Desperate Duchesses

by Eloisa James

  “The difference between a man and a woman perhaps,” she said. “For myself, I find that my knowledge of chess comes from long moments of self-study.”

  He grinned at that, the flash of a tiger’s white teeth when it spots its prey.

  “I think this game will be very interesting,” he said. “Because there is to be a game between us, is there not?”

  She held his eyes. “Let’s make it a match. Two out of three games.”

  “You are a formidable opponent,” he said.

  There was a rustle of the silk hangings and Elijah came onto the balcony, accompanying a young girl who was feeling faint, apparently. Her mother rushed after them.

  Elijah glanced in Jemma’s direction and froze. A second later, the girl was wilting in her mother’s arms, and Elijah was standing beside them. “What an inestimable pleasure,” he said. “My boyhood friend enters my house.”

  “That would be I,” Villiers said indifferently. “The one you don’t speak to. Your wife—who invited me to your ball—and I were just extolling the benefits of the solitary life.”

  “Really?”

  They were like night and day. Beaumont burned with the raw intensity that fueled his political ambitions, that had propelled him to the most important cabinet place under the Prime Minister, that had given him the ear of the King. Villiers drooped against the balcony, his cheroot held in long, lean fingers, his eyelids half open. He had a frown line between his brows and wrinkles by his eyes. Yet Beaumont still looked as he had in his early twenties, though he surely had as many late nights in politics as Villiers did in gaming.

  “She tells me,” Villiers said, “that she beat Philidor many times.”

  “To be fair, Philidor beat me as many times,” Jemma remarked.

  Elijah lifted an eyebrow. “You must have improved.”

  A slow burn went through Jemma’s chest. Since her husband had played her only a few times, in the earliest days of their marriage, how could he know whether she had improved? She said nothing.

  Villiers’s eyes slid back to her like sweet honey. “Our match is on, then?” he said, flicking his cheroot into the air. It flew through the evening sky like a glowing spark, landing on the gravel path below. Of course Elijah’s eyes followed it. He would never do such a thing. Why make work for a servant or possibly cause a fire?

  “Of course,” she said. “Shall we play one move a day? The match will be slower, but all the more satisfying.”

  “If there’s a tie with the first two, the last game blindfolded.”

  She couldn’t help a little smile at that. She had played herself blindfolded, but it would be much better to have an opponent.

  Villiers bowed with careless ease. His coat was as beautiful as one worn by the finest dandy in Paris.

  Elijah was in unrelieved black.

  When Villiers walked away, Jemma saw that his hair was tied back with a poppy-red ribbon. It looked shocking against the dark silk of his hair. He must be setting his own fashion; in Paris men used only black ribbons.

  “Where will you play chess with him?” Elijah asked. His voice was even, but his eyes were burning with rage.

  Jemma mentally shrugged. Elijah was a creature of anger. “I suspect I shall play him precisely where I played Philidor.”

  “And where was that?”

  “In my bedchamber.”

  With some pleasure she watched his eyes smolder. “And the prize?”

  She shrugged again, one languid movement that showed her shoulder to creamy advantage. Though why she should bother with such a thing around her husband, she didn’t know. “Need there be a prize?” she asked, and made to leave.

  But he was blocking her way. He’d grown bigger in the past eight years. When she had left England, he had lean legs and large shoulders. But now he had turned into a proper man. Jemma pushed away that thought with irritation.

  “I gather that you are the prize?” To do him credit, his voice was silky.

  “I am no prize of any man’s,” she said, meeting his eyes to make sure that he understood. “I’m a free gift…to those upon whom I choose to bestow myself.”

  “A gift many times given is cheapened by its traffic.”

  “Dear me,” Jemma said. “It seems to me I’ve heard that before. Yes! It must have been in church. How unusual to find a politician quoting the catechism. Perhaps you missed your calling.”

  “If you are playing chess with him—” Beaumont said, and paused.

