This Duchess of Mine(44)
“I shall think about it.”
His arm tightened. “No thinking. No kissing.”
“Then I get to tell you the second rule of marriage.”
“All right.”
“You have to care if someone is going to kiss me. While dancing or elsewhere.” She whispered it.
“I—”
Jemma laid her head against his chest, so she couldn’t see Elijah’s eyes. “When I went to Paris, you didn’t follow. I cried every night for months, but inside, I thought you would arrive any day. Then I decided that you couldn’t come while Parliament was in session.”
He groaned.
“But then Parliament went into recess, and friends wrote me and said that you had gone to Kent, to the Earl of Chatham’s estate. I thought perhaps you couldn’t escape the work,” she said, relentlessly.
“But I never came.”
“You never came.”
“I couldn’t.”
She didn’t say anything.
“And not because of work. Because—Because it wasn’t my right, Jemma.”
“Your right to do what?”
“To follow you. I’d broken our marriage. I’d done just what my father did to my mother, over and over, without even realizing it. I’d broken your heart and your trust.”
Jemma thought about reassuring him, but it was all true. “So why didn’t you come after me?” She sounded like a little girl.
“I waited.”
“Waited for what?”
“Waited until you had found someone.”
“But I didn’t want anyone!”
His arms tightened. “You had the right.”
“It hurt to see you with a mistress. It was heartbreaking when you said you loved her. But the real heartbreak came when I realized you didn’t even care what I did. That I meant so little to you that you didn’t bother to visit for years.”
“Three years, ten months, and fourteen days.”
The only sound was that of a sleepy, confused lark, somewhere deep in the park. Jemma straightened up so she could see Elijah’s face. “What?”
“That’s how long it took you. You finally had an affaire with DuPuy. It lasted only—”
“It lasted three days,” Jemma said. “You knew that?”
He nodded. “My friends were as assiduous in letter-writing as were yours. And of course the fact that DuPuy had fallen so deeply in love with you was considered tantalizing news for your husband.”
“So you came that Christmas.”
“I came as soon as the Parliament recessed. I had this foolish notion…”
“What?”
“That it would all be fine. But you were furious at me. And I—I found that for all my reasoned decision that it was your right to have an affaire, I wanted to throttle you.”
“The things you said drove me to more excess.”
He ran a finger slowly down the slope of her cheek.
“I know. I came again the next year, but…”
“We didn’t fight as much,” Jemma said, remembering.
“You thought I was moralistic and boring. And I was. You had become so sophisticated and beautiful. I had ruined everything, and I didn’t know what to do. So I went back to England, back to the House. But I never took another mistress, Jemma. I mean that.”
“I’m stunned,” she said. She kept searching his eyes, but it was too dark and she couldn’t see them well.
“The third rule of marriage,” he said.
She put her arms around his neck, feeling a huge wrench of emotion that she wasn’t even sure how to name. “What is it?”
“We never let anger or the sea stand between us again.”
It was too sad, all that time lost. She couldn’t even smile. Her throat moved, and then he was kissing her and she could have sworn that the same sorrow was in his mouth and his touch, in the way his hands twisted into her hair. Finally the sweet deep pleasure of his mouth made all the rest of it fade away.
After a while he unwound her arms and stood up, slowly putting her on her feet. “I need to get my duchess home safe,” he said. “You will be glad to know that I am not attending Pitt tomorrow. I would be happy if you would accompany me.”
“What shall we do?”
“Nothing as colorful as the flower market.”
“Dear me,” she said. “Shall I dress in black?”
“It’s not a visit to the cemetery,” he said. “But perhaps it would be best to avoid being very extravagantly duchess-like.”
“I shall eschew my jewels.”
“And no wig.”
“A hard bargain,” she said, smiling at him. “But I suppose I can be seen outside the house in such a pitiful state without my reputation suffering overmuch.”