Chapter 12.

Good evening, your grace." Tidmouth held the door open, bowing as she went past him into the hall. He straightened and addressed himself to the duke. "Will your grace be dining in, after all, sir?"

"Yes, thank you, Tidmouth." Jack, a gleam in his eye, glanced at Arabella, who was studiously examining a portrait of a previous Fortescu, a sixteenth-century cavalier of somewhat severe mien. "I believe we'll dine abovestairs, in her grace's boudoir. Her grace is somewhat fatigued after the long journey yesterday."

Arabella opened her mouth to protest this calumny, but then she caught the wicked gleam in Jack's gray eyes and said demurely, "Yes, indeed, I do find myself somewhat weary. You're so considerate, sir. If you'll excuse me, I'll go to my chamber and rest awhile before dinner, sir." Her smile was all sweet innocence as she asked, "What time do you care to dine?"

Jack bowed. "You must say, my dear."

"We could dine in one hour, perhaps," she said thoughtfully. "But, of course, should your grace wish to see me before then, I shall be entirely at your grace's disposal." The tawny eyes were all sensual mischief as she cast him a sidelong glance.

"We will dine in one hour, then, ma'am." He put the faintest emphasis on dine.

She smiled and flitted towards the stairs. The dogs made a move to go after her but Jack swiftly laid hold of their collars. "Tidmouth, take the dogs to the kitchens, make sure they have dinner, and keep them there for the remainder of the evening."

"Yes, your grace," the steward said woodenly. He beckoned to a liveried footman, hovering at the rear of the hall. "Gordon, take the dogs to the kitchens."

"Yes, Mr. Tidmouth, sir." Grinning, the footman took both collars. "Come along, boys, dinner."

Galvanized by the magic word, they shot off towards the back regions, dragging the footman with them.

"Send Louis to my chamber with a decanter of sherry," Jack said, striding to the stairs. "And her grace and I will dine alone in one hour. We can serve ourselves."

Tidmouth merely bowed. If his master wished to carve Aylesbury ducklings for himself and pour his own wine, it was not a steward's business to comment, any more than it was his business to hear the underlying message in his mistress's speech.

Humming, Jack went up to his own vast bedchamber that looked out upon the street. He shrugged out of his coat, casting it carelessly over a chair, and unbuckled his rapier, laying it on the window seat.

Louis hurried in with the decanter and a gla.s.s on a silver tray, setting it down on the dresser. "We're dining in are we, your grace?"

"We are," Jack said, pouring himself sherry.

"A dressing gown, sir? Or will we dress for dinner as usual?" Louis had opened the armoire.

"We think you may lay out a dressing gown for later," Jack responded, tossing back the contents of his gla.s.s before pulling the lace cravat from around his neck and throwing it to join the discarded coat. "But really, Louis, is this royal we strictly necessary?"

"No, your grace. I'll try to remember."

"Please do." Jack's smile was benign but Louis was not fooled. It didn't do to annoy his grace of St. Jules.

Jack ran a hand over his chin, then announced as he removed his waistcoat, "I believe you may shave me, Louis."

"Certainly, your grace." Louis took up the already sharpened razor.

Next door in her own chamber Arabella lay drowsily in a hip bath before the fire, her hair piled in a knot on top of her head, out of the way of the water. Sprigs of dried lavender floated around her.

Becky bustled around from armoire to bed. "A sprig of rosemary on the pillow, my lady," she said. "It freshens the linen beautifully. I found a bush in the square garden this afternoon. Didn't expect to find something like that in the city . . . and will you wear the silk negligee? With the satin slippers and the lace cap?"

"No cap, no slippers," Arabella said lazily. "You may lay out the gown, Becky, and then leave me."

"Very well, ma'am." Becky offered a conspiratorial smile that Arabella tried with dignity to ignore but failed utterly. She and Becky had been together too long for secrets, and the maid, for all her air of youthful innocence, was country bred and well aware of what went on in a conjugal bed.

Becky gave one final twitch to the coverlet, one final adjustment to the lace ruff on the peignoir that lay ready on the bed, checked that the candles were burning brightly and the fire well fed, then curtsied and withdrew.

