Duchess By Night

Page 37

“I shouldn’t even talk of this to you,” Kitty said, looking stricken. “You being unable to take pleasure, I mean. I do apologize.”
“That’s quite all right,” Harriet said. “I like to know, even though I can’t partake.”
“That’s even sadder,” Kitty said, her eyes getting a bit misty.
“So,” Harriet said hastily, “will you take a husband someday?”
“I’ve had three proposals of marriage,” Kitty said. “I suspect that I will take the next one. I’ve always liked the number four.”
There was something about Kitty’s reasoning methods that made Harriet’s head spin. “But what if you don’t care for the fourth man?”
“I like most people,” Kitty said cheerfully. “Someone like you would be perfect. Except…” she paused delicately.
“Yes,” Harriet said, finishing her glass of brandy. “I see exactly what you mean.”
After a second glass of brandy, Harriet pulled off her peruke and loosened her cravat. Then Kitty took that cravat and illustrated an interesting way to tie someone to the bedpost (or any other handy pole, she explained earnestly), using just one wrist and the cravat.
Kitty didn’t handle her third glass of brandy all that well, although she insisted on drinking it. She turned quite pink and it was hard to make out what she was saying between bursts of giggles.
“Come on,” Harriet said, hauling Kitty into a standing position. “We need to find something to eat.”
“We can just ring for the butler. You can simply ring that bell and anything—” Kitty waved her arm wildly “—anything will be delivered right to you. You can’t imagine what we all asked for our first two days here. I demanded champagne for breakfast!”
“And they brought it to you?”
“Of course,” Kitty said, toppling to the side. “Perhaps I should eat something. I was so excited about the evening that I didn’t really eat supper.”
Harriet steered her toward the door. Once in the hallway, Kitty remembered that she was planning to marry the next man who asked her and started speculating about his age. And the size of his member.
Harriet cleared her throat. She was certainly learning a great deal that evening, never having seriously considered such a question before. But she was also feeling slightly dizzy.
Povy took one look at them and then tucked Kitty under his arm.
He snapped his fingers at a footman. “Fetch Lord Strange.”
“Oh, you needn’t—you mustn’t,” Harriet protested.
“His lordship likes to be informed of all events,” Mr. Povy said, gliding across the corridor with Kitty in tow, as if a drunken young woman dressed as an angel was all in a day’s work.
Which it probably was, Harriet had to realize.
“Come on, Harry,” Kitty called. “Harry!”
Harriet reluctantly followed them into the sitting room.
“Strange is coming here, isn’t he?” Kitty said, fixing her eye on Povy.
Povy said, “I really couldn’t say, miss. He might come if he’s free.”
“I expect he’ll ask me to marry him, and I think I’ll accept. Unless you wish to ask me, Harry.” She appeared to have forgotten the manifest reason why Harry (or Harriet) couldn’t engage in marriage.
The main thought that went through Harriet’s mind was utterly surprising and fiercely violent. She pushed the thought away. It was none of her business whom Jem Strange asked to marry. Though he would never ask Kitty, any more than she herself would.
“If you’ll forgive me, I won’t ask you to marry me at this time,” she told Kitty.
Povy deposited Kitty on a chair. “Hot buttered eggs,” he told the footman. “Hot tea, and I should think some salmon sandwiches as well.”
Harriet sat down as well.
Of course Jem appeared a moment later.
“Ah, it is Mr. Cope,” he said genially. “I wondered, when the footman reported that a young lady was the worse for drink.”
“I don’t know why you’d think so,” Harriet said, looking up at him, finally, because there was nowhere else to look.
“Our Kitty does not usually drink to excess,” he said, bending over to peer at his guest. “It must have been a great disappointment that sent her into such a pit of despair.”
“I really couldn’t say,” Harriet said. “I believe that she expects you to ask her to marry her, perhaps even tonight.”
“Yet another disappointment in play,” Jem murmured. “Dear me, the poor girl seems to have gone to sleep.”
“I should go upstairs,” Harriet said, not moving. There was a strange excitement racing through her veins.
Jem looked at her. “And waste buttered eggs? I love buttered eggs. When they are cooked correctly, they are silky, and my cook makes them excellently.”
He could make a salad of straw sound delicious, Harriet thought. Two minutes later, a footman had picked up Kitty and carried her off.
“Tsk, tsk,” Jem said, sitting himself in Kitty’s chair. “Young women can’t drink like men, you know. They’re apt to topple off to sleep before they even think of taking their wings off. I suppose that’s what happened to the two of you?”
“Exactly,” Harriet said. “That describes it perfectly.”
“Never disappoint a woman, Harry,” Jem said. There was a glint of amusement in his eyes that said—said what?
“I’ve been thinking about the lines of verse you keep handing me,” he continued. “I suppose you’ll have another two lines for me tomorrow?”
“I expect so,” Harriet said, a bit cautiously. “It depends on whether I am given another missive for you, of course.”
“The dark is my delight,” he said. “And then that business about the nightingale singing at night. You know, it almost sounds like a theatrical song, that kind that appeared in old plays.”
Mr. Povy opened the door and placed a silver tray in front of them. “Buttered eggs,” he announced. “Extra butter, as your lordship prefers. Hot tea with lemon.”
“The rest we can see to for ourselves,” Jem said amiably, but with an unmistakable tone of dismissal.
He wants to be alone with me, Harriet thought with a thrill. He wants to be—alone. With me or with Harry?
Obviously with Harry, since he didn’t know Harriet existed.
“What were you working on today?” she asked, biting into a piece of toast.
“Letters,” he said. “My lord chancellor tells me that the King is quite distraught over a debt to the King of Denmark. But since I advised two years ago that it was best to avoid giving any funds to the Guinny Company backed by Denmark, which they choose to ignore, I feel the privy-counselors will have to solve this debacle on their own.”
“I didn’t know that you exchanged correspondence with the lord chancellor,” Harriet said.
“Money,” Jem said. “If you have a great deal of it, it precipitates you into conversations in which you would prefer not to participate.”
“With the lord chancellor?”
“And the King. My guess is that the King will remove the first lord of the treasury by the end of the week. The only thing of interest I did today was unpack a box of curiosities sent to me by a man in London.”