputation and the promises she’d made, she’d go to Fonthill in a minute. Strange had thrown down the gauntlet and it nettled her not to take it up.

  He didn’t think she’d visit Fonthill. She saw it in his eyes, the faint disparagement, the unnecessary compliment.

  It fired her with the wish to throw societal rules to the wind and pay him a visit. But how could she possibly go to that estate, with its scandals and daily parties, if the stories were true? She couldn’t. She couldn’t do that to Beaumont.

  Her French friends would have shrieked with laughter at her concern. They viewed husbands and honor subjects of interest to wives of the bourgeois. Somehow life was much more complicated in London than when she was gadding about the French court.

  Jemma had lost the ability to be intimidated years ago. She had arrived in Paris as a young duchess without a husband, made her way to Versailles and began winning chess matches against Frenchmen. Any one of these three circumstances would be enough to daunt most ladies. But not, she was proud to think, a member of the Reeve family.

  Thus it was quite interesting to discover that she felt just the slightest bit intimidated by Mrs. Patton. There was no obvious reason for it. Mrs. Patton was a slender woman with brown hair, rather eccentrically dressed, which fact alone ought to give Jemma a sense of superiority.

  Most of the ladies in the room were wearing gowns with short ruffles and side bustles of one size or another, but Mrs. Patton had no curls, no ruffles and no bustles. Instead she was wearing a thigh-length jacket, shaped to her figure. Underneath the jacket was a periwinkle blue skirt that flared into long folds in the back. The final touch was the opening at the front of the jacket…which parted to reveal a waistcoat. A waistcoat! Jemma suddenly felt entirely too ruffled and belaced and beribboned.

  The group surrounding Mrs. Patton turned out to be discussing bookplates and typefaces, none of which Jemma knew the faintest thing about. Finally the discussion of barth-cast fonts (what ever they were) ended, and Mrs. Patton turned to Jemma. “Your Grace, I have been longing to meet you,” she said with a roguish smile. “I have heard so much of your prowess at chess.”

  “And I the same of you,” Jemma said, bowing slightly.

  “I doubt I’m at your level. I was roundly beaten by Philidor last year when he visited London. But he told me of you, and fired my wish to have you be my compatriot at Parsloe’s. Rather than cede my place in the London Chess Club to you, I am hopeful that we could be the only two of our sex in the chosen one hundred.”

  “Is it awkward being the only woman?”

  “I don’t find it uncomfortable. Occasionally a topic is broached that I find tedious, such as the relative merits of a given opera dancer. I find that a quick comment about the difficulties of swollen breasts while nursing children will return gentlemen to awareness of my presence.”

  “Since I have nursed no children,” Jemma said, “I shall have to echo you.”

  “I am certain that you can come up with your own topics by which to distress their sensibilities,” Mrs. Patton said. “Men are so hideously sensitive, you know. It’s easy to throw them off their stride. I try not to do it while playing chess, of course, though sometimes one cannot help taking the advantage.”

  “I would relish seeing you discomfit my husband. In fact, I would love to see you play him.”

  “Ah, but the Duke of Beaumont is a politician. That’s another breed altogether.” Mrs. Patton’s smile was wry. “I doubt that he plays chess with mere mortals. If he is half as busy as the papers make him out to be, he has little time for games.”

  “I am thinking of gathering a house party at Christmas time,” Jemma said. “I should dearly love to both play you at chess and watch you vanquish my husband. I believe I would bet on you over a politician.”

  “I am honored by your invitation,” Mrs. Patton said, looking ready to refuse.

  “Oh please,” Jemma broke in. “It is months away; you can hardly do me the discourtesy to cry an earlier invitation. I have just returned from eight years in Paris, you know, and I have discovered few people with whom to play chess.”

  “Dear me,” Mrs. Patton said, “and here I was under the impression that you had monopolized the market when it came to chess masters. Your paired matches with your husband and Villiers are being rather widely celebrated.”

