This Duchess of Mine (4 page)

“How are we going through?”

The footman grinned, his face wild in the leaping firelight. “You'll see,” he said.

It wasn't until they were in the shadow of the barricade that Elijah realized that there was, in fact, a small trickle of people making their way through a man-shaped hole in the bottom. “They'll only block the hole when they get word that the riot has started,” James said, worming his way through the people. “Make way!” he shouted. “It's a duke here. Make way!”

Elijah felt like a fool, walking through the crowd in his brocade—not to mention his high heels and wig—but that was life as a duke. He'd resigned himself long ago to looking and acting in ways that most men found incomprehensible and that he, in the inner sanctum of his study, often found just as foolish.

He strode along, the heavy silk of his coat swinging around him, and the people fell back, letting him pass.

“We'd best make hurry,” James said, almost pushing him through the hole. “They say it'll start soon.”

“How on earth do they know?” Elijah asked. He checked his pocket watch. The yacht had taken up anchor. But he couldn't—
wouldn't
—miss his appointment with Jemma.

“They know,” James said. “There's the Thames, Your Grace. I'll just ask one of the mudlarks about a boat. Wait a moment.”

Some minutes later Elijah sent James back to guard the horses, in the unlikely event that one of the barricades failed, and he climbed into a rowboat owned by a man with the less than inspiring name of Twiddy.

Even hadn't he known of the Limehouse blockades, he could have guessed that something was afoot in London. Fires burned all over the city: not huge, uncontained fires, but small glowing ones, the kind that crowds of men gathered around to warm their hands, to talk and gossip.

Twiddy was a tired-looking fellow in a ripped coat who seemed to have only half his mouth at his disposal, since the other half was frozen by a nasty scar that split his face in two. “You're wanting the king's big boat,” he said now, out of the right side of his mouth.

“Yes,” Elijah said. “That is correct.”

“Riots'll start any minute,” the man said. His face seemed to sneer, though it was perhaps only because the left side was immobile.

Elijah thought of asking whether the authorities had been notified, and dropped the idea. They'd be dunces not to have noticed, even if they weren't officially informed.
Oh, by the way, Mr. Constable, sir, there's a riot due to start at ten o'clock tonight
.

He would make his way onto the
Peregrine,
inform the captain of the impending riots, and manage to get the yacht steered to a safe place. Then he would take his wife, bring her safely home, and that would be that. London could—nay, London undoubtedly
would—
burn, but if he could save Jemma, it would be enough.

That was what his world had shrunk to: from his grand plans for the poor and the disenfranchised, to a desperate desire to be home in bed. With his wife.

Twiddy pulled up his oars. “The yacht's gone toward the Tower of London,” he said.

Elijah leaned forward. “The royal yacht?”

“It's down where the hulks are.”

“Then make all speed after it.”

Twiddy shook his head. “I can't do that, Yer Grace.” He bent over and spat into the dark water lapping greasily at the small boat. The only light came from a torch burning at his back, affixed to the prow.

“I will pay you double,” Elijah said, realizing the moment the words left his mouth that he'd made a mistake.

Sure enough, the man's face darkened and the immobile left lip pulled savagely down. “I stand to be arrested if I goes near the hulks, and I can't do it. Not for yer gold, not for nothing. I got two daughters at home.”

“My wife is on that yacht,” Elijah said. “Why will you be arrested?”

He spat again. “I'm demobbed.”

A former soldier, Elijah translated. Which explained the damage to his face, but not why he couldn't venture near the hulks.

“Iffen a former soldier even goes near the hulks, they shoot him,” Twiddy said. “Because it's me friends on those boats. Me brothers-in-arms. I stood with them, out there, and now they're shut up worse than chickens in a coop. I don't do nothing with the riots.”

“The riots are coming from the hulks? Tonight?”

But Twiddy hadn't meant to reveal that, clearly, and his face closed like a trap.

