The Ugly Duchess

Page 48

The procedure for receiving a royal pardon for two privateers (not pirates), who had spent their careers protecting the seas from the incursions of rogues and criminals, had been put in motion two months ago.
“It’s only a matter of the Regent’s signature, at this point. I gave McGill that ruby we took from the Dreadnaught to give to His Royal Highness as a gesture of our gratitude.”
“How can the Regent not sign, when a virtuous privateer turns out to be one of his own dukes?” Griffin drawled. “Not that I mean to imply that a ruby as large as the royal toe would sway his decision. Did you have any trouble taking up your title, by the way, or had they already sung a dirge for you?”
“I was still alive when I entered the chambers.”
“Do you suppose your wife had another candidate all set to go? Must be deuced disappointing for him now that you’ve turned up.”
“Oh, I’m fairly sure she does,” James said grimly. “Before we married she was infatuated with a jack-a-dandy named Trevelyan. I couldn’t stand him when we were in school together, and I’m damned sure I can’t stand him now. She was planning to join him at the theater before she discovered that we’re trapped in the house.”
“I wonder if Poppy has someone lined up. Not that she thinks I’m dead, the way yours did.”
“Why don’t you go see your wife? I’ll send the pardon after you.”
“I can’t say I’m overeager. We were complete strangers up to the moment when I was supposed to bed her, and I couldn’t get a rise to save my life,” Griffin said, a thread of amusement lightening his voice. “She was three years older than I was, you see, and when you’re seventeen, the difference between a lad and a girl of twenty feels like a century.”
“Seventeen is young.”
“You weren’t much older,” Griffin retorted. “I failed to consummate my marriage and fled from humiliation. I got drunk, ended up in a pub, and next thing I knew I was bundled onto a ship and turned into a sailor. At the next port, I jumped ship and joined another crew, only to find out too late that it was a pirate vessel. ’Twas the beginning of a lurid career.”
“On my wedding night the room was so dark that I don’t think either of us had any idea what we were doing.”
“Were you afraid that you’d be put off if you lit a candle?”
“Theo is beautiful,” James said, admitting no arguments. “You’ll see her tomorrow, if you get yourself downstairs before she leaves. Unless I miss my bet, she’ll have herself and her maid out of the house not long after dawn.”
“A far cry from the way those women used to flock to the docks when the Poppys hove into view, isn’t it? If my wife looks at me, all she’s going to see is a crippled man with a bum leg. If your wife looks at you, she’ll see the man who tricked her into marriage and is keeping her from this Trevelyan fellow.”
“If I can persuade a woman who thinks I married her for her money that I want to take her back, surely you can convince your wife that you’re not the limp lily she remembers?”
“You lied to her the first time around,” Griffin said. “She’ll never believe a thing you say from now on.”
“My problem is not as great as yours,” James replied, nettled. “Daisy used to love me, after all. You have to convince a reluctant stranger to give you another shot at intimacy.”
“Neither one of us looks the part of the elegant wooer,” Griffin said with a shout of laughter. “Want a bet on which of us gets his wife to bed faster?”
James found himself grinning back at Griffin. “Not the action of gentlemen.”
“It’s too late to claim that particular status. You can play the duke all you like, but a gentleman? No. You’re no gentleman.”
“If I take your bet, you’ll have to take yourself off to Bath and actually talk to your wife.”
“I might do it, just to beat you.”
James was so restless that he couldn’t sit still. He got up and walked to the window. “Damned if there aren’t journalists perched on the garden wall!”
Griffin joined him just as two very large grooms strolled down the paved path, carelessly swinging mallets. The so-called reporters disappeared in a hurry.
“We’re trapped here,” James said slowly. The germ of an idea had just occurred to him.
Griffin pivoted. “I’ll leave directly. The last thing I want is for my wife to learn from the London Chronicle that I’ve made my way back to England.” He frowned, squinty-eyed, at James. “What in the hell are you grinning about?”
“Nothing! I’m off to talk to the butler. He has to do something about the crowd out in front of the house.”
“Why don’t you step out and play the big, bad buccaneer? That’ll show them that pirates can’t be caged.”
“Not unless we choose to be,” James said, knowing his grin had a calculating edge. “Not unless we choose to be.”
Twenty-seven
Theo decided to go to supper wearing the green gown and the ruby ring. After a moment’s thought she added a ruby necklace as well.
It rather amused her to think that she was dressed like a pirate’s queen. Or would that be empress? Even her heeled slippers twinkled, as well they should, given their trim of diamond chips. Theo narrowed her eyes at her reflection. Surely the consort of a pirate glittered from head to toe.
She had the suspicion that pirates didn’t have empresses. They had doxies. But one glance showed her that no one could possibly mistake her for a woman of the night. She looked regal, perhaps a bit too stern. As if she didn’t laugh enough.
Theo frowned at herself again. Of course she laughed. All the time.
But as she descended the stairs, she couldn’t remember when. Probably the last time she saw Geoffrey; he always made her laugh. Most likely he had a group around him at this very moment, and he was driving them into fits of laughter by describing the way the “savage” had waltzed into the House of Lords almost in time for his own funeral.
There was something remarkably tasteless about Geoffrey; the more she came to know him, the clearer it seemed. She didn’t want to make fun of James; she just wanted to be free of him. In fact, she didn’t want anyone else to ridicule him, either.
She was still thinking of Geoffrey’s probable mockery of James when she entered the drawing room.
“Her Grace,” Maydrop announced and closed the door behind her. For a moment her eyes met those of James, and then she saw his attire. Her lips parted in astonishment, and she came to a halt.
James was wearing one of the most extraordinary costumes that she had ever seen, in Paris or out. His coat was made of dull gold silk with a lustrous sheen. Under it he wore a waistcoat embroidered with roses, and fastened with azure blue buttons. His neck cloth was a glorious Indian silk dyed in colors that shifted from orange to rose. The final touch? Breeches that clung to every inch of his muscled thighs, tied with small rose-colored bows just below his knees.
Those bows were the most incongruous thing of all. Slowly, she looked back up his body. The costume was so beautiful as to be unmanly. The fabrics were exotic, and the tailoring Parisian: the collar was edged with deep cuts and much wider than worn in London. His breeches were tighter than Englishmen chose to wear them.