The Ugly Duchess

Page 52

The sound that emerged from her throat was like the screech of the peacocks that strolled the grounds of Buckingham Palace. “What in the devil do you think you’re doing?”
She reached out and snatched the sheet back before James could reply. He lost his balance and toppled against the wall. “Get out of here!” she cried, her voice breaking. “What are you doing here? Where is my maid? Why can’t you simply leave me alone?”
“I came instead of your maid,” he said, righting himself.
“Leave!” Theo flashed, feeling better now that she had covered herself again. Her eyes burned and were swollen, and her voice was jagged. Her entire body ached with a terrible, withering exhaustion that she hadn’t felt since her mother died.
She took a deep breath. “I must ask that you give me some privacy. I realize that you are likely not used to such on board ship, but I need to be alone.”
In his eyes she thought she saw the dim shadow of the old James, her childhood companion. “You should get in the bath,” he said. “You’ll feel better. I can tell you’ve been crying.”
“Brilliant deduction,” she said flatly. “When I take baths, I take them alone. Good-bye.”
“Why are your drawers so plain?”
“What?”
“Your drawers. I remember them as confections of French lace, ribbons, and silk. I spent a good deal of time thinking about them on board ship.”
She frowned. “My drawers are plain because I put away childish things.”
“I liked them.”
“So much you didn’t want me to wear them!” The sentence hurtled out of her mouth without conscious volition.
“That was just erotic play,” he said, shrugging.
“Those garments were frivolous,” she said, rather coldly. And they reminded her too much of that dreadful afternoon: since then, she had never worn anything next to her skin but unadorned, austere linen.
His hand twitched and she narrowed her eyes. “Don’t think of snatching my sheet again or I’ll put a knee where it will hurt most.”
There was something in his face . . . he looked sorry for her. Or was it pity? Theo swallowed. That was the topping to a truly wonderful day. “Could you please leave the bathing chamber? If not from common courtesy, then simply because you respected me once? Please?”
His eyes were shuttered, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. But rather than leaving the room, he sat down on the maid’s stool in the corner. “No,” he said.
“Then I will leave,” Theo said, turning. “Thank you for pumping the water for my bath.”
He sprang up and caught her wrist before she could take more than a step.
“What are you doing?” she gasped. Then her eyes flew to his. “You—you didn’t ever force women, did you, James? Not that?” Despite herself, tears sprang to her eyes again.
A low growl erupted from his chest. “How can you say that to me?”
“Because you’re a pirate. Because you—you . . .” Her voice choked at the look in his eyes. It wasn’t angry as much as hurt.
“Are you afraid that I would do such a thing to you?” His voice was raw, with a dark edge.
Theo swallowed. His eyes had taken on the bruised blue of the sky before a storm. “Of course not.” She didn’t succeed in making the statement quite convincing. The worst of it was that she wasn’t entirely certain that she would resist.
“I have never forced a woman,” he said, his growl a sudden reminder of his voice’s pure beauty. Before.
“But you have killed people,” she said, biting her lip.
“Only when I had to. And never an innocent: under my command the Poppy Two attacked only pirate ships flying the skull and crossbones, as did the Flying Poppy from the moment Griffin and I joined forces.”
“No walking the plank?” she asked, despising the pathetic note of hopefulness in her voice.
“No.” His eyes held steady on hers, and although so much had changed about him—his very body was different, and his voice was gone, and his face had matured—his eyes were the same. Prideful and honest.
Honest?
Another wave of exhaustion hit her. James wasn’t honest. He had tricked her into marriage, lied during his vows in front of God and man. She turned on suddenly unsteady legs and collapsed on the stool he had just deserted.
Then she made sure the sheet was decently covering her, folded her hands in her lap, and looked down at her toes. “This will not work,” she told him. “Ever.”
“Why not?” He sounded reassuringly calm.
“I’ve changed. I’m not easy anymore. I prefer my life to have order in it. I prefer to be respected and honored in my own household.” She waved her hand in the steamy air. “Let’s be honest with each other, shall we? I loved you once. I believe you loved me too, although you didn’t feel it strongly enough to thwart your father. Still, before your father forced the issue, I had no idea that I loved you—at least, not in that way.”
The memory of their intimacies presented itself, and she flinched.
“What?” he asked, instantly.
“In retrospect, there were some very disturbing aspects to our relationship, in particular to our marital relations,” she said, adding: “I was quite angry at you, but I gave that up several years ago.”
“Until I made you angry again by appearing at the House of Lords.”
She looked back at her feet. “I do not offer this as an excuse, but it was difficult being known as a woman so ugly that her husband could not tolerate living in the same country with her. I am perhaps overly sensitive to slights as a result.”
“You didn’t reveal the truth about why I left because any explanation would implicate my father and his financial dealings,” James said slowly. He sat down on the edge of the ceramic bathtub.
She didn’t reply.
“They truly believed I fled the country because I thought you were ugly?” He sounded stunned, which was gratifying. After her mother, James had always been her blindest supporter.
“It took me a few years to stop listening,” she continued. “But once I made the estate profitable again, I went to Paris, and when I returned to London last year, I wore a cape of swansdown to Cecil’s ball.”
He didn’t even smile.
“I was a success,” she insisted, leaning back against the wall.
“You are gorgeous no matter what you wear,” he said flatly. There was no compassion in his eyes; as he had never accepted that she was less than beautiful, he couldn’t celebrate her triumph as a swan.
“My point is that when you appeared so suddenly in Lords, it played into my rather overwrought sensibilities, and I did become angry. I do accept that you attempted to contact me in the morning, but the fact that I had no idea you were alive until the moment you identified yourself will confirm the impression that you couldn’t bear to live with such an ugly woman. Still, I’m not angry about that anymore,” she added, striving for a bright tone and not succeeding in the least.
“That is absurd.” His face was utterly expressionless.
“I’ll move to France,” she said with sudden urgency. “I’ll move anywhere, James. Just please, let me be who I am now. I can’t pretend that the girl you married will ever come back. I can’t—I could not go to bed with you.” Despite herself, a drop of liquid disgust curdled in her voice.