Isidore started humming as she dropped into a steaming bath, delicately scented with jasmine. Jasmine had an innocent touch, she thought.

As she sat in the hot water, she refined her story to a trembling virginal bride facing a wild pirate king.

That sounded like just the sort of setting to appeal to Simeon. And he obviously wanted to believe it. Look how he’d leapt at the idea that she’d never pleasured herself.

She found herself smiling. This was going to be fun. She tried out a few sentences in her mind. Oh dear! It’s far too large!

Or would one say, You’re far too large?

The etiquette of it all…Maybe she could just shudder, throw a hand over her eye and squeak, No, no, no!

Of course, the wild pirate would overcome the delicate flower’s resistance. The key was to pretend not to enjoy it.

Or perhaps the key was to be afraid?

Simeon wasn’t mad. And she had a fair idea that he truly was capable in bed. He was dressed oddly. But he looked male. In fact the very idea of him without clothes made her feel the opposite of frightened.

She got out of the bath and picked up the toweling cloth left for her by Lucille. All she had to do was flirt with him until he took some liberties. Then she would launch into a version of the fragile English rose, and, she hoped, he would revert to wild pirate, and all her worries would be resolved.

Chapter Sixteen

Gore House, Kensington

London Seat of the Duke of Beaumont

February 29, 1784

“What would you like to do this evening?” Jemma looked down the table at her husband. “We’ve been invited to Lady Feddrington’s soirée in honor of the visit of the Prussian prince, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick; or there is a musicale given by Lady Cholmondelay; and of course there’s the performance of As You Like It that we discussed last week, in which all the women’s parts are played by boys.”

Elijah put down his napkin and stood up, walking around the long table to Jemma. She looked up at him inquiringly. He looked somewhat better than he had before eating: he was too young to look so bone-tired.

“I am in no mood to watch boys prance about the stage,” he said, taking her arm to bring her to her feet, “but I should be happy to escort you to either of the other events.”

Jemma blinked at him. She fully expected him to say that he had to work. To read those documents that he was always reading, even at the supper table. “You mean—”

He held out his arm. “I have decided not to work in the evenings. I am at your command, duchess.”

“Oh,” Jemma said, rather uncertainly.

They strolled toward the drawing room. “I suppose the soirée,” Jemma said, deciding. “I should like to dance.” She was wearing a new dress, a delicious gown of figured pale yellow satin with a pattern of tiny green leaves. Her skirts were trimmed with double flounces and rather shorter than in the previous year.

Elijah looked down at her with a smile in his eyes.

“Yes, I am wearing a new gown and I should like to show it off,” she told him, thinking that there were nice aspects to having been married so long.

“The hem reveals a delectable bit of your slipper,” he said gravely.

“You noticed!” She stuck out her toe. She wore yellow slippers with very high heels, ornamented with a cunning little rose.

“Yellow roses,” he said, “are not nearly as rare as a perfect ankle like yours, Jemma.”

“Good lord,” she said, smiling at him. “It must be a blue moon. You’re complimenting your wife. Let me find my fan and my knotting bag—”

Fowle handed them to her.

“What a lovely fan,” Elijah said, taking it from her. “What is the imagery?”

“I hadn’t looked closely,” she said, turning away so that Fowle could help her with her cloak.

“Venus and Adonis…and a very lovely rendition as well.”

She came back and stood on tiptoe to see the fan, which he had spread before him. “Oh, I see. Yes, there is Venus. My goodness.”

“She seems to be pulling poor Adonis into the bushes,” Elijah said. She loved the dry humor he displayed when he wasn’t acting like a hidebound and moralistic politician. “Look at her breasts! No wonder the poor lad looks frightened and titillated, all at once. A tantalizing bit of art, this.”

“Surely you don’t approve?” she said. “You, the proper politician?”

“No Venus has offered to pull me into the bushes, so I could hardly say.” He closed the fan. “Where on earth did it come from, Jemma? You didn’t purchase the piece without looking at the illustration?” Fowle threw a cloak around his shoulders.

“Fans are a popular gift at the moment,” Jemma said. “This came from Villiers. He gave it to me a few days ago.”

“I didn’t know he paid you a visit.”

Jemma felt a strange qualm. It was all so difficult, having her husband’s boyhood friend trying to seduce her. “He came by to tell me of the strange doings of the Duke of Cosway.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Elijah toss the fan dismissively toward one of the footmen. Of course, that left her without a fan for the evening. No one was ever without a fan. But she could say that she left it in the carriage.

She climbed into the carriage and sank into the corner, suddenly struck by a profound realization. It was too late for Villiers, fan or no. She would never drag him into the bushes. When she first returned from France, she was so angry with Elijah that she thought to have an affaire with Villiers, but he had refused her.

And now, now that Villiers had changed his mind…it was too late.

Elijah had kissed her a few weeks ago. He had kissed her twice, actually. It was absurd, it was deluded. She was riveted by the memory of those kisses.

He was her first, her only husband, her…

Whatever he was to her.

The truth was that she was infatuated. She spent her afternoons in the library, waiting for him to return from the House of Lords. She secretly read all the papers so that she could engage in clever conversation about the events of the day. She thrilled when reading accounts of his speeches, and trembled when he set out in the morning on a day that included a talk before Parliament.

Not that he knew it, of course.

She would rather die of humiliation than let her husband know that she was infatuated by him.

She kept telling herself that Elijah never bothered to come to Paris to bring her home when she had fled there as a young bride. She kept reminding herself of his mistress, but somehow she had lost her rage, or perhaps her enthusiasm for that rage.

It was gone, tucked away in a faded box of memories. And the only clear thing she knew about her marriage was that she was married to a man who was so beautiful, with his sharp cheekbones and English grace, his tall, strong body and intelligent eyes—so beautiful that she would do anything to lure him back to her bed.

She was aware, while dressing, while putting on lip rouge, while putting on her shoes, that she was playing the most serious game of her life. He had to come to her. She could not chase him, beg him, or by any means at her disposal make it clear that he was welcome to her person…to her heart.

Though he was.

It wouldn’t work, not for life.

She wanted Elijah—not the way she had him when they were first married, not with the genial affection and enthusiasm he showed for their awkward couplings. She wanted him, the Duke of Beaumont, one of the most powerful men in government, at her feet.