When the Silchester chapter opens, Imogen already knows—inside—that Gabe in the mustache is not the real Gabe. She’s been showered in hints, from their kisses, to Cristobel’s recognition of Rafe, to the moments I’ve already pointed out. But she just doesn’t listen to herself very carefully.
In the beginning of this chapter, it’s Josie who almost figures it out—even though Josie has had nothing to do with the fake Gabe. She starts talking about how “good an actor” Gabe must be. And that page is followed directly by Imogen thinking about what a good actor RAFE is. She had actually asked him that afternoon how on earth he memorized his lines so quickly.
On page 294, she’s thinking about the kiss she shared with Rafe—and the way he looked at her at supper. “And yet,” she thinks, “did he say anything to her? Show by the slightest gesture or phrase that he wished to kiss her again, or—or anything? No.” Significantly, that’s Rafe and Rafe’s kiss she’s thinking about, not Gabe and the Cristobel scene.
The supposed “Gabe” laughs on the way to the carriage and Imogen thinks that “it was uncanny how much he sounded like Rafe.” This chapter is still dealing with the theme of disguise. I followed the Cristobel scene with a pantomime, because there too the actors are in disguise—and I wanted the really outrageous ones to be front and center: a man dressed as a woman.
On 302 comes a crucial line: “She could feel the calluses on his hands from gripping the reins of a hard-driving horse.” And that realization is followed directly by Rafe saying that he’s been thinking about kissing Imogen all day and Imogen gasping “You never showed—”
Relate her gasp to the moment above when she thought about Rafe not showing a sign of wishing to kiss her again.
She knows that she’s talking to Rafe and she almost blurted it out right there.
That’s why she says “Oh,” rather foolishly, on the next page.
She has realized who he is, and she knows he’s going to seduce her . . . and that she’s going to allow it to happen with Rafe—because it is Rafe. This is why the language changes on page 303 to a rather vague description: “Why else but that she could be seduced, and her companion allowed the liberties he would have had the night before . . .”
My use of the word “companion” is a clue that Imogen knows who that “companion” is. But she’s not going to let on. Look at the bottom of 303 and you’ll see her deciding just that.
I wanted to keep it a surprise for my readers. I thought it was all the more delicious if you weren’t sure (on the first reading anyway) when Imogen found out. I never would have let her make love to Rafe thinking it was Gabe—never. For me, that would have destroyed the romance, and besides she wouldn’t have wanted to.
The one reason Imogen went through with the seduction was because she realized it was Rafe, and she loves Rafe. She has for a long time. She fought for him to live, and give up alcohol, in a way that she never fought for Draven. She and Rafe have a deep-down bond that means she battled him tooth and nail to make him give up the alcohol—and he at least partially gives up drink for her.
In the bedchamber scene, I disguise the name: “But now she was in a hired room, and her companion was not her husband.” I only had to do it when we’re in Imogen’s point of view, when we’re seeing the action through Imogen’s eyes. She’s just recognized Rafe’s private parts from that early bathtub scene.
In addition, I got letters asking me why I kept comparing Rafe to the Shakespearean character Bottom. People were curious, but they didn’t necessarily remember their high school English class well enough to catch the nuances. So I wrote a little essay about that as well. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bottom is an actor who is transformed by the fairy king and given an ass’s head. Chapter Thirty—the one readers found confusing—really cemented the theme of disguise that runs through the series (think of Mayne’s cross-dressing, Darlington’s secret career, Griselda’s affaire).
A Discussion of Bottom & Rafe
I’ll begin by pointing out the title of Chapter Thirty: “It Doesn’t Take Shakespeare for a Man to Make an Ass of Himself.” The overall reference is to Bottom in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In that play, a fairy puts an ass’s head on a lowly worker, Bottom (his name is an obvious clue!), and then enchants the Fairy Queen to fall in love with the Bottom/Ass.