“I must get to that yacht,” Elijah said. “I will personally guarantee that you are not thrown in jail. I am the Duke of Beaumont, one of the highest in the land.
I must get my wife off that ship!
”

Twiddy stared at him, the left side of his face twitching slightly.

“I have a large estate in the country. If you wish, I will employ you there, and your children and wife can come with you.”

“Wife's dead,” he grunted.

“Then your daughters will be all the better for fresh country air and safety,” Elijah said. “You sound like someone raised in the dells. Look about you, man! Is this the place to raise children?”

“Are you askin' me if I
choose
to raise my girls here?”

Elijah cursed himself silently. For someone with a reputation for a silver tongue, he was certainly awkward tonight. “I'll take you out of this,” he said, sitting back. His heart was thumping in his chest, and he didn't want to think about that. “I'll take you to the country and give you decent work for decent pay. But you must get me to that yacht, and get myself and my wife off it.”

“How's we to do that? Likely they aren't going to let someone like me draw up alongside the king's yacht. Not on a night like this.”

“They don't know,” Elijah said. “They don't know about the riots, or they've decided to ignore them.”

Twiddy spat again.

Elijah felt like spitting too, but dukes didn't spit, and it was too late in life to start. A second later Twiddy picked up his oars and started silently moving them upstream again. He stuck close to the banks as they turned into the main cleft, clearly unnerved by the great floating prison ships anchored in midstream. There were redcoats on all the decks, Elijah was glad to see. Perhaps they would head off the riots.

They tooled silently along, the drip from the oars drowned out by the frequent howling shouts coming from the shore.

“It's up ahead,” Twiddy finally said with a grunt.

Elijah leaned forward, braced on the gunwale, and
caught sight of the golden pearl that was the
Peregrine.
From this distance it seemed to be a glistening dream from a fairy tale, shimmering from the touch of a magic wand. But between them and the yacht floated two broken-down hulks, prisons for men who rotted in chains.

“Most of them don't live the first year,” Twiddy said. It was like a curse under his breath.

Elijah had argued against the hulks for years now. “In fact, one-fourth die in the first three years,” he said.

Twiddy's oars froze. “You know about them? I thought none of you even thought about them.”

“I fought for a bill against using the hulks as prisons. I lost.”

“A bill.” He spat.

“In the House of Lords.”

They drifted slowly past the first ship. The decks were thronged with guards. Clearly they, if not the king, knew about the impending riots, though whether they would be able to stop the conflagration hitting their own boat was debatable. One more ship lay between Elijah and the yacht.

Twiddy was edging along the shore, so close that reeds bent into the rowboat and brushed past Elijah's elaborate coat.
“Hist,”
he said, so quietly that his voice was just another shush from the reeds.

Elijah looked. The last hulk had no redcoats on the deck. It wasn't thronged with marauding prisoners either, though.

“Empty,” Elijah breathed.

Twiddy shook his head. His oars came up and Elijah saw that his hands were shaking. Elijah took off his signet ring and handed it to Twiddy. They both stared
down at the sapphire; it caught the light of the torch and sent back a flare of blue fire.

“Bring it back to me if we're separated,” Elijah said.

“Tell them it's my pass if you're caught.”

Twiddy's hand closed on the ring and it disappeared into his clothing.

They were almost past the hulk, sliding up to the king's yacht on the far side. Music spilled from the deck and Elijah could see brilliantly colored forms meeting and separating. He watched as a plump woman laughed, tilting her head so far back that her tall wig was in danger of toppling.

Twiddy steered to the side of the yacht and threw a rope up to a servant, who reeled it in after a quick look at Elijah. “I'll fetch the duchess,” Elijah said. “She'll see it as an adventure. We'll continue on—”

At that moment the yacht lurched, as if a giant hand had lifted it slightly into the air and thrown it back down.

“It's started,” Twiddy said with a harsh gasp of air.

The black, silent prison ship, the one that had appeared devoid of life, had broken free of its moorings, struck the
Peregrine
, and rebounded away.

