The Ugly Duchess

by Eloisa James

  “You haven’t been to bed with a man in seven years,” he said softly. His eyes were frankly hungry now.

  “That’s true,” she responded. “But that was before I realized that our vows had been dissolved, in practice, if not in the courts. Now I shall have to make up for lost time.” And with that, she rose.

  The desire in his face was instantly replaced by an unmistakable wave of fierce possessiveness.

  Theo responded instinctively. “I am no longer your wife, James, and it seems you were my husband only as the Earl, for a matter of two or three years before you became Jack Hawk.”

  “How in the hell did you know that?”

  “It’s amazing what a good Bow Street Runner can discover. I take it that the Earl was mine, while Jack belonged to half the ladies of the West Indies and beyond.”

  “Rather an exaggeration,” he murmured.

  “Truly? Mr. Badger thought that you had illegitimate children sprinkled throughout the islands.”

  James’s laugh was as rasping and deep as his voice. “I would rather father my first child on my wife.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not an option,” she said coolly. “I am confident that our marriage can be dissolved, and I would certainly hope that you have a thriving flock of children with your next wife.”

  “My next wife?”

  “Our situation is clearly untenable.” Theo didn’t want to leave him with the least ambiguity. “I will petition for dissolution of the marriage as soon as possible; I’ve already contacted my solicitor. I have confidence that the Regent will accede to my request.”

  “No, you damn well won’t.” He bit the words out.

  “I think we would both prefer to dispel the hostility between us,” she said, ignoring his response.

  “I see no reason for unpleasantness,” he agreed.

  But there was something about his tone—no matter how agreeable—that set her every nerve on edge. “My jointure is more than able to support my needs, and we own a house in Hennessey Street that the estate acquired five years ago for investment purposes. If you are agreeable, I will set up housekeeping there. I would be happy to buy the house from the estate, as it is, obviously, unentailed.”

  “I’ll be damned if my wife will move out of my house, let alone buy another house from me!” His courteous tone slipped and his voice sounded more like a snarl.

  It was unexpectedly attractive, which was absurd. Obviously, it was a tragedy that James had lost his exquisite tenor voice. It was absurd to think that the rumble that seemed to come straight from his chest was attractive. Though it was dark and deep and . . .

  Theo pulled herself together. She hadn’t even an iota of ambivalence about this decision, deep voice or no deep voice. James had enthralled her when she was a girl, but she was facing a stranger now, not her young husband. She could not live with a man like this.

  “I’m afraid it is not a subject for negotiation,” she said, smiling at him just as she had when a Wedgwood designer accused her of stealing customers. “I cannot imagine that you have any particular reason to keep me here, given your stated conviction that our marriage is over. If you prefer, I could live abroad.”

  “The marriage was over. But now I’m back.”

  “A marriage is not an object that you can throw away and retrieve whenever you wish.” She paused, but he seemed to have nothing to say to that. “Do you intend to remain in London, or will you return to the sea?”

  “I plan to remain in England.”

  He seemed to be utterly unmoved by the possibility of a charge of piracy. “I’m sure your continued presence will sway the ton in your favor,” Theo said. “Of course there will be a scandal when our marriage is dissolved, but the title is such that you will obtain a new duchess in time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I plan to attend the theater this evening.”

  James took a step toward her. “Perhaps I will accompany you.”

  “There’s no need.” She glanced at his attire. He looked like a laborer, brown neck emerging from a white shirt, its sleeves rolled up to show arms solid with muscle. It was remarkable how civilizing clothes could be. “You will have to visit a tailor before you return to society. If you would join me for a moment, James, I’d like to introduce you to my butler.”

  He followed silently as she moved into the entry, talking faster than usual in an attempt to fill the charged silence. “Maydrop is an absolute treasure; he has done an inestimable job maintaining the household since Cramble’s retirement. Maydrop, I know that you spoke to the duke earlier today, but I wanted to make sure that the two of you are properly introduced.”