Next door, Jack heard the sudden silence in his wife's bedchamber and he knew she was now alone. Louis had finished shaving him and reverently laid out a turquoise silk banyan on the bed, fussing over the set of the lapels, the drape of the folds, the fringe of the sash.

"I can manage from now on, Louis," the duke said, trying to hide his impatience with the valet's exacting attention.

The valet bowed and backed out of the room, closing the corridor door behind him with exaggerated softness.

Jack, in his stockinged feet, strode to the door that led to the adjoining chamber and opened it. The scent of lavender and rosemary met him first, then came the sight of his wife in her bath, her skin rosy from the warm water, her hair a damp and tangled knot on top of her head. She turned her head indolently against the side of the bath and gazed at him. He wore only britches and shirt, the latter opened carelessly at the throat. His hair was as usual tied back with a black velvet ribbon and the skin of his throat and neck was sun-browned after their weeks of Indian summer in the country. She said slowly, appreciatively, "I give you good evening, your grace."

Jack came over to the bath and stood looking down at her, his eyes hooded. "A most delightful sight," he murmured. "All dewy, pink, and delicate, like a rosebud waiting to open . . . or be opened." A lazy smile curved his fine mouth.

He knelt beside the tub, rolling his shirtsleeves to his elbows, making of each turn a sensual, languid movement full of a promise that made her blood run swift and sent a jolt of antic.i.p.ation through her loins.

In the same languid manner he took up a sprig of lavender and laid it in the center of her forehead, drawing an imaginary line down over her nose, her lips, into the dimple on her chin, and then down over her throat, lingering in the hollow, where the pulse now beat with erratic speed. Slowly he continued to draw the line down between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s that rose above the water, their dark crowns erect.

b.u.t.terflies of delight began dancing in her belly as he carefully planted the sprig of lavender in her navel and began to roll one nipple between finger and thumb, tipping her chin with his free hand as he kissed her-his lips at first hard, then soft, melting against her mouth, his tongue flirting with hers in a tantalizing game of catch as catch can. Slowly he raised his head, looking down into her flushed countenance, her lips full and red from his kiss, her eyes all golden fire.

Lilly's image flashed across his mind's eye, her porcelain skin lightly touched with pink, the china-blue eyes, the eager red mouth, but the perfection of her complexion, the warm redness of her mouth came from powder and rouge. Her eyebrows were plucked and drawn into perfect arches, Arabella's dark eyebrows were uncompromisingly thick, strong, and straight. He licked his thumb and smoothed her brows with careful strokes, before bending to kiss the tip of her nose.

Arabella was aware of a slight shift of mood. Suddenly she wondered if he'd come straight to her from his mistress's bed. She sat up in the tub, drawing her knees beneath her chin, and regarded him questioningly.

"What is it, love?" He smiled at her, but with some puzzlement.

"I felt suddenly that you weren't looking at me but at somebody else," she said obliquely. "It was an odd sensation . . . uncomfortable . . ."

He looked at her in silence for a long minute. And he saw the others who too often crowded in on his mind when he was with his wife. Charlotte, always, and so often Frederick. Their shadows lay over Arabella as they lay over him.

Arabella worried at her lower lip before saying, "I really don't know you at all, Jack."

No, he thought. Not at all. But she was an innocent among the shadows. Somehow he must learn to see her only for herself.

With sinking heart, Arabella recognized the closed look that always gave her the sense that he'd gone somewhere far away, a place into which she could not follow.

And then it vanished and his eyes were warm again, his mouth a soft sensual curve. He rested his hands on the edge of the tub and leaned into her, kissing her mouth. "I'm in no mood for distractions, my sweet," he murmured against her lips, his tongue demanding entry.

She yielded, her lips parting, her tongue dancing with his. He moved a hand to press her gently back beneath the water and she straightened her knees, sliding down, resting her head on the side of the bath, her hair cl.u.s.tering damply on the nape of her neck.

