Desperate Duchesses (Desperate Duchesses #1)

“Ha,” Jemma said. “He misstepped there. Beaumont has one god: his honor.”

“Beaumont just said that he never played anymore. He doesn’t, does he?”

“Not so far as I know. I only played him a few times when we were first married.”

“Did you beat him? Your husband, I mean?”

“Yes. But he was awfully good.”

“Is there anyone you haven’t beaten, Jemma?”

“Every chess player loses occasionally. I only played one game with the French king and he won.”

“King Louis? Then you allowed him to win,” Harriet said with a little crooked smile.

“Prudence is part of strategy,” Jemma said. “But you know I haven’t played very many people, Harriet, so it hardly signifies.”

“You’ve never played Villiers?”

“Never. I only met him once and that briefly. He was traveling on the continent during the first year of my marriage, and I’ve been in Paris since.”

“They say he’s the best player in England.” She took a deep breath. “I hate him for what he did to Benjamin.”

Jemma blinked. “What did he do?”

“He shamed him. And I think he did it deliberately. I’ve thought and thought about it. I think he agreed to play the game in White’s, just to make Benjamin stop nagging at him. And then—and then Benjamin lost, of course, but Villiers had played it so that Benjamin thought he would win.”

“But—”

Harriet wasn’t finished. “He’s an awful man. A positive wolf. He had affaires with half the ton, if you believe the stories, and he treats all his lovers despicably. They say he has at least four illegitimate children.”

There was a noise at the door and Jemma came back with a tea tray.

Harriet drank half of her tea in one gulp. “I want you to do me a favor, Jemma.”

Jemma reached to the sugar bowl. “Anything, dearest.”

“I want you to shame Villiers.”

She straightened. “What? Shame him—how?”

“I don’t care!” Harriet said fiercely. “You could take him as a lover, and spurn him. Or take him as a lover and make fun of him, or something like that. I know you can do it.”

Jemma was giggling. “I love your faith in my abilities,” she said. “But—”

“You could play chess with him.”

There was a moment’s silence. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You came from the country not to see me, but to ask me to play chess with Villiers?”

Their eyes met. “I came to see you, Jemma. We’re not as close as we were when we were children. You’ve changed; you’ve grown sophisticated, and even more beautiful, and I’m just a country mouse.”

Jemma’s eyes had assessed her brown curls and her clumsily handled panniers; she must know it was the truth.

“I didn’t live in the city with Benjamin,” Harriet said, though her throat was so tight she could hardly speak it. “I just couldn’t make this life work, putting my hair up, and powdering it, and taking hours to get dressed. Having a maid, and a dresser, and all the rest of it bores me. I just couldn’t stand the boredom!”

“I can understand that, of course,” Jemma said. “It can be quite tedious.” She smiled, but she was cooler now, more distant.

“So I left Benjamin here and I went to the country,” Harriet stumbled on.

“You couldn’t have stopped him from loving chess,” Jemma said.

Harriet felt a wave of desperation. “You don’t understand!” She almost shouted it.

“What?”

“I couldn’t be around him, because—because—”

“Many couples live apart,” Jemma said. “It certainly isn’t your fault that Benjamin committed suicide, simply because you were living in the country. You could not have stopped him from losing a game to Villiers.”

“You don’t understand,” Harriet said. She lifted her chin. “I had an affaire with Villiers.”

Jemma sat bolt upright. “You had an affaire?”

It was such a relief to tell someone that the words tumbled out. “It was two years ago, at a ball given by the Duchess of Claverstill, about a month before Benjamin died. Benjamin was playing chess all night. Every ball has a chess room now. It’s so tiresome. Some nights there aren’t any partners for dancing. At any rate, Villiers came out of the chess room and, somehow, he found me.”

“What is he like? I don’t know much about him, other than that he was a boyhood friend of Beaumont’s and they had some sort of falling out.”

“I hate him,” Harriet said, her voice shaking.

“Because you spent the night with him?” To Harriet’s relief, Jemma had lost her air of froideur. She poured more tea for both of them.

“Because—he didn’t really—it was just like the game with Benjamin!”

“What?”

She might as well tell the whole. “The truth of it is that we didn’t really have an affaire. I was so cross at Benjamin that I just—well, I lost my head. Villiers was taking me home and—and—but he—”

“You’re going to have to be a bit more clear,” Jemma said. “Based on my rather varied experience of men, I’d say that he made an advance to you in the carriage?”

“No,” Harriet said, drinking again. “I did.”

“Excellent decision,” Jemma said promptly. “Frenchwomen understand that a woman must pick and choose amongst her admirerers rather than leaving it to the man’s discretion.”

“There are no men for me,” Harriet said miserably. “Benjamin was the only one.”

“So what happened with Villiers?”

“He kissed me for a bit, but then—well—this is so embarrassing. He did this thing.”

Jemma’s eyes were bright with interest. “What thing?”

“With—with his hands. And that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

“Even if I pour you some more tea?”

“Even then. So I—I—”

“What did you do? I gather you didn’t just swoon and say, Touch me again!” Jemma was giggling so hard that her tea was in danger of spilling.

“Well, I said, actually I shrieked, What are you doing? And he just did it again!”

“And it wasn’t any better the second time?”

“What would you have done?” Harriet asked desperately.

“It would definitely depend on the thing in question. I enjoy many things that men do with their hands.”

“You’re so much more sophisticated than I am. I’m not like that. I slapped him. Which is just what my mother, not that my mother would ever, well, it’s what she would have approved of, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure,” Jemma said, gurgling with laughter. “What did he do?”

Harriet took a deep breath. “I’m going to tell you exactly what he said.”

“I’m ready.”

“He said that he had always pitied Benjamin for his miserable chess-playing, but from now on he would try to be nicer to him.”