“On Strange’s part?”
“If he bothers to invite people, shouldn’t he take the time to greet them when they arrive?”
“I suppose so.”
“A juggling troupe arrived yesterday. I gather they are attached in some fashion to a theater he owns in London. This troupe is a group of boisterous lads who have no place in a formal sitting room. They weren’t even properly dressed. And yet he was trying to pretend they belonged there.”
“What did they think of the sitting room?”
“They were delighted by the ale,” Isidore said. “And they complimented him on the bubble-and-squeak served at dinner. I was not offered that dish, to the best of my knowledge.”
“I think it’s rather admirable,” Harriet said.
“Why?” Isidore asked baldly.
“Because he doesn’t decide who his guests should be simply on what kind of family they come from or what position they hold in society.”
“Then why not open a hotel? I myself have never stayed in a hotel, due to my mother-in-law’s fixed conviction that ladies don’t belong in paying establishments. But I was forcefully reminded of a hotel last night. Or perhaps a brothel, to call a spade a spade. I saw a great deal of glee resulting from Strange’s free food, together with a certain thirsty appreciation of the Graces.”
“When would you like to leave?” Harriet asked, knowing precisely where this conversation was heading.
“Do you think tomorrow morning would show an unbecoming eagerness? Everyone at breakfast was cheerfully comparing rat bite stories they knew. I don’t want to acquire such intimate knowledge of the animal kingdom.”
“Could we wait another day?” Harriet asked. “I have engaged to deliver notes to Strange on the behalf of Nell, and I should do the last couplet tomorrow.”
“I am so staid compared to you. You’re actually engaged in wooing Strange, albeit for another woman. It sounds Shakespearean.”
“Perhaps I should inform Nell that Strange has a mistress.”
“Do you think that she would care?” There was a snap in Isidore’s voice.
“Perhaps not,” Harriet admitted.
“I do not care for the slip-shod manner in which these people conduct their social affairs.”
“It’s not so different from Jemma,” Harriet said defensively. “At least, from what we heard of Jemma’s affaires when she was living in Paris.”
“There’s a world of difference. Yes, Jemma had a liaison or two. But she didn’t have this careless, pleasure-for-the-sake-of-it attitude. You know, Harriet, I never think much about my husband, Cosway. Why would I? I don’t know the man. But now I realize that if he is like Strange I simply won’t be able to countenance it.”
“Like Strange?” Harriet’s heart thumped. To have a husband like Strange…with that wild beauty of his, with the way he smiled, with the lean muscles, the laughter in his eyes, the pure brilliance…
“Exactly. Never knowing whose bed he might be in. I suppose Strange will take up Nell on her offer. I gather it is for a night’s pleasure and not marriage.” Her tone was scathing.
“Yes,” Harriet said. “Though she has ambitions to marry him.”
“He’ll never marry her. No man would marry a woman who allowed him to bed her.”
“You can’t say that for certain,” Harriet protested. “I know of many ladies whose first child came with suspicious haste.”
“After the marriage had been arranged.”
“Not in all cases,” Harriet said.
“Well,” Isidore said, “as I said, I’m becoming hidebound. I’m turning into one of those fierce old duchesses who thinks everyone is immoral.” She hunched her shoulders. “I simply don’t enjoy this kind of gathering. I was approached last night—”
“About the brandied apricots?”
“It was the jugglers. They became very drunk at some point. I was sitting at the side of the room with one of the Graces discussing French letters—in which I have no interest, Harriet, I assure you—and a couple of them came over, looked at us and said, ‘I am very drunk, lay me down and roll me to a whore.’ My companion thought this was remarkably funny. She giggled and giggled.”
“Oh, Isidore, I’m sorry.”
“Then they started comparing us. One of them said I looked like a virgin, and the Grace giggled at that. Then the other laughed and told me to lie down and he would feese me. Do you know what that means, Harriet?”
“No.”
“He said that he would lie with me tonight, and his friend could have me tomorrow. And do you know, I think the Grace was a little peeved? She wanted those drunken fools to desire her.”
“Oh, Isidore,” Harriet said. “That’s awful! How did you get away?”
“The drunker one grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. I was so stupid, I couldn’t think of anything to say or do.”
Harriet wound an arm around Isidore’s shoulders.
“Luckily he fell down. He just lay there.”
“Where was Strange?”
Isidore shrugged. “Mr. Povy appeared and they swore at him and said he was full of fleas. Povy didn’t seem too bothered by this, and he got two footmen to drag them away.”
“All in a day’s work,” Harriet said dismally.
“I want to go home,” Isidore stated.
Harriet gave her a hug. “We’ll go tomorrow morning. I’ll give Strange the rest of the poem in one fell swoop. You ask Lucille to pack our things, and we’ll be off.”
“I’m sorry. I know you’re enjoying being a man.”
“It couldn’t last forever.”
It was like everything else in life. Nothing lasted forever.
Chapter Twenty-three
Of Ladies, Amazons, Whoremongers, and Prickles
Harriet copied out the last lines of Nell’s poem for Strange and perfumed the stationery before taking her bath. She sat in the hot water for a long while, thinking over the last week.
