Christmas with the Duchess (14 page)

Emma picked up the white queen from where it stood beside the chessboard, on Otto’s side. “If you want her back,” she said, tucking the piece between her breasts, “you may come to my room tomorrow, at the stroke of midnight.”

“Emma!” he protested, blushing.

“People are staring,” she said, rising from her brother’s chair. “I’d better go before they start
talking.
”

“But I cannot win the game without my queen!”

“Just as well you will have to forfeit,” she answered. “Otto is a very poor loser. Beat him at chess, and you’ll never be his friend.”

She had scarcely returned to her place at Colin’s side when Lady Susan was upon them.

“I sincerely hope you are not pining for the loss of Lord Ian Monteith,” she began, smiling archly.

Colin glared up at her. “I am enduring it the best I can, Aunt Susan.”

“But I was talking to your sister, of course,” Lady Susan tittered. “At least, we all
supposed
it was dear Emma to whom he was so devoted! Such a fine young man,” she went on. “He seemed so reliable, too! I
had
hoped to get him for one of my poor little nieces, but I fear they are not as attractive as my girls. I wonder,
what
could have made him go away so suddenly? Trouble at home, was it? I trust his father is well?”

“I’m afraid we don’t know anything more about it than you do, Aunt Susan,” Emma answered firmly, placing a restraining hand on her brother’s arm.

“I’m sure it had
nothing
to do with those dreadful letters going around,” Lady Susan said smugly. “Who could have done such a thing?”

This was too much for Colin. “You know perfectly well who did it, you nasty old cow,” he told her. “But don’t worry. You’ll get yours. We Greys do not take these things lying down, you know.”

Lady Susan blinked at him. “You don’t think that
I
had anything to do with it, do you? Anonymous letters? I prefer to be recognized for all my hard work.”

She laughed heartily. “Besides, why should I care if you’re a poof or whatever it is you call it. Some of them are very talented people—not
you,
of course, Lord Colin—but the man who makes my corsets is an absolute genius. And, then there’s Mr. Grigg, in London, who makes the most wonderful hats. And, of course, the theaters would all be empty if it weren’t for you people, and I do love the theater. If you
really
want to know who’s behind these nasty letters, just ask Harriet.”

Lady Harriet was at the back of the room playing cards.

“I don’t believe you,” said Colin. “Why would Aunt Harriet do such a thing? We’ve always been good friends.”

“It’s a case of the green-eyed monster, I’m afraid,” said Lady Susan. “Ridiculous, I know, but how else do you explain it? Spinsterhood can do strange things to a woman. She had to get rid of your Scotsman because she wants you all to herself.”

Colin was staring at Lady Susan, almost paralyzed by horror. “Are you saying that Aunt Harriet is in love with me?” he yelped.

“You are the wayward child she never had, and never will have.”

“So you’re saying it’s a maternal sort of thing?” To Colin, this seemed even less likely than the alternative. Lady Harriet seemed not to have a maternal bone in her body.

“Take her pulse on the subject, if you don’t believe me. Invite her to take a turn about the room with you. I’ll take her place at the card table.”

“Go on,” said Emma. “I
dare
you.”

Lady Harriet was delighted to take a turn about the room with Lord Colin. “You’ve rescued me just in time, dear boy,” she told him happily, giving his arm a squeeze. Colin could have dispensed with the familiarity, but he was nowhere near to giving credit to Lady Susan’s assertions. “Now Susan will have to cover my losses,” she added gleefully.

“Who will cover my loss, I wonder,” Colin murmured as they began their promenade down one side of the room.

“Why, have you suffered a loss?” she inquired solicitously.

“Surely, you noticed that my friend, Lord Ian, is no longer with us.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” said Lady Harriet, shrugging. “But I daresay we can do very well without the likes of him. He wasn’t worthy of you, dear boy.” Her skinny hand patted Colin’s arm fondly. “There was a littleness to him. I trust you see it now.”

Colin stopped in his tracks. “Aunt Susan was telling the truth, then,” he whispered.

Lady Harriet’s ginger-brown eyes narrowed. “Susan? What has
she
been telling you?”