  “I have never played a woman with ability at chess, and I must confess to an unbearable curiosity.”

  “I fancy I shall find myself matched in cunning,” Mrs. Patton said.

  “Then?”

  “I travel with children. Children and—how could I forget—a husband as well.”

  “You would all be welcome. One must have children about to truly enjoy Christmas, so yours will fill a need. We shall have a magnificent Twelfth Night party and put a bean in everyone’s slice.”

  “There you show yourself to be no mother,” Mrs. Patton observed cheerfully. “It would be the Slaughter of the Innocents as they fought over who got the largest bean and thus got to be King for the Day.”

  “In that case,” Jemma said, “I shall promise to manipulate things so that you, dear Mrs. Patton, are Queen of the Pea, if you will come.”

  Mrs. Patton laughed. “The chance to play chess and be queen, if illicitly gained? It’s hard to resist. I expect my husband will be agreeable, but if he is not, I shall send you my regrets on the morrow.”

  Jemma adored her utter lack of fawning attention. She swept a deep curtsy, a duchess-to-duchess curtsy. “It will be my plea sure.”

  Chapter 30

  The Duke of Villiers to Miss Charlotte Tatlock

  November 20, 10 of the clock

  Are you still angry at my rudeness? It has been months and I find myself still tied to this bed. In desperation I write to ask if you would read me Bible verses. Such wit and beauty as you have should apply itself to doing miracles, and I’m sure such an influx of heavenly influence would be miraculous. My footman will wait for your answer.

  Miss Charlotte Tatlock to the Duke of Villiers

  By Return

  You are the most fantastical and unkind man to make fun of me. I leave it to you to judge what our heavenly Savior would think of your behavior.

  P.S. I am truly sorry to hear that you are still unwell.

  The Duke of Villiers to Miss Charlotte Tatlock

  11:30 of the clock

  I meant no unkindness. Please come talk to me. I am here with no one but the butler and the servants and some mice who squeak mightily in the night.

  Miss Charlotte Tatlock to the Duke of Villiers

  By Return

  Your solitude is obviously the reward for a life ill-spent.

  The Duke of Villiers to Miss Charlotte Tatlock

  1:00 of the clock

  You are far too kind to be as priggish as you sound. I am like to die of the tedium. And I have to add that there is many a hanger-on feverish to be admitted to my bedchamber.

  Miss Charlotte Tatlock to the Duke of Villiers

  By Return

  Admit them. You have nothing to lose, and I have much to gain.

  The Duke of Villiers to Miss Charlotte Tatlock

  2:30 of the clock

  Cruelty, thy name is Charlotte. Don’t leave me to the ill entertainment of such as choose to visit. They come mawkishly only so they can describe my dying sighs, and the pitiful things I spoke, and how white in the face I am. I am persuaded that none of them will tell me I’m a pestilent knave, as you did.

  Miss Charlotte Tatlock to the Duke of Villiers

  By Return

  Their ignorance is no reason for my discomfort, not to mention the loss of my reputation.

  Miss Charlotte Tatlock to the Duke of Villiers

  November 29 [nine days later], 10 of the clock

  I venture this letter because I received the unhappy news of your death this morning. I am surprised to discover that I much hope that the tidings are
untrue. I cannot help but write to inquire.

  The Duke of Villiers to Miss Charlotte Tatlock

  By Return

  I live chiefly out of spite. My man tells me that I have been credibly announced to be dead three times, and once buried. I thought you wanted no more of me?

  Miss Charlotte Tatlock to the Duke of Villiers

  11 of the clock

  I want nothing of you, but it would sit ill on my soul if I scorned the opportunity to read you a Bible verse.

  The Duke of Villiers to Miss Charlotte Tatlock

  November 30, 10 of the clock

  My fever came on yesterday afternoon and prevented my reply. My coach waits, but please do not delay, as I’m afraid the fever is my constant companion. Could you possibly pay me a visit now?

