Desperate Duchesses (21 page)

“Vil iers is not a roué!” she scolded.

“Close enough. But the point is that you can seduce him here or—”

“That is not the point. You have no idea how humiliating it is being around my father.”

Damon wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pul ed her a little closer. “Tel me your tales of horror and I’l do my best to comfort you.”

“No!” Roberta said, but as usual he paid no attention to her. He bent his head and kissed her cheek, which wasn’t very intrusive, so she ignored him. “My father is prone to fal ing on his knees and bursting into tears.”

“Interesting,” Damon murmured, kissing her ear.

“It is not interesting,” Roberta said fiercely.

“I know he fel to his knees and implored the heavens for a husband who would never kiss you in public. Obviously, I would not qualify.” His lips had drifted down and he was kissing her neck now.

“No,” Roberta agreed. There was something oddly distracting about those feathery touches of his lips.

“That was bad enough,” she said, struggling to get her mind back to her story, “but then
Rambler’s Magazine
—”

At the end of that story, he stopped kissing her and actual y looked at her with something approaching sympathy. For a moment she felt a thril that he final y understood how dreadful her situation was, but: “You are nothing more than an example of incestuous inbreeding and I never noticed!” he cried. “I’ve sinned by having anything to do with you. Give me my sin again…”

He grabbed her and for a moment Roberta lost track of her complaints because he was saying things about sin in a husky voice, and his hands touched her front in an improper manner that turned her mind to smoke.

“Feeling better?” he enquired, sometime later.

Roberta blinked at him for a moment and then straightened up. “I think so,” she said weakly.

Damon looked pleased with himself.

“Is this your kindly way of assuring me that you’re going to convince my father to go back home so that I can marry the Duke of Vil iers?”

“Wil you reward me for my services?” he asked with a ridiculous leer.

“Why don’t you go kiss one of those girls who want you so much?”

“Are you saying that you don’t enjoy my kisses?”

Roberta burst out laughing. “Anyone would enjoy your kisses! But you know I’m in love with someone else.”

His eyes had turned a dark sea green and she knew what that meant. “I think that’s why you’re so irresistible to me,” he said, his voice deep as his eyes. “You belong to someone else.”

“Oh—” she said, but he was kissing her again. And truly, she did love kissing him. In fact, she dimly thought that she could do it al day, except her father must be wondering why she was taking so long to dress.

A while later she gasped when his hand found her breast. She slapped his hand away. “I don’t belong to Vil iers yet, but I’m not open territory either.”

“Because you don’t want
me
,” he prompted, a sardonic note in his voice.

She raised an eyebrow. “Who said that?”

He burst out laughing. “Try to play a docile maiden at least until after your wedding, could you?”

“I
am
a maiden,” she protested.

“So you do want me.” The words hung on the air, like some sort of chal enge.

Roberta wasn’t going to lie. Lust, as any poet’s daughter knows, is nothing beside true love. “It’s not the same way that I feel about Vil iers.”

A moment later she felt sorry she’d clarified the point, because something flew across Damon’s eyes, and she thought perhaps she’d hurt his feelings.

She tugged her bodice back into place. “Please help me send Papa back to the country.”

He looked down at her and sighed. “I suppose it’s no more than a cousin’s duty.”

They walked into the drawing room to find the marquess holding forth to a nonplussed Fowle. The butler was standing next to the door, as if he were on the point of flight. Even from the corridor Roberta could tel that her father was on one of his favorite subjects. “She was like a basilisk,” he said, “her eyes kil ed every man at whom she has glanced.” She realized with a sinking heart that her father had launched into the story of how he fel in love with Mrs. Grope.

“Mrs. Grope is a high-spirited woman,” Papa was saying as they entered. With his hands clasped behind his back, the marquess looked like a rather dapper magistrate. Roberta always found it interesting how very sensible her father appeared to be, though five minutes of conversation were general y enough to convince people of his unique views.

“Papa,” she said, dropping a curtsy. “What a lovely surprise this is, to be sure. Mrs. Grope.” She dropped another curtsy.

Mrs. Grope had dressed her hair enormously high for the occasion. It towered in a series of curls and arabesques before being topped off by a smal replica of London Bridge.

Damon came forward and swept a bow. “Papa, Mrs. Grope, this is Damon Reeve, the Earl of Gryffyn.”