  The butler bowed. James nodded.

  “Perhaps you will introduce His Grace to the rest of the staff?” Theo suggested. “If I may have my pelisse, Maydrop.”

  “The carriage is waiting, Your Grace,” he said with another bow. “However—”

  James addressed himself to the butler. “You kept a carriage waiting even though you were aware that the duchess would be seeing her husband this evening for the first time in years?” His tone was not harsh but curious.

  Maydrop bowed yet again. “Her Grace’s maid informed me that her mistress would attend the theater tonight.”

  “So you didn’t picture us having a cozy evening at home, renewing our vows?” James asked Theo, turning back to her as if the butler were invisible.

  “No.” Theo shrugged on her pelisse, a magnificent Parisian creation of silk brocade custom designed in the severe style she preferred.

  “Who escorts you to the theater?”

  “A long-married woman such as I need not worry about an escort. I have a standing invitation to join Lord Geoffrey Trevelyan—you do remember him, don’t you?—in his box. He’ll be surprised to see me, given the events of this afternoon, but I’m sure he won’t mind. I am sorry that I haven’t the time to greet Sir Griffin.”

  She gave James something that approached a genuine smile, though it came in response to the anger in his eyes, rather than from her heart. It seemed that her husband didn’t like the information that Geoffrey and she remained friends. “Do give Sir Griffin my best, if you please.”

  She dropped a curtsy and waited a moment, thinking James would bow, but he didn’t. So she turned toward the front door, which was flanked by two footmen who were not as skilled as Maydrop at concealing their fascination at this little marital drama.

  Without the slightest warning, an arm caught her about the waist and twirled her so she stumbled back against a hard chest. James’s blue eyes glared down into hers. “My wife does not curtsy to me,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Theo instinctively went as still as a rabbit in sight of a fox. “Unhand me, please,” she said.

  James raised his head. “Out!”

  With a little scuffle, the footmen trotted around them and through the baize door.

  “I said out,” James said, glaring at Maydrop. The hoarseness in his voice was particularly noticeable if he was annoyed, Theo noted.

  Maydrop managed to strike a tone at once firm and deferential. “If you’ll forgive me, Your Grace, I am Her Grace’s servant, and I would be loathe to leave her in any situation in which she might be uncomfortable.”

  Theo stood in James’s embrace, trying to look unaffected by the muscled heat of his body. He seemed to believe she was desperate for a man, after all those years alone. It was a revolting thought. If there was one thing that had never tempted her, it was any sort of erotic encounter.

  Or did he think that she had avoided adultery merely because no man wanted her, given her reputation for ugliness?

  Only years of training herself to control emotion allowed her to maintain her poise. “I would be very grateful if you would free me,” she said, her voice icy.

  He stared down at her, having seemingly dismissed Maydrop from his attention. “You are my wife,” he said, his voice low and rough. “At some point I’ll have you again, Theo.”

  She refused to answer, though ever
y cell in her body shrieked no. He must have seen it in her eyes, because he dropped a quick, hard kiss on her lips and let her free.

  Theo ignored the way the touch of his lips weakened her knees. “Maydrop,” she said, “please be so kind as to inform Amélie to pack my belongings, as we will be leaving the house tomorrow morning.”

  “The duchess is not going anywhere,” James said, not even looking at the butler.

  “Your Grace,” Maydrop said, looking directly at Theo, “there is a situation outside of the house of which I must make you aware.”

  “Situation?” Theo was breathing quickly, her whole body trembling with the urge to dash for the door.

  “The newspapers,” Maydrop said, his tone distinctly anguished. “I’m afraid that the news of His Grace’s return has titillated their interest. There are men surrounding the house, and even attempting to scale the garden walls. I’ve had to post grooms in the garden to keep them from peering in the windows.”

  “What a pity,” James said with a wicked grin. “It looks as if you can’t go to the theater tonight, Daisy.”

