The Ugly Duchess

Page 53

His shoulders tightened. After a moment, he said, “Because you despise me for leaving or because of the way I have changed?”
“I told you to leave. Believe it or not, I accepted blame for my rash statement long ago.”
“I had no intention of slighting you in front of the House of Lords.”
“So you said, and I believe you,” she said, ladling on reassurance. “So I think—I hope—we can simply be honest with each other, like the friends we once were, and with respect to the affection we once shared.”
He muttered something.
“I’m sorry?”
“It was love, not affection,” he said, raising his head.
“Of course,” she said lightly. “I’ve come to think of our marriage as being very like Juliet and Romeo’s in its brief intensity. I expect it was a good thing that we were never tested by life. Our love was too passionate, like a summer storm that quickly dies down.”
“I disagree. I think we would have had children by now,” he said evenly. “We would have fallen more deeply in love. I would have confessed why I married you, at some point, and you would have forgiven me, because that’s what people in love do.”
There was a fierce, intense spark in his eye that made a shiver streak down Theo’s spine. “It might have happened that way. My point is that we can’t pretend that those emotions can be reawakened. They cannot. I truly think that the courts would be willing to grant us a divorce, even if they rarely grant divorce. They do so in extraordinary cases.”
“The extraordinary case being my career as a pirate.”
Her voice came out a little apologetic. “Even if you never walked anyone down the plank.”
“Or forced any women.”
“Yes, even though. You see, it’s enough that they think it is so.”
She didn’t care for the tight control he kept over himself, she realized. It was almost better when he used to lose his temper and shout. Now the very air around his head seemed to shimmer with feeling, and yet he didn’t raise his voice an iota.
“You want me to pretend to be a rapist and murderer so that our marriage can be dissolved.” He said it flatly.
“No!” She half-shouted that.
He didn’t reply.
“Of course I don’t want anyone to think that you are—that you are those things. Indeed, I’m so relieved that you are not. I think just the fact that you . . . well, you look quite different than you used to, James. You’re so large. And you’re tattooed. Your voice . . .” Her own voice trailed off and she gestured aimlessly. “We don’t belong together.”
“Why not?”
She almost laughed. “I would be willing to wager that I am the most organized woman in all London. That’s how I managed the estate and built the ceramics and fabric concerns. I make lists. No”—she corrected herself—“I make lists within lists. Life is so much more pleasant and efficient when everything has a proper place.”
“I do not understand why your abilities as an estate manager preclude marriage to me.”
It was not said aggressively, so she tried to explain. “I take a great many baths, and I like them to be precisely the right temperature. I had the pump in the bathing room installed so that the servants didn’t have to haul water up the stairs; this way it comes straight from the copper in the scullery. My baths are scented with three drops of primrose oil. Not just any oil, but a particular fragrance that’s made for me on the Staffordshire estate.”
James didn’t look impressed.
“Life is easier, much easier,” Theo told him, “if you eliminate questions that other people dither about. My bath is scented with elderflowers throughout the winter, but I switch to primrose on April first.”
“You’re rigid as a picket fence,” he stated. It wasn’t the first time something like that had been said to her.
“I suppose I am,” she said, nodding. “I prefer to think of myself as logical. I know precisely what I want to put on for any type of occasion. I don’t own more gowns than I can use, and I wear them exactly the same number of times before I give them to my maid. I never have to worry about finding myself in a gown that’s out-of-date or showing wear.”
He tilted his head slightly, and she felt a tiny pang of sorrow for the young James of her memories. That was one mannerism he’d had since boyhood.
“Is such a level of rigidity necessary?”
“No one is harmed by it. My household runs like clockwork. I am comfortable and happy. My employees know precisely what is expected of them, but in return, I don’t ask more than they can achieve.”
He still didn’t appear to have been won over.
“My system allows me to be far more productive than most women—or indeed men,” she pointed out. “Generally speaking, gentlewomen are required to do little more than run a household.”
“I apologize for leaving you with the responsibilities of the estate,” James said quietly.
Theo smiled, quick and sweet, and suddenly his own Daisy was there again, if only for a moment. He had a sudden feeling of vertigo, as if the world had tilted slightly to the side.
“I liked being left with the estate,” she admitted a bit sheepishly. “My mother told me before she died that I had no right to whine over the end of our marriage, and she was right. I am happy telling people what to do. I probably never would have made a very good wife, but I do make a good duke.”
James thought about that for a moment or two. One had to assume that there was room for only one duke in any given duchy. “I am very sorry about the death of your mother,” he said at length. “When did that happen?”
Theo’s face clouded, and she looked back at her feet. “A few years ago. I still miss her.”
“I miss my father.” He said it conversationally, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, so he turned and put his fingers in the water. It had turned cold, so he began pumping again.
“I am so sorry about his death,” Theo said. “He was quite confused when they brought him home after his heart seized, but he didn’t seem to be in pain. He simply drifted away during the night.”
James swallowed. The water was throwing up steam into his face. He could feel it beading on his eyelashes. “Well. One of my many errors. I should have liked to have been with him.”
There was nothing she could say to that.
“And I would like to avoid another error and remain married to you,” he stated. He stopped pumping, still not looking at her. Annoyingly, his voice was not as even as it could be.
She didn’t answer, so he glanced at her and thought he saw pity in her eyes. He straightened and wiped away the drops of water that clung to his skin.
“You are my friend,” he said, rising and walking to the side of the room farthest from her. “I would like to be married to a friend. You knew my father, all the bad and good sides of him. I would like to be able to be honest with my wife, to have her understand that it is possible to love someone and hate him at the same time. Even though he’s dead.”
She gave a little huff of laughter. “You changed while you were gone, James.”
“There’s not much to do on board ship but read and think. I fell into the habit of reading philosophy.”