Eloisa James - Duchess by Night (2 page)

Her husband had been dead for two years and no youngeror oldermen were lining up to ask her to dance. Most of her acquaintances stil got a tragic sheen in their eyes and promptly moved away after greeting her, as if sadness was catching.

Apparently, if ones husband committed suicide, one automatical y became the unappealing type of widow.

Partly it was her fault. Here she was at the Duchess of Beaumonts impromptu costume bal but was she dressing as a glamorous character? Or even an evil one?

Who are you? her friend Jemma (the aforesaid Duchess of Beaumont) asked.

A nursery rhyme character. Can you guess which one? Harriet was wearing a motherly nightgown of plain cotton that her maid had recruited from the housekeeper. Underneath she had three petticoats, as wel as four woolen stockings in her bodice. Just to show off a bit, she arched her back.

A nursery rhyme character with big breasts, Jemma said. Very big breasts. Very very Motherly breasts, Harriet prompted.

Actual y you dont look motherly as much as wildly curvaceous. The problem wil be if one of our houseguests lures you into a corner and attempts a cheerful grope. Wasnt there some nursery rhyme about lighting the way to bed?

Im not on my way to bed, Harriet said, somewhat deflated. And no one ever tries to grope me. What character are you?

Jemmas gown was made of a clear pale pink that looked wonderful with the dark gold color of her unpowdered hair. There were smal silk poppies sewn al over her skirts, and poppies tucked in her hair. She managed to look elegant and yet untamed, al at once.

Titania, Queen of the Fairies.

Im Mother Goose. Which fairly sums up the difference between us.

What are you talking about! Jemma scolded, wrapping an arm around Harriet. Look at you, darling. You are far too young and fresh to be Mother Goose!

No one wil know who I am, Harriet said, pul ing away from Jemma and sitting on the bed. Theyl think Im a fat white ghost.

Jemma started laughing. The ghost of a murdered cook. No, al you need is a clue to your Mother Goose status, and people wil admire the cleverness of your costume. Wait until you see Lord Pladget as Henry VI I: he has a hearth rug tied around his middle and he looks as big as a barn.

I already look as big as a barn, at least on top.

A goose! Jemma said. Of course, you need a goose and I know just the one!

Oh, but

Two minutes later, Jemma was back. With a goose.

Is that real? Harriet asked warily.

In a matter of speaking. Im afraid its a little stiff. It usual y flies along the wal in the south parlor. My mother-in-law has a morbid attitude toward decorating that involved arranging al kinds of dead animals on the wal s. You can use the poor goose tonight, darling, and then wel set him free to fly to a better place, if you understand me.

Harriet took the goose in her hands rather dubiously. It was stuffed so that its neck stayed stiff, as if it were in flight.

Just tuck it under your arm, Jemma said. Harriet stood up and tried it. Not like that. Here, turn his head upright so he looks like a friend whispering in your ear.

Harriet stared down at the birds glossy eyes. This is not a friendly goose. It looked ready to lunge from her hands and peck someone.

There is no such thing as a friendly goose, Jemma said. I must go see how Isidore is coming with her costume. I checked on her earlier and her maids were frantical y tearing apart two dresses. She says shes going to be a queen, but Im afraid shes going to enter the bal room wrapped in a handkerchief.

Why doesnt Isidore go by her title of Duchess of Cosway? Harriet asked. Last night she was announced as Lady Isidore DelFino.

I dont think shes ever met the duke. Her husband, I mean, Jemma said. Or if she did, it was for five minutes years ago. So she uses her own title, although for tonight shes the Queen of Palmyra.

If you had told me that you were planning a Twelfth Night costume party, Harriet said, putting the goose down, I could have been a queen as wel .

Apparently queens dont wear much clothing, so youl definitely be more comfortable this way. And Im sorry about not warning you, darling, but its so much fun doing it last minute. You should see people rushing about the house looking for costumes. The butler is going mad! Its wonderful.

And with that, Jemma sailed out of the room leaving Harriet with the goose.

It was absurd to feel so sorry for herself. Every time she walked into Judge Truders court she heard of people whose lives were far more desperate. Why just last month there was a girl who stole half a jar of mustard and six oranges. Truder had actual y woken up and wanted to give the poor child hard labor, fool that he was.