  Jemma was already past him, but she stopped. And then turned, slowly. “You would play chess with me simply because I have scheduled a match with Villiers? Surely you jest.”

  “Cannot a man play a game with his wife?” His mouth was set in a firm line. “I see nothing particularly interesting about the fact.”

  She laughed. “And will it be on the same terms? One move a day for each of us; best of three games; final game is blindfolded, if played at all?”

  He shrugged.

  “But Beaumont, you have not played chess, to the best of my knowledge, in years. Is it not ill-advised to wager so much on a rusty skill?”

  “What do I wager? As you say, there is no prize.”

  She closed her lips. Far be it from her to point out that he played from the dislike he felt for Villiers. “You’d have to speak to me civilly,” she pointed out, “and come home every day to play. As I understand it, there are many nights when you sleep in your chambers.”

  They both knew that he did not sleep alone when he stayed in his apartments in Westminster.

  But he shrugged. Of course, a man in his thirties was presumably not quite as active as a man in his twenties. The day she discovered him on the desk with his mistress, he had risen from her bed but a few hours earlier. It was rather dismaying to realize that the memory still gave her a moment’s heartache, even so many years later.

  “I’ll play you,” she said over her shoulder. “But I shall allow you a handicap.”

  “I need no handicap.” He said it evenly.

  The memory of that day was still like a coal under her breastbone, so she smiled at him. “To make our match a challenge.”

  There was a faint color, high in his cheek, that betold rage. But Elijah was much better at containing himself than he had been when they were young.

  “No,” he said steadily. “Remember: when you play as me, I frequently win. I would venture to say that I can equal that performance.”

  Either he thought to humiliate her, or he completely underestimated her current skill. The latter made much more sense.

  She curtsied. “By all means, Your Grace. Shall we begin the game tomorrow?”

  “There is an important vote in Lords. But I suppose Villiers will lose no time attending you.”

  “Gentlemen rarely do, once I admit them into my presence.”

  He bowed. “Tomorrow.”

  Chapter 11

  The news spread throughout the ballroom within a few minutes. The Duchess of Beaumont was engaged in two chess matches: one with her husband’s enemy, the Duke of Villiers, and the second with her husband himself.

  “They say,” May said at one in the morning, “that she’s a remarkably fine chess player.”

  “Perhaps that’s the case,” Charlotte said, thinking of the intense eyes of the duke. “But she’s making a fool of herself to play with Villiers.”

  May laughed. “Then you must be settling into old age indeed, sister. Even I can see that Villiers is a man to savor.” She looked slightly startled, as if such a word could not have come from her lips.

  “The duchess’s young ward, Lady Roberta, seems entirely acceptable,” Charlotte said, changing the subject.

  “Yes, a naïve little slip of a girl, isn’t she?”

  Suddenly Charlotte realized that May was gazing at her hand. And there, crammed over her glove, was a signet ring.

  A ring.

  It seemed that she would now be the only old maid in the Tatlock family. She snapped out of her momenta
ry bleakness, embraced her sister and said all the proper things. In the flurry of congratulations, the docile young ward of the Duchess of Beaumont was quite forgotten.

  In truth, Roberta had been forgotten by most of the players of this comedy. She obediently circled the ballroom throughout the night, moving from one gentleman’s arms to another. At first she danced like a feather, and later she began weaving a bit because her toes hurt.

  She retreated to the ladies’ retiring room because Jemma’s exquisite French slippers caused blisters, not because she had no one to dance with.

  A whole flock of girls were there, chattering like magpies. Their voices died when she walked in.

  But then a girl with a sweet, plump face stood up and smiled. “I’m Margery Rowlandson; we met earlier this evening.”

  “Good evening,” Roberta said, and curtsied.

  Margery introduced her to everyone, and soon she was a part of the giggling group. One girl who couldn’t be more than sixteen was expecting an offer on the morrow; another had danced twice with a young courtier.