Elijah gave a mighty heave and pulled himself onto the deck. “Two minutes!” he shouted, looking down at Twiddy. The footman had run off, so he tied the rope from Twiddy's bark to the gold-plated railing and plunged into the throng of screaming nobles.

His heart was pounding and he forced himself to walk rather than run. Where was Jemma? He saw many he knew: one of the royal dukes; Lady Fibble fainting in the arms of her husband; Lord Randulf looking particularly idiotic, with his wig knocked askew.

He had to peer around high piles of white curls,
looking for his wife. She might wear roses and jewels in her hair, but never sailing ships or replicas of bridges.

There she was. On the other side of the crowd milling at the railings, waiting calmly. She must believe that there had been a small accident, he thought. But in his gut he knew that the silent, dark prisoners' warship, now coming closer to the yacht, wasn't accidentally drifting in the Thames.

Jemma was at the very end of the line to board the small boats for shore, her eyes searching the deck. Looking for him.

Then he was running toward her, twisting through the crush of people. They were flooding to the railing, which made it easier. The king's servants were lowering boats. He caught sight of His Majesty with a boatful of laughing courtiers, being rowed to shore, and still the hulk drifted closer.

Then he had her, gave her one hard kiss and pulled her back to the railing where Twiddy was waiting. The hulk was almost on the boat again. Noblemen were laughingly filling the boats that had come out from shore to rescue them, paying no attention to the seemingly dead ship.

“Why—Why, Elijah,” Jemma said, breathlessly.

He picked her up and dropped her into Twiddy's hands as if she were no more than a load of laundry. Then he vaulted the railing himself and landed in the back of Twiddy's boat. There was no need to give the man orders.

Twiddy had an oar ready to push them away from the yacht. He jammed it back down into the water and threw his whole weight against the current to push them ahead of the two boats as quickly as he could.

“Elijah!” Jemma cried, just as a pistol barked.

“Down!” he shouted, and lunged forward, pushing her into the bottom of the boat and covering her with his body. Twiddy swore under his breath, rowing with all his might and main.

Elijah looked up to see the deck of the hulk thronged with prisoners. Five, or perhaps six, had taken a wild leap onto the deck of the royal yacht. A dilatory nobleman yelled and then fell into the water, making a fine splash. Twiddy gave another great heave, and the span of water between themselves and the yacht grew into a dark well.

Elijah let Jemma sit up. Her hair was tumbling about her shoulders, though she looked as beautiful as ever. The shore was brightly lit now, thronged with the king and his courtiers, with the little boatloads still coming ashore. And on the deck of the
Peregrine
, convicts waved their pistols and roared their defiance.

Twiddy shook his head and looked away, grunting at the force he put into rowing.

“The prisoners,” Jemma breathed.

“You could have been hurt,” he said. She was so beautiful. It wasn't her golden hair nor the color of her eyes, nor the lush shape of her bosom. It was the way her lips curled, the way her eyes laughed at him, the slender fingers she held out to him. He took her hand and carefully pulled off her glove. Then he pressed her palm to his lips.

The very touch of that small palm against his lips made his heart beat faster than it had while running, while jumping the horse, while diving into the boat.

“Elijah,” she whispered, her eyes still on his.

And then she was in his lap, and Twiddy rowed away up the great River Thames while the Duke of Beaumont kissed his wife.

J
emma looked flushed, happy and excited. More happy than Elijah had seen her look in…oh…forever. Perhaps since the early days of their marriage.

They didn't show each other joy, not anymore.

And she wasn't happy merely because they were away from the river, and safe on their way home. He caught her off the seat of the hackney and kissed her just because he could. And because the moment when she melted into his arms, when her arms came around his, wasn't anything he remembered from their awkward beddings years ago.

There was only one thought in his mind, beating through his body with the force of a tidal wave. The minute they entered the house, he would carry her up the stairs. The hell with any servants who might be watching. He would take her straight into his bedchamber.

