The Ugly Duchess (4 page)

She had the feeling that he would look for her the next night, and the one afterward.

Feeling magnanimous, Theo dropped a curtsy in the general direction of Claribel and the unpleasant Althea, and allowed James to tow her away.

James strode through the crowded ballroom like one of those Greek gods in a bad mood.

Theo trotted along beside, feeling too happy to protest.

Five

“I
think that went very well,” Theo said, once they were in the carriage on the way home.

“No, it did not,” James said shortly.

“How can you say that? Geoffrey was quite taken with me!”

“He might have been taken with your bubbies.”

“Bubbies?
Bubbies?
James, you really shouldn’t be using that sort of slang around me,” Theo said with some delight. “Bubbies. I love that word.”

He leaned forward, and she realized with a start that he was furious. “Don’t
‘James’
me. You could not have been more obvious flirting with Trevelyan.”

“That’s true. I meant to be obvious.”

“Well, do you want to know something? You don’t belong with your darling Geoffrey. Not at all.”

“Why not?”

“His tongue is even more spiteful than yours. He used to poke at me, just for fun, and if I had paid him any mind, he could have proved a pain in the ass.”

Theo broke into a laugh. “You, upset?”

“I said,
if
I paid him any mind. You’re not me, Theo.
You
would listen to him, and he would cut you to pieces.”

“He will love me,” Theo explained. “I shall quite enjoy watching him dissect our fellow man, but because he will love me, I’ll be out of bounds.”

“Nothing and no one is out of bounds for Trevelyan. I’ve heard him make jokes about his own mother. To be utterly frank, Daisy, he’s the kind of man who is most himself when he is dressed as a woman.”

“What!”

“Just what I said.” James leaned back and looked at her with an insufferably smug expression. “I know him and you don’t.”

“Are you saying that he’s interested in
men?
”

“Is there anything you don’t dare to say aloud?” James yelped. “No, I am not! I’m just saying that he’s an odd bird, that’s all. Very odd. Not for you. I won’t let you marry him.”

“
You
won’t let me marry him?
You?
” Theo was incensed. “Well, let me remind you that you have absolutely nothing to do with whom I marry. Nothing!”

James narrowed his eyes. “We’ll see about that.”

“There is nothing to see,” she snapped. “If I want Geoffrey, I’ll marry him.”

“Not unless you want to share your silk stockings.”

Theo gasped. “You’re being unspeakably rude, and you should apologize. I don’t know why you would say such a thing of Geoffrey.”

“Because it’s the truth. I lived with him. Only when he put on skirts—which he did at the slightest pretext—did he stop being so nervy that he bit at someone every five minutes. But go ahead. I gather you think you know him best.”

“I
do
know Geoffrey best. You may have played at charades when you were at school. But he’s grown up now, even if you haven’t.”

“Right. It’s all my fault.”

“Not your fault,” Theo said. “But I think I understand men a bit better than you do, James. After all, you’re still thinking of Geoffrey as a boy. I see him with a woman’s eyes.”

James scowled at her. “Woman’s eyes! Piffle.”

“If you accompany me just one more time,” Theo coaxed him, “just to the royal musicale tomorrow night, after that I’m certain I will not need the attention I get from dragging you with me. Geoffrey has noticed me now, you see. One more encounter will be enough.”

“For what? True love?”

“Perhaps,” Theo said, thinking of the way Geoffrey’s mouth curved up on one side and not the other. “Maybe.”

“You wouldn’t know true love if it hit you on the side of the head,” James said, folding his arms over his chest.

“Well, you are no more of an expert. Don’t tell me that you feel true love for Bella, because I know perfectly well you don’t. You are infatuated with those enormous
bubbies
that she was displaying to everyone on Oxford Street.”

“Look here,” James said, looking a bit alarmed. “You mustn’t start using that word. It’s not polite.”

“Bubbies!” Theo repeated, just stopping herself from sticking out her tongue at him. She was seventeen, after all. She had to act like a lady. “I know what you see in Bella,” she contented herself with saying. “And it isn’t love.”

“Bella’s attributes are not a matter for our conversation,” James retorted.

Theo laughed. “Then her pretty face? I don’t think so!”

“No more!”

“Who’s going to talk to me about this sort of thing, if not you?” she said, relaxing back into the corner.

“Not me.”

