“I know just what you mean,” Poppy said. “A pirate!”
“Everyone loves a pirate,” Jemma said sadly. “Sometimes it seems so cruel that I find myself married to a politician.”
“There are no pirates in English society,” Isidore observed. “Still, I would resign myself to a man without piratical attitudes if he would lavishly adore me as your husband does, Your Grace.”
“Please call me Poppy.” And, desperate to change the subject: “I’m sure that your husband will lavishly adore you.”
“If he recognizes me,” Isidore said with a little hiccup of laughter.
Chapter 2
THE MORNING POST (CONTINUED)
We do not comment on the veracity of this report, but we cannot help but wonder whether the Duke of Beaumont will be the next to challenge Villiers, given the rumor that the duchess, recently returned from Paris, is playing an intimate game of chess with the said duke…
“What you need is a mistress. For Christ’s sake man, you’re going to wither up and blow away. You’ll be sprouting bubbies, if you don’t watch out.”
Fletch curled his lip. “I’ll tell you what. If I grow breasts I’ll let you have a look so you can finally see what a woman’s chest looks like.”
Frederick Augustus Gill, the future Earl of Glasse, responded with an amiable curse, and they went back to leaning against the wall and watching the exuberant, chaotic scene before them. The room was full of titled gentlemen, shouting about the Earl of Gryffyn’s victory in a duel with the Duke of Villiers.
“Five minutes!” Fletch heard one red-faced man shout to another. “That’s the way to do it!”
Gill shuddered and took a deep swallow of brandy. “Did you see the moment when Villiers brought out that pass in tierce? I thought Gryffyn was a croaker for sure.”
“Gryffyn had Villiers from the beginning,” Fletch stated. “It was all a matter of his deciding the moment to take the duke out.”
“They’re saying Villiers lost a lot of blood before the surgeon got himself together.”
“He should be all right. It was a clean blow through the shoulder.”
“Gryffyn is a lucky man,” Gill said with a little sigh. “You should see the way his fiancée looks at him.”
“What a romantic,” Fletch sneered.
“You didn’t used to be so hard-edged,” his friend said, startled into a rebuttal. “You act as if you’ve got a stick up your ass. For God’s sake, get yourself a mistress! So your wife’s not interested in your bed. Practically every man in this room has experienced that. You could give the average English gentlewoman fifteen quinces, and they wouldn’t strike up a flush.”
“Back to the mistress you think I should take,” Fletch said, with deadly boredom in his voice. “I had no idea you were so interested in my bedroom activities.”
Gill’s face flushed; he said something unrepeatable. And left.
Fletch sighed and drank from his glass again. He was a fool. It had been years. He needed a mistress. He needed to admit to himself that his marriage was a failure. He needed to…
Poppy floated by on the far side of the room. Her breasts swelled from the stiff little bodice of her gown. He hardened instantly. It was like the tortures of Tantalus to desire someone who never desired him. To be married to someone like that was like being tied to a well and never allowed to drink.
Yet the very idea of going to her chamber door made him wilt instantly. She would let him in, of course. Oh, her mother had tutored her in that. She would chatter and smile, but he was no fool. He could read the wary resignation in her eyes. Not to mention the way she would slip off her nightgown, lie down on the bed (his only triumph: she no longer insisted on being inside the covers) and suffer his attentions.
He drank again.
Suffer was the right word.
No matter what he did, she just lay there. In the beginning he had lavished time on her breasts, hoping that she would suddenly start panting and writhing beneath him, the way Élise had when he barely touched her. Élise had directed him about her body as if he were learning a new sport. “There,” she said softly, and then, “harder,” and then, “oui!!”
For God’s sake, he was sick of thinking about Élise.
Poppy, on the other hand, sometimes stroked his head. She would kiss him, even allow him to put his tongue in her mouth occasionally, but she never responded to anything. In the beginning, he thought she was inexperienced.
Then a year passed, and another year, and she never grew any more interested, never raised a finger, never turned pink—let alone calling out “Yes, yes!” His thinking had changed.