But she, Harriet, had no need to steal oranges. She was a duchess; she was stil relatively young; she was healthy She was lonely.

A tear splashed on the duck and she absently smoothed his feathers.

She didnt real y want to be a queen, either of fairies or Palmyra, wherever that was. She just wanted a husband.

Someone to sit with her of an evening, just like Loveday said.

Another chapter in Which Breasts Play a Not-insignificant Role

Z enobia, Queen of Palmyra, threw back her head and laughed. Her bodice gaped, precariously clinging to the slope of her breasts. The dapper man before her twirled on his toes, one hand up in the air, like a gypsy dancer at Bartholomew Fair.

Zenobia laughed again, and flung both hands in the air in imitation of him.

The Queen of Palmyras corset, if one existed, was thoroughly inadequate.

It crossed Harriets mind that a true friend would alert Zenobiamore commonly known as Isidorethat her breasts were about to make an appearance on the bal room floor.

But Harriet was tucked in a chair at the side of the bal room, and Isidore had her eyes fixed on the man she was seducing, though seducing wasnt quite the appropriate word. Harriet had the idea that Isidore was chaste. Just bored. And Harriet couldnt possibly catch her attention. She felt invisible; she certainly seemed to be invisible to most of the men in the room.

Widows dressed as Mother Goose were not as much in demand as half-naked queens, no matter how much stuffing their bodices contained. What little cloth existed in Isidores bodice was thickly embroidered with peacock feathers, the eyes picked out in jewels.

In short, peacock eyes were more popular than goose eyes. Lord Beesby, for example, didnt seem to be able to take his eyes off of Isidores bodice, whereas Harriets goose put men off. It was lying beside her, head drooping off the chair so that its beady eyes stared at the floor.

Isidore twirled again, hands in the air. A lock of hair fel from her elaborate arrangement. The dancers nearby paused in their own steps, entranced by the sway of her hips. There was something so un-English about Isidores curves, her scarlet lips, the way she was smiling at Beesby as if he were the king himself. It had to be her Italian ancestry. Most Englishwomen lookedand feltlike Harriet herself: dumpy. Maternal.

Though she, Harriet, had no reason to feel maternal, given her lack of children. At this point, the only man likely to approach her would be cal ed Georgie Porgie.

Harriet bit her lip. Shed welcome Georgie Porgie. Who knew it was just as humiliating to sit out dances when one is widowed, as when one first entered the marriage market? Yet another one of lifes charming surprises.

Lord Beesby was dancing as he had never danced before. One hand stil in the air like a gypsy king, he capered and pranced before his partner, his knees rising higher and higher. He reminded Harriet of nothing so much as her beloved spaniel, Mrs.

Custard. If Beesby had a tail, hed be wagging it with pure bliss. He was rapt, enchanted, in love. According to the pattern of the dance, he should have long ago moved to another partner, but he and Isidore hadscandalouslyeschewed exchanging partners, and the dance had continued without them.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Harriet caught a glimpse of an irate-looking Lady Beesby making her way toward the couple. Isidores bodice was at the very point of disaster. Harriet jumped to her feet, caught Isidores eye, and jerked her head in the direction of Lady Beesby.

Isidore flashed one look at the matron heading toward her, drew back, and shouted, Lord Beesby, you do me wrong!

Caught in a dream, Lord Beesby didnt hear and circled blissful y, one more time.

Isidore bel owed something else; Lord Beesby started blinking and stopped short in the midst of a turn. Isidores hand flashed out and she slapped him.

The entire bal room went stone silent. You led me to believe that you found me attractive! Isidore shrieked, with al the bravado of an Italian opera singer. How dare you spurn me after presenting me with such temptation!

Jemma appeared from nowhere and wrapped an arm around Isidores waist. Alas, Lord Beesby is a man of high moral fiber, she said, with magnificent emphasis.

Oh, how shal I recover! Isidore cried, casting a drooping hand to her brow.

Jemma swept her off the dance floor. Harriet barely stopped herself from applauding.

