When the Duke Returns (Desperate Duchesses #4)

When the Duke Returns (Desperate Duchesses #4) Page 68

“He needs to take charge. That’s why he tried to redo the wedding. That’s why he hasn’t come to London, because it would mean following your whistle. He’s no lap dog.”

“No,” Isidore said, sniffing.

Jemma was smiling. “We have to make him understand what he might lose.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I found that my husband had a mistress, I packed up my bags and fled.”

Isidore narrowed her eyes. “I’d kill him first and then flee.”

“That’s always an option, of course,” Jemma said.

“But with the wisdom of hindsight, I think I should have just given Elijah a taste of his own medicine.”

“You should have taken a mistress? Or a—what would the word be?”

“A lover. I have decided in the years since that perhaps had I flaunted a lover before Elijah in the early days of our marriage he might have cared.”

“Why?” Isidore bit her lip. “It doesn’t seem logical, Jemma, though I wish it were true. If the only concern your husband had was to do with his heir, I really don’t see how three years one way or the other would change things.”

“I know much more about men than I did. I was his, when we lived together in London and were first married. Three years later, he’d practically forgotten about me. Men do that. If you allow Simeon to return to Abyssinia and start rootling around looking for another river basin, he’ll forget you.”

Isidore felt tears welling up in her eyes.

“And you don’t want that,” Jemma said gently.

“It’s so awful!” Isidore said, drawing a ragged breath. “I—I—”

“I fell in love with Elijah, who didn’t show any interest in returning the favor. It took me forever to get over it.”

“I’m afraid I never will,” Isidore said shakily. “It’s the most ridiculous thing in the world. It’s just that I love the way he’s taken on the house, and doesn’t even blame his rather hateful mother, or his father, who was a positive criminal! I know he didn’t like the way I dashed into things, but I thought…”

“I expect he’s madly in love with you,” Jemma said consolingly. “Who could not be?”

“I just can’t let him return to Africa,” Isidore said. “And I don’t want to marry anyone else!”

“Then you won’t,” Jemma said. Against all reason, she was smiling. “We’ll arrange it so that he comes to his senses. Do you know that when people are knocked silly by a blow, sometimes a second injury puts them back into a sane mind? That’s what we’ll do.”

“I don’t want Simeon hit on the head,” Isidore said, alarmed.

“We won’t hit him,” Jemma said. “We’ll just do something to throw him out of his complacent frame of mind.”

“What?”

“It’s not a question of what,” Jemma said, smiling. “It’s a question of whom.”

“Then?”

“Villiers.”

Chapter Forty

Revels House

March 26, 1784

Early in the morning

The Duke of Villiers paused before entering the house. If the truth be told, he was remarkably fastidious. Sometimes he embarrassed himself by his dislike of bodily functions. Other men seemed to love sweating and generally rolling around in their own muck. He did not, and a sewer was perfectly emblematic of the sort of bodily process he would prefer to be invisible and certainly inoffensive.

But the butler was waiting, so Villiers climbed the stairs with a sigh. How he had become such a slave to his acquaintances, he didn’t know. Though he had the idea that Elijah would correct him and say, slave to his friends. One cautious sniff within the hallway, and Villiers felt more cheerful.

He turned from handing his cloak to the butler. “I heard tales that Revels House had been conquered by a terrible odor,” he told the butler.

The man beamed. “No longer, Your Grace. If I might show you into the Yellow Salon, the duke will join you shortly, I’m sure.”

Villiers no sooner entered the salon than he stopped short, staring at the rug stretched at his feet. It blazed up at him, an extraordinary dancing pattern of cherry red and deep crimson that covered the entire floor. Stags bounded in incredible detail around the border. “My God,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“There are only two or three such in the world, as I understand it,” the butler told him. “His Grace bought it from a Mongolian king. It is knotted in wool and silk, with gold and silver threads.”

Villiers had an enormous estate, but he thought he might be treading on something of comparable value. It made him feel almost queasy to walk on it.

Cosway stamped right over the carpet when he entered. “I’m sorry to have written you that letter,” he said without further greeting. “I’ve called a halt to my marriage ceremony.” He looked tired. Disheveled, but not nearly as extraordinarily odd as his mother’s letters had promised.

“So what got you into breeches?” Villiers asked, skirting the question of marriage. “According to various reports, you were shocking the countryside in your trousers.”

Cosway shrugged. “It wasn’t worth the amount of anxiety it seemed to cause my acquaintances. Not to mention my household.”

“No powder,” Villiers observed. “But breeches, and a decent waistcoat. We’ll make a duke of you yet.”

Cosway smiled faintly. “I even have a valet.”

“Can you be ready to leave for London in an hour?”

“What?”

“In an hour,” Villiers said agreeably. “You might want to tell your valet to begin packing.”

Cosway’s smile grew. “No.”

“Tonight the king holds a party on board the royal yacht, the Peregrine, which has been moored in the Thames, just outside the Tower of London.”

“Fascinating,” Cosway said. “I hope you enjoy yourself.”

Villiers dropped into a chair, taking a moment to deliberately rearrange himself. Then he said, as casually as possible: “The king has interested himself personally in the dissolution of your marriage on the grounds of your insanity, and has ordered the matter expedited both in Parliament and with the church. The duchess—that would be, your duchess—has been invited tonight. It is my distinct impression that the king will personally grant her a dissolution of her marriage.”

It was a blow. Villiers could see that. Then Cosway’s jaw set and his back straightened.

“I can’t stop her,” he said. “She deserves to choose her own husband.”

“She’s already being courted by every fortune hunter on three continents.”

“Yes, I expect that is the case.” Cosway sat down and crossed his legs as if they were discussing tomorrow’s weather.

Another man might have believed Cosway’s uncaring voice. But somehow Villiers had learned to recognize the signs of anguish, even buried deep in a man’s eyes.

“Ah well,” he said. “I just thought I’d let you know. I must say, I’m glad to hear that you’re so uninterested.”