Duchess in Love

by Eloisa James

  Then he took her arm. “There!” he said. “Now we can be comfortable again.”

  Gina walked up the stairs without another word. Lord Bonnington clearly felt all the relief of a soldier released from battle; he talked merrily of plans for the next day. They stopped at her chamber door. He bowed and kissed her gloved hand.

  She tried to smile and failed, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “I feel the better for this little discussion,” he said. “You must forgive me for my lack of comprehension. I had forgotten how emotional and high-strung ladies are. I will be careful to ensure that my feelings for you are absolutely clear, so that you need not embarrass yourself in the future.”

  And Gina, handed neatly in the door of her bedchamber, had no doubt but that he would do just that. Likely he would dutifully inform his wife that he loved her, each and every morning before breakfast, so as to preserve marital harmony. Because being married to such an emotional and high-strung woman was certain to be difficult.

  She unbuttoned her glove and threw it on the bed. When the second glove stuck, she ripped it off and tossed it next to its brother. A pearl button skipped and hopped across the floor, creating a counterpoint to the splatters of rain hitting the windows.

  For a moment she thought about ringing for Annie. Yet she felt so high-strung at the moment that she might shriek at the poor girl simply from vexed nerves.

  There was a push of emotion in her breast that made the thought of bed intolerable. She was engaged to a poker-faced marquess who did precisely as he ought, in every situation. And he would continue to act precisely the same when they were married.

  What had she been thinking? She walked to the windows and pushed back the heavy velvet drapes. That Sebastian would become affectionate once his ring was on her finger? She undid the latch. He was affectionate, she thought unwillingly. It was just that he wasn’t…he wasn’t passionate. Passion was the look she saw in Esme’s eyes when she talked of Bernie’s muscled arm. Passion was the way Esme’s husband touched Lady Childe’s cheek.

  Yet she herself was to receive affection rather than passion, that was clear. Sebastian was responsible, level-headed—and he didn’t desire her. They stood at her shoulders like a good and a bad angel: Desire and Responsibility, Cam and Sebastian.

  I could court him, she thought suddenly. Carola is wooing Perwinkle; I could do the same. A pulse of excitement danced down her spine: to woo Cam of the dark eyes and strong hands. Woo him—to what? To bed her: certainly. To love her: doubtful. To live with her and raise children, and be duke to her duchess: never. Better to stay with Sebastian, and try to woo him into desire.

  The garden breathed a dark and dreamy scent of rain-washed roses and black soil. The rain was splattering down in such a lazy, halfhearted way that the air had hardly cooled. She threw off her cashmere shawl as she stood in the window.

  I believe I’d like to have my mother’s present now, she thought after a moment. Of course she always meant to have it, no matter what her future husband said about it. The question was, how to find Cam?

  Annie darted into the room before she had time to change her mind. “Good evening, my lady!” she said. “Are you wishing to retire for the night?”

  “Not yet,” Gina replied. “I would like to visit my husband. Could you find out where his chamber is located?”

  The maid’s eyes widened slightly.

  “We have some legal matters to discuss,” she told Annie.

  “Of course, my lady. Would you like me to see whether His Grace is still downstairs? I think that most of the ladies and gentlemen have retired by now.” She trotted to the door. “If he’s not downstairs, I’ll ask Phillipos where he is.”

  Gina looked an inquiry.

  “Phillipos is his man,” she explained, an impish smile on her face. “He’s Greek, and such a character! Quite the charmer, he thinks.”

  Gina sat down in a chair and waited with ill-concealed patience for Annie’s return. It had been hurtful to think that her mother had cared nothing for her, and didn’t even leave her a note at her deathbed. But surely the present meant that Countess Ligny did care for her daughter. Perhaps she had read her letters. Perhaps she loved her…if only a little amount.

  What I would most like is a letter, Gina thought. Or a portrait. A letter would be marvelous, she thought again. A personal letter, from my mother.

