When the Duke Returns(71)

“Villiers’s,” she said. “I intend to relinquish the match to Villiers without playing the third game.”

“He won’t take that well.”

Jemma laughed. “Pity for your rival?”

“Leopold has always been unlucky in love.”

“I shall play him other games,” she said, “but not blindfolded. And not in bed.”

His lips barely touched hers, just brushed her mouth, but the very touch made Jemma shiver. It wasn’t the sensuality of it, but the affection that was heart-breaking. There had been so much anger between them.

“I have to leave London as well. Pitt has called a meeting in his country house, since Parliament is in Easter Recess for a few weeks.”

The regret in his eyes was deep and unfeigned. “How long?” she asked, wondering if it were possible for married couples to feel as excited as new lovers.

“I’ll tell him that I must return for the king’s fête on the twenty-sixth,” he said, kissing her again. But it wasn’t the kiss she wanted, so she wound an arm around his arm and brought him down to her. He smelled like Elijah. He tasted…oh he tasted like complexity and power and something that seemed awfully suggestive of—

But that thought was gone in the way his lips moved over hers, powerfully, commandingly. There was such a potent sense of homecoming that Jemma felt tears prick her eyes.

He didn’t touch her in any way. Her hands didn’t stray over his shoulders or disrupt his wig. They only touched in that most intimate, most silent of fashions.

They were still kissing when a hard rap sounded at the door and Mr. Cunningham poked his head in. Jemma saw utter surprise cross his face. Of course, Mr. Cunningham was probably more acquainted with the crumbling state of her marriage than she was.

But Elijah didn’t even turn around. “What is it, Ransom?” he said. He kept looking down at her, smiling an odd little lopsided smile.

“There’s been another breakout from the convict ship moored in the Thames near the Blackfriars Bridge,” Cunningham said, whisking himself back out the door.

“I told them it was a damn fool idea to house people in the hulks,” Elijah said.

“Housing criminals on warships? Or the part about the Thames?”

“Did you know about that? You’re a constant surprise to me, Jemma.” And he bent his head again.

“I’ll be gone by the time you come home,” she said, some time later. She was breathless and happy and frightened, all at once.

“I shouldn’t let you leave,” he said.

To Jemma’s mind, it seemed as if the muffled uproar in the outside chambers was growing louder by the moment.

“They’ll want me to address Lords about what to do,” he murmured, cupping her face in his hands.

“What will you say?” she managed.

“I’ve always—” he brushed his lips over hers—“said that the use of warships”—another kiss—“was an outrageous mistake.”

The noise outside rose to something of a crescendo, and Jemma, pulling herself free, stood up. But she couldn’t bear to leave just yet.

“Why?” she asked.

Being Elijah, he took her question seriously. “Most of the convicts are unemployed veterans of our various wars. Unable to find work, they turn to robbery and worse. The warships make terrible prisons: the men spend most of their time trying to escape. And one in four dies during his first three years there.”

“The nests of pestilence,” Jemma said with a little gasp, “I heard men talking about them in the outer chamber.”

Elijah nodded.

“You are a good man,” Jemma said, straightening his cravat.

He caught her hands, turned her right one over and kissed her palm. “Not always.”

“When it’s most important,” she said.

“I begin to think the opposite. It could be that you are most important, Jemma. To me.” He held her hands for a moment, and then let them go. “I shall come directly to the king’s yacht on the twenty-sixth, Jemma. And I shall look for you.”

Jemma never really understood the description of a singing heart until that moment, but as she threaded her way out of the crowded chambers, every man arguing over issues of clemency to convicts, deportation to foreign lands, banishment, execution, hanging…She couldn’t stop the foolish smile on her lips.

Or the song in the general vicinity of her breast.





Chapter Twenty-seven




The Dower House

March 3, 1784

Isidore did not want to have an intimate meal with Simeon. It was too heart-wrenching. After having thought of him as her husband for so many years, some parts of her couldn’t stop thinking of him that way. Mostly, if she were strictly honest about it, her body.