She was changed forever—but that wasn’t necessarily bad. She couldn’t stay a man. But she could change her life. Never again would she sit for two hours while her maid built her hair into a towering set of false curls. She would never wear ruffles again either. A mantua maker could fashion her comfortable clothing, fit to the body, though made for a woman. She might even bribe Villiers’s tailor into making her a gown or two.
And she would continue to learn how to fight with the rapier, even though women never did such a thing.
Finally, and this was crucial, she would like to have a child. A child meant a husband. It meant going to London and attending the balls she loathed.
Surely she could find a man who was interesting and intelligent. The picture in her mind was alarmingly familiar, clever and pale, but she threw that thought away. Strange was part of this bizarre, wonderful little interlude. And that was all.
She pulled on her breeches for the last time, helped Lucille wind strips of cloth around her breasts, pulled a white shirt over her head. Then she walked into the portrait gallery and looked for Eugenia.
“She’s not here,” a deep voice said from the corner. Jem was leaning over a glass case. The top was up.
“What are you doing?” she asked, coming to join him.
“Removing this chess set.”
He was taking them out, one by one, and placing them on top of the cabinet. They were carved little pieces of fantasia, each piece with its own expression.
“Look at the black queen,” Harriet said. “She looks as angry as my cook when the fish is off.” The black queen had her hands on her hips. She had a fantastic headdress, made of a delicate ball carved with openings, inside of which was another ball, and inside that another.
Jem looked at her over his shoulder, his dark eyes faintly smiling. “I hardly know the look on my cook’s face at the best of times. Now I think of it, there’s a chef down in my kitchens.”
“Well, this is what my cook looks like at the worst of times,” Harriet said. The black quee
n’s lip was curled, and she appeared to have just stamped her foot. “Why are you removing them?”
“I’m sending them to London,” Jem said. “I’ll give them to the Duchess of Beaumont. She once expressed interest in them.”
“Really? They’re so beautiful. My—” Harriet bit back the words. Benjamin would have loved the set, but Mr. Cope had no husband, dead or otherwise.
“I’d give them to you, but they’re cursed.”
Harriet laughed.
“I bought them from a Moroccan prince visiting London,” Jem said, as if he didn’t hear her laugh. “He told me that anyone who owns the set will never be happy in love. He called it an anger board.”
“That’s absurd,” Harriet said.
“I thought so too, but I broke up the set by selling the white queen, just in case,” Jem said. “And now I’ve decided to get rid of the whole set. I’ve seen a lot of queer things and I’ve learned not to trust my own sense of reality.”
“Given the way your tower stays upright,” Harriet said, “I believe you.”
All the little pieces were out of the case now. The kings had their fists in the air and seemed to be screaming war cries. The bishops had odd masks pushed up over their heads. The look on their faces would make one shiver. She picked up a pawn, only to find that he was carrying a lance that poked her in the hand.
“I’ll leave these for Povy to pack up,” Jem said.
“Don’t send them to Jemma,” Harriet said. “Sell them instead.”
He turned around. “So you believe in the curse?”
When Jem smiled it did something to her stomach. Her much-vaunted commonsense told her to run. Her heart told her to smile back. Maybe even lie back.
The company must be addling her brain. Before long she’d be sending men bits of erotic poetry. Which reminded her, so she pulled the perfumed sheet of paper out of her pocket.
“Just a minute,” Jem said. He was getting ready for their match, pulling off his jacket, rolling his sleeves up muscled arms. All this male beauty was bound up in the sense of freedom she’d had this week—but that was a mirage, not real life.
She could find a gentleman to marry. Anyone who wanted children, and had a decent personality.
Jem raised an eyebrow when he read the full verse.
My body is but little,
So is the nightingale’s
I love to sleep against prickle
So doth the nightingale.
And if you’d like to know my name,
You’ll find me wearing a veil—
And nothing else!
“A veil sounds ominously like a proposal of marriage,” he said, tossing the sheet away.
“It believe the word offers a clue to your correspondent’s name,” Harriet said.
“I can’t imagine who that might be.”
He knew who it was. He knew Nell’s last name was Gale. But he was pulling off his boots, not looking up.
“Do you receive many letters of this sort?” she asked.
“No. I fancy the cleverness of it is to your credit. I do receive many propositions, generally more boldly phrased.”
“Why?”
He looked at her, eyebrow raised. “You may not credit this, Harry, being as you’re a prettier man than most of the women out there, but women do find me attractive.”
“I’m not pretty!” Harriet protested.
“Unfortunately, you are,” he said flatly. “Just look at the effect you had on poor Kitty. And it’s not as if she hasn’t had many to choose from.”
“She didn’t write me any letters.”
The way he looked at her made her feel like a fool and a king at the same time. And a woman, through and through.
You’re a man, Harriet told herself. Remember you’re a man.
“I’m not sure how good Kitty is with her letters,” Jem said. “If you’d like, I could help her. The way you helped my little nightingale come up with rhyming words.”
Harriet opened her mouth to deny it and then sighed. “Well, aren’t you the least bit tempted? That’s the first poetry I’ve written in years.”
