Desperate Duchesses

Page 69

“Now touch yourself,” he said, following her glance down to her chest.
She colored. “What are you talking about?”
His grin was the grin of a sweet devil. “Where you’d like me to touch you.” And when she hesitated, “Please.”
Chapter 35
T he two boats carrying Jemma and Villiers and the marquess and Mrs. Grope poled their way along the drowsy stream. Jemma and Villiers paid no attention to the water whatsoever. Lord Wharton was composing a simple little ditty, along these lines:
All along the River Fleet,
Through the rushes green,
Swans are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!
He didn’t pretend that it was a great work of literature. But it had a pretty rhythm and he knew a certain mermaid who might think it was interesting. He sang it to himself, and sang it to Mrs. Grope, and sang it again, and then set to work on another verse.
It wasn’t until the poem had grown to some six stanzas, and included ducks, drakes, minnows and swifts, that he realized that his daughter was missing. Moreover…she was missing with that charming brother of the duchess. The earl who had quoted back a line of his poetry, and had a clear look about his eye.
That brother.
He hadn’t said anything at the fair yesterday, but he wasn’t blind. He saw exactly how the duchess’s brother looked at his daughter.
The marquess may be mad (at least to unrefined minds) but no one could accuse him of being stupid. It was the work of a moment to stand up and roar so loudly that the boat just ahead of them, and indeed, everyone on the bank as well, paid instant attention.
“My daughter!” he roared. “She’s been abducted!”
Now you may think that there was nothing but cows to hear the marquess’s howl of parental distress, but in fact, he was lucky. The boats had gone so far along the river that one of those pleasure gardens stretching to the very bank belonged to a Mrs. Trimmer, sometimes known as Selina, now known as the prince’s delicious tidbit (when she wasn’t playing lead roles at Drury Lane).
Selina leapt to her feet the moment she heard that familiar bellow. She and the Prince of Wales were lying on the grass, recovering after a bounteous luncheon al fresco. The prince had had three bottles of champagne, and Selina was considering, rather sadly, that he was probably no longer fit for an afternoon dance in the sheets, and yet she was due at the theater in less than two hours.
“Marcus!” she cried, running down to the water.
Behind her, the prince stumbled to his feet like a water buffalo emerging from a pleasant mud bath. “What! Ho!” he said, waving his arms. Three footmen chased each other down the lawn toward him and steadied him on his feet.
Meanwhile, Selina ran straight out onto the dock to which was tied her pretty little craft, the Selina. It had been given to her by an adoring theatergoer who hoped that a large gift would make inroads in her affection. But Selina had been loved by the best, and she no longer considered economics when choosing her bed partners. Lord Wharton had taught her that.
“Marcus!” she shrieked, dancing up and down at the end of the wharf. “It is you! Oh, what are you doing in London and on the water?”
“Looking for my daughter!” the marquess roared back. “Selina, my love!” He waved his arms at her.
Selina was still hopping up and down as Prince George appeared, accompanied by a whole throng of footmen. “What, ho!” he shouted.
“Your Majesty,” Lord Wharton shouted back.
“In the boat!” Selina screamed. “Some villain has abducted Lord Wharton’s daughter. We must go immediately.”
The prince scrambled into Selina’s boat followed by a flock of footmen. “Pole it lively!” he shouted at them. “Some of you swim over to those other two boats and make them move at a fine clip.”
Without a second’s hesitation four footmen plunged into the water and swam over to the boats. There was a bit of unruly rocking as they clambered aboard Lord Wharton’s boat, especially when one of them had to swim back to Selina’s boat to get some paddles, but finally all three boats were going downstream at a fine clip.
“We’ll find her for you!” Selina screamed. “Little Roberta!”
“Do you know the marquess well?” the prince enquired, a note of disapproval in his voice.
“I was the nursemaid to his delightful child, Roberta,” Selina said. “Ah, the sweet days of my innocent youth!”
“You are as youthful as a rose now,” Prince George said gallantly. He was looking a wee bit green in the face from the unfortunate rocking of the boat. But he was holding up well, under the circumstances. Selina tucked herself next to his considerable bulk and smiled up at him.
“What would we do without our monarch to save us?”
“Nonsense!” he roared.
Jolted out of a lively discussion of the worst blunders they’d ever made in a game, Jemma nor Villiers said a word as their boat was efficiently turned about by dripping footmen and sent whipping down the river.
Finally Villiers said, “I believe that this is what they call an Act of God.”
Jemma looked over and saw he was smiling. “You don’t think that anything happened to Roberta and Damon, do you? Or to little Teddy?”
Villiers’s lower lip drooped for a moment. “Forgot the child.” Then he brightened. “They must have dropped him off somewhere.”
“Damon did say that Teddy was learning to swim.”
Villiers’s smile was that of a man with a new belief in deities.
Somewhat farther down the river, and thankfully still around the curve and out of sight, Damon pulled Roberta’s gown over her head and laced her up in the front. “I feel boneless,” she sighed. “That was lovely.” A second later, she slid her feet into her slippers, and pinned her hair back, though without the aid of a mirror, it undoubtedly looked a fright. “What shall we do now? I wonder where my father is?”
At that very moment three boats careened around the far corner, tearing toward them. But they were still far away, and the graceful branches of the willow tree blunted sound, so Damon pulled on his breeches and his boots in happy ignorance.
“What is that noise?” Roberta asked.
Damon swung around, causing the boat to rock violently. But they had both gained a certain adroitness in handling unsteady craft in the last hour, and neither fell into the water. “Bloody hell,” he said, and snatched up his shirt.
But he barely had it billowing over his head before Lord Wharton’s boat was upon them.
“Why are you laughing?” Roberta gasped. “That’s my father and Villiers—who’s following in that boat?”
From his standing position, Damon had a better view than did Roberta. A man naturally feels cheerful when royalty and fate step in to take care of fussy little problems, such as Villiers. He pulled the pole from the mud and gave their boat a great heave.
“Oh no,” Roberta moaned, as the prow swept through the long green branches and the third boat came squarely into view. “Who is—”
“The Prince of Wales,” Damon said, laughing like a man possessed.
The marquess was standing in the front of his boat like a rather plump figurehead, his arms crossed and a terrible scowl on his face. “Unhand my daughter, you villain!” he shouted.