How To School Your Scoundrel (22 page)

“I see,” she whispered.

“I have never told another soul about all this,” he said.

“I don’t doubt it. Such a shameful history is hardly a matter of pride, though at least it leaves your ability to sire children without doubt.”

“You should be appalled.”

“Appalled? My own father was notorious for siring bastards right and left. If you had mentioned the notion of exercising caution, he would have looked at you in amazement. He considered himself the father of his people in a very literal sense.”

For a moment, Somerton stared at her.

Then he threw back his head and laughed. The action made his head hurt, but he went on anyway, because it felt so good to laugh like this, from his belly upward into his heart. “But you loved him anyway,” he said at last, wiping his eyes.

“I loved him anyway.” She was smiling, too, watching him with indulgent eyes. “The trouble, of course, was that he couldn’t get any children on his wives, after we three girls were born. Each time one of my stepmothers became with child, she would miscarry, often quite late in her confinement.”

“How many stepmothers did you have?”

“Two. When the last one died, my father gave up. He altered the old rules of succession so that a firstborn daughter could inherit the throne, and I was married to poor Peter shortly after. Having a husband and—we hoped—a thriving heir would rally the people behind the idea of a female ruler.”

Somerton frowned. “I see.”

A silence stretched between them, raw and tender in the aftermath of these unexpected revelations, this new intimacy of mutual knowledge. Somerton wanted to pull the blankets up his chest, to hide himself again. But it was too late.

Perhaps, with Markham, it had always been too late.

Luisa gathered herself. “Will you consider it, then? I realize it’s a great deal to ask, but you did promise to assist me in regaining my throne. Your strength and cunning would prove the utmost help, I’m sure, and the entire project a welcome distraction for you, given your recent reverses.”

“How kind. And what makes you think I have any desire to experience the bonds of matrimony again?”

She cleared her throat. “The position is not without its compensations . . .”

“Indeed.” He let his gaze wander downward to the buttons of her shirt.

She rose from her chair and walked to the window. “You needn’t answer now, of course. I’ve sprung it all suddenly, because there isn’t much time. You may take a few days to decide. But I really must know by the end of the week, so I can begin to plan.”

“Plan?”

“Olympia hopes to strike by the end of August.” She lifted the curtain a few inches to the side and looked down at the garden.

The end of August.

“You’re a fool,” he said. “You know what I am.”

“I do. That’s exactly why I want you for the job,” she said coldly. “Besides, I haven’t any time to interview other candidates.”

He watched her where she stood, at the opposite wall, her back turned to him. She was wearing her tweed trousers, the ones that cupped her bottom in a manner altogether too distracting for a man confined to his bed with a bruised brain, and the shaft of afternoon sunlight turned her white shirt nearly transparent.

Damn it all. His prick was rising, right there beneath the sheet, just when he needed to think rationally.

Had he even heard her correctly? Marry her. Become the consort to a princess, protect her from all threats. Get her with child as a matter of sacred duty, a child who would one day rule a minor German principality under principles of absolute power.

His thoughts reeled. Good God, he wasn’t even properly divorced yet.

On other hand, had he ever really been married, except as a legal formality? Certainly his wife, his former wife, would lose no time in marrying his rival.

Marriage. Marriage to Markham, to an extraordinary woman with no other man in her heart. What might that be like? At the very least, he would have her in his bed at last, willing and open, warm and soft skinned, perhaps even passionate. Yes. He would have, at the very least, the blessed oblivion of sexual congress, as often as he needed it. With her, with Markham.
His
Markham, his own Markham, offering now to bind herself to him for life.

By his side. In his bed. Never to leave him.

His prick surged against the linen, eager to complete the formalities of consummation.

The sick despair inside him, the sense of black loss, receded by a fraction of an inch.

He was accustomed to shocks, he reminded himself. And the faster a man adjusted himself to his new circumstances, the greater his chance of survival.