All her senses were now centered on the part of her body that for the moment held all his attention. His hand played a light skillful tune over her s.e.x, parting the swollen lips, gently rubbing and nipping until she could hold the conflagration at bay no longer. She heard her own soft cry. It seemed a long time before she came back to full awareness of her self in her skin. The warm water laved her acutely sensitized flesh and her eyes stayed closed as her breathing settled.

"Wake up, sleeping beauty," Jack murmured, splashing water over her in a refreshing shower that cooled her heated skin. She opened her eyes slowly and then her gaze became fixed upon him as he rose to his feet and stripped off his shirt, britches, and stockings. Naked and powerfully aroused, he stood over her.

"Oh, I'm awake," she whispered.

"Come, then." He held up the towel that Becky had laid beside the tub. He reached for her, catching her under the arms and raising her out of the water. "My never inexhaustible patience is running thin." He wrapped the towel around her and lifted her against him, tumbling her onto the bed, trapped in the folds of the towel.

He began to dry her, scrubbing at her skin until it glowed, twisting and turning her as the urge took him, lifting her feet and drying between her toes with great care. Her feet were ticklish and she struggled weakly as he ran his tongue over the insteps, then took each toe into his mouth in turn.

He seemed determined tonight to render her helpless, Arabella thought fleetingly. There was an unusual intensity about his lovemaking, his gray eyes aglow with an almost fierce light as he watched her while he devoured her, explored her, left no inch of her body untouched, unkissed. And she felt that intensity like a slow burn.

She found herself rising to meet it, her body coiled tight as a spring. She couldn't have enough of him-with lips and tongue, fingers and toes, she consumed him as he consumed her. She rose above him, straddling his hips, her hands enclosing his p.e.n.i.s as she rubbed and stroked him to groans of ecstasy. Then he seized her hips, lifted her, and drove inside her in one throbbing thrust that penetrated to her core and she flung back her head with a climactic cry. She couldn't count how many times she had scaled the heights since he'd taken her from the bath, each time had been more glorious than the last, but this time she seemed to disintegrate, to break apart in a thousand pieces, tossed to the four winds. He held her backside fiercely as he pressed her hard against his belly and his seed filled her with each pulse of his o.r.g.a.s.m.

Finally she fell forward, her head dropping into the sweat-slick hollow of his shoulder. His heart raced against her ribs, matching the headlong speed of her own. Slowly she stretched her legs out until they lay on top of his. He was still inside her, and she tightened her thighs in a sudden need to keep him there for a moment longer. His fingers relaxed their fierce grip on her bottom but he kept his hands where they were, holding her in place, and for a few moments they lapsed into a trance of satiation that was not quite sleep.

Jack moved first, gently disengaging as he rolled her onto her side beside him. He propped himself on an elbow and brushed the damp hair from her brow as he smiled down at her. He shook his head in wordless wonder and smoothed a flat palm down her side, resting in the indentation of her waist.

She smiled weakly but could find no words. He inhaled deeply then exhaled on a vigorous breath. "I don't know about you, but I'm in need of a dip in the bath." He swung himself off the bed with an energy that Arabella found incomprehensible and stepped into the copper tub, ducking below the water, bending his knees so that he could slide forward and submerge his head.

He rose from the water, shaking drops from him like a dog emerging from a river, and grabbed the damp towel. From the bed Arabella watched him with a lascivious eye, enjoying the muscular ripples beneath his skin as he dried himself, the hard leanness of his frame, the taut b.u.t.tocks, the flat belly. His s.e.x was quiescent, and she thought it looked like a sleepy mouse in its nest of dark curly hair. It was hard now to imagine it in the rampant state that had brought them both so much delight. The comparison brought an involuntary chuckle and Jack turned to the bed, his eyes brightly suspicious.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing," she said with an innocent smile. "Nothing at all." But she couldn't somehow tear her gaze from the object of her amus.e.m.e.nt.

Jack glanced down at himself. "Oh," he said with a half grin, draping the towel around his loins. "Well, cold water has that effect."

