Since he seemed to love to see her shudder, she obliged him a few times, and then she and Damon left the room again.
The last thing she heard before she left was Mr. Cunningham’s quiet voice saying, “You’re asleep now, Teddy.”
“Interestingly enough, I didn’t hear Teddy disagreeing with Mr. Cunningham’s statement,” Roberta commented once they were in the corridor.
“Ransom has a way of telling Teddy what to do that I find very instructive,” Damon said. “I played spindlesticks with my son this afternoon and I’m afraid he showed rather less than gentlemanly manners when he lost the game. So I told him that he was ashamed of himself, in a very Ransom-esque manner, and Teddy burst into tears and agreed with me. It was all very satisfactory. Of course, it didn’t stop him throwing the spindles across the room the very next game.”
“Mr. Cunningham must have had a great many siblings,” Roberta said, not without a twinge of jealousy.
“Would you like to have many children?”
“I’ve never thought about it. I don’t know very much about children. I have to confess that I found Teddy’s gum truly stomach-turning.”
“Children are often stomach-turning,” Damon said gloomily.
“You are a very good father.” She hesitated. “How did you come to bring Teddy into your household?”
He looked down at her, his eyes dark green in the dim light. “His grandmother brought him to me. I took one look at him and, as they say, that was that.”
Roberta was longing to ask about Teddy’s mother, but didn’t quite dare. And she felt dimly ashamed of herself as well. Would she have done the same for Teddy? The thought made her feel shallow and—
Damon took her hand. “There’s no explaining it until you have one of your own,” he said. “It was a moment of madness. If I tell you that his grandmother handed over an infant with a soggy nappy…does that demonstrate just how remarkably deranged I became?”
“Yes,” she said. But she didn’t think he sounded deranged.
“What would you like to do now?” Damon asked. “Shall we rejoin the party or shall we do something utterly scandalous like walking in the garden?”
“No one will even notice that we are absent,” she said rather sourly.
“I must admit that the young lady whom Jemma presumably invited to be my escort shows little interest in my company.” His tone was so funny that Roberta started laughing. “She is spending the evening hanging on every word that has dropped from Beaumont’s lips, though it doesn’t seem to bother my sister.”
“No,” Roberta said. “I’m afraid it doesn’t. How the mighty are fallen. I’m sure you were introduced to me as the gentleman whom all marriageable maidens desired…except, it seems, Miss Tatlock.”
“And you.”
“I’m not marriageable anymore,” Roberta pointed out. “I’m engaged to the man currently playing a game of chess for the right to your sister’s bed.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that!”
But Damon was laughing. “That’s calling a spade a spade.” He seemed to be steering her outside, but the last thing Roberta wanted was to walk about under the smudgy London sky smelling of coal smoke. Besides, what Damon likely wanted was to push her against a tree and kiss her senseless, and she saw no reason why that couldn’t happen in more pleasant surroundings. In fact…
“Wait here a moment!” she said, and flew back up the stairs.
Two seconds later she was back, a box tucked under her arm.
Damon looked at it, and then his eyes widened.
“I believe,” Roberta said, “there is a chess game going on in the ballroom. Shall we take the library, or perhaps my chamber?” She knew full well that the diabolical smile in his eyes was echoed on the edges of her mouth.
“A friendly game of dominoes between cousins?” he enquired.
“Dollymop dominoes,” she said firmly. “I’ve heard it’s played in all the best households.”
“I”—he said, leaning over and taking the box from her—“have made it one of my lifetime missions never to disappoint a family member.”
“Then you’ll need to show me a game that’s truly superior,” she said, making her voice into a purr and feeling a thrill at her own sophistication. “And not just your skills at the game either.”
“I live to please,” he said.
And since his voice brought back to mind an image of a beautifully defined chest, muscles rippling as he threw a cowpat, Roberta had no doubt but that his reputation would be unflawed by a vigorous game of dominoes.
Chapter 28
Jemma was a trifle irritated. She and Villiers played a side game of chess, but it was over almost before it began. Villiers set two traps for her simultaneously. She saw the chance to capture his bishop, but missed the chance to capture his knight. Either way, she lost her queen.
The moment she rose from the table, Harriet pulled her over to a small sofa. “Things are going so well,” she said happily.
“They could be better,” Jemma replied. If she had moved her knight to Queen’s Bishop Three in the fourth round…
“I don’t mean the particular game,” Harriet said. “I mean your strategy. Villiers is set to be married. It was such a brilliant twist to invite your husband to play a game at the same time.”
“I didn’t invite him; Beaumont challenged me.”
“Challenged you! Perhaps he is hoping that your marriage will improve.”
Jemma shrugged. “I take one look at his John the Baptist face and I feel the weight of every one of my sins. There’s no possibility of that.”
Harriet hesitated. “You wouldn’t fall in love with Villiers, would you? I should feel terrible if I led you into something that might hurt you.”
Jemma laughed. “You think that Villiers will cause some overset of my reason?”
“I don’t know. I still feel such shame about the night that I—that I gave in to him,” Harriet whispered. “It’s almost as if Benjamin died that night.”
