Duchess By Night

Page 25

He grimaced. “That pestilent Scottish doctor of Jemma’s, Dr. Treglown, advised me not to travel and, though it pains me to admit it, he was right. More importantly, how is manhood treating you?”
“Being a man is exhausting,” Harriet said with some feeling. “My rear hurts from riding, and my arm hurts from rapier play, and all my other muscles are sympathetically twanging as well.”
“I gather that Strange took my dictate to turn you into a man seriously. You’d better watch out; he’s likely to introduce you to a demi-rep this evening. Part of the training.”
“It’s all very well for you to laugh,” Harriet said. Then she put on a lofty air. “As it happens, I already have a lady friend interested in my company.”
“No! How I wish I could get out of this damned bed. Promise me you won’t dismiss her, at least until I see you being wooed.”
“I fully intend to avoid her.”
“That won’t be easy,” Villiers said. “Strange’s house parties are surprisingly large and yet intimate. I didn’t think you’d visit me.”
Harriet looked up. “Why not?”
“You have every reason to hate me.” He said it without any particular inflection. But there was much unspoken: the evening when he rejected her advances and dropped her out of his carriage in the middle of London, the fact that her husband committed suicide after losing to him at chess.
“I did hate you.” It was strangely restful to admit it. “I spent a great deal of time brooding over revenge. It was easier to hate you than to accept that Benjamin chose to leave.”
“Chose to leave is an odd way of talking about suicide.”
“How else would you describe it?”
He hesitated. He really had amazing eyes, black as pitch.
“You think suicide is cowardly,” she said when he didn’t speak immediately.
“Am I wrong?”
“I thought that at first too. I raged at Benjamin the first year: for being such a coward, for not loving me enough, for caring so much about chess that he gave his life for it, for being such a fool. But then I started to think that cowardice is just a point of view.”
“The counterpoint to courage?” His eyes were sympathetic but unconvinced.
“Something like that. Benjamin cared most in the world for chess. I hated that fact while we were married, but it was true. Though he was always amiable, and was certainly fond of me in his own way.”
Villiers didn’t say anything. Harriet made herself continue. “But chess was his passion. And while he was very good at it, he wasn’t the best. So let’s imagine that he had been that wildly in love with me—Don’t laugh!” she said fiercely.
He raised an eyebrow, surprised. “I haven’t the faintest impulse to laugh.”
“If he had been madly in love with me, or some other woman, and had killed himself because he failed to win her, would you call him a coward?”
“Merely a fool,” he said flatly.
“Perhaps.” Harriet couldn’t think where this argument was taking her. “But not a coward,” she persisted.
“It would have to be a grand passion, a love so great it was intolerable to live without the other person.”
“Yes, and everyone would have felt the grief along with him. Whereas if a person commits suicide for love of something other than a woman, no one shares their grief.”
“I count myself lucky to have escaped such a passion,” Villiers said. “I can picture it, but I haven’t been afflicted by it. Have you?”
“I—” Harriet stopped. “I loved Benjamin. He was the first man to pay me any attention.”
“Then he’s not quite the fool I thought,” Villiers said, more gently.
“You needn’t.”
“Needn’t what?”
“Give me that practiced flummery you’re so good at. We both know who I am, and exactly how attractive I am to men. Not to mention the fact that I am now wearing breeches.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” he said. “Nor your breeches. Your derrière is a pleasure even for me to behold and believe me, my wish to bed a woman is at an lifetime low.”
“You never wished to bed me,” she pointed out.
“I actually did,” Villiers said thoughtfully. “When you kissed me, years ago, I was quite happy to reciprocate. But the fact that Benjamin was my friend leaped into my mind and I admit it took the pleasure out of it.”
“I can’t believe I did that,” Harriet said miserably. “I would have loathed myself if I had been unfaithful. I really did love him.”
“Rage, I expect,” Villiers said. “Did you try to seduce anyone else, or was I your only foray?”
She felt herself flushing. “You were my only try at adultery, though the fact doesn’t reduce my shame.”
“I am the more honored,” he said.
“Don’t be. I chose you because you were Benjamin’s closest friend and I wanted so bitterly for him to notice me. To put me before a chess match, even just one time.”
Villiers nodded. But his silence said what she knew: even had she slept with Benjamin’s friend, it wouldn’t have meant she was loved above chess. Or even accounted above a good win at the game.
“Well,” she said brightly, “this is a dismal topic. When do you think that you might be able to rise?”
“A day or two,” Villiers said. “I wish I were better. I’m worried that you will be discovered long before you wish to be. Are you quite sure you wish to stay here?”
“I love being in these breeches,” Harriet said, looking at them affectionately. “And not because my derrière shows to advantage, but because it makes me feel free. It is very nice not to be Benjamin’s widow for a time.”
“Is it so terrible?” he asked.
“Everyone loved Benjamin. He was always cheerful, always friendly, always ready with a kind word or a loan, if it came to that. That was easy, because he didn’t care deeply for people or money. Only for chess.”
“It’s an illness,” Villiers said.
She stood up and grinned, looking down at him. “No chess for a month. I count it as my revenge.”
He groaned. “I’m reading.”
“Not chess books, I hope.”
“The History of Tom Jones.”
“Who’s Tom Jones? A politician?”
“It’s a novel, not a real history. So far he’s a naughty sort who has stolen a duck and seems doomed to be hanged. Given the length of the novel, I shall be surprised if he escapes the scaffold. Do go amuse yourself. Strange’s house parties exist for that sole purpose.”
“It is enormously fun to be male,” Harriet agreed. “You can have no idea. Unless you tried to be female.”
His heavy lidded eyes lowered a bit. “I’d rather not.”
“From what I’ve seen, Strange’s party is not so different from any other house party, beyond the fact that I can’t name everyone’s lineage. Should any dancing girls appear, I’ll send you a message.”
“And will you pay me a visit and tell me how your manliness develops?”