Finally, after years, he was taking his wife. She was his again. His—

“We hardly know each other,” Jemma whispered. She was seated on his lap, her head tucked into the curve of his shoulder.

“I do know you. Your name is Jemma, and you are my wife.” And soon I mean to know you in another fashion, he added silently.

“We separated for nine years,” she said, looking up at him. “We bungled our marriage before. I don't want to rush into this. It's important.”

He bent his head and nipped her lip. “I promise you that I
never
rush.”

She gurgled with laughter at that, and then fell silent again when he took her mouth with all the urgency in his heart. Time was finally on his side, had finally brought them together. It felt more important than life, even than death—

She interrupted that thought. “I've decided that we need to spend more time together. Almost as if we were courting, if that makes sense.” He couldn't tell her…No. He
wouldn't
tell her.

“I'll woo you,” he said, snatching up her fingers for a kiss. A horrifying thought crossed his mind. “Jemma, you're not suggesting that we shouldn't sleep together tonight, are you?” Every muscle in his body froze at the thought.

“No.” She said it clearly, meeting his eyes. For all her sophistication, his Jemma was not the sort to banter when the subject was most important.

“Ah.” He nuzzled her cheek, letting his voice fall to a seductive timbre. “Where will you be sleeping?”

But two could play at that game. She turned her face, caught his lips, breathed into the secret silence of his mouth. “With you.” And then, again, even quieter: “With you.”

Her eyes had turned a smoky blue, a color he would gladly look at every day of his life.

His heart stopped for a moment, kept going.

“But I shall woo you, Elijah.”

“Women don't woo,” he said, not really listening. He was trying to ignore the beating of his heart, as syncopated as the raindrops just beginning to fall on the roof of the carriage.

Her smile sent a flare of heat up his spine. “I have never paid much attention to that sort of rule. I do not need to be wooed, Elijah.”

“And I do?”

She nodded. “You do. Could you perhaps take some time for yourself in the next few weeks? Persuade Pitt and the rest of them that the country will survive without your help?”

“I'm won,” he said. His voice sounded dark and low.

“Consider me wooed and won, Jemma.
Please
.”

She was laughing against his mouth, pulling away. “Not yet.”

“I don't have a mistress, Jemma. There's no one to win me from, I promise you.”

“It's not that. Though I am glad to hear—”

“Not since you discovered us on my desk,” he said, coming out with the somber truth of it. “And no one else either.”

Her eyes grew round.

“You see, I decided it was you—or no one.” She seemed too stunned to speak. He bit back a smile. “Couldn't we consider me won?”

She cupped his face in her hands. “I'm wooing you because I want it to be different than it was nine years ago. Because you and I, Elijah, we will be together until we're old and gray.”

It was one of the great acts of courage in his life to smile at her. “And how does the Duchess of Beaumont woo, when she puts her mind to it?”

“That remains to be seen,” Jemma said. “I used to enjoy receiving poetry, but somehow I can't see myself breaking into verse. Perhaps we'll start with chess. We have a game left to play in our match. Don't you remember?”

The carriage was swinging around the corner. They would be home in a moment. Blood thrummed through his body with a dark promise of pleasure.

He forced himself to sound light rather than desperate, laughing rather than lustful. “How could I not? You owe me a last game. I seem to remember that there were a few rules attached to that game.”

“We're to play blindfolded,” she said. He could hear the faintest tremor of desire in her voice, just the promise of huskiness. But he meant to make her cry aloud with pleasure, grip his shoulders, beg for more.

“Blindfolded and in bed,” he said slowly, tracing a pattern on her knee. He felt as if his fingers burned through her skirts, as if he caressed the pale perfection of her thigh instead of just rumpling her gown. “An unusual style of wooing, Jemma. But I like it.”

“I believe you'll enjoy my wooing,” she said, her voice as smug as a little girl with a pocket full of boiled sweets. “Perhaps I'll let you steal my pawns.”