“My darling daughter,” her father said, catching her into a hug that ignored her curtsy altogether. “Lord Gryffyn, I remember seeing you in the
Tête-à-Tête
series, was it a year ago?”

“Papa,” Roberta interrupted. “This is a most unexpected pleasure and yet I must ask…why are you paying me a visit?”

That was bald, but straightforward.

“The most delightful thing, dear child!” he cried. “My book, my magnum opus!”

“A publisher?” Roberta asked, feeling truly startled.

“Not exactly—not yet—not entirely—but soon!”

“We were positively longing for some entertainment,” Mrs. Grope said, putting a hand to her bosom. “Withering in the country, that’s what I said to your dear father.”

“But Papa, you said that London was nothing more than a nest of vipers,” Roberta said, feeling as if sand was shifting under her feet.

“But then I bethought me,” he said, beaming at her. “If I accompanied you to London, I could fol ow up on this matter of a publisher. A publisher is a
consummation devoutly to be wished
.”

“Indeed,” Damon said, amusement underlying his voice. “And you, Mrs. Grope?”

“I am a creature of the theater,” she said, striking an attitude. “I live for the moment when we enter Drury Lane, scene of my triumph.”

Roberta shuddered. Mrs. Grope had “trod the boards,” as she had it, before meeting the marquess in Bath and returning home with them. After one quick glance at Damon, she had turned herself at a right angle to him and stood with her elegant, if rather long, nose pointed into the distance. She was wearing more rouge than usual, Roberta thought uncharitably; her flush went from her jaw to under her eyes. “Ah, the days of yore when I conquered the boards!” she cried.

“The role of Elisabetina in
The Clandestine Marriage
,” Papa explained to Damon, who was doing a very credible job of keeping a sober face. “’Tis a sad comedown for a woman of her beauty to leave the stage, especial y when the Prince of Wales himself delivered his commendations in person. Yet she did me the inexpressible joy of al owing me to become her patron.” He went down on one knee to kiss Mrs. Grope’s hand.

“Papa,” Roberta began.

“Don’t worry,” he beamed at her. “We won’t get in your way. I’l assure the duke himself of that. And his lovely duchess. I’ve seen her picture many a time in the
Tête-à-Tête
column. Many a time! I expect now we’re in London, it’s a matter of time before my own Mrs. Grope is appearing there, but I certainly hope my picture wil be opposite hers.”

“In my sister’s absence, I welcome you both to Beaumont House,” Damon interjected, bowing. “Fowle?”

“If your lordship would al ow us a few more minutes, Mrs. Friss is readying chambers for our guests. I wil ascertain her progress,” he said, bowing himself from the room.

“Papa!” Roberta said pleadingly. “I real y don’t—I don’t want you here.”

His face fel , of course. That was the worst of it, and the reason why she was unmarried at one-and-twenty. His face fel , and he looked as if he were about to cry. “Don’t say that, dearest. I haven’t been able to sleep since you left.”

“No more he has,” Mrs. Grope said promptly.

Roberta threw her a beseeching look. She thought that Mrs. Grope, at the least, had understood how important it was that she find a husband. But Mrs. Grope sent her a rueful smile that admitted her total lack of influence.

“I haven’t slept, and I haven’t written a single poem in three days,” the marquess said, opening his eyes very wide. “How could I, when I had no idea with whom my child was consorting? How can I have al owed my own duckling, my little chicken, to wander the cold streets of London by herself?”

“I am hardly wandering the streets of London,” Roberta said, control ing her voice to a reasonable level with difficulty.

“I woke in the middle of the night, and I knew I did wrong,” her father wailed, a tear sliding down his cheek. “What would Margaret say, I asked myself?”

Damon nudged her.

“My mother,” she told him.

She folded her arms and waited; from long experience she knew that her father was only now getting into his stride.

“Margaret would say I was wrong—wrong—
wrong
.” More tears fel down his face. Mrs. Grope patted his face with her handkerchief.

“That is likely true,” Roberta said, feeling not a whit of sympathy. “Mother would not have been pleased with my journey.”

“How could I have let that happen?” the marquess said, with a sniffle. “My child…the dearest to my heart…my jasmine blossom—
in the second best coach
escorted only by servants!”