The whole question of Rafe and the ass’s head has to do with alcohol. One thing you have to realize about Rafe was that his self-esteem is absolutely nil. Partly that stems from grief: when his altogether splendid brother died, Rafe not only grieved for him, but he measured himself against his brother and judged himself terribly wanting. He’s wrong, of course, and through the course of the novel, Rafe comes to a more balanced view of his brother. But he honestly believes that he has nothing to offer Imogen and that a brother—ANY brother—would be better than he.
Many of you have asked why it didn’t bother Rafe that Imogen hadn’t figured out who he was (as far as he knew) before they went to bed together: it not only didn’t bother him, but it hugely pleased him. From his point of view, he has everything to lose by Imogen realizing that she’s really sleeping with Rafe, drunken, useless Rafe (from his point of view). Of course that’s not how Imogen sees him.
Still, he can’t bring himself to court her seriously, because he has no faith in himself. That’s why he asks her to marry him so lightly, after a kiss, in a careless comment. He pretends it was a joke, but it wasn’t. He’s starting to understand the depth of the problem at the beginning of Chapter Thirty: he realizes that he didn’t tell her his true name because he is a coward. He can’t bear to tell her that her magnificent bed companion is only he, a “half-pickled duke,” as he thinks of himself.
From his point of view, he only has one thing to offer her: pleasure in bed. But he knows, inside, that pleasure is not enough. He realizes it consciously at the end of the chapter, when he shows Imogen the painting of Bottom wearing the ass’s head. “Only then does Bottom dare court the Queen of Fairies,” Rafe said, feeling rather queer. “When he wears the ass’s head. He has to be disguised because she’s so beautiful.” That’s the moment when Rafe realizes that he is being an ass. And yet he can’t throw away the ass’s head, not yet. So he makes love to Imogen again in the priest’s hole, in the dark.
For her part, Imogen looks up at him: “Slowly the amusement faded from her face, and after a moment she wrenched her eyes away and fairly ran back to the group.” Imogen knows exactly what she wants. She wants Rafe to throw away the mustache (or the ass’s head) and court her properly. So she sends him away when he comes to her bed as “Gabe,” telling him: “If I were ever to embark on another affair, Gabriel, I shall not be the one to chase my partner.”
Still, Rafe has one more challenge to face. He has to throw away those last bottles of whiskey that he has hidden around the house. He needs to make the final decision of his own initiative, with no input from Imogen. I wanted him to realize that he, Rafe, has no need to hide behind whiskey or mustaches—that he, and not his brothers, is the perfect man for Imogen.
After throwing out those bottles, he decides to court Imogen formally. He is the only person who understands that what Imogen needs, more than anything else, is to be courted with ceremony. In order for that to happen, Rafe must distance himself from the supposed Gabriel (remember, Imogen propositioned Gabe) and from Draven (whom Imogen madly pursued).
This is why there is a formal proposal scene at the end of the book, coming after Imogen has despaired. Rafe returns to the house, magnificently clad. Metaphorically he is no longer wearing the donkey’s head—but the clothing of a duke. He has, at long last, stepped into his brother’s shoes.
It is the duke who asks Imogen for her hand in marriage. He specifically tells her that he loves her enough for both of them—because she loved Draven more than Draven loved her. Those were the words she most needed to hear, in order to cure the pain of her first marriage. Of course, she really does love him. Their love is shared,
and ten times stronger than anything Imogen felt for Draven.
But in that moment, they each shed their greatest fears. Rafe becomes the duke, taking on the responsibility and the self-esteem of the position. Imogen becomes a courted, adored, desirable woman . . . the kind of woman whom a duke kneels before while asking for her hand in marriage.
It’s a triumph for both characters, though, of course, the greatest triumph is just their love for each other, and their deep understanding of each other’s weaknesses and greatest longings.
In the end, though, these explanations were involved and after the fact. I ended up writing an entirely new chapter, spurred by the fans who were asking question after question on my bulletin board. It was the first time I’d thought of books as elastic, with changing borders. These days, self-published authors, in particular, pull their books off the shelf, reedit them, and republish as a matter of course. This was the first time I thought about amending one of my own books and in fact, this chapter is included in several translated versions of The Taming of the Duke, published abroad.