He was too hungry to consider her teasing, even to care about it. The carriage was finally, finally, coming to a halt. He curbed himself, drawing on years of self-control practiced in front of the House of Parliament. Of course he wouldn't throw his wife on a bed and leap on her like a wild dog.

Jemma left the carriage before him, bending down
to avoid striking her head on the door. Her bottom swayed for a tantalizing moment in the doorway of the carriage. Even given the absurd panniers she wore, the rounding of silk at her rump made him reckless, drunk with the need to touch her. He was in the grip of a raging passion that threatened to turn him into a man that he didn't recognize.

He didn't recognize her either.

In the flick of an eyelash she lost that edge of sensuality and hunger he saw in the carriage. She greeted Fowle at the top of the steps, looking regal, as if she hadn't just been rescued from a yacht at the very moment of disaster. As if she was as cool and uncaring as any other duchess out for tea.

Elijah took the steps two at a time. Jemma glanced over her shoulder at him as she handed her gloves to a footman. “I was just telling Fowle that Mr. Twiddy will be arriving tomorrow to—”

Since he'd lost his mind, he backed straight into the drawing room, grabbing her wrist and swirling her with him, slamming the door in his butler's face.

“Elijah!” Jemma said, sounding amused. “I assure you that—”

He swooped on her. Took her mouth with all the desperate wish he had to claim her, to make her
his
. In every sense of the word. He possessed her mouth, kissed her savagely, with all the fear he felt when he saw her on the
Peregrine
, standing there unprotected, without him. Anything could have happened to her. Anything.

“You're mine.” His voice had nothing in common with a statesman's even tenor. It was deep, savage, knowing.

“I—”

He took her mouth again, stealing her words, telling her silently that she had no choice, that he would be the one to pleasure her, that the danger they had just gone through was only a shadow of what would happen if she ever tried to push him away.

“I let you go, years ago,” he said.

“Yes,” she gasped. Her voice had a breathy catch in it, an echo of desire that reverberated deep in his body.

“I will
never
let you go again.” His voice grated with the truth of it.

She looked shocked. He didn't give a damn. Then she started smiling, and something deep inside his heart relaxed. That was a wicked smile. There was anticipation there…

“You can woo me tomorrow,” he said, voice guttural, unrecognizable. “Tonight is another kind of event altogether.”

She had been shocked but was recovering herself now. “So no chess?” Her pout said that she knew precisely what her deep bottom lip did to him.

“Jemma.” He said it low and soft. His heart was dancing a wayward rhythm, and urgency gave his voice an edge.

“I must take a bath!” she said, laughing. He had her backed against the door, hunkering over her like a great beast.

“No.”

“Indeed, Elijah, I must insist. I have been thrown into a boat and splashed with river water. I am…” She paused and gestured with mock horror. “…not myself.” Vulnerability glimmered deep in those exquisite eyes of hers.

“You'd be beautiful to me if you were bathed in
mud,” he said. “Let's call for the bath and I'll act as your maid.”

Even in the dark, with no light other than that filtering through the windows, he could see a stain of color in her cheeks. “I bathe alone, always.”

He bent closer. “After tonight I shall know every nook and cranny of your body, Jemma.” His voice roughened. “Bathing will just hasten the process.”

“You have a great deal of confidence in yourself,” she said, looking a bit uncertain, not like the arrogant duchess who had ruled Paris with her wit and beauty.

He smiled. “You see? You're getting to know me better already. There's no need for a courtship between us.”

But his wife was no malleable young miss. She pulled back. “I will welcome you in my bedchamber in one hour, Duke.”

He couldn't protest again. They weren't children. His Jemma might have taken a lover or two in Paris during the years they were apart, but clearly she had granted the poor Frenchmen no real intimacies.

So he kissed her again. With all the knowledge he had that she was the only woman for him, that she'd been so for years.

With the knowledge that time was not his friend, and that if she took too long to woo him, he wouldn't be there for their last kiss.