“I fear Your Grace will be sorely disappointed,” Isidore said. “As shall I, if you are forced to leave in the morning. I myself do not plan to leave for several days.”
He took her hand in his again and raised it to his lips, smiling. Harriet almost fell back a step.
“Ah, but sweetheart,” he said, his voice too low to be heard by Povy and the footmen, “I am all eagerness for our wedding.”
“We are wed,” Isidore said sharply. “You may have ignored that fact for years, but I assure you it is true.”
He shook his head. “We signed some papers, or at least I did. I’m not sure you were old enough to know your letters. As I said, I’ve come from a proper wedding. It lasted four days, or perhaps longer; it was hard to keep track of the days or the pleasures.”
“Indeed,” Isidore said. “How fortunate for you.”
“I spent the time thinking of you. And planning our wedding.”
She frowned.
“We are going to be married,” he told her. “As befits a princess—or in this case, a duchess who waited far too long for her duke to kiss her into life. Surely you feel as if you have been sleeping one hundred years?”
Isidore was silent. Harriet hardly took a breath, so fascinated was she by the charged sexuality that flared between them.
“I have never considered myself in need of a prince,” Isidore said, finally.
“I shall have to…persuade you of your need,” the duke said. And he smiled. He was by no means classically handsome, in an English sort of way. He had a big nose, and all that tumbling black hair, and that golden-dark skin. But Harriet realized her mouth had fallen open anyway.
“A wedding,” the duke said. “The kind of wedding celebrated in Gondar, from which I just returned. My mother is preparing the estate and invitations will be delivered all over England. We may have to send a special invitation to Mr. Cope, of course. For some reason I think my mother may not know his name.” His eyes slid to Harriet, and she realized with a start that she was simply standing there like a dunce.
“I would be honored,” she said weakly.
“You’ll forgive me for not taking your arm? Under the circumstances?” There was a devil laughing in those eyes.
Harriet fell back and bowed, and Cosway swept Isidore through the door into the drawing room. There was a moment of dead silence and then a clatter of tongues that she heard straight into the antechamber.
Chapter Thirty-one
In Which Lord Strange’s Reputation Takes a Strange Turn
February 20, 1784
The next night it started all over again—a table of half-drunk Oxford professors together with some odd and highly intelligent actors, Lord Pensickle and Mr. Nashe. Villiers came to dinner and stayed for port. Everyone talked of little other than the Duke of Cosway’s return, and the way he swept his duchess away to London after one evening at Fonthill.
“I suddenly realized something,” Harriet said to Jem. He was sprawled next to her in a chair. Now they had a routine. Once the ladies left he moved down the table and sat beside her without a word. It allowed him to do naughty things with his hands.
They felt happy sitting together. They never said it, but silence didn’t make it any the less true.
“What?” he asked lazily. He was watching Mr. Nashe play chess with Lord Pensickle. Pensickle was a little the worse for port, and kept picking up the wrong pieces and galloping them across the board.
“The only dissolute persons in your house are women.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Jem said. “Look at Villiers, for instance.”
“No, I mean it,” Harriet said. She looked around the room. There were perhaps twenty men around the table. Down to the left, two of the Oxford professors were chattering about a recent visit to the Duchess of Portland’s collection at Bulstrode Park. Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, was talking about something called a Banks Florilegium—and the need to raise funds for the project. His audience looked unconvinced. Nashe and Pensickle were playing chess.
Sullenly congregating in the drawing room (the ladies had made it clear that they did not approve of the new custom of separate evenings), were the Graces, Sophia Grafton and the rest.
“Your house gains its reputation from the women you invite.”
“That is true of any house,” Jem said, with a flash of anger in his eyes. “It’s one of life’s great unfairnesses. Mr. Avery, for example, maintains Mrs. Mahon in royal style. She’s doubtless out in the drawing room right now boasting about the little silver boxes he’s bought her. But is his reputation any the worse for it? No.”
“It’s grotesquely unfair.”
“The world is unfair,” Jem said. “Reputation is ephemeral and unfair. Why should the Duchess of Beaumont be famed for her liaisons and yet Mrs. Mahon be an outcast?”
“Jemma married before she had an affaire,” Harriet said, jumping to the defense of her childhood friend. “And then she didn’t stray until she found her husband on the desk with his mistress.”
“A bitter moment, I expect,” Jem said.
“Very!” Harriet said. “Did you maintain a mistress while married to Sally?”
“No. Sally was enough to keep me busy.”
Harriet spared a moment for a pulse of dislike for tall, slim, busy Sally.
“What are you two talking about?” Lord Pensickle said, raising his head from the chess board.
“Checkmate,” his opponent said.
Pensickle gave a little snort of disapproval and pushed away the board. “Every time I look across the table, you have your heads together.”
Harriet gave him a cool look. “We were actually discussing mistresses.”
“Don’t tell me you have one!” Pensickle said, with a guffaw. “I wouldn’t have thought your instrument was old enough to function.”
Harriet stiffened.