  Chapter 31

  November 30

  Fletch had taken a carriage into Hyde Park because he didn’t want to go home. Lady Flora was always there, springing to meet him. Even the way she said “Your Grace” spoke of withering dislike. Though the worst was when she called him Duke, as if they were intimates. It was wearying. One had to suppose that Poppy—who had never said a word of reproach to him about her mother—encouraged her prolonged visit as some sort of revenge. It was a damned successful one.

  Once in the park, he couldn’t stand the small confines of the carriage and took himself out for a walk, though it was gray and drizzling.

  He strolled along the Serpentine and watched gray water drops dimple the surface of the water. The rain was cold on his cheeks.

  Poppy didn’t love him.

  She had never loved him. Her dragonish mother had coerced her into the marriage. The emotion at their wedding had been all his, which laid painfully bare the reasons for their pitiful intimacies. She didn’t love him; of course she didn’t desire him.

  The rain was suddenly hot on his face, a hot drop here, a cold drizzle there.

  “But I loved her.” Fletch said it out loud, into the silence of the gray rain. “I was in love with her.” That Christmas years ago in Paris was emblazoned in his memory. “I loved her. I—I—” But he stopped before he said that he still loved her.

  She didn’t want him in the most fundamental way. She told him to find a mistress.

  He walked until his heart was as dreary as the sky, until some sort of truth came to him.

  He must be cursed, because he still loved her. He loved his wife. Even so.

  And that meant that he couldn’t survive alone for five years as Poppy suggested. He couldn’t lie awake in the middle of the night and wonder what she was doing, with whom was she dancing. Naturalists, for God’s sake. Out of all the things her mother said, that stung the most.

  Poppy was infatuated with that Dr. Loudan, for example. A skinny, weedy thing with a propensity for cutting up dead rodents for examination.

  He’d spent years fashioning himself into someone he wasn’t, all to catch her eye. But she wanted spectacles. He pulled off his hat, raised his head and the rain sluiced over his face, over his carefully tumbled locks, spotting his shirt, chilling his fingers.

  He had to do something with his life, make himself into the kind of man whom she would admire. She would never desire him; he accepted that. The scorn he saw in her eyes as she compared him to the professor…that was a scorn he felt for himself.

  Their awkward couplings would surely improve slightly with further practice, but they had little to do with the fierce desire he felt, with the way his body longed to make love to her.

  Yet he wasn’t the sort of man to be unfaithful. He couldn’t take a courtesan, or even a lady, to bed. The truth was that he didn’t want a mistress. He started walking again, letting the rain beat into the back of his neck.

  He could survive without Poppy in his bed.

  But he couldn’t survive without her in his life. She had to come home. He would promise that he’d never visit her room until they decided to have children. And he would promise to stop sulking.

  He’d spent the last few years sulking. He had to give Lady Flora credit for that observation. He’d sulked because life hadn’t turned out the way he thought it should. Enough. Enough thinking about French women, and women’s desire in general. In fact, the hell with desire.

  Monks did it, didn’t they? He didn’t need sex in order to be a man. What he needed—what he needed was Poppy. Because for some strange, stupid reason, she felt like the coffee he drank in the morning.

  He needed her.

  He turned around and started back for the carriage. He would make himself into someone she would be proud of, someone who wasn’t interested only in the cut of his coat and the sheen of his hair.

  If he admitted the truth to himself, he wanted to be one of the most important men in the House of Lords. He wanted to make a difference to the country, to be a man whose words were feared and welcomed, like his father’s had been.

  Then he would dispense with Lady Flora, which would be his gift to Poppy.

  And finally he would lure her back to the house, before Christmas came again.

  And then somehow, someday, he would woo his wife into loving him the way she used to. The way she loved him that Christmas in Paris, when she looked at him as if he were the world to her.

  When she loved him.