“Too late. You’re the closest thing I have to a brother,” Theo said, feeling a little sleepy. “Can you wake me up when we’re home?”

James sat rigidly in his own corner and stared at her. Even with the dim lantern that lit the carriage he could see the line of her thigh. Not to mention her bubbies, breasts, whatever.

Trevelyan had certainly noticed them. James had to stop himself at the ball from reaching over and jerking the man’s head out of Daisy’s décolletage.

She would not marry Trevelyan. Not under any circumstances.

Even—even if he really did have to marry her himself to prevent it.

Six

The next evening

Carlton House

Residence of the Prince of Wales

T
o Theo’s extreme annoyance, James not only didn’t accompany her to the Prince of Wales’s private musicale, but also didn’t bother to show up until it was almost time for supper.

“Where have you been? You were supposed to be here hours ago,” she hissed at him, pulling him away from the group to the other side of the drawing room, out of earshot. “Claribel has turned herself into a plaster and applied herself to Geoffrey; he’s hardly had a moment to breathe, let alone notice I am in the room.”

“Well, I’m here now,” James said.

Theo took a closer look. He wore a beautiful indigo coat with dark green velvet lapels, entirely appropriate for a private musicale hosted by the Prince of Wales. But there was something about his face, and his eyes . . .

“You’re tipsy!” she exclaimed, with some delight. “I’ve never seen you three sheets to the wind. Are you about to cast up your accounts, or will you just sway gently all night? You look like a hollyhock that someone forgot to stake.”

“I never sway!” He sounded indignant.

“You’re swaying now. For goodness’ sake, look at that,” she cried, nodding toward Claribel, who was leaning on Geoffrey’s arm. “You’d think they were already betrothed. Or that she was as bosky as you are. I don’t suppose you got a chance to mention my dowry to Geoffrey at White’s this afternoon?”

“Funny, that,” James said. “Trevelyan wasn’t at the club, or in my carriage . . . wait . . . because he was here making sheep’s eyes at Lady Claribel. How in bloody hell do you think I had the chance to drop your inheritance into the nonexistent conversation I’ve had with him? Besides, I mentioned it yesterday. That’s good enough.”

“
He’s
not making sheep’s eyes;
she
is. Oh well, it’s probably better, since you’re drunk anyway and would make a hash of it.”

“What’s better?” James said, looking more than a little owlish.

Theo looked up at him and felt a wave of affection. “I
do
adore you, James. You know that, don’t you?”

“Don’t say that I’m like a brother to you. Because I’m not your brother, and you should keep that in mind. We should both keep that in mind. That is, we’re not siblings, even though we may feel like siblings. Sometimes.”

“Perhaps you should take my arm,” Theo suggested. “You’ll be embarrassed tomorrow if you fall at the royal slippers like a chopped tree.”

“Just back up a trifle,” James said, looking distinctly inebriated. “I’ll lean against the wall and pretend I’m speaking to you for a minute. I may have drunk a bit more cognac than was ad . . . ad . . . advisable. Is my father here?”

“Certainly he is,” Theo said. “And he’s peeved that you didn’t come home to escort us here. You’re lucky he hasn’t seen you yet.”

They stood to one side of Carlton House’s music room. Most of the company was grouped in straight-backed chairs, listening raptly to the command performance of the evening. No one seemed to have noticed the two of them at the other end of the room.

“That fellow is pounding the keys in a way that will give everyone a headache,” James complained, too loudly. “He sounds as awful as you used to, back when your mother still thought you might have a musical bone in your body.”

“You mustn’t say such a thing! That’s Johann Baptist
Cramer,
” Theo exclaimed. But she instantly realized there was no point in being shocked that James didn’t recognize the celebrated pianist. He would never willingly sit through an evening of music.

If she didn’t do something, he would create a scene. She took his hand and pulled him around the far side of a tall Chinese screen carved in lotus blossoms; at least anyone casually turning about wouldn’t see him collapsing into an inebriated heap. Then she backed against the wall, tugging him over to her.

James swayed gently toward her, bracing himself by putting his hands against the wall, one on either side of her, creating a little cave that smelled like the best cognac and the outdoors, with just a note of soap.

“Just give me a moment until my head clears,” he murmured. “What on earth are you thinking? You have the most peculiar look on your face.”

