A Duke of Her Own(65)

Gideon had been slender, young, and beautiful. Villiers was hard, masculine, and—not bitter, but sardonic. There was a dark core to him that she would never know. Not that she needed or wanted to know it, she reminded herself.

She wanted his body. She couldn't bring herself to feel shame over that, though the world would think she ought to. But she'd never been able to feel particularly shameful when she loved Gideon either.

Villiers's very touch made her melt and shudder. It brought out the same side of her that had enticed Gideon into a haymow, the side of her that dared Villiers to wonder whether she was wearing a corset.

"I'll wear Anne's chemise dress," she told Willa after her bath. The gown was made of pale lilac taffeta, so delicate that the fabric flowed to the ground without pleats or folds. It fit very close on the bodice and buttoned from the bosom to the hem with small canary-yellow buttons.

"Are you sure, my lady? You said that you would never wear it, because we couldn't fit a corset under that bodice," Willa said.

"I have changed my mind." She would wear the gown for Villiers's sake. Willa knew the reason, but they preserved the fiction, the way polite women do. Willa buttoned her up and then went off to borrow Anne's face paints.

"Lady Anne will not be at supper," she reported, coming back with a small box in hand.

"Is she ill?"

"Marie says that she was up and about for a short time this morning, but she felt so poorly that she went back to bed and has been able to take nothing but chicken broth."



Eleanor grinned. "She overindulged last night." She picked up Anne's face paints and began experimenting. First she tried brushing dark lines around her eyes, the way Anne had the night before, but somehow she looked more badger-like than mysterious.

"You've overdone it," Willa said dubiously.

"I look like a badger, don't I?"

"More like someone with the Black Death. Not that I've ever seen the illness, but you look mortal with all that around your eyes."

Eleanor shuddered and rubbed some off. Then removed a little more. Drew some more back on. Put color on her lips and on her cheeks. Rubbed some of that off. Put a little flip of black at the outside edges of her eyes.

Rubbed some off.

Stood up for one final glance...and smiled.

Her gown was the opposite of the stiff satin gowns that had been in style so long. The French chemise had been introduced only last year, and she hadn't even thought of buying one. But her sister had.

Thank goodness for Anne and her predilection for fashion. Willa had piled her hair in waves of curls, with small sprays of violets tucked here and there. And after all that work, her eyes were perfect. Smudged, but not so much that she looked like a dying person. Or a badger.

Her lips were crimson. She made a kissing gesture to the mirror, and Willa burst into laughter.

"Do you think I'm too extravagant?" Eleanor asked, just before turning to leave. "No. Not at all. It's as if—well, it's as if it's more you, if you see what I mean, my lady." Apparently more of her meant dressing like a hussy, which was a disconcerting thought.

"It's just too bad that we're not in London," Willa went on happily. "Because those gentlemen would go absolutely mad. They would fall at your feet." "I don't know that I want men at my feet. Would you?" "That's not for me," Willa said. "Why not?"

"Because that's for ladies and gentlemen. You should have four or five beaux at least, my lady. I want just one."

"I think," said Eleanor, "that I want just one as well."

"It would be a great waste," Willa said, shaking her head. "Look at your gown, and how beautiful you are, and all. And then there's your dowry. It's always better if a gentleman has to fight off other men."

"For his sake or for mine?"

"Oh, for both," Willa said, getting into the spirit of the conversation. "He feels better because he's had to fight off rivals."



"Well, I don't think that Villiers cares," Eleanor said, feeling a touch ofwistfulness."He just wants a mother to his children."

"That's not what he wants from you," Willa said with a chuckle.

Villiers inspected himself one last time in the glass while Finchley waited, another cravat close at hand in case he decided to redo the knot. He was wearing one of his favorite coats, made of a pale green silk, the color of the very first leaves in spring. It was embroidered with mulberry-colored flowers, a fantasy of climbing trumpet vines. His hair was tied back with a ribbon of the same green.

He looked like what he indeed was: an idiosyncratic and powerful duke. He did not look like a man who was prey to unaccustomed and unwelcome emotions. Shame, for one. And fear. When Tobias couldn't be found...when the daughters he had never met couldn't be found... he had felt sick.