Duchess in Love (26 page)

“Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours were,”
she taunted.

“Oh really?” Cam snapped back.

“That's not in the play.” Her green eyes were glowing with the pleasure of battle. He felt an unwilling surge of lust that rocked him from head to toe.

Esme interrupted. “Lord Bonnington and I are going to take a brief turn in the garden. We will return in five minutes.”

Cam gave them a tight nod.

“Forgot your line?” Gina said, the moment the door closed.

“I believe so.” His hands bit into her shoulders and he jerked her toward him.

“Then I own the forfeit,” she said. Her tone was just a little uncertain as she watched his mouth descend on hers.

Now he had her where he wanted her: on his lap, with her lips under his. She wiggled for a moment and then her body melted against him, slender perfection and creamy, delicate curves.

“I determined the forfeit before we began.” His voice was a husky rumble.

“Um-hmm,” she said.

He deepened the kiss. His hands roamed greedily, molding sweet curves, tracing breasts hampered and constrained by tight silk and a corset.

“What's this?” he whispered, tracing a whalebone curve. “I thought you forswore all corsets.”

“I changed my mind.”

He stood, pulling her to her feet.

Gina's knees were weak. Before she knew what was happening, he was towing her out of the room.

“Where are we going?” she cried.

He didn't even pause. “Your bedchamber.”

“What?” She put all her weight in her heels.

He turned around. “We're going to your bedchamber, Gina.” He tipped up her chin, and what he saw there made him shudder.
“Now.”

Still she held back. “We can't, unless—” Her cheeks were wild rose and her voice faltered. “I must bring virginity to my marriage bed, Cam.”

He felt as if she had dashed him with cold water. His voice was flat. “You really do think I'm an irresponsible lout. A—what did you call it?—a care-for-naught.”

She felt the way his body stiffened as if his skin were her own. “No! That isn't the case. I trust you. I know you wouldn't do—
that
.”

He waited, mouth grim.

“I don't trust myself.”

The words faltered from her lips, and she turned a deeper shade of rose. He thought about it. Her hair was swept high on her head, and diamonds shone on her ears. She looked precisely like a young, regal Queen Elizabeth. Except that Cam knew he could turn this queen into
his
with a touch of his lip.

As he said nothing, her shoulders grew perceptibly stiffer. She turned with a swish of skirts. “Shall we return to the play, sir? Your next line is,
Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
” She sat down and picked up her book as if it were the most fascinating document she'd ever seen.

Camden Serrard, the Duke of Girton, never acted out of pure instinct. Since hopping out the window of his father's house with literally tuppence in his pocket, he had survived by using his wits, acting not by instinct but by logic, combined with a strong wish for self-preservation.

Until that moment. He found himself, Lord
knows
why, on his knees before a young and imperious queen.

He reached out, cupped her face in his hands, and crushed her mouth under his. Large hands cradled her face as if she were the most delicate piece of statuary ever made.

She sighed into his mouth, an erotic little squeak, and strained against him. He let his hand run across her bodice, feather light over smooth cloth, cupped the curve of her breast, and ran his thumb over silk.

“Oh, Cam,” she gasped.

His eyes glinted with satisfaction. His other hand danced enticement, teased and caressed.

She cried out, unable to keep the sound inside. He kissed
her again so that he could taste her gasps in his mouth. His hands went their sinful way until she was boneless, gasping against his mouth, squirming for satisfaction she couldn't have, given the restraints of silk, taffeta and one corset.

Until a noise outside the door reminded an erring duke and duchess that they were not, in fact, in the duchess's bedchamber.

Gina pulled back and stared at her husband. When he touched her, her breath turned to silken fire in her breast. When he kissed her, she became shameless. Everything about him, from his black eyes to his callused hands, made her pulse with desire. I will never feel this for anyone else, she thought. The knowledge was very clear in her heart.

Cam smiled at her easily, and tucked the frill about her neck into order. He looked unmoved, as if they'd spent their time reading Shakespeare.

I mustn't do this again, Gina thought, out of the new knowledge in her heart. I must not touch this man again: he is not mine, and will never be mine. That way lies only heartbreak.