  Theo glared at him. “I most certainly can. Maydrop, if you would have one of the footmen escort me to the carriage, I would be grateful.”

  “Don’t be foolish,” James said. “They’ll put out special editions just to discuss your cruelty in leaving me alone my first night in London. Not to mention the fact that they’ll follow you to the theater like a flock of crows descending on a dead cow.”

  “A dead cow,” Theo repeated.

  “I must concur with His Grace’s appraisal,” Maydrop put in. “Any glimpse of either of you would exacerbate this unfortunate state of affairs. I’ve had to post a footman in the attic to make certain that no one climbs down into the servants’ quarters from the roof.”

  Theo swallowed. She suddenly felt as if it was all too much. To her intense dismay, tears welled in her eyes.

  “Right,” James said brusquely. Before she knew quite what was happening, he scooped her up in his arms and started tramping up the stairs.

  Theo opened her mouth and then closed it again. There was something about being carried up the steps that felt very safe. “You mustn’t think you can make a habit of this,” she said about halfway up, deciding that she ought to protest.

  “I will if I wish,” James stated. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “I’m a person, not a possession,” Theo said, her temper flaring into life again. “You will what if you want? Toss me around like a sack of flour? Stroll back into the house and act as if you left a week ago? What makes you think that you can treat me so cavalierly?”

  He looked down at her with a steady, unreadable gaze.

  “I’m your husband, Daisy.”

  “Theo,” she snarled, feeling stupid.

  He nodded. “Theo. May I just mention that I do not find it pleasurable to address my wife by a man’s name?”

  “No, you may not,” she said. James pushed open the door to her bedchamber with his shoulder, and then put her on her feet.

  Then he backed up and gave her an easy smile. “Will you wear that gown to dinner?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  “You look ravishing.” The compliment gave her an odd twist in her stomach. How could this man, who looked like a barbarian, be so urbane?

  She hated it.

  But she might wear the dress to dinner.

  Twenty-six

  James walked downstairs, but he couldn’t make himself return to the library. He didn’t want to write letters; he wanted to throw his wife onto the bed and slide a hand under the shimmering green thing she was wearing and . . .

  He shook his head and readjusted his breeches. All things considered, he’d managed a decent imitation of Trevelyan, especially considering that he felt like a ragingly possessive pirate without a shred of sophistication to his name.

  Since he couldn’t go out the front, he walked out the back of the house, making his way though the garden to the small door that led directly into the mews.

  He remembered the stables as dusty and crowded, smelling pleasantly of straw and horses. Now the walls were whitewashed, and the floor looked clean enough to sleep on, if not eat on. His wife liked it to be immaculate, or so a groom told him a minute later.

  He watched as boys swept out straw from the stall of a dappled gray. It was the second bedding change of the day, they told him. Meanwhile, the mare was being groomed for the third time. James shrugged, and then strolled down the central passageway. It seemed that he owned two precisely matched grays, two black geldings without the slightest spangle of white, and a matched set of four bays.

  The stablemaster, Rosloe, was a cheerful sort who maintained order with an easy authority. But by the time James wandered back to the garden door, he’d heard “This is the way her ladyship wants it done” so many times that he found his lips moving along with the phrase. Rosloe caught him at it and burst out laughing. “Her ladyship has a way of thinking through the best way to do things,” he explained. “They’re not all her ideas either; even if one of the youngest lads has an idea about a better way to organize the tack, she’ll listen. She’s fair about it too, though of course she makes the final decision.”

  Obviously, Theo would have made a brilliant sea captain.

  He and Griffin had survived years together—but they’d had two separate ships and two separate crews. How on earth was a household supposed to run with two captains within the same walls?

  Back inside, he allowed Maydrop to introduce him to the housekeeper, Mrs. Eltis, and then to the chef, Monsieur Fableau, a Frenchman so small that he barely reached the ovens. Every surface in the kitchen evidenced strict organization. There were two turning spits, for example: “One is reserved for poultry,” Fableau explained, “and the other for cuts of meat.”