"Satisfaction too, I've noticed," she said with the same innocent smile. "But I've also noticed, your grace, that it doesn't take you very long to recover." She reached for her peignoir with its tiny pearl b.u.t.tons as Jack went into his own bedchamber for his dressing gown.

They went together into the warm, candlelit boudoir, where a gateleg table had been set before the fire. A platter of newly opened oysters was on the table, a soup tureen keeping warm on a trivet in the hearth. A roasted duckling steamed on the sideboard, a bowl of madeira sauce beside it, together with a dish of roasted potatoes and parsnips.

Jack poured wine and held the chair for his wife as she took her seat before the oysters. "Aren't these supposed to be an aphrodisiac?" she inquired, spearing one of the pearly gray creatures on its opalescent, craggy sh.e.l.l.

"It seems a moot quality in the circ.u.mstances," Jack returned, tipping the contents of a sh.e.l.l down his throat in one swallow.

Arabella chuckled and stretched her bare toes to the fire with a sigh of contentment, her earlier moment of unease forgotten.

It was a week later when the bandboxes and hatboxes began to arrive in a steady stream in Cavendish Square. Hard on their heels came Mesdames Celeste and Elizabeth, accompanied by a bevy of seamstresses bearing armsful of muslins, c.r.a.pes, taffetas, organdies, hand-painted Chinese silks, and Indian silks.

Arabella received the mission in her boudoir and gazed in astonishment at the number of gowns, peignoirs, robes that were laid out for her inspection. There seemed to be a gown for every hour of the day.

"If your grace would be so good as to slip into a negligee . . ." Madame Celeste suggested, hands clasped at her ample bosom. "There may be some little adjustments to be made to the gowns."

"I have to try on all of them?" Arabella was horrified at the prospect. She could be here for a day at least.

"Your grace, it is necessary to achieve the perfect fit; there will be adjustments to make," Madame Elizabeth stated, with just a hint of firmness. "And every gown has its own undergown, so you will need to wear only a chemise for each fitting."

Arabella threw up her hands in resignation and went into her bedchamber to summon Becky, who, all agog, accompanied her partially dressed mistress back to the fitting room.

"Ah, good, you haven't begun yet." The duke entered the boudoir just as his wife was divesting herself of the negligee in order to try on the first gown.

"Your grace." Madame Celeste managed to inject a note of disbelief into her voice. "We must fit each gown correctly."

"Yes, indeed," he agreed, taking a seat, crossing one elegantly clad leg over the other, and taking his snuffbox from the pocket of his gold-laced coat. "That's why I'm here. Pray continue."

Arabella glanced at him, expecting to see a conspiratorial wink, but realized with something of a shock that her husband was utterly serious. So she stood in her thin shift that left little of her to the imagination while tutting and muttering modistes dropped gown after gown over her head, instructing the group of seamstresses where to pin and then to sew.

An evening gown of ivory organza over a slip of gold silk brought forth the duke's first comment. "I would have more decolletage," he said. "Lower the neckline by half an inch and take a tuck in the back."

"It seems that your grace is an accomplished modiste. It appears there is no end to your talents,"Arabella said tartly as Madame Celeste obediently pinned and tucked.

Jack smiled his lazy smile. "Trust me in this, my dear."

"As you've said before," she responded. "But I tell you, sir, I am not going into Society worried about my b.r.e.a.s.t.s popping up like a well-boiled suet pudding.""Such a felicitous turn of phrase," the duke murmured. "As it happens, your b.r.e.a.s.t.s bear no resemblance to suet pudding, well boiled or otherwise."

Becky swallowed a little shriek; mesdames modistes gazed at each other in transfixed horror; the bevy of seamstresses ceased their st.i.tching. Arabella merely laughed.

It took close to three hours before the fit of every gown had been corrected. Arabella was weary and

bored, the dogs were whining at the door, and her orchids urgently required her attention. Her husband,

on the other hand, seemed to find the process utterly absorbing. He dismissed the company only when every garment had been approved and hung in the armoire. Then he said to Becky, "You will dress her grace in the ivory and gold this evening, Becky. Monsieur Christophe will do her grace's hair, but you may watch and learn for the future."