The remainder of the evening passed in a blur. They ran through the play three times, with her betrothed acting as a taskmaster. By the second time they were reasonably proficient, and she was drooping with fatigue.

In the last run-through, Beatrice snapped at her Benedick with passionate emphasis. Benedick, conscious of growing frustration every time he looked at his delectable wife, snapped back with such intensity that even Marquess Bonnington watched and wondered.

“I
don't think you've destroyed
everything,
” Esme said, judiciously choosing a grape before she popped it in her mouth. “But you certainly have made your life difficult.”

Carola shuddered. “I don't see how you can eat at a time like this.” Her voice had an edge of hysteria. “You must come up with a plan to save my marriage!”

Esme raised an eyebrow. “The number of grapes I consume has no effect on my sympathy, I assure you.”

“The fact remains that Carola is right. We need a plan of action,” Gina pointed out.

“I am very sorry to say this,” Helene added, “but Lady Troubridge informed me that Lord Perwinkle is leaving at first light tomorrow.”

There was a wail from Carola's side of the table, and Gina automatically handed her a handkerchief.

The four women were sharing a meal in Carola's chamber, since she had once again refused to descend for luncheon.

“I believe the time has come for strong measures,” Esme said, eating a grape.

Carola lowered the handkerchief just enough to blink despairingly at her. “I truly don't wish to marry Neville.”

“More to the point, he shares your feelings,” Gina noted.

Carola scowled. “He'll marry me if I tell him to. And I may have to, if…if Tuppy decides to divorce me!” She burst into tears again.

Gina looked at the handkerchief Carola held to her face and decided it had two or three more bouts of tears left to it.

“I believe that a bed trick is necessary,” Esme said. “Very appropriate, given that we're performing Shakespeare tomorrow. His plays are full of bed tricks.”

Helene looked pained. “What on earth is a bed trick?”

“A bed trick is the substitution of one person for another,” Gina explained. “The obvious problem would seem that, to the best of my knowledge, Tuppy has not invited anyone to share his bed. For whom will Carola substitute?”

“That's the tricky bit,” Esme admitted.

“Impossible,” Carola sniffed damply. “He doesn't want to sleep with me.”

“One of us will have to seduce him, making an assignation for a later hour. Then Carola will be waiting—”

“And Tuppy will leave in disgust,” Carola interjected.

“No, he won't,” Esme said. “Because it will be
dark
. Don't you know anything about bed tricks?”

Carola shook her head. “It sounds like just the sort of activity my mama deplores.”

“I believe it's the only solution. Tuppy has reason to believe that you dislike his performance in bed, and you have made it clear that you wish to end the marriage. You must convince Tuppy that you wish to be in his bed—nay, that you are willing to embarrass yourself to be there.”

“The question is, who is going to make the assignation?” Esme looked brightly at her two best friends. “Gina? Helene?”

“You,” they answered in chorus.

She grinned. “As it happens, I've made an appointment
with my husband for tomorrow night. Tonight is my last night in the solitary comfort of my bed, given that Miles's girth is likely to have me sleeping on the floor.”

“I cannot believe we are engaged in this disreputable conversation,” Helene said, very pink in the face. “However, I assure you that I cannot make an assignation. I haven't the faintest idea how to go about it.”

“I disagree,” Esme remarked. “You simply haven't had the impulse yet.”

Six eyes turned to Gina, who was eating a tart and clearly considered herself merely a spectator.

“Oh no!” she said, startled, putting down her tart. “I couldn't possibly!”

“Why not?” Esme said. “Apparently Tuppy likes you already, given your knowledge of trout.”

“I can't! I'm already—”

“Already what?”

“I won't allow it,” Carola broke in. “Tuppy likes Gina far too much. In fact, I don't like this plan
at all,
Esme. I don't want to watch someone flirting with my husband. You are all more beautiful than I am, and tall in the bargain. I won't have it!”

Three tall women looked at her affectionately. Her halo of golden curls was gleaming in the sunlight, and she looked as adorable as a new-hatched chick. “You're a fool,” Esme said affectionately. “But if you don't want Tuppy seduced, so be it.”

“Why not just put Carola into Tuppy's bed late at night?” Gina asked. “He won't expect her, and it will be a lovely surprise. That is, if you really think Carola has to take such a drastic measure.”