“Your Highness?”

She turned from the window in a startled jump.

“I shall take the matter under the gravest consideration. Now close that damned curtain before my eyeballs combust.”

T
hey were married on a Thursday, in a small medieval church in Fiesole, by an Anglican minister brought up the hillside from Florence by the Duke of Olympia atop a bad-tempered gray mule. It was the last day of July, and the air smelled of ripening fruit.

“Is it quite legal, however?” Somerton said to Olympia, when they had emerged, blinking, from the shaded recesses of the chapel to the Tuscan sunshine outside. Luisa, dressed in a pale yellow gown of almost peasantlike simplicity, clutching a small bouquet of pink-tipped yellow roses from the Palazzo Angelini gardens, was speaking in fluent Italian to the wife of the sacristan a few yards away.

Olympia removed his hat, blotted his forehead with a white handkerchief, and peered at the sun. “Oh, you’re married, right enough. No getting out of it now. I’m not up to shepherding any more divorces through Chancery; I should simply kill you this time, quick and efficient, and save myself a world of trouble.”

Somerton glanced at the ethereal figure of his bride, next to the chapel door. The early afternoon turned her shorn auburn head to flame. She seemed to be studiously avoiding any contact with him; even before the altar, she hadn’t even met his eyes when they repeated their vows. Strictly speaking, she had actually plighted her troth to the minister.

“I mean as regards her status as the ruler of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof. Can she marry a divorced man?”

Olympia shrugged. “There’s no law against it. Chiefly, I suppose, because the matter has never before arisen. Mind you, the laws have generally been written by the rulers themselves. You will enjoy the state of government immensely, Somerton: no messy parliaments, no pesky constitutional safeguards. Just a sort of bond of primeval trust between ruler and ruled.”

“Now why on earth would any sane subject wish to change such an efficient arrangement?” Somerton shook his head.

“My sentiments exactly.” Olympia squared his hat back on his head and turned to his niece. “My dears, I must be off. Missions to accomplish and all that. Enjoy your honeymoon. I shall send for you when the time comes.”

“But Uncle! You’re not going to stay?”

“Stay? For what purpose?” He looked back and forth between them. “I should be very much in the way, I assure you. I make it my general policy to avoid newlyweds at every opportunity.”

“A fine policy,” said Somerton. “I follow it myself.”

“Except in this case, of course.” Olympia coughed.

Somerton looked at Luisa. She looked away.

“Yes, well.” Olympia took his niece by the shoulders and kissed each cheek. “Best of luck, my dear. He’s a blustering sort, and cunning, and occasionally vicious . . .”

“Rather like a certain uncle of my acquaintance.”

“But I do believe he’ll make you a fine husband nonetheless. And you, sir.” He turned to Somerton. “How very satisfying to have buried the hatchet at last, as the Americans say. A brand-new nevvy! Splendid.” He held out his hand.

“My very dear uncle.” Somerton saturated his voice with irony.

Olympia’s large hand gripped his and pulled him in close for a confidential whisper. “Just remember what I said about death and divorces, my boy. Accidents are so common, and can so easily be arranged.” A friendly clap on the shoulder, a return to his jovial voice. “Treat her well!”

Somerton clapped a friendly one in return, nearly knocking Olympia to the paving stones. “Safe travels, my dear fellow.”

Luisa ranged up by Somerton’s side as Olympia climbed nimbly into his carriage and waved cheerfully from the window. “What did he say to you?”

“What’s that?”

“When you were shaking hands.”

“Oh, the usual wedding-day rubbish, ball and chain sort of thing.” He turned to her and held out his hand. “Off we go.”

She gave him a shy smile, not a Markham sort of smile at all, and placed her hand in his. The sight of that smile, the soft feel of her hand, caused a little shiver in his humors. He frowned it away. This was marriage, a civilized arrangement for mutual benefit and the procreation of the next generation of Holstein despots, not a damned country dance.

