Duchess By Night

Page 38

“What was among them?” Harriet said.
“A salamander,” Jem said. “And a squirrel shaped like a fish. There’s a piece of wood from the cross of Christ, which I utterly discount because it’s the fortieth such piece I’ve been offered, and that number alone is enough wood to put a good wall on a privy.”
“Why did you buy it then?”
“It was part of the lot,” Jem said. “Monsieur Bonnier de la Moson died last year, and his collection is being sold off.”
“I don’t understand,” Harriet said. “How exactly can you make use of a squirrel shaped like a fish?”
“I don’t make use of it. Knowledge is my ultimate end.”
“That sounds very grand,” Harriet said. “And yet knowledge generally has some use.”
“Not this kind,” Jem said cheerfully. “I’m a feckless sort. I like to examine anything strange or unlikely very, very closely.” There was a light in his eye that suddenly made Harriet wonder exactly how he found her strange.
“Everything out of the common run of things is valuable in its own right,” Jem said. “People, after all, are so similar. The majority of them bore me to tears.”
Harriet finished a bite of buttered egg. It sang to her mouth, if silky eggs had a voice. “In that case,” she said, “why on earth do you always have a houseful of guests? Either you find them boring, in which case you should send them all home, or you actually enjoy them.”
“Ah, but the people you find here are not in the common run.”
Harriet thought about that a while. “I don’t agree,” she said finally. “I have been enjoying myself enormously. But while it is true that Kitty is rather more forthcoming about her particular ambitions, she strikes me as similar to many young ladies.”
“Kitty is no lady,” Jem pointed out.
“And yet she is akin to most of them. There’s a wistful look in her eyes, you know. I think she will marry the next man who asks her—”
“I must remind myself to hold my tongue,” Jem murmured.
“She will marry,” Harriet said firmly, “and then she will have a great many children. And while she will likely have fond memories of being one of the Graces, and perhaps even keep a feather or two as a memento, she will have any number of delightful, noisy children and be very happy. In fact, I would guess that she’ll never think about her past as a wild young angel.”
“You’re remarkably cynical for such a young sprig,” Jem observed.
Harriet snorted. “Cynicism is not the provenance of the elderly.”
“And what is it brewed from, then?”
“Oh, boredom,” she said lightly. “When one is bored, one tends to spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing one’s neighbors. That’s why I would suggest that there is no great difference between your salacious guests and the run of the ton.”
“They burn more brightly. Gentlewomen are tediously attached to concepts of marriage and fidelity, even as they carry on affaires.”
“Are they? There seems to be just as much anxiety here as I find in the ton,” Harriet said. “Take Nell, for instance.”
“Nell appears to have something of a fascination for me,” Jem said. “She caught me in the corridor the other day and I thought she was going to leap on me like a ravening lion.”
“There is no accounting for tastes,” Harriet said. “My point is that Nell appears deliciously free of society’s pressures. But secretly I believe she’s rather desperate to marry you, rather than merely bed you.”
“I am afraid to ask about my true desires.”
She opened her mouth but he raised his hand. “I truly mean it. I don’t wish to know. Villiers?”
“He’s different,” she said. “He has a passion.”
“Chess.”
“Yes. When a person has a passion, his life is different.”
“And have you a passion?” He asked it quietly enough, but the question rang in Harriet’s ears.
Had she a passion? Had she some reason for living that would make a mockery of Benjamin’s wish to kill himself? He killed himself because he wasn’t the very best at chess. That was a passion, if you wish.
“Not a true passion. And you?”
“I’m lucky,” Jem said, finishing the last of the toast. “I have several. In fact, I am somewhat burdened with passions. I love creating things, like my rash tower. I love learning about odd things in nature, like squirrel fish. And I am very fond of watching how money moves through markets, which has been useful for my pocketbook.”
“You are lucky,” she said. “If one of those things fails to please, you can turn to another.”
“You need to find something, obviously. Harry, you need a passion.”
Chapter Twenty
More Buttered Eggs
W hen Harriet finally made it upstairs, she found Nell sitting on her bed. She suppressed a groan at the sight of her.
Nell leapt to her feet. “It’s working!” she cried.
“What is working?” Harriet said, dropping into a chair. The warm glow of cognac had faded away, leaving her bone-tired.
“Strange is beginning to notice me. I don’t know how you’re doing it, Harry, but it’s working!”
“How can you tell?”
“We met in the corridor, and he grabbed me by the shoulders, looked into my face very seriously, and said, ‘Isn’t your family name Gale?’”
She stopped.
“And then?” Harriet prompted.
“That was it. I leaned toward him a bit, in case he wanted to give me a kiss, but he set off down the corridor again. Still, his interest is definitely piqued. And now I have an idea.”
“What is it?” Harriet asked, smothering a yawn.
“I think I might marry him.”
Harriet couldn’t stop a little laugh. “Really?”
Nell was not the sort to be easily put off. “Strange needs a wife. Obviously he is deeply attracted to me, and only waiting for the right moment to approach. If I play this correctly, he’ll marry me.”
“How will you play it?” Harriet asked.
“I’ll refuse to bed him,” Nell said. “Only the first request, of course. And I need you to change the poem.”
“In what manner?”
“To signify matrimony, of course.”
“I can’t see how to do that,” Harriet said dubiously. “I’ve been talking about nights and delight. How can I turn that to marriage?”
“You can do it,” Nell said encouragingly. “Unless you think I should just let him come up with the proposal himself.”
“I think that’s a better plan,” Harriet said with some relief. “The poem is already written. The last couplet will rhyme Nightingale and Nell Gale, obviously.”
“I can’t say I think much of that rhyme.”
“I never said I was a poet,” Harriet retorted.
Nell bounded from her chair and bent to give Harriet a kiss. “You are my knight in shining armor. I’m so grateful to you!” And she was gone.
Harriet stayed where she was, staring at her booted toes.