  “But you’re so lucky!” Margery exclaimed, turning back to Roberta. “I just realized that you are staying in Beaumont House, aren’t you? That means you are living in the same house with Lord Gryffyn.”

  “Yes, he is here,” Roberta said.

  “Along with his—his—his—” Roberta thought her name was Hannah. She was giggling so hard that she couldn’t voice it. Among the foolish, she would take a crown, to Roberta’s mind.

  “His son is in the house as well,” she said evenly.

  “I don’t know how you can!” a shrill voice said. “Why, my mother said that if she’d known of his presence, she might not have let me come to this ball at all!”

  “He’s only a child of six years old.”

  “You haven’t met him!” That was Margery, her eyes round with horror.

  “I met him briefly and there was no sight of devil’s horns anywhere,” Roberta said gravely. “But then, I do not care for children.”

  “Neither do I,” the shrill-voiced girl said. “Especially ones of this nature, who should be kept out of sight.”

  “I don’t care if Lord Gryffyn does have an illegitimate son,” Margery sighed. “He’s so adorable.”

  “I suppose one could think that,” Roberta said. “I believe I prefer someone older…say the Duke of Villiers?”

  There was a moment of horrified silence.

  “Hasn’t anyone told you of his reputation?” Hannah gasped. “Stay away from him!” She punctuated each word with a stabbing motion of his finger. “Stay away! You haven’t a mama who can tell you these things. Stay away from him!”

  Roberta almost fell back a step. “I will. I promise.”

  Never had she felt more lonely.

  The girls all took her for precisely what she appeared to be: a docile young heiress, brought from the country to be launched onto the marriage market under the aegis of her cousin the Duchess of Beaumont.

  Their mothers seemed equally accepting. The dreadful illustrated pictures of her and her father in Rambler’s Magazine were brought up several times, but only by kind matrons intent on reassuring her that no one knew of their existence.

  All night Roberta danced and looked for the Duke of Villiers. Then, finally, she curtsied to a partner who had trodden all over her wounded toes, turned away and there he was.

  “You must forgive me,” he said. His deep, purring voice went through her like a bolt of lightning. “I might almost have knocked you down.”

  She curtsied. “Your Grace.”

  “I gather you are a new lamb brought to languish in the London season. Or to triumph over it, as the case may be. Do tell me your name, now we meet again?”

  “Lady Roberta St. Giles.”

  “My father died some years ago,” he said, in a striking non sequitur. “I can only suppose that yours has come to some unfortunate end since you are consigned to the duchess’s tender care.”

  She raised her chin. “My father is enraptured by the duchess’s kindness toward me.”

  “Shall we dance? It will come near to ruining your reputation, I should warn you. But I believe I already gave you a warning, did I not?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? I must have forgotten.”

  He knew she was lying, but she thought he liked it. “I never seduce impoverished young ladies,” he said, his voice silky and sweet, “but I am more than available for young ladies of ample means.”

  “I believe,” she said, allowing just the right amount of time to pass, “that my virtue can withstand the assault of partnering you in one dance. But it is so reassuring to know that if I am overcome by a desire for ruination, you are willing to accommodate. It warms the heart.”

  He threw back his head at that and let out a peal of laughter. “Hoist with my own petard! I deserved that. Come on, then. You’re not as wholesome as you look.”

  “Since I gather that chastity would set no edge on your appetite, I shall not pretend to horror and dismay.”

  “The Rape of Lucrece,” he observed. “Do you play Lucrece then, with beauty and virtue striving in your face?”

  “That sounds like an armada in full battle. Absolutely not. Had I been Lucrece, that dagger would have made its home in Tarquin’s heart.”

  “Bravo! But have no fear, Lady Roberta, I have never yet had to lower myself to Tarquin’s violent tactics.”

  “Ah,” Roberta said. “It’s useful to know that ruination does not always result in feeling like a polluted prison.”