“I’m smelling you,” Theo said. “I never realized how nice you smell, James.”

“Huh.” James didn’t seem to know what to make of that, but at least he didn’t seem quite as wobbly as he had a few seconds ago.

“Perhaps we should find you a cup of tea,” she suggested. For some reason—could it be that odd encounter they had had in her bedchamber the day before?—she was having some trouble thinking of James as casually as she ought. He was hopelessly beautiful. He had all the elegance of his father, but his jaw was measurably stronger, and his eyes were steady—even though he was tipsy. Just then his face came much closer.

“Are you about to fall over?” she squeaked.

But he wasn’t.

Instead, he did the one thing that she had never imagined James doing: he kissed her. His lips came even closer, and then they touched hers.

His lips were very soft, Theo thought dimly. That surprised her, though it shouldn’t have. It was her first kiss, after all. Yet it was so unlike the kisses she had imagined.

She had imagined kisses as a delicate brushing of one pair of lips against another. But what was happening now was nothing like that. It wasn’t the part about his lips, but that he put his tongue straight into her mouth, which was strange and yet intimate at the same time. In fact, the whole kiss was like that: a mix of the James she knew and a James she didn’t know at all, a wild James. A manly James. It was all odd, and yet her knees went weak and she found her arms twining themselves around his neck.

James stood back from the wall, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her against his chest. “Kiss me back,” he demanded, low and fierce.

“How drunk are you?” Theo asked. “What are you doing?”

“You’re my Daisy,” he said, staring down at her. His voice was unsteady, his breathing harsh.

His eyes burned with an emotion that she didn’t recognize, but it sent an instant thrill through her whole body. She started to speak, but he bent his head again and silently demanded that she kiss him back. The problem was that she wasn’t sure how. At the same time, she rather desperately wanted to do whatever he asked, so she touched his tongue with her own. She expected it to be revolting, but instead . . .

Dimly, she knew that she should have laughed, or pushed him away, or called for help. Her mother—not to mention the Prince of Wales himself!—was only a matter of feet away, on the other side of the screen.

She should slap him, really. That’s what a well-bred young lady would do after being grabbed by an inebriated gentleman and kissed in public. Or in private, for that matter.

But she wanted more of the taste of James, more of the melting fire that was sweeping her body, more of the irresistible longing that made her move closer and closer to him.

“That’s it,” he said, his voice a thread of sound.

Giddy heat seared what little logic Theo had left. She took his face in her hands. She could kiss the way he wanted. It wasn’t really about tongues. It was a matter of
possessing
him. The way he was possessing her.

Once she realized that, kissing him was easy. Her tongue tumbled over his, and her fingers clenched his hair, knowing that the same flame that touched her singed him.

James made a kind of inarticulate noise, almost a groan, and pulled her closer. The sound of his growl was so heady that Theo shivered all down her body, a direct response to his tight grip and the sensual touch of his tongue. She had never thought of herself as particularly feminine—no girl who grew up with such pronounced features could do so—but in James’s arms she suddenly felt feminine, not in a delicate way, but in a wild, erotic way.

It was intoxicating. It made her tremble with desire, from an almost savage feeling of wanting more of him. She pressed closer and felt her breasts flatten against his chest; he made that sound deep in his throat again. And then he
bit
her lip.

She gasped and—

Found herself reeling backward, thanks to a hand pulling her free as if she were a dog in a fight. To her profound dismay, it was her mother. “James Ryburn, what in the name of heaven do you think you’re doing?” Mrs. Saxby demanded.

Theo stood still, breathless, her eyes fixed on James, feeling as if he’d somehow passed his intoxication on to her.

“And you, Theodora,” her mother cried, rounding on her, “what in God’s name do you think that you’re doing? Have I taught you
nothing?
”

A deep, cultivated voice said in a rather amused fashion, “They don’t call it the marriage mart for nothing, Mrs. Saxby. Looks like your girl will be the first of the season to tie the knot.”

James made a choking noise and Theo turned around, only to find a group of fascinated spectators that included the Prince of Wales, Lord Geoffrey Trevelyan, and the despised Claribel, who for once was not ogling Geoffrey but had a look of stark envy on her face.

Theo looked at James and saw confusion in his face at the same moment that she realized that her lips felt puffy and her hair was falling around her shoulders. She must look like one of those ravished maidens in a bad melodrama.