Roberta opened her mouth to say something about the poem he sent to Jemma, but Damon nudged her again. “Give over,” he whispered.

Her father put a hand in his pocket and took out an enormous bundle of banknotes. “For you, dearest, for you. I know you don’t like Mrs. Parthnel ’s sewing skil s, though I cannot but ask myself who wil employ her now that you are gone? But stil , Mrs.

Grope’s patronage counts for something.”

Mrs. Grope smiled grimly. Before Roberta left, she had very kindly tried to make Mrs. Parthnel ’s creations into something worth wearing to London. But there was the unmistakable odor of Mrs. Parthnel around Mrs. Grope’s current garment. It was fashioned from lovely striped fabric, but the lines were designed to come to a V in the front of the bodice—and they didn’t. It was odd, to say the least, and as Roberta watched, Mrs. Grope adjusted her arms across her chest the better to disguise the defect.

“It’s for you, al for you,” her father was saying, pushing the banknotes at her. “The St. Giles family has never taken charity, and there’s no need to do so. After al , you are an heiress according to the mercantile standards by which people judge these things.”

“Thank you, Papa,” she said. The rol was far too large to fit into her pocket. Damon stuck out his hand, and she read deep enjoyment in his eyes. She handed the notes to him.

“Papa,” she said, but he looked so uncertain she couldn’t bring the words to her lips.

“I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it before,” he said quickly. “London is the path to al of our deepest hearts’ desires. I expect publishers never accept a manuscript until they have made the acquaintance of its author. Why, it might be a work of the very weakest moral fiber and they wouldn’t know without personal assessment. Don’t you agree, my lord?” He turned to Damon.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Were I a publisher, I would insist on a personal interview.”

“There you are,” the marquess said, as Roberta shot Damon a murderous look. “I shal be published, you shal be married, and Mrs. Grope…ah, Mrs. Grope.”

“And what of Mrs. Grope?” Damon asked.

“She tried to persuade me against this, from the depths of her loving kindness,” the marquess roared. “But I know she has ambitions. I know the truth of it. Rather than be oppressed in the country, a lady as beautiful as Mrs. Grope should be celebrated in every bookstore window, and I’ve no doubt but that she wil be. Look at her, my dear sir, just look at her!”

Mrs. Grope was doing a very credible job of keeping her gaze on the far distance and her chin high in the air.

“I cannot fool myself that she wil stay under my protection,” the marquess said with a heavy sigh. “But I cannot but be oppressed by the idea that I may have caused distress to the two women I love most in the world: my daughter, and my dear Mrs. Grope, the love of my bowels.”

At this propitious moment, the door opened and Fowle appeared. “Her Grace, the Duchess of Beaumont,” he said. And:

“His Grace, the Duke of Vil iers.”

Roberta would have fainted, if she’d known how.

“Please al ow me to introduce my sister, Her Grace, the Duchess of Beaumont,” Damon said to the marquess. “Jemma, this is Mrs. Grope, and the famed poet, the Marquess of Wharton and Malmesbury.”

“How I enjoyed the poem that dear Roberta brought me,” Jemma said, curtsying.

“A trifle, a mere trifle,” the marquess said, blotting a last tear. “I am not yet entirely happy with it…I believe I shal take out the bear and the swearing parson, when al ’s done. I won’t publish it until it’s in its finest state, when I bring out al my col ected works in a folio edition. This version is for your eyes only. My gift for your kindness in sheltering the pearl of my bosom, my only daughter.”

“Are your col ected works forthcoming?” Jemma asked, curtsying to Mrs. Grope. “A pleasure, dear madam,” she said, as Mrs. Grope’s curtsy took her nearly to the floor.

“I have no doubt it wil happen, in leather with pearl bindings,” the marquess said. He made a leg to Vil iers. “I knew your father of old,” he said.

“Not always an unmixed blessing to make my father’s acquaintance,” Vil iers al owed.

“I fear he did not understand literature. Not at al . I was in my salad days, you understand, but I already had a fine grasp of music and rhythm. Your father said something abominably rude; I shan’t repeat it. But I remember every word.”

“We are more and more in sympathy every moment,” Vil iers said. “I too have several signal lectures delivered by my father emblazoned in my memory.”

“Be that as it might,” the marquess said, “it was an excel ent poem. A light subject, but heartfelt in its every pentameter. I stil remember it.”