When the Duke Returns(104)

“He’s not a fool,” Isidore said.

“He doesn’t know what he wants. Well, I expect he knows just what he wants, but he’s afraid to reach out and take it.”

“Simeon is not afraid of anything,” Isidore said, almost sadly.

“He’s afraid of you.”

Isidore snorted.

“He’s afraid of you because his mother is an old cow who is telling all of England that he’s crazy. And his father was even worse, with all his mistresses, and irresponsibilities.”

“That has nothing to do with me.”

“Then why didn’t he come back, all those years, when his mother was writing him letters describing the paragon waiting for him at home?” Jemma pounced.

“Because he was looking for the source of the Nile,” Isidore offered.

“Nonsense! Years passed. He could have nipped back here, snatched you up and taken you back to die of a Nile fever. He could have come back here, annulled the marriage, and returned to paddle around the river some more. He never came back.”

“I’m aware of that,” Isidore said, thinking that Jemma could be awfully dictatorial at times.

“I think that he’s afraid to own you. To own anything.”

“He doesn’t own me,” Isidore said, with dignity. “I am a human being, not a heifer.”

Jemma waved her hand. “Think like a man, Isidore. Think like a man! I expect he never really wanted the paragon. You saved him from the tiresomeness of perfection.”

“I’m too much,” Isidore said glumly.

“I think you may have been just a wee bit overbearing,” Jemma said. “Men like to conquer, you know.”

“It’s so stupid,” Isidore said, feeling tears prick her eyes. “If I understand you, you’re saying that he’s throwing me away like yesterday’s tart simply because he finds me too overbearing. I—I—” She meant to say that she deserved better, but she forgot the sentence and floundered into tears instead.

“He needs to take charge. That’s why he tried to redo the wedding. That’s why he hasn’t come to London, because it would mean following your whistle. He’s no lap dog.”

“No,” Isidore said, sniffing.

Jemma was smiling. “We have to make him understand what he might lose.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I found that my husband had a mistress, I packed up my bags and fled.”

Isidore narrowed her eyes. “I’d kill him first and then flee.”

“That’s always an option, of course,” Jemma said.

“But with the wisdom of hindsight, I think I should have just given Elijah a taste of his own medicine.”

“You should have taken a mistress? Or a—what would the word be?”

“A lover. I have decided in the years since that perhaps had I flaunted a lover before Elijah in the early days of our marriage he might have cared.”

“Why?” Isidore bit her lip. “It doesn’t seem logical, Jemma, though I wish it were true. If the only concern your husband had was to do with his heir, I really don’t see how three years one way or the other would change things.”

“I know much more about men than I did. I was his, when we lived together in London and were first married. Three years later, he’d practically forgotten about me. Men do that. If you allow Simeon to return to Abyssinia and start rootling around looking for another river basin, he’ll forget you.”

Isidore felt tears welling up in her eyes.

“And you don’t want that,” Jemma said gently.

“It’s so awful!” Isidore said, drawing a ragged breath. “I—I—”

“I fell in love with Elijah, who didn’t show any interest in returning the favor. It took me forever to get over it.”

“I’m afraid I never will,” Isidore said shakily. “It’s the most ridiculous thing in the world. It’s just that I love the way he’s taken on the house, and doesn’t even blame his rather hateful mother, or his father, who was a positive criminal! I know he didn’t like the way I dashed into things, but I thought…”

“I expect he’s madly in love with you,” Jemma said consolingly. “Who could not be?”

“I just can’t let him return to Africa,” Isidore said. “And I don’t want to marry anyone else!”

“Then you won’t,” Jemma said. Against all reason, she was smiling. “We’ll arrange it so that he comes to his senses. Do you know that when people are knocked silly by a blow, sometimes a second injury puts them back into a sane mind? That’s what we’ll do.”