Desperate Duchesses (29 page)

“Let’s just see what happens, shal we?” she said, smiling at Damon.

He sat opposite her, looking a little perplexed. That was because he was a man. She turned al the pieces face down and prepared to draw.

“Wait a minute!” he said, and the wicked gleam was in his eye. “I’l bet you were cheating your poor old governess by memorizing where the doubles were.” He shuffled the pieces.

She managed to keep a pitying smile off her face because when a man is about to lose al his clothing, he needs his composure.

She drew the highest piece, a six, so she pul ed al her bones first. She didn’t draw a double in her original three, which was a wee bit disappointing.

She played and sipped her drink.

Damon handed her a tiny square of iced cake. “You should try this, Buttercup. It’s just as sugary as the champagne.”

It was lovely, so she ate it while she drew her next piece, a double three. She didn’t tel him, though, until two moves later when she put it down crosswise as a spinner.

“Wait a second,” he said startled. “You’re supposed to tel me when you draw a double. You have to drink.”

“I have been drinking,” she pointed out. His glass was stil ful , but she threw back the last drops of her second glass and fished out the slice of strawberry with her tongue. He seemed to enjoy watching her do that, so she licked the edge of the glass.

He wrenched his eyes away. “Wel , so you put down a spinner—”

“Which means that you have to take off a piece of your clothing.”

“No need to be quite so eager. I’m wearing a great deal of clothing.”

“I’m not eager,” she said loftily. “Just curious.”

He pul ed off his jacket and threw it to the side. Underneath he wore an embroidered waistcoat and a linen shirt.

“That waistcoat doesn’t quite match your jacket,” she pointed out.

“My valet made the same comment, but it was too late. I already had it buttoned.” He selected a new piece. “Oh, no. A double. That means I have to drink.” He took a large swal ow and shuddered visibly.

“How could you not like it?” Roberta said. “It’s absolutely delicious. I feel quite swimmy.”

Damon put down a piece but it wasn’t his double. “There’s no place for my spinner, but you should beware.”

Meanwhile Roberta drew another double and put it down directly as a spinner.

“I can see there are benefits to your sort of luck,” he said. His waistcoat fol owed his jacket.

She glanced at him from under her lashes. His shirt was so fine it was almost transparent. He had beautiful y cut muscles in his shoulders. As she watched he rol ed up his sleeves. “Though why I bother,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose I’l have this shirt on my back much longer.”

Roberta smiled to herself.

But to her vexation, it was she who began to lose clothing next. Damon put down the spinner he drew earlier. She was experiencing the most deliciously fuzzy feeling, so rather than lean over, she simply pointed a foot at Damon.

“Very smal feet,” he said, holding her ankle. “And sweetly turned ankles.” He drew off her right shoe.

A moment later she lost the left one as wel .

“I had better not lose any more,” she said, sitting up straight.

She put down a spinner. “It seems that I’l have to take off my shirt,” Damon said. His voice was as sweet as strawberry champagne and far more dangerous.

Roberta put down her drink. After al , this was her very first male chest, and she might as wel have a good view.

He played right along, smiling at her as if he exhibited himself to young ladies every day. First he took his time pul ing the shirt from his breeches, and then he slowly pul ed it up over his head.

Roberta’s lips made a silent O. He was so beautiful. Smooth muscles rippled as the shirt flew to the ground. Her fingers twitched, wanting to touch them.

“Your move,” Damon said gently.

Roberta dragged her eyes away from his body. She reached forward and picked up a domino piece, cool and long in her fingers. She knew it was a double without looking. She turned it over, thinking that he would have to take off his breeches—

It was a three.

She made a little, disappointed sound before she realized and he let fly with a bel ow of laughter. “One of the things I real y like about you, Buttercup, is that you’re almost transparent.”

“No, I’m not,” she said, stung. “I can be very Machiavel ian when I want to.”

“Oh real y?” he asked, his eyes dancing over the edge of his glass. “I bet you’re no good at lying whatsoever. You look like a girl who never told a decent lie in her life.”

“I certainly have,” she protested. “Why, I regularly tel Mrs. Grope that her hair is remarkably elegant.”