Lord Beesby was stil standing there, mouth agape, when his wife reached his side. Harriet thought she looked at him with a measure of new respect. It was one thing to have ones husband making a fool of himself on the dance floor with a gorgeous young woman. It was another to have that same husband spurn the wench in a public arena.

Lady Beesby even smiled at her husband, which had to be the first such affectionate gesture in days. Perhaps years. Then she spun on her heel and marched off the dance floor, her smal er, bemused husband trailing after her. It reminded Harriet of when her fat sow Rebecca would sud denly march off in indignation. Rebecca general y trailed at least one piglet behind her.

OrHarriet stopped.

Her thoughts were made up of spaniels and piglets. She was so tedious that she bored herself. She was countrified, tedious, and melancholic.

She could feel her eyes getting dangerously hot. But she was tired of tears. Benjamin had died over two years ago. Shed wept when he died, and after. Wept more than she thought it was possible for a human body to cry. Wept, she realized now, from a mixture of grief and rage and mortification.

But her husband was gone, and she was stil here.

Dressing in Mother Goose costumes wouldnt bring him back. Sitting like a mouse at the side of the bal room wouldnt bring him back. Nothing would bring him back.

Yet what could she do? Widows were supposed to be dignified. Not only that, but she was a duchess. Given that Benjamins nephew, the current Duke of Berrow, was only eleven years old and stil at Eton, she wasnt even a dowager duchess. She was a duchess and a widow and a twenty-seven-year-old woman: and which of those three terms was the most depressing she couldnt even decide.

She swal owed hard. Could she bear to spend the rest of her life growing paler, as her hair faded and her shoulders stooped?

Would she merely watch other women seduce and entice, while she mused about fat piglets and loyal spaniels? A dog, no matter how loyal, is only a dog.

She couldnt spend the rest of her life clinging to the sides of bal rooms, dressed as the mother she wasnt and never would be.

She had to do something. Change her life! Start thinking about

About

Pleasure.

The word popped into her mind unexpectedly and stayed there, with al the gracious coolness of a drop of cool rain on a blistering day. Isidore was obviously enjoying herself, flirting with Beesby. He loved their dance.

Pleasure.

She could think about pleasure.

Her pleasure.

In Which the Geography of Pleasure is Dissected

H arriet found the Duchess of Beaumont and the Duchess of Coswayi.e, Jemma and Isidorein a smal parlor after a dismaying search of other rooms. Every alcove held a pair of heads, male and female. Every settee featured people paired off like robins in spring. Or, since it was a costume party, like a sailor and the Queen of Sheba.

She pasted a cheery Mother Goose type of smile on her face and kept saying mindless things like Oh, very sorry! Right then, Il justjust move along, shal I? The sailor didnt even look up when she walked into the yel ow salon. His head bent over the Queen of Shebas with such tenderness and possession that Harriet felt as if her heart would break in two.

She and Benjamin neverof course not. They had been a married couple, hadnt they? Married couples didnt kiss at bal s.

But had Benjamin ever kissed her like that? He used to kiss her in a brisk, affectionate manner. The way she kissed her spaniel.

You saved me! Isidore cried when Harriet final y located Jemma and Isidore in a smal sitting room. Lady Beesby would have eaten me for breakfast.

Darling, come and sit beside me; Im feeling blue, Jemma said, peering around the side of her chair. They were seated around the fire.

Harriet rounded the little circle and halted. Her least favorite acquaintance in the world, the Duke of Vil iers, lay on a settee just to the left of the hearth. He was recovering from an infection caused by a dueling wound, and his face was angular and pale.

Even so, one look at him made her feel every inch an unattractive, dumpy widow. His dressing gown was made of Italian silk, dark lavender embroidered with a delicate border of black tulips. It was exquisite, unexpected, and utterly beautiful.

I apologize, Your Grace, she said. I didnt realize you had left your chambers.

I was threatening to rise to my feet and dance the sara-band, he said, in his slightly drawling accent, so my dragonish valet final y al owed me to be near the festivities, if not part of them.

Harriet sat down stiffly, promising herself that she could leave within five minutes. She could plead a headache, she could say the fire was too hot for her, she could say that she had promised to meet someone in the bal roomAnything to get away from Vil iers.

As you entered, Harriet, Isidore announced, I was just saying that I have decided to create a scandal.