She tried to pull her mind back from that hot, happy place. “Hmm.”

“I didn’t think that you guessed why Sarah Cobbett came to my chambers.”

Jemma raised her head. “So that was the reason? I used to think that it was just a question of saving time.”

“I couldn’t get anyone to believe that I wasn’t sneaking off to The Palace of Salomé in the evenings. God, I was sick of being called Bawdy Beaumont. There was always scorn to it, just under the surface. I knew they were making jokes about spankings behind my back.”

Jemma wound her fingers into his.

“I didn’t even really want a mistress. Oh, I wanted to bed someone…at that age, all you see are women, and each one is succulent, and delicious in her own way.”

“You thought every woman you saw was ‘succulent’?” Jemma asked, utterly fascinated.

“They had breasts,” he said, as if that was all the explanation anyone could wish for. “And other parts.”

She giggled, imagining Elijah walking down the street peering at women’s breasts. It seemed so unlike him.

“But I didn’t have time. I was so determined to mend my father’s damage, to change the reputation attached to my name.”

“Your mother shouldn’t have told you,” she said, sorrowing for the eight-year-old boy who was told those details far too early.

“She is obsessed with the reputation of the Beaumonts, as you heard. And, of course, it was much harder for her. She knew he had mistresses, but she had no idea about the storm of scandal that would break over her head when he died.”

“It was bad luck that he died at that moment,” Jemma said.

“I used to think about it a lot as a boy, puzzling over it. Why the woman’s chemise? Why the spanking? Finally I grew old enough to realize that eccentricities of an intimate sort can’t be puzzled out and explained. It gave me a passion for logical facts,” he added.

“I’m sorry. It sounds like a terrible burden.”

“So I found Sarah Cobbett,” he said, staring up at the tapestry. “At first I thought it was enough to have a mistress, but then I realized that no one cared what I did when I wasn’t in my chambers or in the House. They just assumed I was wearing lacy gowns and begging my mistress to spank me. So one day I told her to come to my chambers instead.”

Jemma ran circles over his chest with a finger. She didn’t like thinking of Elijah with another woman. But she could hardly be jealous of Sarah, under the circumstances. And Elijah’s heart still beat smoothly under her palm.

“It was terribly awkward,” he said, turning his head so he could see her. “The desk was uncomfortable. She wasn’t pleased, but what could she do? After a while she got used to it and so did I.”

“Did it work?”

“Oh, yes. After a month or so, everyone knew. They all slapped me on the back and said they thought it was a marvelous idea. Everything calmed down. But I was cautious, and I still had Sarah come to my chambers twice a week.”

“When we married,” Jemma said, wondering if she should even voice it, “why didn’t you let Sarah go?”

“I didn’t think of her in those terms. That is, I didn’t think of the two of you in the same way. You were charming and luscious and soft under the covers. I know we weren’t terribly good together, but I thought about you a great deal.”

“You did?”

He grinned at that. “If you remember, we made love every night. I found you horribly distracting. I would be trying to listen to a speech in the House, and I would start thinking about how soft your mouth was, or about the curve of your bottom, and I would lose track of the argument entirely.”

“We had made love that very morning,” Jemma said. “That was what hurt the most. You turned from me, as if I were nothing more than an hors d’oeuvre, and then you took her.” Despite her best effort, a thread of pain ran through her voice.

Elijah groaned. “I can’t say anything to make you feel better about it. I remember feeling sated by you. I didn’t want to bed her. But at that age, if a woman lies in front of you with her legs spread, you can manage it, even if you are tired. How could I have explained to Sarah if I didn’t continue? There she was, and it had become part of my responsibilities in the House. If that makes sense.”

In a male sort of way, it did. After all, she and Elijah had hardly known each other when they married; the marital contracts had been signed by their fathers years before. She had been in love with him, but he had no reason to feel the same emotion for her.

Suddenly he rolled over on her, and she felt him against her leg, urgent and hard again. “You are the most succulent of all.”

“I am?” But his hand was on her breast, a rough caress, and he didn’t answer in words.

That morning they had spent hours making love. He had kissed her shoulder blades and the backs of her knees. He had kissed her eyebrows and the tips of her toes. Now he took her fast and hard, without preliminaries.

Jemma kept her eyes open, and watching his face, loving him, felt again like a young bride in love with her husband.

“I love you so much,” she whispered. The heat was building in her legs, starting to cloud her mind and pull her into some other place, a place without fear.

Elijah cradled her face in his hands and said something hoarse that she couldn’t hear, but she knew what it was because their love was there between them. It hardly needed to be said.

Chapter Twenty-six

April 4

Fowle entered the study and bowed before Jemma. “The Duke of Villiers regrets to tell you that his carriage has returned from Birmingham empty; the doctor has apparently moved to London but did not leave a forwarding address.”

“I might also add that Mr. Twiddy and his two daughters arrived this morning, and I dispatched them to the country estate, as you had instructed.”

Elijah nodded. “Thank you, Fowle.”

Jemma heard the news with no more reaction than a tightening around her eyes. He wrapped his arms around her and tried to warm her up. “We never expected the doctor to come to anything,” he said, wishing she’d never heard of him.

“I want to read his article,” she said, stepping out of the circle of his arms.

“Villiers has it; I’ll—”

She turned. “I’ll fetch it.”

“Wait! You can’t—”

She was gone. Elijah gritted his teeth for a moment and returned to his work. He was cataloguing the estate: going through it item by item. If Jemma wasn’t with child when his heart gave out, then his hairless, brainless second cousin would inherit. He needed everything to be as clear as possible.

An hour later, he was writing a letter, instructing his cousin in clear language about how to oversee crop rotation, when Jemma burst through the door.

“I have the piece. The doctor’s name is William Withering. I’m going to hire a Bow Street Runner to find him.”

He looked up. “A runner?”

“Why not? I’ve already sent Fowle to fetch one. Withering’s work is rather interesting, Elijah,” she said, sitting in a chair opposite him and waving the sheets in the air. “Withering extracted a medicine from a flower. If you take an overly large dose, it acts like a poison. But in small amounts, it seems to cause an irregular heart to change its pattern and…” Her voice died out.