  “A terrible use of alliteration on Shakespeare’s part,” he said, frowning. “I assure you, Lady Roberta, that ladies leave my care as assured of their own divinity as they were the day before. If perhaps slightly more so. I find—don’t you?—that pleasure is a divine gift.”

  They walked into the ballroom. The main pleasure on Roberta’s mind was the slightly hungry way in which other women looked at Villiers.

  “I don’t suppose you play chess, do you?” he asked suddenly. “I am finding myself rather surprised in that respect this evening.”

  “I have never played the game,” she said. The chess board had languished in her father’s drawing room forever; it had never occurred to her to study it. If only she had known it was so crucial to London entertainments.

  He seemed to guess at her thoughts. “Almost no one in this house”—he nodded at the brilliant silks crowding the dance floor—“can play the game worth a damn, if at all. It is only I, and perhaps your hostess, who seem to have a curious affinity for it.”

  They paused just inside the ballroom, waiting for a new measure.

  Villiers seemed to feel no need to entertain her. He dropped her arm; when she looked at him he was exchanging looks with a young matron who had an entire ship balanced on top of her hair.

  “A nautical miracle,” he murmured, seeing that she had followed his eyes. “And Madame Moore is so very light herself that it’s a miracle she doesn’t capsize more often.”

  He was bored by her, and why shouldn’t he be? “As I understand it, light frigates are very easy to board,” Roberta said, unrolling her fan and fluttering it before her face. “I assume that is an attraction for those too clumsy to attract a less sluggish vessel.”

  “Definitely unexpected depths,” he said, and there was a strain of amusement in his deep voice that made her lightheaded. A strain of trumpets signaled the beginning of a minuet. He bowed before her; she snapped shut her fan, and curtsied. The steps of the dance kept them apart, turning toward him and his heavy lidded eyes, turning away. Her breath was coming quickly.

  At the end of the dance he gathered her hands, kissed both of them, and made a magnificent leg. “My title, Lady Roberta, is the Duke of Villiers. I fancy I may see you one of these days, as I have undertaken to play a prolonged chess match with your hostess.”

  Of course she knew he was the top chess player in London; but now it occurred to her that he was deeply competitive in all things
. And that such competitiveness was a weakness.

  She smiled. “I wish you luck.”

  “In seeing you, or in playing chess?”

  She let her eyes slide away from him. She was playing the game of her life, and it would never do to appear eager. “In chess, of course, my lord. I am frequently absent from the house, and would not wish to raise your hopes that I shall choose to be ruined, as you so charmingly offer.”

  She turned and then glanced over her shoulder, caught sight of his white teeth—he was laughing—and slid into the crowd. So far she had been dancing rather indolently with whomever presented himself. But now she realized that in order to catch Villiers she must be the very top of the ton. The catch of the season. The most desired of all marriageable women.

  He would have to win her over the hands of many men—or he would show no interest whatsoever.

  Jemma’s brother appeared before her around an hour later. She had three young lords vying to offer her gingerbread wafers and champagne. In comparison to Villiers, they were easy to enchant. All three of them were giving her swooning looks, and judging from the sullen glances she’d had from young ladies, she was plucking chickens meant for someone else’s supper.

  Damon cut her from the crowd adroitly, which she rather appreciated because it was good for her swains to see that she wasn’t theirs for the asking.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. He nipped out of the ballroom and down a corridor that she hadn’t even known existed.

  “To my sister’s sitting room,” he said, grinning down at her. “Back way.”

  He pushed open a door and sure enough, there were the mustard yellow walls (minus Judith and her platter). But just as Roberta entered, she realized that the room was not unoccupied.

  Directly before her, leaning over the arm of a chair, was a woman. All she could see was a creamy, rounded bottom because the lady’s violet skirts had been tossed over her head, undoubtedly so they wouldn’t be crushed. There was a gentleman there, of course, and he was—

  He was doing her a service.

  Roberta clapped a hand over her mouth and froze. Behind her, she heard Damon’s low chuckle.