Damon visibly shuddered. “So you tel white lies. But have you ever told a lie about something you real y felt deeply about?”

“Yes! I feel deeply about Mrs. Grope’s hair!”

“I can understand that. Now look me in the face and tel me a lie about something you real y care about, something you feel desperately about.”

What did she feel desperate about anyway? The champagne had made her so cheerful that she didn’t feel desperate about anything…except, perhaps, seeing Damon take off his breeches.

She must have looked blank, because he said, “Tel me that you’re not in love with Vil iers. Go on!”

“I’m not in love with Vil iers,” she said slowly.

“Terrible!” he said. “Your eyes went al soft and moony even mentioning his name.”

In Roberta’s opinion, her eyes went soft and moony because—the horror of it—for a moment she couldn’t remember who Vil iers was. Champagne was dangerous.

“I don’t want to draw another double,” she said, keeping her voice firm. “Absolutely not. I wil simply
faint
if I draw another double.”

Something flared in his eyes that made her bel y fire in response.

“And why is that, Buttercup?” he asked. He pul ed a two from the pile and played it.

She kept her voice casual. “I’m afraid that you’l take this game too seriously. That you might have misunderstood me.”

“What?” Apparently this took him by surprise.

“I’m afraid that you’l think I’m like al those other young women, chasing after you in hopes of marrying you.”

He gave a bark of laughter. “I can distinguish a mountain from a molehil , Roberta!”

“Just so long as we’re in agreement. Now if I could just draw a two…” She turned over the piece.

“Double two’s,” she said cheerily. “And—how lucky!—I can create a spinner from the two you just played.”

His eyes were unreadable. “I seem to have lost track of this conversation. Were you exhibiting an unexpected bril iance at fibbing, or are you real y afraid that I’l consider you a marital prospect?”

“I’m hardly a marital prospect,” Roberta said. “I’m in love with someone else, and I’m engaged to marry him.”

Damon reached down and pul ed off a shoe. “Then why are you here?”

“Shal we make a bet that you won’t be able to tel whether I’m lying or not?”

He shook his head. “I’ve lost al faith in my ability to read your mind.”

Roberta took another delicious swal ow of champagne. “My fiancé and I are going to have a sophisticated marriage,” she told him.

“Sophisticated?”

She nodded. “That means that we don’t have to be prudish and chaste and tedious things of that nature. It’s not as if I’m a baker, you know!” She opened her eyes very wide.

He pul ed off another shoe, even though it was his turn to move, but she decided not to mention it. It was too much fun to look at his chest.

“Your muscles are quite beautiful,” she said. “Do you take exercise?” He didn’t seem to hear her, perhaps because he was putting his stockings to the side.

Roberta’s heart was beating quickly.

“We’re being absolutely straightforward here,” he said with a slow smile. “I wil not fear that you are hunting my considerable assets—”

She giggled.

“Instead, I take it that you are here with the laudable desire to gain some experience before encountering Vil iers in an intimate setting. After al , such an older man—”

“He’s not old,” she protested.

“Perhaps it’s just his style. He always strikes me as bored by life. Enthusiastic only about chess. Though, of course, perhaps it wil al change when he gets you alone in a bedchamber. God knows, we’re not in a bedchamber and I’m finding it a chal enge not to leap on you like an untamed dog.”

He sat down and pul ed a five from the pile.

Roberta felt a flash of chil . It went without saying that Vil iers would never compare himself to an unmannered mongrel.

He would never sit opposite her, wearing nothing but a pair of breeches, looking as easy as if he were born to be naked.

Damon put down his piece and then looked up at her. Her heart almost stopped at the look in his eye. “I dare you to pul a double from that pile,” he said.

“Maybe I should go to my chambers,” she said. “It’s late.”

“Bedtime?”

Roberta wasn’t sure what she was doing. She was teasing him, even though she didn’t mean it, or did she? Her mind seemed to be drugged by the very sight of Damon. And it wasn’t as if there was anyone who thought she
shouldn’t
be here.

Vil iers had said—had said—

“I suppose we ought to finish the game, since we started it,” she said. Her heart was thudding against her ribs.