  Annie reappeared. “His Grace retired for the night just a few minutes ago, madam. He’s four doors down, on the left. Phillipos was already downstairs. Apparently His Grace never requires assistance preparing for bed.”

  Gina raised an eyebrow, looking at her maid’s pink cheeks. “I hope Phillipos did not charge a toll for this information?”

  The young girl giggled. “A toll is a good way of putting it, madam.”

  “I should be back in a matter of five minutes or so, Annie. You need not wait. I shall go directly to bed on my return.” She took a deep breath and left the room.

  The long corridor was shadowy and lit only by wall sconces at the far ends. Gina felt her heartbeat speed as she counted the doors. What if Annie had made a mistake and Cam’s door was the third, rather than the fourth, from her own? Could there be any greater humiliation than knocking on the wrong door? Her reputation would be in shreds and tatters.

  She reached the fourth door and knocked softly. There was a sound inside of someone walking to the door. Her breath caught in her throat; the door swung open.

  There he was.

  It was just as it had been when she first caught a glimpse of him in the ballroom. Gina’s trepidation fell away and she smiled with genuine pleasure. “Hello, Cam!”

  “Jesus!” he said roughly, and looked up and down the hall. Then he grabbed her arm and yanked her into the room.

  “What the devil are you doing here?”

  She smiled again. “I thought I would visit.” To her relief he was still dressed. It would have been quite embarrassing to see him in night clothing. She shook off his grasp and walked into the chamber.

  His room was a flowery, silk-hung boudoir that looked exactly like hers. Obviously, Lady Troubridge had decorated the guest rooms to one standard. There was a signal difference, however. Resting in the corner of Cam’s room was a hunk of rock. It looked absurd, a dusty, coarse lump plopped on the flowered carpet.

  “What on earth is that?” she said, walking over to it. “Will you make a sculpture right in your bedchamber?”

  She turned to find him leaning against the wall. It felt dangerously intimate to be alone with a man wearing only a white linen shirt and pantaloons.

  “Well?” she asked impishly.

  “No, I do not chisel rock in my bedchamber. Gina, why are you here?”

  She stooped and touched a jagged corner of the rock with one pink-tipped finger. “Then why is it here?”

  “Stephen gave it to me. I will probably have to knock it down, as marble that size can’t be fashioned quickly. I’ll be back in Greece long before it could be finished.”

  “Is it pleasant living outside England?” She poked the rock again, afraid he would read envy in her eyes.

  Cam strolled across the room. “No gloves, Gina? Since entering this house, I had forgotten what a woman’s hands look like.”

  He picked up one of her hands and looked at it speculatively. Her fingers were long and very thin. “Perhaps I’ll sculpt one of your hands,” he said.

  Gina tried to ignore the tingle in her hands.

  “What are you doing here?” he repeated.

  But she had been looking at the heavy, sensual line of his lips and she lost track of the question.

  His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t mistake my chamber for Bonnington’s, did you?”

  Nonplussed, she just stared, her mouth forming a small O.

  He dropped her hand and dragged a hand through his thick black hair. “Forgive me. Of course, Bonnington would never get up to shenanigans with another man’s wife.”

  “No,” Gina
said, recovering herself. “Besides, according to Sebastian, I have rare and extraordinary virtue for a woman.” She said it airily.

  The look in his eyes made her skin heat as if by the sun’s glare. “Doesn’t know you very well, does he?”

  “Of course he knows me. He’s been a close friend for years!”

  He tipped up her chin. “Was it so difficult after we married? I feel like a damned reprobate to hear Bonnington talk. The truth is, I thought your mother was taking care of you. Or rather,” he said ruefully, “I didn’t give it much thought one way or the other.”

  Gina gave a tiny shrug. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “For a lady of such extraordinary virtue as I, your average rakehell presents no temptation.”