The Taming of the Duke Bonus Chapter
Following Directly After Rafe’s Marriage Proposal
Which is a gift from Eloisa to her Readers . . . because it is hard to say goodbye to the sweetness of Rafe and Imogen.
It was the middle of the night and he was standing outside Imogen’s bedchamber, frozen, his hand on the door latch. Hadn’t he promised that he would be ducal in all things? That hardly included barging into his future wife’s bedchamber in the middle of the night, like an under-butler furtively visiting a scullery maid’s bed.
Yet the devil on his shoulder reminded him that dukes were sneaking into bedchambers all over the country. At this very moment his fellow dukes were tupping married women, housemaids, maidens . . . in truth, therein lay the problem.
He would never wish Imogen to think that he saw her as a woman to tumble, a mere affaire, a lightskirt. His hand slipped from the latch and he turned to go, just as that same door swung inward.
Rafe’s first thought was that Imogen wasn’t wearing much. His second thought barely registered, something to do with the smile in her eyes and the saucy tilt to her hips.
“I was about to come and join you,” she said.
He blinked at her nightgown, an affair made of rosy silk. She shifted her shoulder and suddenly the silk slid down to her elbow. Rafe’s third thought, whatever it might have been, died a sudden death as their eyes met over the creamy expanse of plump breast before him.
“If I shrug one more time,” Imogen said gravely, though her eyes were laughing, “my gown will fall to the floor.”
Rafe didn’t say anything, just stepped into the room and pushed the door shut.
And Imogen shrugged. The gown slipped away, down her smooth curves.
No one in that room said a word for a good forty minutes, unless one counts moans, murmurs, and outright cries of pleasure as language.
“We cannot continue to act in this fashion,” Rafe said, after his chest had settled to a normal rhythm.
She was tucked, boneless, under his arm. All he could see was one eyelid and a trail of silky black hair.
He consciously schooled his voice to a commanding, yet thoughtful tone. “Imogen, I shall not come to your bed tomorrow night. In fact, not again until we are married.”
“Why?”
“My duchess will not arrive at the altar carrying a child.”
He could see the edge of a smile. “You needn’t worry about it if we marry in the near future. It takes forever to create a child. You’re going to have to work at it; did I tell you that I want at least six?”
“I hereby commit myself to slave labor,” he said, pulling her closer. “I told you that I’m the hairy, virile type.” He couldn’t help it; his fingers began dancing down the plump curve of her breast again.
She sighed, and threw an arm over her head, giving him better access. The curve of her slender wrist and the cream of her skin in the candlelight were like madness to him, better than whiskey, better than wine, better than anything he’d seen—or tasted—in his life. Their eyes met.
“Will you stay in your chambers tomorrow, then,” she whispered, “knowing that I’m wearing the nightgown I greeted you in?”
He nodded, stilling his fingers. “I must.” He said it almost desperately. “I won’t treat you like a woman to be tupped at my disposal, Imogen. You’re to be my wife.”
“I shall torment you,” she said, giggling a little. The lazy sweetness of her voice hung in the air. “I shall lean close to you at the end of the meal, and tell you that I intend to bathe before bed, and that I need help undressing myself.”
His fingers slid over the satin of her skin and his mind clouded again.
“There are times when I should go to sleep,” she said, “but I feel . . . oh . . . restless. Quite restless.”
Rafe couldn’t even answer that; he just lowered his head to her breast. Vixen that she was, Imogen kept talking, although a faint huskiness came to her voice. Talking . . . telling him all the details of her bath, and how she would lie alone in her bed, and she would—
He raised his head. “You will?”
She laughed at him. “Do you think that I haven’t found you in my dreams and in my thoughts the last few nights?” Her eyes met his. “I’ve dreamed of you touching me, just so.” She trailed a finger across her breast. “And so.” The finger wandered lower.