“I do,” Esme replied. “Tuppy has been humiliated before a large part of the
ton
. He's a man, with a man's dislike for embarrassment. If I were Tuppy, I wouldn't go within a yard
of my wife, no matter how besotted I was. Because he is besotted with you, darling,” she said, turning to Carola.

“He can't be that besotted, given that you think he would invite any one of you to join his bed.”

“We are not mere girls,” Esme announced. “I have complete faith that any of us could usher a defenseless male into our bed without undue exertion. And that includes you,” she said, giving Helene a stern look.

“What will I say when he enters the room? Oh, I couldn't!” Carola cried. “I forgot about his valet.”

“We'll bribe his valet,” Esme stated. “With no valet, he'll have to undress himself. All of Lady Troubridge's guest chambers look precisely the same.” She nodded toward Carola's heavily curtained bed. “He won't even know you're there until he's unclothed and in bed.”

“But then what will I say to him?”

“Nothing,” Gina put in.

“Nothing?” Carola's eyes were big.

Gina's smile was full of mischief. “Nothing at all.”

Esme looked at her with admiration. “You are changing before my very eyes, Ambrogina Serrard. Whatever happened to your duchesslike facade?”

“Duchesses grow accustomed to saying nothing when the occasion calls for it.”

“So I gather,” Esme replied, twinkling.

“All right,” Carola said, bowing to the weight of necessity.

“I'll do it.”

“Good. I shall instruct my maid to bribe his valet. And then we”—Esme cast a glance at Gina and Helene—“shall detain Lord Perwinkle in the ballroom until the right moment.”

“What moment?” Carola asked.

“Eleven o'clock. We won't allow him to leave before that, Carola. So you must be snugly in his bed by then.”

“I have to ask you all to excuse me,” Gina said, casting a hasty look at the mantel clock and rising.

“Why so?” Helene said. “I was hoping you would take a ride with me.”

“I said I would meet Cam in the library this afternoon,” Gina said, with just a trace of self-consciousness in her voice.

“Oh,” Esme chortled. “The handsome husband!”

“He's not my husband,” Gina retorted. “Well, he is, but not for long. I have promised to explain Bicksfiddle's letters to him. Cam is going to take over management of the estate.”

“Well, that's an improvement!” Esme said. “Perhaps he's finally leaving the ranks of childhood.”

“That's not fair,” Gina protested. “Living in Greece, Cam had no idea how much work the estate can be.”

Helene touched her on the wrist and said in her light, clear voice, “but how splendid of him to take over the work the moment he realized.”

“Humph,” Esme snorted. “If I were you, I'd keep that husband of yours on a tight leash. He'll give all that work back if you give him the smallest encouragement.”

“I shall miss it,” Gina admitted. “You know I enjoy it. How am I going to fill my day? Sebastian tells me that he has two excellent estate managers.”

“Trust the marquess to have two when one would do,” Esme snapped. “I suspect you won't have time for doing estate work. It will take you all day just to live up to Bonnington's expectations of fair ladyhood.”

Gina took up her gloves. “I shall leave, Esme, before we exchange words. I will see you all for supper, I hope.”

After she was gone, Helene looked at Esme with some concern. “Why so sharp, dearest?”

Esme bit her lip. “I'm a pig, aren't I?”

“Not quite that dreadful.”

“I'm consumed with jealousy these days,” Esme burst out. “I feel like a five-year-old visiting someone else's nursery. I desperately want everyone else's beaux, and I don't want my own.”

“I don't remember Gina's husband,” Helene said. “I believe I met him before he left, but I was a mere child. Is he so handsome?”

“It's not the duke,” Esme replied.

Helene reached over and touched Esme's cheek. “Poor duck,” she said.

“I'd give you Tuppy if you wanted him,” Carola said damply.

Esme giggled. “Then we'd be a proper mess, wouldn't we? Tuppy chasing after Gina's trout, and you and I both chasing after Tuppy!”

Helene stood up. “Shall we go for a ride? My mare arrived this morning, and I'm eager to take her out. Carola?”

She looked up from woeful contemplation of her handkerchief. “I couldn't.”