If only the fabric of her pale yellow gown would not cling to his new wife’s breasts in such an innocently alluring manner.

Luisa’s smile faded. “The sacristan’s wife said she would take us to the cottage.”

“Lead on, then.”

It had been Olympia’s idea to give up the prominent Palazzo Angelini, with its domestic staff and its position on a primary road into Florence, and take refuge in a discreet cottage near Fiesole until the time was ripe to act against the conspirators. Somerton, still plagued with headaches, his body still weakened from its fortnight of inactivity, had agreed that an Italian palazzo had its disadvantages for a princess in hiding, particularly one who was giving up her male disguise in order to marry an English nobleman. He wasn’t yet at full strength; he couldn’t take any chance of ambush.

“A sort of honeymoon,” Olympia had said, over sherry the night before, having reappeared with his usual abruptness just in time for the wedding.

“It is not a honeymoon,” Somerton said. “This is a marriage of convenience.”

Olympia had looked him over with his too-sharp blue eyes. “And yet, it is still a marriage.”

It is still a marriage.

Somerton glanced sideways at his bride, as they followed Signora Scotto along the dusty little path out of town, passing cypress and vineyards, villas and cottages, the undulating golden hills of a Tuscan summer. His bruised head ached dully in the sun. Luisa, on the other hand, looked fresh and bright, holding up her skirts an inch above the path, staring straight ahead with her chin tilted high. Her cheekbones were faintly flushed from the heat and the exercise. She had let his hand drop away from hers as soon as they were out of the churchyard.

What else had Olympia said to him last night, just before retiring? He rubbed his forehead. Something to do with being a husband.

You can be a husband to her, or not. The choice is yours.

“
Qui siamo
,” said the sacristan’s wife, turning with a swish of her bright blue skirts at the doorway of a small building of creamy stucco, nestled in the shade of a group of cypress. The tiled roof glowed red against the depthless blue of the late July sky.

Somerton frowned. “It’s rather small.”

“It will do very well,” said Luisa. She took the woman’s hand and asked, in Italian, whether there was any food for dinner.

Somerton pushed open the door and stood in shock at the entrance.

“Bloody Olympia,” he said.

There was only one room. A fireplace interrupted the middle of one wall, surrounded by cooking implements, fronted by a serviceable table with two rush-seated chairs. From the opposite wall stretched a bed, not particularly wide, covered by a cheerful blue bedspread and two plump pillows.

That was all.

Well, not quite all. On the table rested a bottle of wine and a pair of clean glasses. A note lay trapped beneath the wineglass. Somerton stepped over and tugged it free.

With compliments to the happy couple. Olympia.

Bastard.

•   •   •

H
er new husband was in a black mood.

Well, she could hardly blame him, could she? Between her and Olympia, they hadn’t given him much choice. Now here he was, not five days freed from a disastrous marriage, finding himself yoked to an entirely different wife, an entirely different life.

He picked up his glass of wine and finished it, without looking at her. Between them sat the crumbs of the dinner they’d shared, cheese and apples and bread from the well-stocked cupboards. Outside the cheerful red curtains, the sky was turning pale in preparation for sunset. The austere lines of Somerton’s face looked as if they might break under the weight of his scowl.

Evidently, he was not looking forward to the coming of night.

Luisa finished her wine and gathered her courage. “I feel I should make a few things clear, before we . . . before we proceed.”

He looked at her at last. His brow was so fierce, it might have cast its own separate shadow on the smooth wooden table below. “Yes, my dear?”

“I understand, of course, that this marriage is hardly one of your own choosing.”

“I agreed to it, however.”

“And we are not in love, in the manner of ordinary couples who stand before ministers and vow eternal fidelity. Moreover, I gather that you are a man of strong carnal appetites, requiring both abundance and variety to satisfy them.”

He raised one dark eyebrow and reached for a peach from the platter of fruit.

