When the Duke Returns(113)
She didn’t understand that by knocking out the ringleaders of the prisoners’ rebellion, Simeon had enabled the king’s guards to trounce the uprising. And she certainly didn’t envision her husband being summoned to St. James’s Palace for a public proclamation of the nation’s gratitude, during which the Duke of Cosway declared that any success was the result of working together with his duchess.
It was the ball following the king’s declaration, and Isidore hadn’t seen her husband for at least an hour. She kept glancing over her dancing partners’ shoulders, wondering where he might be. She had developed a horror of the silver gown, and so Lucille had carefully removed all the diamonds—the ones that weren’t left behind in the mud of the Thames—and sewn them onto a presentation gown.
But she hadn’t chosen to wear that tonight; in fact, she thought it might be a long time before she chose to wear diamonds again. Her gown was a pale rose-colored velvet with Chantilly lace, and she wore it with a fortune in tiger rubies.
Her former suitors were out in force. Most of them hadn’t lost hope that she would find herself disaffected with Simeon. Even if she weren’t planning to annul her marriage, they hoped that she might turn to one of them by way of consoling herself for her husband’s eccentricities. They smiled, capered and bowed…She felt overwhelmed by their florid scent, by the way they “accidentally” brushed her chest, by the way their teeth showed when they smiled.
Somehow she’d decided that a man should smile gravely, smell faintly like cardamom soap, and touch her breasts only in the privacy of the marital bedchamber.
The nature of marriage is such that a woman no sooner formulates rules of this nature…than they are broken.
The Earl of Bisselbate was just bowing before her, flourishing his hand as if he were a peasant sowing seeds (Isidore thought uncharitably), when suddenly another hand touched her shoulder. She jumped and turned. Simeon. She smiled up at him, not even noticing that the earl had straightened and was expectantly holding out his hand to lead her into the dance.
“Simeon,” she breathed. “Where have you been?”
“The king had a private request,” he said, smiling down at her. “It seems the queen has taken a liking to tiger rubies.”
The earl cleared his throat.
“Do forgive me,” Isidore said, turning reluctantly back to her escort. “I—”
“As your Baalomaal,” Simeon said…His voice was low and meant for only her ears.
Without a second’s thought, Isidore sank backwards, throwing a hand to her brow, knowing that Simeon would catch her, feeling his arms go around her. “Oh!” she cried. “I feel so faint! It must be the heat.”
Simeon was laughing silently. He carried her swiftly through the chattering nobles, out the door and down one of the myriad corridors of St. James’s Palace.
Isidore lay her head against his chest, loving the strong beat of his heart, not bothering to ask what the danger was. Simeon was with her. All would be well.
A few moments later he whisked her through a door. It was a velvety dark space. He put her on her feet.
“Simeon?” she asked. It felt as if they were in a very small room. “Where are we?”
“A closet,” he said. “But there’s room to lie down…in case you felt like it.”
She laughed, but he fell to his knees, and pulled up her skirts. She put her hands on his powerful shoulders, bracing herself against the intoxicating little kisses that were burning a path up her legs.
“But, Simeon,” she gasped, feeling her knees weaken, knowing that in a moment she’d be lying on the floor of a broom closet in the king’s own palace. “I thought you would use that word baalomaal only in moments of great danger.”
He didn’t choose to answer until her breath was coming quickly and she was leaning against the wall, uttering broken little moans. Then he stood up, stripped off his coat, and put it on the floor. It was a magnificent coat, worked by Villiers’s own embroiderer, black roses on deep brown…It was also soft and made an excellent improvised bed.
A moment later Simeon was kissing his wife’s inner thigh again, and Isidore was having trouble keeping her mind on the conversation.
“There was danger,” he said, but only when she wasn’t sure what he was talking about anymore.
He waited until her breath was coming and going in unsteady little pants, and he was poised above her in the velvety darkness, feeling her twist up against him, begging, pleading…
Then he entered her in one swift stroke, savoring the exquisite beauty of sharing her body, her breath, her love. “Because I love you,” he said, his voice rough, the voice of a man who was come to understand that control is only worth having if it’s worth throwing away—at certain moments.