“By the nightingale? No. But I’m shocked by you. Who would have thought you knew words like prickle? Or could employ them so…usefully?”
Harriet felt herself growing a little pink. “I know all sorts of words.”
“You’ll have to give me a vocabulary lesson one of these days,” Jem said dryly. “I’m sure I could use instruction.”
“Surely your mistress could do that service for you,” Harriet said, before she caught back the words.
His answer came a few heartbeats too late, after she’d had time to think about what a fool she was. “I don’t have one,” he said.
Harriet had her masculinity firmly in grip now. “Every gentleman has a bit of muslin,” she said. “You needn’t lie to me, Strange.”
“Call me Jem,” he said with emphasis. “My name is Jem. No mistress. I had one for a while a few years ago, but she wanted to meet Eugenia. That wasn’t going to happen.”
“Has Eugenia recovered from last night?” Harriet asked.
“Yes. Her governess has been dismissed, and so has the footman who was supposed to be at her door. Povy discovered they were spending the night together in a knife closet, of all places. Are you ready to fence, Mr. Cope?”
It seemed to Harriet that Jem’s eyes gleamed when he said Mr. Cope, as if he relished the sound of it, but she said nothing. Just went to the side of the room and hauled off her boots. For once, it was warm in the gallery when she stripped off her coat.
“Did you see that I had a brazier brought in?” he called to her.
Sure enough, a fat iron-wrought pot sat to the side, radiating heat.
“I’m trying to keep Eugenia warm. But then she decided not to join us.”
“Good,” Harriet said rather absently. She had just realized that she had a blister on her right palm from practicing so long the previous night. It hurt to grasp the rapier.
“What’s the matter?” Jem said instantly.
“Nothing,” she said, gripping her weapon. “En garde, sir.”
He fell into position, that long muscled body such an elegant pleasure to look at that Harriet made herself turn her head.
“Never turn your eyes from your opponent,” he said sharply.
Obediently, she looked again. “I’ll show you an envelopment today,” he murmured. “Watch me.”
He held his rapier in his right hand, brought it up in a graceful looping arch, swung it around, slid it under, and lunged forward.
“Again,” she said, memorizing the way his arm came up, the way his other arm flew out in balance, keeping his body in perfect symmetry.
He did it again.
“Like this?” She tried it but knew something was wrong. Her arm went too high and then came down at a sharp angle.
“You’re terrifyingly good at this,” he remarked. “I didn’t get that far for hours when I first learned.”
She didn’t believe that, but her voice died in her throat. He was behind her again, reaching around her body to show her where to begin the motion, his long muscular arm lying against hers. She swallowed. His body touched hers, like a flash of fire, like a promise forgotten, and her whole body flamed in response.
“Now you try,” he said, coming in front of her again. He looked utterly unmoved. Well, of course he did: he thought he was teaching Harry Cope how to fence! The thought steadied Harriet. At least Jem could have no idea how his touch made her tremble. It was a humiliating secret—but it was a secret.
She tried the move. Tried it again while his keen eyes watched her. He stopped her, showed her again, demonstrating what she’d done wrong. After twenty minutes, she’d forgotten that his touch made her heart race. She was too possessed by the idea of reproducing the exact movements he was showing her. And twenty minutes after that—she had it.
“Perfect!” he said, his eyes smiling at her.
Just like that, h
er body turned liquid, longing, female. Everything about her felt female: soft, curved, luxurious.
“What an odd expression you have on your face,” he murmured. “You don’t mind if I pull off my shirt, do you, Harry? I seem to have become quite heated with all this exercise.”
He had the kind of body that Harriet had only seen on laboring men. Not noblemen. Noblemen had slightly sagging physiques like Benjamin, the bodies of men who spent the evenings drinking copious amounts of brandy and playing chess.
Not Lord Strange.
Not Jem.
He looked as if he belonged in the golden light of a wheat field, swinging a scythe overhead. His chest looked powerful. Useful, as if a woman could throw herself there and—
Useful? Was she losing her mind?
“Harry?” Jem asked with a look of concern. “Are you all right? Let me see that hand.”
He walked over and unfortunately the effect of his naked chest near hers sucked all the air out of her lungs and Harriet couldn’t even protest as he uncurled her fingers. All right, she had a blister. But who would have thought she would be so affected by a muscled male body?
The very thought made her face burn. If she didn’t watch out, she’d end up hanging over the rail and watching her own men scythe the fields. Like a hungry old maid.
Unless, a traitorous little voice in the back of her mind said, unless you—
“This is quite a blister you have forming,” Jem said. “We need to wrap it up and keep it clean.”
“Yes, I’d better go do that,” she said with relief, skipping back a step. If she was losing her mind and turning into a bawdy widow out of a ballad, she would prefer to do it in the privacy of her bedchamber.
“No need,” he said. He went out to the corridor and bawled “Povy, water! Soap!”
“He won’t hear you,” Harriet said.
“Of course he will. You sit there and watch me while I show you the next move.”
Watch him? It was like some sort of torture, but not torture that Harriet ever dreamed of. Whatever this emotion was, it wasn’t one that belonged to Harriet. Plain, country Harriet didn’t feel surges of longing that practically brought her to her knees.