  The pantry was lined with row after gleaming row of conserves. “Surely the household doesn’t eat all this in one year,” James exclaimed, realizing that the shelves covered four walls.

  “Oh no,” Mrs. Eltis replied with more than a trace of pride. “When the conserves are sent up from the country in the fall, I mark each jar and place it to the left, and then use those on the right. When the year comes to a close, I give any that haven’t been eaten to an orphanage. That’s the way her ladyship wants it done.” The housekeeper’s beaming smile spoke for itself.

  Aboard ship, the captain was the absolute ruler of his particular world. James hadn’t failed to get his own way in years; a crewmember would no more think of disobeying him than of jumping into a shark-filled bathtub.

  He climbed the stairs thinking how interesting it was that he had no sooner entered England than he was led to understand, in no uncertain terms, that he was not the master of this particular world. In fact, it could be that here, at least, Daisy was the captain and he a mere visitor. It was disconcerting.

  Griffin was in the rose bedchamber, Maydrop had said. Not that James knew which one that was. Everything had changed in the house. He remembered a dimly lit corridor at the top of the staircase, but Theo had knocked out the wall that faced the front of the house. Now the staircase led up in a sweep to an open passage, fronted with a satinwood balcony. He liked the way the railing felt like the rail of a ship in his hand.

  He eventually succeeded in locating Griffin, only to find him in a temper; his response to James’s entrance was a string of curses—and when a pirate captain is in a rage, the breadth of his vocabulary is truly astonishing.

  “I’ve had a delightful reunion with my wife,” James said, dropping into a chair and pretending he hadn’t heard Griffin’s blistering welcome.

  Griffin perked up at that. “Kicked you in the arse, did she?”

  “I would say she hit a more tender area. She’s bent on moving out. The only thing keeping her under my roof is the fact that the house is besieged by journalists.”

  “Wait until my wife gets the news that I’m back in London,” Griffin said, shifting his weight f
rom one side to the other side with a grunt. He was still recovering from the slash to his leg that had endangered his life—and his manhood. James had had a relatively uncomplicated recovery, given his injury, but Griffin had succumbed to infection and was still recuperating. “She’ll be in the hills of Scotland by next week.”

  “I commanded Daisy to stay,” James said, stretching out his legs. “In case you’re wondering, I used the same tone I employ with the crew.”

  Griffin let out a bark of laughter. “I gather that Her Grace did not appreciate it?”

  “Even the butler knew I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. I caught a gleam of sympathy in his eyes.”

  “Turned into a hellion, has she?” Griffin grunted, shifting onto his right hip again.

  “She’s angry,” James replied. “She’s got a right to it, I suppose. I had hoped for . . .”

  “Instant reconciliation?”

  “At least a cessation of hostilities. She’s changed.”

  “So have you. Remember that fresh young lad who greeted me by tossing his wig overboard? That’s who she remembers. Now she’s faced with a burly, scarred pirate with a tattoo under his eye. No wonder she’s leaving.”

  “She has changed as well,” James objected, feeling foolish.

  Griffin snorted. “Did you think it was easy for her after you left? You’re lucky she hasn’t turned into a virago.”

  “That goes for your wife as well,” James retorted, but without much force.

  His old friend, guilt, was at his side. Yes, he had been furious when he left England all those years ago. He hadn’t given much thought to Daisy’s predicament. He was a thoughtless bastard, no matter how you looked at it. “She’s turned to an icicle. She’s . . . she used to be bubbly and funny.”

  The corner of Griffin’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing.

  “Damn it,” James said heavily. “I’ve bungled every damn thing in my life. I’ve ruined her, Griffin. Now she’s like one of those ice sculptures we saw in Halifax. Beautiful but frozen. She wasn’t like that before I married her. She’s furious that I didn’t keep my beef in my breeches.”