The Ugly Duchess

Page 43

She was the only one who had always looked past the surface and loved him for himself. She had been the only person in his life who thought he was more than a pretty voice and a handsome face. Even his mother liked to parade him around the drawing room, cajole him to sing for her guests, and call him her “treasure.”
He strode into the library, dimly registering that it looked different. How in the hell could he have let Daisy go? Where had his brain been the last seven years?
The days had been long, and filled with sometimes violent adventure, but somehow the years had been short.
He stood at the window, his heart pounding in a strange way that made him feel a bit sick. It couldn’t be too late.
He could win her back.
He briefly imagined himself kneeling at her feet and just as quickly dismissed the idea. The one thing he would never do was beg. As a child, he had begged for affection, although his parents never seemed to notice. He had sung his heart out for his mother, hoping that she would do more than pat his cheek and smile at him.
A sound deep in his chest surprised him and he bared his teeth at his reflection in the window glass. He was being a sentimental ass. He could win Daisy back without prostrating himself. Women didn’t want fools or weaklings. If she didn’t respect him, she’d never take him back.
There was nothing to respect about a man who only had to look at his wife to find his entire body enflamed, the one thought in his mind a longing to lick every drop of water off her body. He’d like to carry her to bed, and . . .
And beg her to love him the way she once had.
His stomach lurched. He had a moment of clarity that sliced the world into two parts: one in which Daisy smiled at him, and the other in which she walked away, just as he had walked away from her.
The second was hell. And the first . . .
Her frightened expression came back to him like a blow.
True, he looked like a savage and he sounded like a dockworker. But he didn’t have to act like either. In fact, he suddenly realized, what he should do is act like that damned worm Trevelyan. Daisy had always adored Trevelyan’s sardonic manner, although it masked (if you asked James, though Daisy never did), a blistering lack of confidence. Perhaps even self-hatred.
A hard bark of laughter didn’t make it from his throat. He was the one lacking self-confidence now. Still, as long as she never discovered his Achilles’ heel—her—he could seduce her with carefully clever conversation. Then, once he managed to get her to bed, surely he could ignite the old affection she had for him.
But first she had to see him as the sort of man she wanted, not as an idiot begging for attention, let alone sexual attention. And not as a terrifying pirate, either. He had to be polished. Amused. Refined.
All the things he was not, but he shrugged that off. She could find out later what a primitive beast he really was underneath. He could play cultured for a while.
Probably.
He thought through his plan, elaborating it, considering contingencies, testing each phase in his mind as carefully as he had always done when they caught sight of a pirate sail. Thanks to the countless times Griffin and he found themselves in the company of royalty, he was in possession of all the clothing that Daisy would like.
She had certainly remade herself; she was like a polished silver bowl, every inch of her conveying classic elegance. And control. In fact, she bore an unnerving resemblance to a sensual general, if only women were allowed in His Majesty’s army.
He preferred her without clothing. His mind skipped back to the image of her standing in her bath, and his body instantly hardened. Runnels of water had slid down her thighs. He wanted to fall at her feet and cherish those thighs . . . and everything between them.
But even more than that, he simply wanted to be with her, to be the first to share her brilliant ideas and fierce opinions. In all his travels, he never met anyone, not even Griffin, whom he enjoyed talking to as much as he enjoyed talking to Daisy. Now that he’d seen her again, it was as if all those years on board ship had passed in a dream: reality was here. He wanted to grow old with her, or not grow old at all.
Bloody hell.
He was in serious trouble.
Twenty-five
The moment Theo closed the door, she pivoted, expecting James to open it and step through. He had blundered straight into the bathing chamber, after all. Why had she never divided that spacious room into two, one for each of the bedchambers? She’d had half a mind to do so for years. Instead, she’d installed the newest system of pumping water and a gorgeous ceramic bathtub made on their own estate.
She heard the sound of his feet retreating through his room and down the corridor. And told herself that she was glad. Perhaps he had forgotten that the bathing room was shared. From now on, he would respect her privacy.
She took her time dressing, not allowing herself to picture buxom island girls with curves her body would never achieve.
She had meant to remain at home that night to honor James’s memory. But now there was no person to grieve, and, therefore, no reason to stay home. More importantly, she simply could not face the idea that she and James would have to sit opposite each other at supper. She desperately wanted to flee.
She sent Amélie to inform Maydrop that she would attend the theater, then she donned an evening dress made of a heavy, supple olive green silk that gleamed under candlelight. It fell from the bodice, but rather than belling out, the silk was cut on the bias and hugged every curve of her body.
The bodice was gathered under her breasts and trimmed with dark copper lace that glimmered with shiny black beads and widened into short sleeves. Her hair was pulled straight back from her forehead without even a wisp floating at her ears, and she waved away the ruby necklace Amélie offered. She wanted no distraction from her face.
She did, however, slide a sparkling ruby onto her right hand, a present she had given to herself when Ryburn Weavers made its first thousand guineas in profit.
How better to remember that milestone than to wear a sizable percentage of it on one’s finger?
Finally, Amélie drew out a small brush and skillfully applied a few strategic dabs of face paint. The last thing Theo wanted was to try to look conventionally feminine, but she’d discovered that a thin line of kohl made her eyes look deep and mysterious.
After a final look in her glass, she felt her confidence settle back in place: confidence that had been hard won, as she coerced the estate back into solvency, as she conquered the French court, as she won the respect of the English ton.
Her husband’s disregard for her—even expressed so openly, before the entire assembled body of peers—could not diminish her achievements.
Her butler waited at the newel post. “His Grace is in the library,” he announced, concern written all over his face.
“Thank you,” Theo replied. “I trust that you will reassure the household, Maydrop. The duke’s return is unexpected, to say the least, but I am sure that he will make no changes in domestic arrangements.”
He nodded. “His Grace did not bring a valet, so I have taken it upon myself to request the registry office send three suitable candidates tomorrow morning. I have put the duke’s guest in—”
“Guest!” Theo interjected. She felt the blood draining from her face. Surely, no matter how savage he’d become, James had not brought back a woman from the West Indies?