“That you hated Monty,” he hissed at her. “That you’d do anything to get rid of him. That it was
you
who wrote those beastly letters! Do you deny it?”

“Why should I deny it?” she answered coolly. “Monty, Monty, Monty! I am sick to death of Monty! Yes, I hate him. You were always so attentive to your Aunt Harriet, before he came along. But then you changed! You’d speak to me, but always,
always,
your eyes would be searching the crowd—for
him,
the loathsome beast. I could tell at once he wasn’t worthy of you, Colin. He proved as much by walking out on you. We’re well rid of him, my darling,” she added, patting his arm with her skinny hand. “Now that it’s just the two of us again, everything is going to be just perfect.”

She sighed contentedly.

“I will never forgive you for this, old woman,” he said coldly, breaking free of her.

“Oh, my poor little lamb,” she said soothingly. “In time you’ll see that I was right. You cannot stay angry with your Aunt Harriet forever.”

“Shall we wager on it?” he said coldly, going back to his sister. “Aunt Susan was right,” he told her. “Aunt Harriet is guilty.”

“Then we know what to do,” Emma said grimly.

It was not until the following evening, at dinner, that Charles Palafox realized he had been banished. No longer was he seated at the duchess’s elbow. Instead, he had been pushed almost to the opposite end of the table, sandwiched between Octavia and Augusta Fitzroy. It was not difficult to guess that someone had told Emma of his dealings with Julia Fitzroy.

Thwarted, Captain Palafox felt himself to be the victim. Never had he sought out Julia’s company, after all. On the first occasion, he had found her in his room. On the second, he had discovered her, quite by accident, locked in the kitchen garden. He wrote letters to Emma, pleading his case, but they were all sent back to him unopened.

To Emma’s annoyance, Nicholas was late to the rendezvous, but he burst into her bedchamber in such a desperate hurry that she instantly forgave him. She greeted him from her bed, dressed to please him in a beautiful negligee of pale blue silk trimmed with silver ribbons, her ash-brown hair arranged in long, loose ringlets. He went straight to her, kneeling by the bed and seizing her hand. “My love, what is the matter? Are you ill?”

Emma laughed at his panic. “Don’t be silly,” she murmured languidly, caressing his cheek with the back of her hand. “I am not ill. Why would you think so?”

“You are in bed,” he pointed out. “Did you not ask me to meet you here?”

“I am not ill,” she told him firmly. “I am free. My year of mourning is over. It ended at the stroke of midnight. I am yours…if you still want me, of course,” she added provocatively.

She heard him swallow hard. “Would—would you not rather wait?” he said nervously.

“I
have
waited,” she reminded him. “If you ask me, I’ve been awfully good about it. I am not known for my patience. But I’ve suffered enough for you, I think. Now I must have satisfaction.”

“You shall have it then,” he promised. He kissed her clumsily in the near dark, his hands falling heavily on her shoulders, rather like a pair of leaden weights. He was shaking like a lamb suddenly confronted by the wolf.

Emma resigned herself to having to perform the lion’s share of the work. “Shall I undress you?” she whispered, reaching for him. “Shall I be your valet tonight as well as your lover?”

He seemed to take this as some form of rebuke. Instantly, he sprang to his feet. “Not at all, my love. I can do it. You need not trouble yourself.”

He danced around the room on one leg as he pulled off first one boot, then the other. Realizing she was missing the entertainment, Emma sat up and lit a candle. Half out of his shirt, he froze. “W-what are you doing?”

“I want to see you,” she explained. “I want to see my beautiful young man. And doesn’t
he
want to see
me?
Don’t you want to look deep into my adoring eyes as we give one another the supreme pleasure?”

“Good God, no!” He looked quite shocked. His round eyes glowed in the candlelight like a frightened animal’s.

“You have some other idea?” Emma asked curiously.

“My love,” he said earnestly. “I would never ask you to do anything so degrading, so unworthy of your—your elegant womanhood.”

“N-no?” Emma was quite surprised. “My God! Is it true that you are a virgin?”