  “Vixen.” His hand slid from her chin to her neck, large callused fingers oddly gentle. Gina shivered but didn’t look away. “I’ll ask you again, wife. Why are you visiting me in my bedchamber in the middle of the night? I’m fairly certain that Bonnington wouldn’t approve.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.” For a moment she couldn’t think why she was there. “I came to fetch my mother’s present.”

  “Oh.” He stared at her a moment and turned to his wardrobe. “Here it is.”

  It was a wooden box, sturdy and nicely made but not elegant. A wooden box with an ordinary latch.

  She took the box from him. “It’s heavy.”

  “I haven’t opened it.”

  “I know that.” Cam would never open a gift meant for another person.

  Gina took a deep breath and swung the little metal latch up. All she could see was a mass of poppy red satin, a florid ripple of shining cloth.

  Cam peered over. “Rather gaudy,” he said. She seemed to have temporarily frozen, staring at the bright cloth, so he said, “May I?” and at her nod, pulled back the top layer of satin.

  Inside was a statue.

  Gina picked it up. It was a woman, standing about two hands high. Her fingers automatically curled around its naked waist to protect it from Cam’s sight.

  “That’s a very fine quality alabaster.” He reached out but her fingers tightened. He couldn’t see more than the statue’s head and legs. “It might be Aphrodite,” he said curiously.

  “The face resembles a painting by Titian, of Aphrodite rising from the waves. Is she wearing clothing?”

  “No,” Gina whispered. “She is quite, quite naked. My mother gave me a naked statue.”

  To Cam’s dismay, her face crumpled. “It’s not just a naked statue,” he said quickly. “Pink alabaster is very valuable.”

  She bit her lip and stuck the figure back into its crimson bed, facedown. “It seems that Sebastian was right,” she said in a hard voice. “My mother apparently believed that I would be grateful to have a naked figure of a woman—for my bedchamber, perhaps?” She snapped the top down on the box and placed it to the side.

  Cam had seen women in a fury before, and the one before him looked delirious with rage.

  “I’m going for a walk,” she said.

  He cleared his throat. “It is raining.”

  “No matter.” She walked to the door and paused. “Are you coming?” Her voice was impatient.

  “Of course.”

  Cam waited as Gina took the statue into her own room. She was gone for only a second. Probably threw it in the fireplace, he thought regretfully. It was a pity: he would have liked to examine the figure more closely.

  They walked from the darkened and empty salon into the dripping garden without saying another word. A gentle breeze was indolently throwing a few drops of rain here and there.

  Gina wished a blizzard were raging: anything to match the agitation in her chest. Her mother was just as Sebastian had pictured, a loose woman, a degenerate. The kind of woman who sent her child over to a foreign country without a second’s thought for whether the father would accept her. No wonder her idea of an appropriate gift was a lascivious statue. Gina swiped at an overhanging apple bough.

  There was a muffled curse from Cam, walking behind her.

  “What happened?” she said, savage disinterest in her voice.

  “You shook water down my neck.”

  Her gown was sprinkled with dark splotches, only barely visible in the moonlight.

  “Listen,” came a male voice behind her.

  She stopped for a moment and heard the liquid trill of a bird.

  “A nightingale,” he said.

  The bird sang on. It sounded sorrowful to Gina. As if the nightingale sang of lost love and an impure life. Tears fell down her cheeks.

  “Are you crying?” Cam said in the suspicious voice of a man who hated female tears.

  “No,” Gina said shakily. “It’s just rain on my cheeks.”

  “Warm rain.” He stepped in front of her and touched her cheek with one finger. “Why are you so upset?” He sounded genuinely mystified.

  “My mother sent me a naked statue,” she said, swallowing the hysterical note in her voice.

  His whole body resonated with puzzlement.

  “She was a lightskirt,” Gina said shrilly. “A woman of pleasure.” She almost spat the words. “And she obviously thought I was one as well!”

  “A woman of pleasure? The Countess Ligny?”

  “A strumpet. A prostitute, for all I know!”

  “Nonsense,” Cam said. “She may have given birth to a child out of wedlock but that doesn’t make her a strumpet.”

