She only had to see him to want to kiss him. If they ate together, just the two of them, she might embarrass herself somehow.
They had spent the afternoon working through the final stack of papers. They had an argument over one of the letters. It talked of love, rather than money. That made it worse, to Isidore’s mind, and she thought that the woman deserved more than the standard four-hundred-pound gift they had agreed upon.
“She may be in no need of funds,” Simeon pointed out. “She doesn’t mention his promises, unlike the rest of them.”
“But she knows he is married. He is a duke, and she addressed the letter to him. Why would she write if she didn’t need funds?”
“She loved him.”
Isidore took the letter back. “She does address him by his first name.”
“She asks him to visit her. She says she misses him.”
“Your poor mother,” Isidore said.
Simeon blinked. “I was just thinking that it was nice to find that my father didn’t wheedle his way into this woman’s bed with financial promises and then disappear. She doesn’t sound angry.”
“No, just lonely. Your father may have acted honorably toward her. Perhaps this mistress is in comfortable circumstances.”
“Perhaps she’s a rich widow,” Simeon said. There was something longing in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“As am I.” And that was the end of that.
All afternoon, as the light coming into the room turned from pale yellow to gold, it played in his hair. She was developing a foolish love of unpowdered hair. The light made Simeon’s hair look as if there were streaks of near blue among the curls. When he pushed it back with his hands, one ringlet always fell back over his brow.
She kept shifting uneasily, aware that her body was sending her all sorts of treacherous signals, signals that didn’t agree with her newfound resolution to find a man who would court her.
Because for all Simeon was polite enough to say he liked her, that wasn’t good enough.
She wanted to be loved.
After all the years in which she’d schooled herself into cheerfully accepting whatever type of man her duke turned out to be, she’d discovered that if she had the choice, she would like to be loved with a deep passion. The kind she had seen in her father’s eyes when he bent to kiss her mother.
Why had she never before realized how important love was?
The last thing she wanted was to be betrayed by an unruly lust for unpowdered hair into some sort of indiscretion with Simeon, something that would turn their marriage into a fait accompli.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Revels House
March 3, 1784
After hours of sorting though the late duke’s delinquencies, Isidore felt as if she were going as mad as her former father-in-law. “I think your mother must be suffocating in that house,” she announced. “I shall see if I can tempt her into joining us for supper.”
Simeon looked up, obviously startled. “You will?”
“I’ll try,” she conceded. “You might clear away those letters, just in case she agrees.”
“She has been adamant in her refusal.”
“It’s not right that she should be in a house full of fumes.” Isidore stood up.
“I’ll lend my voice as well, if you will allow me to finish this note and clear away any letters that might distress my mother.”
“You don’t think I’ll be successful on my own?”
“I’d be shocked, but that’s a commentary on my mother’s stubbornness, not on your persuasive skills. But I’d prefer to accompany you, given the fumes.”
Isidore went outside to wait for him, but after five minutes, she was too restless to wait. She wouldn’t be felled by the smell. Her house in Venice had persistent odor problems, emanating from the canals, and she had never succumbed to the vapors.
She entered the house through the ballroom and was immediately met by the stench. There was a racket in the main hallway, and she cautiously opened the door. A man was trundling a wheelbarrow past her. Isidore’s eyes fell to the barrow, and then she wished they hadn’t.
He didn’t see her, so she slipped up the stairs. If anything, the smell was actually stronger as she climbed the stairs. Her knock on the dowager’s door was met with something resembling a bark. “Your Grace?” she called. “It is the duchess. Would you open the door?”
A moment later the dowager did open the door, the better to glower at Isidore.
Isidore fell into a deep curtsy. “Did the duke not leave a footman to guard you?”
“The fool began to vomit,” the dowager said irritably. “What on earth are you doing here? The stench is enough to make any person vomit, not merely the lower orders. You must leave at once.”