“Well, he’s certainly having a lovely time at the moment,” Jemma said, drinking some more of her Champagne. She could see them across the room, standing close together and seemingly examining something in one of Villiers’s cabinets.
“I don’t think he is. If you want my opinion—”
“I don’t,” Jemma interrupted.
“He doesn’t want to flirt with the marquise, or with you either. Elijah is a serious man, Jemma. You have to understand that if you intend to love him.”
“I—I—” Did she love him?
“You don’t know him very well.”
“Neither do—”
“We were the best of friends for ten years,” Villiers said. “Elijah was never any good at just tumbling around in the mud, for example. He always had to be building something, planning a town or an invasion.”
“He didn’t play?”
“He has never liked to play. It’s not in his nature.”
“He plays chess,” she said, defending him.
“He likes games of strategy. You might want to take that into account before you get your feathers too ruffled tonight. Now…speaking of chess.”
Jemma didn’t want to speak of chess, but it was better than watching her husband laugh with another woman.
“We might view this all as a giant chessboard,” Villiers said.
“So?” All right, she couldn’t stop watching. Did Elijah really have to touch the marquise on the shoulder in that intimate manner?
“Obviously, I am the Black King,” Villiers said.
Finally she looked at him. He had that wicked little smile of his. “And I?”
“The White Queen.”
“That makes Louise the Black Queen,” Jemma pointed out.
“And Elijah, as always, the White King.” Villiers sighed, but his eyes were laughing. “I told you I was becoming a saint, didn’t I?”
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“I shall sacrifice myself,” he said, rising and bringing her to her feet. “The Black King sweeps the Black Queen from the board. It pains me to do it. It’s been such a day for losing at chess. I can hardly countenance my own defeats.”
Jemma watched from the side of the room as Villiers nimbly drew his cousin from Elijah’s side. She didn’t approach Elijah, though. He didn’t like to flirt, and his temper was uncertain. At dinner, Villiers sat at the head of the table, flirting outrageously with the marquise, who looked prettier every moment.
Elijah was engaged in a lively discussion with Lord Vesey about Pitt’s India Act. Jemma and Corbin discussed the plate of fruit that the Duchess of Guise had worn atop her wig during her recent visit to London.
“I preferred Lady Kersnips’s stalks of barley,” Corbin said. “And you are not listening to me, Your Grace.”
In fact, she was eavesdropping on Elijah’s conversation. Lord Vesey was inquiring about the aftermath of the riots. “I was in the office of the chief magistrate day before yesterday,” Elijah replied. “Did you know that Lord Stibblestich is the liaison between the House of Lords and the office of the magistrate?”
“I can’t bear the man,” Vesey grunted.
“Stibblestich’s response to the riot is to suggest that they should all be shot.”
Corbin was listening as well, and he cut in with a comment. “The papers adamantly concurred with that sentence. I had not heard there was dispute about the matter at all.”
Elijah’s gaze brushed over Jemma and turned to Corbin. “Stibblestich doesn’t stop with the rioters. You see, the prisoners were bound to die anyway. The hulks breed disease and despair, and they would likely die within a few months, saving the price of the rounds of lead needed to shoot them. The hulks are not prisons; they are effective ways by which the government of England can dispatch large numbers of unwanted men.”
“That is reprehensible,” Jemma said, pulling his attention back to her.
“Stibblestich maintains that since the rioters had nothing to lose by rioting,” Elijah said, “we must be more aggressive in order to deter future riots.”
“He can’t mean to torture them before shooting them!” Vesey said.
“No. He suggests we take all male members of each man’s family into custody as possible accessories to crime. And place all those men on the hulks,” Elijah continued relentlessly. “Every one of them. Elderly fathers, brothers, brothers-in-law, and male children over the age of eleven.”
His eyes slid away from Jemma as he turned to Vesey. “Yes, eleven. He has specified that age.”
“I always thought he was a blackguard,” Vesey grunted. “His father was the same. Hope you managed to head him off, Your Grace?”