"Her name is Flora, and she is jilted at the altar," Mia stated.
At that, surprise crossed Vander's face. "As you were yourself?"
"The circumstances are entirely different."
"A Lucibella heroine is nothing like our Mia," Chuffy chimed in.
Mia winced. If she had ever managed to think well of her figure-not that she had-having near and dear relatives like Vander and Chuffy would clearly knock her down to size. So to speak.
"That is true," she admitted.
"In what way?" Vander asked.
"Oh, my heroines are invariably and incomparably beautiful," she explained. "Slender, blue-eyed, all the usual. The genre demands it."
"You are beautiful," Vander said flatly. Mia blinked at her husband, but he didn't appear to be mocking her.
"I generally don't pay much attention to those parts of the book," Chuffy said, "but now I think of it, Lucibella heroines aren't precisely beautiful. They're always emaciated owing to their poverty. Sometimes when I finish a book I take a moment to imagine how happy they will be to have all the food they want."
"My heroines aren't emaciated!"
"Starving," Chuffy said. "Why, one of the heroines floated downstream simply because of all the air in her ribs."
"The air in her ribs?" Vander repeated, seemingly quite struck.
"I don't mean ribs. In her stomach, of course! Why, the poor lady had nothing but air in her so she popped to the surface like a bubble. Until a duke towed her to shore, of course."
"Naturally," Vander said, taking another swallow of brandy. "I would hope that any man of my rank would do as much."
"He risked his own life," Chuffy said. "The adventuresome bits are my favorites. When the duke saw his beloved bobbing downstream like a cork, he dove straight into the river. The icy water closed over his head more than once, but he got her to shore."
"I would do the same," Vander said, grinning widely. "Trained for it from the cradle."
"My novels have nothing to do with real life," Mia insisted. "The fact my heroine is jilted is purely coincidental."
"There's nothing wrong with spinning your novels from real life," Chuffy said. "Your life is easily as interesting as those of your heroines."
"Only in the last few weeks, I assure you," Mia said.
"Are all your heroes dukes?" Vander inquired in a way that suggested she may have modeled her heroes on him.
Which she had.
"No!" Mia exclaimed. "Of course not. My current hero is a count. At any rate, a title is merely a way of conveying a man of worth and substance."
"Mia's love scenes are famous," Chuffy said. "I expect that's why that perishing magazine got a little tetchy. Her characters go on and on about how much they adore each other."
"Would you say they are lyrical?" Vander asked, oh so innocently.
Mia felt helpless, as if she were one of her own heroines, bobbing in a river that was carrying her somewhere beyond her control. Vander was eyeing her in a way that suggested he knew that she had spun him into the heroes of six novels. The only words coming to her mind were profane.
"You must have really loved that fiancé of yours," Chuffy said. "Here, have some more brandy. I hope you don't begin writing tragedies now that you've been disappointed in love. He was unworthy of you, my dear. You're better off with Vander, for all he smells of the stables."
Mia grabbed onto that lifeline as if it had descended from heaven itself. "That's why I've been unable to finish my current book. A broken heart . . ." She let her voice trail off.
Vander stopped laughing and his eyes went steely. Good. She had suffered all the insults that she could take for one day. Although he did say she was beautiful. She stored that compliment away to think about later.
He set down his glass with a sharp click. "Have you any idea as to your former fiancé's whereabouts?"
"No," she said wearily. "He wrote that he planned to travel to India."
"I certainly hope your heroine-Flora, isn't it?-won't return to her jilter, any more than you did the blackguard who treated you so rudely," Chuffy cried.
"Actually, she will," Mia said. "She loves the count so much that she forgives him."
"I think you're damned lucky that Mia was between fiancés when she thought of you," Chuffy said, turning to Vander. "You never would have found a woman on your own. You're too wrapped up in those horses of yours, and last time I checked, there ain't any ladies out in the stables. Damnation, that's more good brandy I've spilled on my coat. I'd better change."
He moved remarkably fast for someone in his cups; he was gone from the room in a moment. Mia was forming the distinct impression that Chuffy was sometimes less inebriated than his consumption implied he should be.
"Your Charlie informed me that I replaced an earl's son," Vander said, taking a swallow of his brandy. "May I assume that your father did not wave a letter in the man's direction to inspire a proposal?"
Mia set down her glass so abruptly that liquor spilled over the rim. "I know that our marriage isn't what you wish, but I would ask that you not mock me because I was jilted." She paused and added, "Mr. Reeve and I were very much in love, and had been betrothed for months before we were due to wed. I can assure you that he wanted to marry me."
"Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but his marital intentions are strongly in doubt, considering his absence at the altar." Vander's face had taken on that expressionless look again, a trick she suspected he used to mask strong emotion of one kind or another.
"That's true," Mia admitted. She was still coming to terms with the fact that Edward was not the man she had believed him to be. She seemed unable to find gentlemen as decent and honorable as those she invented; perhaps they existed only in the world of fiction.
Her readers often complained of the same lack in their letters.
"It wasn't that he didn't care about me," she added, coming belatedly to her own defense. "Edward could not face the responsibility of raising Charlie."
Vander's mouth was tight with disgust. It was a pity because she really liked his mouth. Very few men had that deep lower lip. He would hate the idea, but she thought it softened his face and gave him a deep sensuality.
Unbelievable.
She realized it too late. She'd fallen into the same trap again.
Vander tapped on her nose and she looked up to meet his eyes. "You escaped that marriage by the skin of your teeth. You see that now, don't you?"
"Yes," she said.
Vander stared down at his wife, wondering why he felt such a blistering sense of relief at the unmistakable ring of honesty in Mia's voice. Why would he care if she was still yearning for a man who wouldn't have her?
She was his wife.
A novelist? Who would have thought? He knew she was intelligent, but he wouldn't have dreamt that she had the talent to become a successful novelist. Frankly, that dreadful juvenile poem made it seem especially unlikely.
Contrary to what she thought, he didn't give a damn if she was writing depraved novels. Though he would like to read them.
There was just one aspect of her novels that he had to clarify, though. He moved closer. His hands itched to touch her, but he kept them to himself. "You'll have to teach me something about your work. I'll read one all the way through. And the depraved bits of the rest."
"I can't imagine why you would do so. My father and brother made no attempt to read them. And despite your uncle's enthusiasm, I am certain that most of my readers are females."
"I shall read one, or even more," Vander promised. "But I do have to tell you, Duchess, that you must give up the romantic dreams you have about marriage. I'll never do any of those other things you envision."
She put on a mock shocked face. "Your Grace, are you informing me that you will permit me to go bobbing down an icy river?"
Vander let out a crack of laughter. "I promise to throw you a rope."
"No need," she said, looking away. "I'd sink like a stone anyway."
The image of Mia floundering in an icy river was surprisingly unpleasant, so Vander barreled on. "I was referring to romantic gestures like the dukes in your novels probably make. Bringing you posies, writing poetry, showering you with jewels. Your father was constantly giving my mother litters of glass animals. I will never do anything of that nature."
"All right," she said readily.
"We won't have that marriage." He caught her eyes, because this was truly important. "We can have much more, Duchess. That romantic claptrap is for novels, not for life. For dreamers, like Chuffy. Like my mother, for that matter. She satisfied herself with glass steeds, when there were flesh-and-blood horses in the stables."