“You could,” Helene said firmly. “You will be unfit for the evening if you mope around your chamber all day.”

Carola swallowed. “Every time I think about this evening, I feel ill,” she whispered.

“Let's go for a ride. I shall work off my evil temper, and Carola will lose the doldrums, and Helene will stay her calm self…” Esme grinned impishly. “Someday you will behave as nitwitted as the rest of us, Helene, and I shall be there to crow over you.”

She smiled. “Not I.”

 

G
ina entered the library with the firm conviction that there would be no more dalliance with her husband. Enough was enough. The mortifying truth was that she found Cam's kisses nearly irresistible. But she hadn't spent the majority
of her life waiting to be a real wife, to be part of a real family, only to fall prey to a few kisses. The idea of going back to Girton House by herself while her husband sailed away chilled her blood. She couldn't do it. She couldn't live that lonely, duchess-life without a husband or children even a day longer. She wanted the things Sebastian offered: a family, stability, faithfulness, and love.

After all, she'd seen many a marriage begin with passion and end with nothing. Helene and her husband were a good example. When they were both young girls, she'd been green with envy after Helene ran away to Gretna Green with a handsome nobleman. Gina nourished that envy for at least a year, until the countess moved out of her husband's house and he promptly replaced her with a bevy of Russian singers.

Cam was waiting for her at the long table. There was a streak of chalk on his temple.

“Have you been drawing again?” she asked.

He nodded. “It was a fine morning. I have an idea or two for Stephen's marble.” But he didn't say anything more, and Gina felt hesitant about asking. After all, he was sculpting Esme. She wasn't sure that she wanted to know.

Cam took the stack of papers she had brought. “Inquiries from Bicksfiddle?”

She nodded. “Some of them he simply forwards. Others he writes himself. I've sorted them into piles.” She lifted off a good third of the stack. “These are questions to do with land improvement and farming, these have to do with the house itself, and the last are a motley assortment.”

“Let's do the motley ones first,” Cam said. He held out a chair for her, sat down, and picked up a letter. “Why does he want to trim the hedges? Why not simply let them grow?”

“The fields are separated by hedges,” Gina explained,
“and if they are to be negotiated by fox hunters, they must be jumpable.”

Cam scowled. “Who hunts our land?”

Gina raised her eyebrow. “You?”

“I do not hunt!”

“Oh. Your father was—”

“I know,” he said, a tired note to his voice. “My father was a great hunter. Enjoyed it even more if he could trample someone's kitchen garden while pursuing a small wild creature. Have the hedges been kept at a jumpable height?”

Gina hesitated for a second and then said, very collectedly, “I allowed the hedges to grow after your father was bedridden in 1802. Bicksfiddle greatly disapproves, and therefore he issues an annual plea that we trim the hedges.”

His smile made her blink and she quickly pulled forward the next sheet. “These are the plans for the harvest dinner in the village.”

“I don't remember a harvest dinner,” Cam said.

“Well, 1803 was a terrible harvest year,” Gina said. “So I instituted the dinner. And,” she added firmly, “I opened the forest for gaming as well. I'm afraid that Bicksfiddle will complain about that rather bitterly when you see him next.”

“Why would he bother one way or the other?”

“Bicksfiddle has firm ideas of the ducal role,” Gina explained. “He particularly disliked it when I let the gamekeepers go. But really, there was no point to retaining them, given that I had no intention of allowing hunting parties on our land.”

Cam's lopsided smile made her feel warm to her toes. “Let me guess,” he said, putting a finger on her nose for an instant. “The gamekeepers left in 1802, which just happens to be the year my father was bedridden.”

The intimacy of the situation was unnerving Gina. She
could feel a little flush rise up her cheeks. “Let's begin with the house,” she said.

Cam looked at her for a moment, and then nodded. “Of course.”

And so they sat side by side, the duke and duchess, and worked their way through a large stack of papers. At some point, a footman brought them tea; they kept working. Finally Cam stood up and stretched. “Lord Almighty, Gina, my back is breaking. We'll have to return to it tomorrow.”

She looked up, surprised to find that the thin ribbons of sunlight coming through the library's mullioned windows had long since faded.