“But you didn’t think you were meeting me. You were making love to Gabe—that is, you—”
She was laughing again, not giggling, but full-out laughing. “You must think I’m a fool! A woman tricked by a mustache and a slow manner of speaking!”
Her laughter warmed some part of him that he hadn’t even known was mortally cold. “I gather I’m the fool,” he said, trying vainly to sound casual. “I thought you only found out in the last day or so. When did you discover my ploy?”
“Not immediately. Although”—she frowned—“I should have known within the hour. Do you remember when you kissed me in the carriage?”
“I did so more than once.”
“The first time. The truth is—” She propped herself up on her elbow, eyes serious now. “I should have known immediately because I knew Gabe didn’t really want me.”
Rafe opened his mouth, but she put a finger over his lips.
“He didn’t. I asked him, rather than the other way around.” There was something sweet and rueful about the curve of her mouth that made Rafe’s chest ache. “I knew he didn’t really want me, because I experienced precisely that with Draven. Draven was . . . perfectly willing.”
“I too am perfectly willing,” Rafe said, desperate to take the shadow from her eyes. He grinned at her wolfishly. “Always.”
She leaned over and dropped a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t understand desire until you showed your version of willing.”
“Thank God, my brother’s a blind dolt,” Rafe said, heartfelt.
“Draven was rather cheerfully punctilious,” Imogen said. “And I imagine that had you not intervened, with your false voice and your mustache, Gabe might well have shown me the same favor.”
“I’d have had to kill him.”
Imogen looked at her husband-to-be and decided, calm though Rafe’s voice was, he really meant it.
“Well,” she said hastily, “do you see why I should have known immediately? Because when we kissed in the carriage, on the way to see Cristobel—well, that was my first kiss. My first real kiss. Of course that wasn’t Gabe kissing me.”
“But you didn’t realize,” Rafe said, looking ridiculously pleased with himself. “And I did pretty well in the inn, didn’t I? Did you notice that I knocked my wine on the floor?”
She laughed. “No. I did notice that Cristobel had obviously met you before, though, and in the company of an earl. I’m quite certain I know exactly which earl that was: your closest friend.”
“Damn Mayne,” Rafe said, putt
ing on a tragic face. “I never had a chance with Cristobel, given that he was around.”
“And even so I didn’t jump to the right conclusion,” Imogen said, as much to herself as to him. “What a fool I was. I thought it was remarkably odd that a Cambridge professor had found his way into Cristobel’s presence—and yet it made sense, in an odd way. How else would Gabe have known about her, if he hadn’t heard her sing before?”
“He had no idea what he was suggesting. Saw a placard nailed to a tree and likely thought he was taking you to a revival meeting to listen to some rousing hymns. Well, then, when did you finally realize the truth?”
She laughed. “It was a little thing, really. But you asked me what I thought of Rafe, in the carriage on the way home.”
“So?”
“Gabe would never have done such a thing. Never. It was akin to asking me to criticize his brother, and it simply isn’t in him to do such a coarse thing.”
“So you realized on the spot?”
“Oh, no. But I remember blinking at you—it was quite dark in the carriage—and thinking this isn’t right. There had been several points in which you sounded just like Rafe—well, of course you did!—and then there was an odd eagerness in your voice when you asked me that question.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Rafe said. He was looking remarkably happy. Almost as if he were bursting with it. “I can just imagine what you could have said.” He put on a fierce scowl. “Dastard, thou are not whom thou sayest thou art! Avast, and ne’er darken my door again!”
“I didn’t want it to be you,” Imogen said flatly.
The laughter faded from Rafe’s eyes. “Oh.”
She looked down at the sheet and started pleating it with her fingers. “If Gabe had handed me to you, that meant I was a charity case again. Draven married me because I loved him so much. And if you had slapped on that mustache so that my feelings wouldn’t be hurt, that meant that even when I offered myself to a man, without marriage being part of the gift—he wouldn’t bed me.”