But before she could answer, Villiers cut in. “Now that is surely a matter of the pot calling the kettle black, Pensickle. According to the laments so widely distributed by your former mistress, you have some…difficulty there yourself. All due to age, no doubt!”
“I must say,” Jem said, “I found the poem published in Gentleman’s Magazine rather amusing myself. Though undoubtedly it had nothing to do with you, Pensickle. You have to admit, all those jokes about the pen that would cast no ink were clever.”
Pensickle’s eyes narrowed. “My pen has more than enough ink,” he flashed. “And at least I’m dippin’ in the right kind of inkwell, if you don’t mind the presumption, Strange.”
For a moment Harriet thought that Jem would leap across the table. There was a sudden calmness around his large body, but he just grinned.
“Villiers and I are educating Harry about the responsibilities of manhood, including lessons in proper treatment of the fair sex. Perhaps we’ll take you on next, though I doubt things would go as well. Harry, after all, has found himself in the favor of one of the Graces.”
That was true enough. Kitty was so saddened by the terrible accident that had befallen her darling Mr. Cope that she sought Harriet out at every possibility, hanging on her elbow and smiling sadly at her.
“It ain’t Harry’s inclinations that I’d question,” Pensickle said, pushing back from the table. “I think I’ll be going in the morning, Strange. I don’t mind the house being a little strange, but we all have our limits.”
“By all means,” Jem said, smiling at him. “Why don’t I ask my butler to help you now? No need to wait until morning. Just think. You might get lured into another game of chess and lose, or worse—one of the young ladies in the other room might request the use of your pen.”
Pensickle knocked over a chair on his way out the door.
Harriet felt a little sick. The table had gone stone silent, naturally, but now eased back into talk as if nothing had happened. She felt the nearness of Jem’s leg, even though he had turned away and was chatting with the man on his right.
; She turned to her left. Frederick Sanders gave her a queasy little smile and his eyes skittered away from hers. He was a middle-aged man with a cheerful red face and a parcel of coal mines, here to ask Jem to invest in coal.
As a matter of fact, Harriet had talked Jem out of the investment, based on the fact that the mines were dangerous for workers, but Sanders didn’t know that. He’d been perfectly friendly to her up to this moment.
Then Villiers, across the table, leaned forward. “Want to go for a walk, Harry?” he said, rising.
She gratefully rose as well. And left without saying goodbye to Jem, though what good that would do from a gossip point of view, she didn’t know.
“I need to start walking, or so my valet tells me,” Villiers said with a little sigh.
“You look much better than you did a few weeks ago,” Harriet said. All the footmen were standing around the corridor. How much could they have heard of Pensickle’s fury? Would he say something to his valet?
“I mend,” Villiers said. Povy bundled the duke into an enormous greatcoat, and Harriet shrugged into her own.
They walked out into the night. There was just a thin fall of powdery snow in the air. It came onto their hats, not seeming to fall as much as to suddenly appear with its chill greeting on lips and noses.
The windows of Fonthill spilled dusky orange-red light onto the snow. They walked silently to the opening of the great gates, and then Villiers paused, leaning against one of the pillars. “Damn, but I’m a husk of a man,” he said, a trace of an apology in his voice.
“So am I,” Harriet said. “Have I ruined his reputation forever, Villiers?”
“It would take an idiot not to know you are bedding each other.”
“I don’t see why!” Harriet cried, frustrated. “He rarely whispers anything to me, or touches me.”
“It’s in your eyes when you look at each other,” Villiers said. “But they’re a strange crew at Fonthill. Most of the women are here for the free bed and board, and they’ll not let a little thing like choice of bedfellow stand in their way of free champagne.”
“That’s—do you really think so?”
“They are hardly acquaintances of Strange’s,” Villiers said. “Sometimes he doesn’t even know the women’s names. I have no idea why he opens his house to every light-skirt who makes her way here, but he does.”
“Never to actual night-walkers,” Harriet objected.
“I suppose he has some standards,” Villiers said wryly. “The majority of them are fending for themselves—either as actresses or as sole practitioners, if I might employ the term.”
“That makes them more interesting than many ladies,” Harriet said.
“Exactly. If we’re discussing men,” Villiers said, “then yes, some of them are friends. There’s the Game, of course, but I actually think men chiefly like this house for intelligent conversation, in combination with cheerfully loose women.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“I’m not yet in a position to avail myself of female company,” he said, still leaning against the pillar.
Harriet threw back her head to look at the stars. Somewhere up there was the new planet, except it wasn’t truly new. It was just new to them. The stars looked cold and very far away.
“Should I leave?” she asked. And she held her breath, because she didn’t want to leave. She wanted—oh, so greedily—more days like these, full of vigorous exercise, vigorous argument, vigorous love-making.
“They’ll discover your true gender soon,” Villiers said. “And if they discover that you’re a duchess, Harriet, then the fat is truly in the fire. It would be disastrous—not for Strange. For you.”
“But it’s just a joke,” Harriet said feebly.