“I always finish a game once it begins.”

Roberta didn’t think Damon was talking about dominoes. Was she ready for this?

“The world is a different place than I believed it to be while growing up,” she said, pul ing a four from the pile.

One of the intoxicating things about Damon was the way he looked so interested in her opinion. “Real y?” He pul ed a blank. “What did you think the world would be like? It must have been rather remarkable, growing up with Mrs. Grope. I would hardly have thought you had a conventional upbringing.”

“Wel , it wasn’t conventional,” Roberta said. She couldn’t fit any of her pieces onto the board. “We’re getting al cramped on the right side of the table.”

He ladled a bit more strawberry champagne into her glass and pointed. “One of us needs to start a spinner with that four.”

Roberta was feeling suddenly shy. She drew a one. “Mrs. Grope has only been a friend of my father’s for the last few years.”

“Before that?”

“Wel , there was Selina…an actress.”

He looked up at her, startled. “You can’t mean Selina Trimmer, currently the lead actress at Drury Lane, not to mention
inamorata
of the Prince of Wales?”

She nodded.

“I gain a whole new respect for your father,” he said, snagging a three from the pile. “Selina is remarkably beautiful. Is she as temperamental in person as in reputation?”

“Oh yes,” Roberta said. “She found it very hard to live in the country and I’m afraid it had a wearing effect on her composure.”

“Then why on earth—” he said, and checked himself.

“She was in the grip of a passion for my father,” Roberta explained, feeling a little thril of parental pride. “She met Papa when the Drury Lane traveling company visited our estate. He persuaded her to stay for a brief visit.”

“How brief?”

“Two years.”

“You lived with Selina Trimmer for
two years
!”

“She wasn’t a Trimmer at that point,” Roberta explained. “This game is so irritating, Damon. I don’t think I can move anything.”

“Yes, you can. Put your one there,” he said, pointing.

“We knew her as Selina Le Faye. But Selina felt that she would do better with a more English-sounding name, so when she decided to go to London, we concocted the name Trimmer.”

“You mean that it was an amicable parting?”

“There was no rancor. Of course, my father wept voluminously.”

“My dear Roberta,” Damon said, “why on earth are you the least bit surprised by the goings on in this house? To put it bluntly, you have grown up in a household whose attention to conventional mores seems to have been fragile, to say the least.”

Roberta had to think about that for a moment, which was just as wel , because Damon had drawn a piece that he didn’t seem to know what to do with. “It’s not that I’m surprised by intimacy outside of marriage,” she said final y. “But my father was deeply in love with Selina, and then with Mrs. Grope. He
loved
them, both of them. It broke his heart when Selina decided that she could not continue to be happy in such a remote location as our home.”

“But he didn’t take her to London.”

“I believe that Selina felt it was time for something new, perhaps?”

Damon grinned. “Nicely put.”

“The truth is that I know something of what goes on between men and women,” Roberta said. She could feel herself going a little pink. “I hadn’t actual y seen anything until the other night, but I have—”

She broke off, seeing the utterly fascinated look on his face.

“You have what?”

“I suppose that I am in possession of a rather unique amount of information about pleasuring men. At least for someone like me.”

“A virgin, you mean.”

She nodded.

He put down his piece. “It seems that I, Roberta, have drawn a double four, which I shal place as a spinner in the one available spot.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling her heart speed up again.

“What wil you take off?” he asked. His grin was absolutely devilish.

But Roberta had already thought this through. She stood and pul ed up her skirts in the back, where he couldn’t see. With a sharp pul , she untied the ribbon that held her hooped petticoat in place. It fel to the floor, and Roberta stepped neatly out of the frame.

Damon’s face fel . “That was sneaky,” he said, getting up. Before she realized what he was doing, he picked Roberta up in his arms and sat back down on his chair.

“What?” she yelped.

“I love holding a woman who isn’t wearing an iron-wrought frame around her body,” he said.

“My hoops aren’t made of iron,” Roberta said. He smel ed so good that it was hard to think. Instead she just snuggled into his chest. It was soft, like velvet but not velvety. She ran a finger over the contours of his chest.