“So naturally I would not expect that you keep exclusively to our marriage bed. I do ask two things, however. One, that you conduct any affairs of that sort in a discreet manner, so as not to embarrass the court. Secondly, that when we are . . .”

Damn it all, there was a blush, warming her throat and rising up to her cheeks. And she had practiced this speech twice before the mirror this morning, just to avoid any display of unsettling emotion. Not that Somerton appeared to notice; he was slicing his peach with great concentration, hardly regarding her at all.

“Yes, my dear? And secondly?”

She went on stoutly. “During those times when we are seeking to conceive children, that you do me the honor of restraining yourself to our bed alone, until a . . . until the happy news is confirmed.”

Somerton had finished slicing the peach. He took one section in his mouth and watched her while he ate, considering his words. “How very reasonable. And you, my dear? Will you follow these rules you’ve laid out in such exactitude?”

“I have no need of them. I shall not take any men to my bed, other than you.”

“Are you quite certain of that? The winter nights are long and often dull. You may meet a gentleman whose charms you cannot resist. Peach?” He offered her a slice.

But I already have
, she thought, without warning. Her heart gave a little pang. She took the slice from his fingers and ate it swiftly.

“I suppose that’s possible,” she said. “But while the act of union is not unpleasant, it’s hardly worth putting my crown in peril. A prince may take all the lovers he wishes, but a princess must remain virtuous, or face dissatisfaction from her people. And these sorts of liaisons are almost impossible to keep secret.”

“Ah, of course. I never thought of that. Naturally, a princess must always put public duty before private longings. My sympathies, my dear. It seems we’re doomed to an unequal arrangement.”

His voice was so low and rich, it sent shivers along her spine that gathered between her legs. She rose to her feet, a little unsteady, and placed her fingers on the edge of the table. “Do we understand each other, then?”

“It seems so.” He drew himself lazily upward, up and up, until his big body towered above her, unnaturally massive. The muscles of his throat slid beneath his skin as he swallowed the last of the peach. “I believe I shall take myself outdoors for a cigar, if you don’t mind. I expect you’ll want a moment or two of privacy.”

Her breath lost itself somewhere in her chest. “Yes, thank you.”

He made a courtly little bow and disappeared into the evening dusk, ducking slightly as he passed under the lintel. Luisa stood for a moment, listening to her heart smack against her ribs.

Her husband—
husband!
—would return in a few minutes, perhaps a quarter hour. He would return and take her to bed.

God help her. The moment had come. What should she do? What would he expect of her? He must have taken a hundred women to bed, women of all sorts, women of skill and experience. She tried to remember her wedding night, and all she could recall were confused images of embarrassment and awkwardness and clothes shifting about and a somewhat painful jabbing about between her legs. By the end, she hadn’t even been sure they’d actually done what they were supposed to do. Peter had seemed equally perplexed. (“Did I . . . did I get it in you?” he’d asked afterward, breathing hard, and the truth was that she wasn’t fully sure if he had.)

Somerton, she felt certain, would have a different approach.

Her skin prickled beneath her clothes.

A quarter hour later she lay in the bed, washed and dressed in her nightgown, with the covers pulled up to her chin. She’d debated lighting the candle, but a few dregs of light still made their way between the cracks in the curtains, which she’d drawn tightly shut. She stared at the rough plaster ceiling and counted the whorls in the wooden beam right above the bed.

. . . twelve . . . thirteen . . .

The door burst open.

“Markham?” he barked.

“It’s Luisa, my lord,” she called softly. “I . . . I’m here. In the bed.”

The daylight had faded faster than she realized. Somerton was a blurry outline as he stomped toward the bed, yanking off his necktie, peering into the dimness as if he couldn’t make her out. The outdoor air swirled inside with him. He came to a stop a few feet away, too large for words.

“So you are,” he said.

She watched him from the corner of her eye. He appeared to be unbuttoning his shirt.