Duchess By Night

Page 44

She was changed forever—but that wasn’t necessarily bad. She couldn’t stay a man. But she could change her life. Never again would she sit for two hours while her maid built her hair into a towering set of false curls. She would never wear ruffles again either. A mantua maker could fashion her comfortable clothing, fit to the body, though made for a woman. She might even bribe Villiers’s tailor into making her a gown or two.
And she would continue to learn how to fight with the rapier, even though women never did such a thing.
Finally, and this was crucial, she would like to have a child. A child meant a husband. It meant going to London and attending the balls she loathed.
Surely she could find a man who was interesting and intelligent. The picture in her mind was alarmingly familiar, clever and pale, but she threw that thought away. Strange was part of this bizarre, wonderful little interlude. And that was all.
She pulled on her breeches for the last time, helped Lucille wind strips of cloth around her breasts, pulled a white shirt over her head. Then she walked into the portrait gallery and looked for Eugenia.
“She’s not here,” a deep voice said from the corner. Jem was leaning over a glass case. The top was up.
“What are you doing?” she asked, coming to join him.
“Removing this chess set.”
He was taking them out, one by one, and placing them on top of the cabinet. They were carved little pieces of fantasia, each piece with its own expression.
“Look at the black queen,” Harriet said. “She looks as angry as my cook when the fish is off.” The black queen had her hands on her hips. She had a fantastic headdress, made of a delicate ball carved with openings, inside of which was another ball, and inside that another.
Jem looked at her over his shoulder, his dark eyes faintly smiling. “I hardly know the look on my cook’s face at the best of times. Now I think of it, there’s a chef down in my kitchens.”
“Well, this is what my cook looks like at the worst of times,” Harriet said. The black queen’s lip was curled, and she appeared to have just stamped her foot. “Why are you removing them?”
“I’m sending them to London,” Jem said. “I’ll give them to the Duchess of Beaumont. She once expressed interest in them.”
“Really? They’re so beautiful. My—” Harriet bit back the words. Benjamin would have loved the set, but Mr. Cope had no husband, dead or otherwise.
“I’d give them to you, but they’re cursed.”
Harriet laughed.
“I bought them from a Moroccan prince visiting London,” Jem said, as if he didn’t hear her laugh. “He told me that anyone who owns the set will never be happy in love. He called it an anger board.”
“That’s absurd,” Harriet said.
“I thought so too, but I broke up the set by selling the white queen, just in case,” Jem said. “And now I’ve decided to get rid of the whole set. I’ve seen a lot of queer things and I’ve learned not to trust my own sense of reality.”
“Given the way your tower stays upright,” Harriet said, “I believe you.”
All the little pieces were out of the case now. The kings had their fists in the air and seemed to be screaming war cries. The bishops had odd masks pushed up over their heads. The look on their faces would make one shiver. She picked up a pawn, only to find that he was carrying a lance that poked her in the hand.
“I’ll leave these for Povy to pack up,” Jem said.
“Don’t send them to Jemma,” Harriet said. “Sell them instead.”
He turned around. “So you believe in the curse?”
When Jem smiled it did something to her stomach. Her much-vaunted commonsense told her to run. Her heart told her to smile back. Maybe even lie back.
The company must be addling her brain. Before long she’d be sending men bits of erotic poetry. Which reminded her, so she pulled the perfumed sheet of paper out of her pocket.
“Just a minute,” Jem said. He was getting ready for their match, pulling off his jacket, rolling his sleeves up muscled arms. All this male beauty was bound up in the sense of freedom she’d had this week—but that was a mirage, not real life.
She could find a gentleman to marry. Anyone who wanted children, and had a decent personality.
Jem raised an eyebrow when he read the full verse.
My body is but little,
So is the nightingale’s
I love to sleep against prickle
So doth the nightingale.
And if you’d like to know my name,
You’ll find me wearing a veil—
And nothing else!
“A veil sounds ominously like a proposal of marriage,” he said, tossing the sheet away.
“It believe the word offers a clue to your correspondent’s name,” Harriet said.
“I can’t imagine who that might be.”
He knew who it was. He knew Nell’s last name was Gale. But he was pulling off his boots, not looking up.
“Do you receive many letters of this sort?” she asked.
“No. I fancy the cleverness of it is to your credit. I do receive many propositions, generally more boldly phrased.”
“Why?”
He looked at her, eyebrow raised. “You may not credit this, Harry, being as you’re a prettier man than most of the women out there, but women do find me attractive.”
“I’m not pretty!” Harriet protested.
“Unfortunately, you are,” he said flatly. “Just look at the effect you had on poor Kitty. And it’s not as if she hasn’t had many to choose from.”
“She didn’t write me any letters.”
The way he looked at her made her feel like a fool and a king at the same time. And a woman, through and through.
You’re a man, Harriet told herself. Remember you’re a man.
“I’m not sure how good Kitty is with her letters,” Jem said. “If you’d like, I could help her. The way you helped my little nightingale come up with rhyming words.”
Harriet opened her mouth to deny it and then sighed. “Well, aren’t you the least bit tempted? That’s the first poetry I’ve written in years.”
“By the nightingale? No. But I’m shocked by you. Who would have thought you knew words like prickle? Or could employ them so…usefully?”
Harriet felt herself growing a little pink. “I know all sorts of words.”
“You’ll have to give me a vocabulary lesson one of these days,” Jem said dryly. “I’m sure I could use instruction.”
“Surely your mistress could do that service for you,” Harriet said, before she caught back the words.
His answer came a few heartbeats too late, after she’d had time to think about what a fool she was. “I don’t have one,” he said.
Harriet had her masculinity firmly in grip now. “Every gentleman has a bit of muslin,” she said. “You needn’t lie to me, Strange.”
“Call me Jem,” he said with emphasis. “My name is Jem. No mistress. I had one for a while a few years ago, but she wanted to meet Eugenia. That wasn’t going to happen.”
“Has Eugenia recovered from last night?” Harriet asked.
“Yes. Her governess has been dismissed, and so has the footman who was supposed to be at her door. Povy discovered they were spending the night together in a knife closet, of all places. Are you ready to fence, Mr. Cope?”