When the Duke Returns(93)

She looked up at him. “Not if you’re choosing the wrong kind of beads. But I don’t mind obeying you if you’re right.”

“Someone has to be the capo, to put it in Italian, or our marriage will be like a failed expedition. It will fall apart.”

Isidore stopped herself from rolling her eyes. It was as if Simeon was haunted by the memory of wild beasts jumping at him. It might take a few years, but he would come to learn that the English countryside held no dangers she could think of. “In cases of danger…”

“What if we had a signal between us, and when I included the signal in something I said, then you obeyed me without a second thought?”

She nodded. “As long as you didn’t abuse your privilege.”

He was braced over her, on his elbows, his lips deliciously close to hers. Who could have thought that a large male body lying on top of hers could feel so good, against all reason?

He leaned down and brushed his lips with hers. “If I say, now, Isidore, you have to obey.”

“You say now a hundred times a day,” she said.

“You would know the difference if I really meant it.”

“Danger,” she prompted him. “Danger, remember? I might not be listening all that closely to your tone of voice.”

She gave a little wiggle to remind him about the other things he was getting with this marriage along with a bad-tempered Italian wife. Sure enough, his eyes glazed a little.

“How about something in a foreign language?” she suggested.

His face cleared. “If I say, As your Baalomaal, Isidore, then you obey me without question.”

“And what does Baalomaal mean?” she asked suspiciously.

He leaned down again, a wicked smile in his eyes. “As the Lord of your Bedchamber, Isidore, I command that you kiss me now.”

She drew his head down to hers. “As you wish,” she said, as demurely as any husband could wish.





Chapter Thirty-seven




The Cricket and Song Inn

West of London

March 4, 1784

Jemma, the Duchess of Beaumont, allowed herself to be handed out of the carriage only to discover that there was an acre of mud covering the inn yard. She halted on the bottom step of her carriage and surveyed her groomsmen, trying to estimate their general strength. Unfortunately, the two standing at her carriage door looked suspiciously weedy. The last thing she wanted was to be dropped into the muck.

“Your Grace,” came a drawling voice.

She jerked up her head to find that the only other carriage drawn up in the yard had just flung open its door, revealing the Duke of Villiers.

“Villiers!” she cried, “Do tell me that you have a husky footman who can get me into that inn. I’m feeling extreme trepidation, as I’m sure my poor groomsmen are as well.”

He stepped down into the mud as if it didn’t exist. He was dressed exquisitely, of course. His cloak was a ruby red so dark that it seemed nearly black. Its capes lay over his shoulders with the sleek elegance that comes from the very finest wool.

Jemma couldn’t help smiling at him. Villiers was so dramatic, and yet now that she had come to know him, his elegance and drama seemed to fade in relation to the rest of him. He walked over to her.

“I hope you don’t expect me to put down my cloak,” he said in his usual drawl. “I’ve worn this only once, and I am inestimably fond of it.”

She laughed. “I expect you to lend me a strapping footman, Villiers! I must needs get to that inn. I’ve been on the road for hours and I’m famished. I set out yesterday from London, if you can believe it. We lost a wheel, and I had to spend the night a mere hour from the city.”

He held out his arms. “Come, then.”

Jemma froze. “You’re convalescing.”

He scooped her off the step as if she were no more than a girl of five. “I’m feeling better. Of course, it could be that I’ve miscalculated my abilities.” His steps slowed. “Oh—”

She shrieked as his hands suddenly gave a little and she dipped toward the ground. “No!”

“Oh, all right then,” he said. There was a dark strain of laughter in his tone.

“You’re evil,” she accused him.

“And you’re not the first to tell me so,” he said comfortably, putting her down within the door of the inn.

“Well,” Jemma said, shaking out her skirts. “I do thank you, Villiers. Naturally I would have preferred to walk on that cloak of yours, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“A sensible notion. Life is, alas, full of compromises.”

Jemma felt a bit strange about the whole thing.

“Your Graces,” the innkeeper was gobbling, “I’m afraid that I have no private rooms at the moment. The south chimney has collapsed.”