“I saw it that way. If it had been nothing more than a short masquerade, we could have carried it off. But I thought we were talking about a few days. Now it’s a matter of time. The way Strange looks at you…”
“Damn,” Harriet said, heartfelt.
“You haven’t told him who you really are, have you?”
Harriet shook her head.
“He won’t take it well. And, Harriet, the longer you conceal your rank, the more he will see your revelation as a betrayal.”
“I tried to tell him,” Harriet said, near tears. “I couldn’t…I’ll leave.”
“After telling him the truth, I hope. He deserves that.” Villiers had a touch of a smile on his mouth. “How lucky you are.”
“To be so close to complete loss of reputation?” she asked, startled.
“I would pay for such intoxication. I might give up the final shards of my reputation for it. Give yourself one final day to savor. Leave the following day.”
And he began to walk back to the house, favoring his right side, moving slowly.
But Harriet stayed behind, staring at Villiers’s back through the thin, icy veil of snow. She couldn’t squash the hope in her breast.
Surely, surely, Jem would not be able to see her go. They separated during the days, of course. She read in her bedchamber or played with Eugenia.
But when they came together it was with such joy, such intellectual curiosity, such—physical pleasure. Surely he would not just watch her go.
The idea of waving goodbye was as bitter as the faraway stars.
He would tell her that it didn’t matter who she was. He would follow her. Eugenia and he would follow. He would say goodbye to his guests, and come to her estate.
Surely he would.
Chapter Thirty-two
Double the Pleasure
February 21, 1784
The next day the snow was gone, and the day was clear and cold.
“Riding?” Jem asked, glancing at her when she entered the breakfast room.
She gave him a slight nod, and then turned to greet Kitty. Kitty dragged her over to the side of the room. “I heard all about it!” she said in a thrilled whisper. “I know you must be feeling terrible, but don’t. I told everyone that you weren’t a molly.”
“Oh. Good,” Harriet said.
“You know what a molly is, don’t you?” Kitty asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“It’s what that foolish Pensickle thought you were. As if he’s one to talk! We all know about him. Anyway, I told them—” she leaned over and whispered in Harriet’s ear.
“Really?” Harriet exclaimed. “You—”
“Not only that but that you made myself and Roslyn happy. Roslyn thinks you are perfectly adorable, and she’s so sad about what happened to you. She’s telling everyone about last night. Roslyn is the muse of lyric poetry, you know, and she can really tell a lively story.” Kitty giggled.
“On the same night?”
“Together! You had been only mine, but last night you were so mortified by those horrid untruths that you surpassed yourself!”
“Goodness,” Harriet said, rather faintly.
Kitty kissed her cheek. “I’m your friend, Harry, forever. Don’t forget that.” She went back to her seat.
Jem rose to leave, but paused for a second. The memory of what happened in the middle of the night flashed between them, and Harriet felt herself turning pink. In the dark they had pleasured each other until they were breathless, begging, taking turns with sweet torment…
“From what I hear, I should be taking lessons from you in manhood,” Jem said, his voice just loud enough so that it could be heard by the room.
There was a stifled burst of giggles from Kitty’s direction.
Harriet grinned at him. “There are times when youth is an advantage,” she said. “Perhaps I could give you a few pointers.”
“Ouch!” Jem said, and everyone started laughing.
It would be all right, Harriet thought, sitting down with weak knees. All the men were grinning at her. No one’s eyes danced away; no one looked uneasy. Frankly, they all looked envious. She squared her shoulders and accepted a slab of roast beef, hardly cooked, from the footman.
Breakfast passed in a flash. Kitty giggled every time she looked at Harriet and so did Roslyn, who kept giving Harriet slow winks.
Sanders came in, and sat down at Harriet’s side. “Heard about last night,” he said, under cover of the conversation. “We all should have known that Pensickle was uttering rot. Everyone knows about the man’s capabilities in that direction. Jealous, no doubt.”
Harriet murmured something.
“Had a brother with a friend of that persuasion,” Sanders confided.
Harriet really wished he wouldn’t.
But Sanders was done with that topic and onto another. “When I was a youngster, I would have loved to get up to the sort of high jinks you engaged in last night.” He eyed Kitty in a toothy sort of way. “Married too young, that’s what happened to me.”
He thumped Harriet on the back so suddenly that she choked on a mouthful of beef. “You’re doing it the right way, Cope. Spread your wild oats, and spread ’em wide, I say.”
“Thank you, sir,” Harriet said.
It was a relief to escape. By the time she’d negotiated all the winks and thumps from men, and all the giggles and veiled invitations from women, she was so tired that she felt like going back to bed.
Instead she pulled on her riding breeches and trailed outdoors to the stable. The day had started clear but was beginning to look gray again, with a hint of snow.
“We’re actually working today,” Jem said, when she walked in. Nick was waiting for her, holding her horse. “We’re going out to check the north stables and make sure all’s snug and tight. My stable master thinks we may need to buy some grain to make it through the winter.”
Harriet swung up on the saddle with a little puff. She was a much better rider now, and she didn’t think that the tender ache in her thighs could be put down to riding astride.