Becky curtsied. "Yes, your grace.""And now you may go," the duke said in his gentle fashion. Becky backed out hastily. "So why am I to be dressed thus?" Arabella inquired casually, taking up a file and attending to her nails. "I thought we might go to the opera," he said. "My box has been going to waste, it's time to use it.""Ah." Arabella set aside the nail file. "So this is to be my introduction.""Your introduction as the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Jules."She nodded. "And the opera?""One I hope you'll enjoy. Mozart . . . The Magic Flute. A charming piece, but of course no one will be attending to it," he said with a derisive shrug. "They'll be too busy discussing the latest gossip.""And I will be the latest gossip," she said. He nodded and rose to his feet. "Yes, ma'am. You will indeed. Christophe will come at five to do your hair. Becky must then dress you, and we'll dine at seven. The opera begins at nine."

"But of course one must miss the beginning," Arabella said with a curled lip. "So unfashionable to be on time."

He inclined his head slightly and said, "On this occasion I would have you make an entrance sometime after our fellow opera lovers, but once that's done, my sweet, you may be as unusual as you please."With a slight smile and a sweeping bow, he left her.

Arabella sat in frowning silence. She had every intention of setting Society by the heels, but she hadn't expected the duke to encourage her. Now it felt as if she was dancing to Jack's tune rather than her own.

She turned towards the door at a knock that she recognized as Becky's. "What is it, Becky?"

"A letter for you, madam." Becky proffered the silver tray.

Arabella recognized Meg's decisive handwriting. She took the letter eagerly with a word of thanks and a slight gesture of dismissal. Becky curtsied and departed and Arabella slit the wax seal and opened the letter. She could hear her friend's voice leaping off the crossed and recrossed page.

Dearest Bella, I am tearing my hair out with boredom. I didn't think it would be possible to miss anyone as much as I miss you. Even Mother and Father are dismal, and all the dogs are quite hangdog without Boris and Oscar. Whenever we go into what const.i.tutes our little society here, Lavinia is the only amus.e.m.e.nt. She ties herself into veritable knots while she attempts to cast aspersions on the morals of a fully-fledged d.u.c.h.ess whilst trying to imply that she enjoys the intimate confidences of said d.u.c.h.ess. All the while the dead birds in her various hats have gone toes-up and the fruit and flowers are definitely withering on the branch. David has taken to giving sermons on the evils of gossip and hubris, which Lavinia of course fails to understand. Anyway, my dear Bella, if I don't get some relief soon, I shall retire to the attic like a madwoman and spin cloth out of spiders' webs. Do you remember we talked of how I might come to London and stay with you? I wasn't sure I could face a reprise of that miserable first Season, but a cooler head prevails. Apart from the fact that I miss you as I would a limb, I need some respite from this dreary round. And some more interesting male prospects than linger in the hedgerows. Of course I wouldn't for the world intrude on conjugal happiness or interrupt the blissful progress of early matrimony, but a marriage of convenience might have s.p.a.ce for a close friend's company. Nothing you've said in your epistles has implied that your arrangement with the duke is anything other. And I know you would tell me . . .

Write soon, dearest. I would hear of your orchids, of the dogs, and, most particularly, more of your new life and your ducal debut. Every last detail, remember. My love as always. M.

Arabella smiled over the letter, hearing her friend's stringently dry tones. She couldn't think of anything she would enjoy more than Meg's company. Jack was too much in charge and she often felt deprived of the opportunity to take her own initiatives. She was accustomed to running her life as she chose, not according to the plans and precepts of a husband. She could use reinforcements. And Meg, for all her caustic wit, had a delicacy that would ensure she didn't intrude on a couple's privacy. Besides, she thought, Meg would have her own schemes to pursue. If she was going to look for a husband, or, knowing Meg, perhaps just a lover, she'd be busy on her own behalf. But she'd welcome Arabella's a.s.sistance and opinions.

Her smile broadened as she folded the parchment and tucked it into a drawer of the secretaire. They could amuse themselves rather well finding Meg a partner.

She went downstairs to the conservatory, where a new shipment of orchids awaited her.