  Chapter 32

  The Rose Salon, Beaumont House

  December 6

  “I shall not go to Oxford,” Jemma explained, “because you have a perfectly good husband who has offered to accompany you, Poppy. I don’t wish to be unkind, but I haven’t the faintest interest in three-toed rats or what ever it is you are going to see.”

  “I know,” Poppy said. “I’ve been a frightful beast, taking you around to all these boring events.”

  “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t enjoy being with you. But the truth is that I don’t want to go all the way to Oxford. I really don’t. Mrs. Patton is taking me to the London Chess Club tomorrow and I have every intention of joining, if they’ll have me.”

  “Oh, you should. Then you can shame the men by beating them.”

  “You are turning into a bloodthirsty little thing.”

  “I have always been a bloodthirsty little thing,” Poppy retorted. “I have a perfect model in my mother. That’s why Fletch wants to accompany me to Oxford. So he can get away from my mother.”

  “Look at this,” Jemma said, holding up a piece of foolscap. “I’ve had a letter from Roberta, my sister-in-law; she says that a bear went amok on her father’s estate and ate a couple of rare ducks. I must answer this. Darling, you will be all right without me, won’t you?”

  “It’s just that it’s Fletch!”

  “Your husband,” Jemma prompted. “You’ve been married for years, remember?”

  “It’s all different now. I don’t feel in the least comfortable with him. We may well argue. And what—what if he—”

  “He won’t,” Jemma said comfortably. “And if he does, you can boot him out of the carriage. You’re a bloodthirsty woman, remember? Think of your mother.”

  Poppy thought of her mother. If Fletch misbehaved in her presence, her mother would likely toss him from the carriage and send a chamber pot flying after him. “True.”

  “Men are very useful on these little trips,” Jemma said, drifting out the door with a final blown kiss. “In case a wheel breaks or some such.”

  Poppy marched out to Fletch’s carriage, trying hard to pretend she was her mother.

  He looked up from the papers he was reading and gave her a careless smile, and it took all her strength to nip off her welcoming grin. She was not—not—going to smile at him like a lovesick puppy.

  He peered at her. “Are you all right, Poppy? You look stiff as a poker.”

  “I just want to say again that you needn’t accompany me, Fletch. I’m sure you have a lot to do.”

  “Actually, I do.”

  “Well, then, I’ll just drop you off at the house,” she said.

  “With your mother? Not on your
life. I brought my work with me.” He rustled his documents.

  Poppy subsided onto the opposite seat and eyed Fletch. He was already deep into the sheaf of papers. It was infuriating that he was so appealing. Deliberately, she made herself think about Dr. Loudan. Loudan listened to her. He thought she was intelligent. She thought about the letter she’d written Loudan that very morning, suggesting that his claim about the so-called muskrat found in Ceylon might have been incorrect, if one took into account the study published three years ago by Dr. Farthing. The animal couldn’t be a muskrat, as Loudan maintained. Her mouth curved up.

  Fletch didn’t look up, but he said, “So what are you grinning about, then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Dr. Loudan.”

  He grunted but didn’t say anything to that. Still, it gave Poppy a little jolt of satisfaction. His Grace Beautiful Fletcher had to understand that there were men in the world who cared more about muskrats than they did about gorgeous clothing.

  “What are you reading?” she asked. “I can’t read in the carriage as I grow quite nauseated.”

  “An excruciatingly foolish treatise on the trade bill with France. The off-repeated point of twelve pages is that French brandy costs too much.”

  “What does the author intend to do about that?”

  “Whine and complain,” Fletch said. “It’s a shock to see how much paper is wasted by fellows in Lords, nattering on and on about inconsequentials. Now if I was going to argue this bill, I’d focus on the situation of English farmers. I have to give extra payments every year to the men working around my estate; it’s impossible to survive with the price of wheat being what it is. This trade bill should ignore the brandy and bar French wheat from our shores.”

  “Why don’t you do so?” Poppy said.

  He didn’t answer, just flipped to the next page.