But she had to say something. “I— We were just—”

James interrupted, his voice overriding hers. He no longer sounded tipsy. “I love Daisy. I am going to marry Daisy.”

Theo’s mouth fell open. James was glaring at her mother, his voice grating a little. “You want to marry her to another man, but she’s
mine,
she’s always been mine.”

Theo drew in a breath, and he swung to her. “Do you remember when I had an eye inflammation when I was twelve and you were ten? And you read to me all that summer in a darkened room because my eyes were weak?”

She nodded, looking up at him in a daze, aware of their audience, and yet trying to ignore them.

“I didn’t know it, but you were mine,” he said, staring down at her almost as if he hated her.

“But I came out three weeks ago,” she whispered, her words falling into the utterly still drawing room. “You didn’t go to a single event until last night.”

“I thought you were just dancing,” he said, his voice ragged. “I didn’t think about it seriously. But if you are going to marry anyone, Daisy, it will be me. I don’t want you to even think about other men.” He shot a virulent look at Geoffrey, who fell back a step.

James turned back to Theo. A flash of uncertainty crossed his eyes. “I know you have other . . .”

“I do not know what I was thinking,” Theo said slowly, feeling a tremendous sense of
rightness
settle about her shoulders like a warm blanket. She reached out and took his hand in hers—his familiar, utterly dear hand. “You’re right. You are the only one.”

“Well,” her mother said firmly, from somewhere behind her. “I’m sure we can all agree that that was a
most
romantic proposal. But I think that’s enough for the night.”

Theo didn’t move. Her oldest friend, her near-brother—that person was gone. Instead there was a desirable, powerful man looking down at her. And the look in his eye made her flush straight down to her toes.

“It isn’t enough,” James growled, his eyes fixed on hers. “She has not accepted. Daisy?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice breathless and trembling in a fashion that she despised when other girls used it. “Yes, I will.”

“I suppose that’s settled,” the Duke of Ashbrook said from behind James, the cheerful approval in his voice making them both look up. “Very convenient, what? My son marrying my ward. Keeps it all in the family, so to speak. Mind you, it wouldn’t be proper unless it was a real love match.”

Mrs. Saxby said briskly, “I certainly agree with you.”

“But it looks as if we haven’t much to say about it,” the duke continued.

James met his father’s eyes, and his heart dropped into his shoes. He had lost his head, and what’s more, he lost it in service to the devil.

He had never experienced a kiss like that, never thought to feel such a searing wave of possessive passion in his life. But he had done it only because his bombastic, embezzling father had demanded it. That kiss . . . that kiss happened because he had been ordered to do it.

He felt like the dirt under his own shoe. And the aching pain in his heart said something even worse: that he had warped what could have been—
would
have been—one of the most precious moments of his life. He would give anything to have entered into that kiss with a pure heart and a clean conscience.

Mrs. Saxby drew Theo away, and his father came up to slap him on the back with a stream of inconsequential, patently false remarks directed at the people gaping at them. “I had no idea he was looking in that direction,” he told the prince. “I suppose parents are always the last to know. But Son”—this with a tone of genial disapproval—“I hope I’ve trained you better than to snatch a lady and kiss her in public. A gentleman doesn’t go about declaring himself in that sort of manner.”

“Indeed,” Geoffrey Trevelyan chimed in. He waved his hand with that dilettantish, amused air that Theo appreciated and James loathed. “Wouldn’t have thought you had it in you, Islay. All that ardor and whatnot.”

The reminder that Theo had wanted Geoffrey crashed into James’s mind like a great wave. He turned to look at her, but she was gone.

The next few minutes passed like some sort of dizzy nightmare. James found himself bowing to the prince, who was genially cheerful about the whole thing. “Passions of the heart, what ho! They say polite society doesn’t have passion, but I’ve always disagreed.” And he threw a lustful glance at Mrs. Fitzherbert, standing to his right.

James flinched, and bowed his way out of the room. His father’s effusive congratulations spilled out the moment they were in their carriage.

“I had no idea you’d go straight for the prize like that!” Ashbrook bellowed. “Proud of you! I’m proud of you! You’re as randy as I am, and you used it to perfection. I would never have thought of doing it myself. She looked at you as if you were King Arthur and Lancelot rolled into one.”