“Listen to me,” Jemma said, leaning forward. “You did not betray Benjamin. You were close to it, but that is not the same. I know. I’ve betrayed Beaumont several times, though never before he did so to me. And the first time was shocking.”
“Do you know what grips me to the heart?” Harriet said. “What if Villiers told Benjamin? What if—”
“Benjamin did not end his life because of a stolen kiss in a carriage,” Jemma snapped, truly alarmed at the strained look in Harriet’s eyes.
“But what if he did? What if Villiers did not tell the truth of that evening?”
“Do you accuse Villiers of embellishing his account?”
Harriet’s eyes were agonized. “What if he did?”
“I don’t think it of him. He is not an unscrupulous player, nor is he a canny one. His play is actually similar to mine, which is why I will win the match.”
“I know it’s petty, but would you dedicate the match to Benjamin? No one talked of the fact that Villiers drove Benjamin to it. No one.”
“I will do my best,” Jemma said. “Please don’t worry, Harriet. Would you like me to ask Villiers if he spoke to Benjamin about you?”
“Of course not!”
“Chess is the most intimate game in the world. It’s like making love. By the time we finish our first slow game, I will know all his thoughts.”
“What’s different about a slow game from a quick one?”
“I think about his move, and my move, all day long,” Jemma said. “It lurks in the back of my mind, a hundred intriguing possibilities. I shall know him to the core when this game is finished, let alone when we have played out a match.”
“Good,” Harriet said. “Stab him in the back!”
“Bloodthirsty wench.”
“The engagement went off just as you planned,” Harriet said, changing the subject. “But you’re right about Damon. I had a hard time getting him to stop looking at Roberta for all of five minutes.”
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Jemma frowned. “My brother is so used to being chased by marriageable maidens that I’m afraid he can’t quite accept the fact that Roberta thinks herself in love with Villiers.”
“Does she?” Harriet was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry for her.”
“I’m not. Being in love is great fun, don’t you think? It may not last forever, but she’s enjoying herself.”
“I don’t know,” Harriet said sadly. “I have only been in love with Benjamin, and now I’m so angry at him that it poisons all my memories. Isn’t that awful, Jemma? To be so angry at someone who is dead?”
“I am angry at him too. He should never have treated you so lightly. Nor life either. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t love him, Harriet.”
Harriet’s eyes were all shiny with tears, but she gave Jemma a kiss and made her way out into the darkness. The door of the carriage slammed shut and it moved off through the fog, the sound of horses’ hooves growing indistinct immediately.
Of course she would win. True, Villiers had beaten her today, in a very pretty stratagem. But she would win the match.
Jemma went inside, but when Fowle stepped back, thinking she would rejoin her guests in the ballroom, she shook her head and asked Fowle to give her excuses. She had seen enough of Miss Tatlock giggling at her husband’s every word. Roberta and Damon had disappeared at some point, possibly together, which was a complication she didn’t want to consider. And frankly, a little of Mrs. Grope’s company was more than enough, although her tip about using ceruse to prevent wrinkles was interesting.
What she would prefer would be to work through a few of Francesch Vicent’s 100 Chess Problems. She headed up the stairs.
Forty minutes later she was bathed and wrapped in a comfortable dressing gown, with her hair bundled up in a towel. “You may go, Brigitte.”
“Your hair, Your Grace,” Brigitte said. “It will dry with curls in it.”
But Jemma was seated before her chess board, with a glass of French brandy and her copy of Vicent. She smiled apologetically, and Brigitte (who had strong views about the supreme importance of appearance) banged her way out of the room.
“Come in!” Jemma called impatiently, an hour later, or it might have been two. She expected a weary maid, but instead her husband stood there, looking as perfectly groomed and attired as he had at the beginning of the evening.
“Beaumont,” she said, moving her bishop. “Is there something I can do for you?”
He walked over and looked down at her book. “Vicent?” he asked. “I haven’t thought about that book in years. Villiers and I worked our way straight through it at some point.”
Which was all the more reason for Jemma to do just the same if she meant to beat Villiers as soundly as she wished. Not to mention Beaumont himself.
He sat down without being asked. “What about moving your rook to King’s Four?”
“Two moves with his rook and I would be in check. Are you thinking of setting up that young woman as your next mistress?”
He raised his head from the board, and the look in his eyes almost made Jemma flinch.
“She’s a well-bred young woman,” she said. “I thought you hoped to avoid a scandal.”
“I have no need of a mistress.”
Heat scorched Jemma’s spine. “Of course not,” she said, nodding. “I was not implying that the position was open, but I didn’t expect such loyalty on your part. Your mistress is still with you, then?” She schooled her face to an expression of benign enquiry.
“She is not.”
“But she’s been replaced. You soothe my spirits, Beaumont. Watching you with Charlotte Tatlock I feared that you were about to flare into true scandal.”
His mouth barely moved when he spoke. “I am not intending anything untoward with Miss Tatlock. I merely enjoy speaking to her about politics. She is, you see, interested in what goes on in England.”
She gave him a faint smile. “Unusual in a woman.”
“Quite.”