“Of course,” he said indignantly. “I would not be worthy of your love if I had defiled myself with other women.”

“In that case, I’d say it’s high time you were defiled,” she purred, sliding toward him. “Let me show you how.”

“Absolutely not, my love,” he said sternly. “Now, Emma, I know that your husband was a depraved man. I know he hurt you. The last time we were alone together—when you started to do those shameful things to me—I realized that
he
must have forced you to service him in that disgusting, intimate manner, as if you were some back-alley creature. Oh, Emma, my queen, my angel!
I
will never make such demands of you. You need not do anything at all. I take full responsibility. You are blameless in the act. The sin is all mine.”

To complete her astonishment, he blew out the candle.

“When it is over, you will think it was a dream,” he promised.

“And was it?” Colin asked her the next morning over cups of chocolate. “Was it like a dream?”

Emma sat curled up on her sofa, grumpy and unspeakably sore.

“Come on, Emma,” he coaxed. “Let me live vicariously through you. I’m all alone now, you know.”

“It
was
like a dream,” Emma said. “A bloody awful dream! A nightmare!”

He winced. “As bad as that? As bad as Byron?”

“Worse than Byron,” she said emphatically. “At least with Byron, it was over and done in the blink of an eye, and his little tiny affair hardly even made an impression.
This
was a massacre and a marathon.”

“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,” Colin quoted.

“He was plenty quick,” she retorted. “He just kept doing it over and over again. I was killed repeatedly by this fool. It was abundantly clear he hadn’t a clue what he was doing.”

“So he
was
a virgin?”

“Lord, yes! But that is no excuse for what he put me through,” said Emma. “I hung on, just to see how long he could go, and how much I could endure, but, after about the eighth crises, I confess I gave up. I simply closed my eyes and placed my thoughts in a better place while he hammered away at me like a battering ram. I almost felt sorry for him.”

“My dear girl! If you had eight crises, what the devil are you complaining about?”

“
He
had eight,” she explained bitterly. “Or thereabouts.
I
had none. I can barely walk, I’m so sore. Just because the damn thing
looks
like a truncheon doesn’t mean it ought to be
used
as a truncheon!”

“That’s always been my motto. But why didn’t you speak up for yourself?”

Emma shrugged. “He was so proud of himself, I didn’t have the heart to tell him what a disaster he was. He really
did
try his best, you know, and he was so grateful to me afterward. I can’t remember the last time a man actually
thanked
me for my ‘sacrifice.’ Then again, I’ve never actually
felt
like a sacrifice before.”

“Are you going to let him try again?” Colin asked, laughing.

“Not bloody likely! My poor elegant womanhood has suffered enough, I think.”

“You could teach him, Emma.”

“Not interested,” she said firmly. “Anyway, I’m not sure he
can
be taught. He has some very strange ideas about women. Apparently, we are angels, and angels do not take matters into their own hands, so to speak. We are to lie there, silent and immaculate, while the man knocks about in search of the correct opening.”

Colin winced. “How dreadful for you. But, perhaps, Captain Palafox can console you.”

Emma made a face. “Do you know,” she said dully, “I think I’ve lost my appetite for men.
All
men.”

“Oh, no. It’s finally happened.”

“What?”

“You are officially a matron,” he teased.

He meant to rile her up, but, to his surprise, she sighed. “Do you know, I think you could be right,” she said sadly.

“You know some people say there’s more to life than sex,” Colin remarked.

“Well,” Emma sighed, “let us hope they are right.”

For his part, Nicholas had never been so happy. That evening at dinner, as the consomme was being removed, he scraped back his chair and got to his feet.

“To the duchess,” he said, raising his glass, “for she has made me the happiest of men. In fact, she has agreed to be my wife. We are to be married!”

Blushing with pride and joy, he looked into the faces of the other guests. They stared back at him in blank astonishment. No one was more astonished than Colin Grey, except possibly his sister. All the color had drained from Emma’s face.

Lord Michael Fitzroy found his voice first. “May I be the first to congratulate you, my lord. Your grace,” he said, looking question marks at his sister-in-law.