The Ugly Duchess

Page 15

His eyes were still dark and troubled, but he leaned over and dropped an upside-down kiss, a soft and sweet one, on her lips.
“Actually, I’d prefer the other kind.” She felt her heartbeat start a tattoo in her throat.
“The other kind,” James said slowly. He drew the lock of hair through his fingers, then put it on a side table and drew her to her feet. “One kiss. Then I must make my way downstairs.”
For all that, he took her mouth slowly, as if they had all day to do nothing but taste each other, come together like silk and velvet.
At some point the door opened, and a maid squeaked something. The door closed again, and still they kissed.
James’s mouth kept sliding to her jaw, to an eyebrow, to an ear, always coming back, taking her mouth again. Theo began a rambling sort of monologue, a shivering, breathy series of comments that made little sense, until she found herself saying, “I cannot believe I didn’t know I felt like this . . . What would have happened if you hadn’t realized in time, James? What if I had managed to entice Geoffrey to the altar?”
He pulled his mouth away. By now she was clinging to him, trying to fit all the curves of her body to the hard places in his, trying to climb up him like a cat, her breath coming in little sobs.
But he thrust her away, putting the chair between them for good measure. “James,” she said, her voice threaded with desire.
“Don’t.” His voice was hoarse too, but there was something strange in his expression, a kind of agonized rage in his eyes.
“What on earth is the matter?” Theo asked, suddenly aware that there really was something the matter; James wasn’t simply in an odd mood.
“Nothing,” he said, with patent falsehood. “I must meet the estate manager. I don’t want the man to think that the whole family is cut along my father’s pattern. He sometimes keeps Reede waiting for days after summoning him.”
“Of course,” Theo replied. “Still, I know you, James. There’s something really wrong, isn’t there? Please tell me. What is it?”
But he turned and fled, and she spoke to the closed door.
Eight
Amélie’s horrified cry at discovering the wedding dress serving as a perch for a pair of London sparrows was matched by her despair as Theo tossed dress after dress behind her on the bed.
At the end of it, Theo had almost nothing to wear, but she had a growing sense of excitement.
When she finally managed to dress in one of the few gowns left to her name, she wandered down to breakfast. James had not yet returned from his trip to the wharf, and no one else was at home. “Where is His Grace?” she asked Cramble, allowing a footman to spoon scrambled eggs onto her plate.
“The duke went to the races in Newmarket and won’t be home until tomorrow.”
“And my mother?”
“Mrs. Saxby left early this morning for Scotland; I believe she is paying a visit to her sister.”
“Of course! I entirely forgot,” Theo said. “Yes, I would like two pieces of that ham, thank you. Cramble, would you please send a footman to Madame Le Courbier and inform her that I will pay a visit this afternoon? And since I am alone, I would love to see a newspaper.”
“Only the Morning Chronicle has been delivered, Lady Islay. I shall bring it to you immediately.”
Theo almost didn’t catch his answer, lost as she was in the surprising pleasure of being addressed by James’s title. She never thought of James as the Earl of Islay, but of course he was. Then the butler’s comment dawned on her. “No other papers? How very peculiar. Couldn’t you send someone out for them, Cramble?”
“I am very sorry, my lady,” he said. “I am afraid I am unable to spare anyone from the household at the moment.”
“Perhaps this afternoon,” Theo said. “Surely Town Topics will be delivered at some point?”
“I shall ascertain,” Cramble replied discouragingly.
Theo began to think about the whole vexing question of the estate. She had no problem believing that her new father-in-law had lost a great deal of the estate’s fortunes. He was an irascible, gambling fool, and even if she hadn’t reached that conclusion herself, her mother had said so, forcibly, at least once a day for as long as she could remember.
Still, she was rather surprised that Ashbrook had agreed to give over the reins to James. He must have been pushed to the wall, which suggested the estate was in truly bad straits.
Once James and the estate manager returned from their errand, she joined them in the library to find that the meeting had an air of crisis. James had clearly been tugging at his hair, as his short Brutus looked much more disarranged than was fashionable. The estate manager, Mr. Reede, looked both aggrieved and defensive.
“Gentlemen,” Theo said, walking into the room. “Mr. Reede, how kind of you to join us.”
“It’s his bloody job,” James snapped, “and if he’d been doing his job a bit more keenly, we might not be in the straits we are.”
“Begging your lordship’s forgiveness,” Mr. Reede said, “but may I remind you that I had no authority to stop His Grace from any of the decisions that you disparage.”
“Right,” Theo said, seating herself beside James and trying not to think about how much she liked feeling the brush of his shoulder against hers. “How bad is it?”
“It’s hellish,” James stated. “My father has managed to come near to bankrupting the entire estate. He’s sold everything that he could put his hands on, and only the entail has saved the rest from disappearing into his pockets.”
Theo put a hand on his arm. “Then it’s an excellent thing that you have assumed control, James. Remember those ideas we used to have for making the Staffordshire estate self-sustaining? We have a chance to put them into practice.”
He cast her a look that was half despair and half exasperation. “We were children, Daisy. We had stupid, quixotic ideas that were probably about as practical as my father’s wretched plans.”
It was clear to her that James was on the verge of combustion. “Mr. Reede, could you give me a précis of what is left in the estate, and what debts are encumbered thereto?” Theo asked.
Mr. Reede blinked at her, clearly startled.
“I told you,” James said to him with a hollow laugh.
Mr. Reede found his tongue. “The Staffordshire estate is entailed, of course, as is this town house and the island in Scotland.”
“Island?”
“Islay,” James put in. “No one has visited it in years; I gather it’s nothing more than a heap of rock.”
“I’m afraid that there are debts against the country estate totaling thirty-two thousand pounds,” Mr. Reede said.
“What about income from the sheep farm, and the rest?”
“The income is approximately the amount that has been agreed upon as His Grace’s annual allowance. There are also debts against the town house totaling five thousand pounds.”
“And against the island?” Theo asked.
“No one would lend him money against it,” James said. “It has nothing but a meadow and a hut.”
“His Grace does own a ship that has, in the past, made successful runs to the East Indies for spices. Lord Islay and I spent the morning at the Percival, which has been dry-docked as a result of nonpayment of customs fees.”