Without looking at the board again, he said, “Queen to King’s Three and you have him in four moves.”
She frowned at the board, saw what he was talking about. “Not if black moves his rook to block me.”
“It’s possible, but it’s the only move I see that will open up your board.”
“You like it because it counters black’s attack,” she said.
“I dislike finding myself under attack, it’s true. At the moment, I am one move away from open warfare on a number of fronts.”
“Due entirely to my return from Paris?”
“Immanent scandal,” he said. “I now house a woman of ill repute and an illegitimate child, and my last ball featured a nearly naked Helen whose songs were hardly proper. My wife is widely believed to be playing a game with the Duke of Villiers, in which she herself is the prize.”
She felt anger sweeping up her spine, making her head reel. “You simply wish everything to be kept silent, is that it? You have your mistress, and flirt with a young unmarried lady until she looks at you with stars in her eyes, but that’s not a scandal, because to you neither woman matters. All I do, Beaumont, is live my life without hypocrisy. Perhaps that is something a politician cannot understand.”
“You live your life with the easy arrogance of someone who has never cared a damn for anything or anyone except yourself.” His tone was crushingly blunt. “I suppose you care for chess, Jemma, but from what I gathered, you never really gave a damn for those men you partnered in Paris.”
She sprang to her feet. “How dare you suggest that I didn’t care for them? You know nothing of my relations!”
“I know you were sleeping with Monsieur Philidor for a matter of years,” he said, rising in his turn. “I could only hope there was no payment involved; his regular visits to your house suggested a relation embellished by francs.”
“How dare you!” she cried. “Philidor—”
“I really don’t wish to know what Philidor was to you. Let’s just assume that I underestimated your ability for emotion and you care a great deal for the man. Should I, as your husband, applaud that?”
“Let me see if I can get this straight. You are suggesting that Philidor was my courtesan? Forgive me; I don’t know the correct term for a male. Paramour, perhaps. Could I ask exactly how my taking a paramour would differ from your relation with Sarah Cobbett?”
And when he didn’t reply, “It’s only been eight years, Beaumont. Surely you remember the name of your former mistress?”
“I am merely surprised that you know it,” he said.
“Believe me,” she said with a shrug, “there were many people happy to tell me all her circumstances after I realized the truth of our marriage. Did you think to keep it secret?”
And when he said nothing, “I see you did. How very odd. Even had I not discovered the two of you in such an awkward way, someone would have told me in the near future. I found myself glad of it, afterwards. Do you know: I was so stupid and young, that I might not have believed it without visual proof? I don’t believe I would have understood that you might bound from my bed to hers—at least figuratively, since you bedded her on a desk.”
She was possessed by an icy fury that no one except her husband had ever inspired in her. “That is quite different from you, Beaumont. You have no difficulty whatsoever believing that Philidor was somehow in my employ, even though you never saw me lying beneath him.”
“That’s enough.”
“Since you show so much curiosity, I will reward you with the gift of information. I have never paid a gentleman for his favors; unlike you, I seem to be lucky enough to attract lovers who need no payment. And I have never led on a man who did not understand the game at hand. Perhaps you are blind enough that you did not see the way Charlotte Tatlock looked at you tonight. I don’t know why I was so surprised. Surely I could simply look back at myself eight years ago and recognize her stupidity.”
“Those are harsh words.”
?
??I am sure that you will be able to dismiss my criticism of your private life. It caused you no distress in the past.”
“If you will forgive me,” he said, “I have many appointments tomorrow morning.”
She fell into a deep curtsy. “Good night, Your Grace.”
He bowed, and was gone.
Jemma stood for a moment, chest heaving with rage, and then pulled on the cord. Brigitte appeared a few minutes later, correctly interpreting that angry peal as commanding haste.
“Tell Fowle that you will deliver the chess moves to him every night,” Jemma said. She scribbled on a piece of paper. “Here are the moves so far. There are perhaps four days left in each game, possibly longer in Beaumont’s case. I don’t suppose that Villiers is still in the house?”
Brigitte dropped a curtsy. “If you please, my lady, he has been partnering Miss Charlotte in a game of whist with the marquess and Lord Corbin, and they are just leaving now.”
Charlotte Tatlock? Why not? Why shouldn’t the woman play with both Beaumont and Villiers? It made sense in a queer sort of way.
“Ask him to step upstairs, if you would,” she said.
Brigitte was far too wise to ask any questions. She dropped into a curtsy and left the room before Jemma could say another word.
Jemma swept the chessboard clean and sat down to wait for Villiers.
Chapter 29
In the end, they settled in a small sitting room, the same one to which Jemma had first brought Roberta. Damon rang the bell while Roberta wandered over to say hello to Judith’s foolish, tipsy face, but she had been removed.
“If we’re going to drink,” Damon said, “and since it’s an essential part of dollymop dominoes, we are, you should eat something. You didn’t touch your food at supper.”
“I’m not fond of ornate food,” Roberta said. “I would grow very thin living with a French cook.”
“You prefer apples and hard-boiled eggs?”
“Not that, but our cook at home is gifted at simple dishes.”