  Gina started walking back down the dark path, wet silk dragging against her legs. “What’s nonsensical about it? She didn’t have only one illegitimate child. She had two.”

  “Two?” Cam caught up with her.

  “I gather my mother didn’t tell you that she received another blackmailing letter.”

  He grabbed her arm and stopped her. “What does it say?”

  “That I have a brother,” she snapped.

  Cam stood in the pathway, blocking her way to the house. “Did the letter request money? Did you show it to Rounton?”

  “No money was mentioned. The letter was delivered to my mother’s home and Rounton hasn’t seen it yet.”

  “I’ll speak to him,” Cam said. “We’ll have to hire the Bow Street Runners. Damn. I’m sorry this happened again.”

  “I think your father tried Runners.”

  “Was there anything that might serve as a clue? Was the letter in French?”

  “No, English.”

  “Curious,” he said. “The first letter was in French.”

  Gina frowned. “It was oddly phrased, but the note clearly said I had a brother.”

  Cam’s eyebrows rose. He had curled his hands around her upper arms, just below where her little sleeves ended. He started rubbing his thumbs in gentle circles over her chilly flesh. “Perhaps it was oddly phrased because it was written by a Frenchman.”

  “I don’t think so. But how could anyone but a Frenchman find out about the countess? I mean, enough to know whether she had other children?”

  He was still caressing her arms, and it was causing a little quake in her stomach. He stood in the path, just under a pear tree. The moon was full and shining through the leaves, light falling on his shoulders in a dancing pattern.

  Suddenly she was very aware of his large body, standing just a hair’s breadth from her own.

  “I always wanted a brother,” he said.

  “That’s not the point!” she said irritably. “Who could want an illegitimate brother?”

  “You are illegitimate, Gina,” he pointed out.

  She tried not to think of herself in those terms and was generally successful. “Yes,” she said in a subdued tone. “Of course.”

  “I didn’t mean to be unkind,” Cam said. “But I’ve never seen much point in worrying over one’s parents’ mistakes. God knows, if I indulged myself, my father left a good deal for me to worry over.”

  “The duke was very proper. I’m sure you don’t have illegitimate siblings.”

  “Perhaps. But he considered
himself above the law,” Cam remarked. “I was around fifteen when I discovered just how many illegal schemes he was involved in. It’s a miracle he managed to die without being found out.”

  Gina was looking very surprised.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “Did you ever wonder where all his money came from, given that the estate has little land attached?”

  She shook her head.

  “Gambling. Not gambling in a gaming hell. On the market, the mercantile exchange. And only when he knew that he could make a small fortune, generally because he had previously arranged for that to happen.”

  “Oh.”

  “Money gained by using his title to attract investors to fraudulent schemes, cashing in before the companies went bust.” He dropped his hands from her arms. “So a few illegitimate children wouldn’t have bothered me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gina said, looking up at him.

  He shrugged. “We are not our parents’ keepers.”

  A fat drop of water landed on her back, and she shivered. A large hand replaced the cold trail of water with an intoxicating touch. Back up the curve of a creamy white shoulder, shining in the moonshine like the highest quality alabaster.

  When he bent his head, she held her breath.

  But he didn’t stop. His hands tightened on her shoulders and his lips met hers.

  There was no reverence. There was no sweet touch of lips, pleasant, pleasurable and altogether agreeable.

  Instead his lips brushed against hers, once, twice, hard and demanding. Gina opened her mouth to protest and he brazenly took what was offered: she tasted him and smelled him at once.

  His mouth was wild and wet and hungry. She was shocked into silence, and only blindly aware when his hands stroked down her naked back and slid to her waist. She didn’t even notice the moment when her own arms reached around his neck to hold him in case he tried to escape.

  But then, she was not kissing Sebastian. There was no feeling of elusiveness about her husband, no sense that the moments were being counted for suitability or lack thereof. No unspoken sense that the kiss was dipping into unsuitability.