Duchess By Night

It seemed to Harriet that Jem’s eyes gleamed when he said Mr. Cope, as if he relished the sound of it, but she said nothing. Just went to the side of the room and hauled off her boots. For once, it was warm in the gallery when she stripped off her coat.

“Did you see that I had a brazier brought in?” he called to her.

Sure enough, a fat iron-wrought pot sat to the side, radiating heat.

“I’m trying to keep Eugenia warm. But then she decided not to join us.”

“Good,” Harriet said rather absently. She had just realized that she had a blister on her right palm from practicing so long the previous night. It hurt to grasp the rapier.

“What’s the matter?” Jem said instantly.

“Nothing,” she said, gripping her weapon. “En garde, sir.”

He fell into position, that long muscled body such an elegant pleasure to look at that Harriet made herself turn her head.

“Never turn your eyes from your opponent,” he said sharply.

Obediently, she looked again. “I’ll show you an envelopment today,” he murmured. “Watch me.”

He held his rapier in his right hand, brought it up in a graceful looping arch, swung it around, slid it under, and lunged forward.

“Again,” she said, memorizing the way his arm came up, the way his other arm flew out in balance, keeping his body in perfect symmetry.

He did it again.

“Like this?” She tried it but knew something was wrong. Her arm went too high and then came down at a sharp angle.

“You’re terrifyingly good at this,” he remarked. “I didn’t get that far for hours when I first learned.”

She didn’t believe that, but her voice died in her throat. He was behind her again, reaching around her body to show her where to begin the motion, his long muscular arm lying against hers. She swallowed. His body touched hers, like a flash of fire, like a promise forgotten, and her whole body flamed in response.

“Now you try,” he said, coming in front of her again. He looked utterly unmoved. Well, of course he did: he thought he was teaching Harry Cope how to fence! The thought steadied Harriet. At least Jem could have no idea how his touch made her tremble. It was a humiliating secret—but it was a secret.

She tried the move. Tried it again while his keen eyes watched her. He stopped her, showed her again, demonstrating what she’d done wrong. After twenty minutes, she’d forgotten that his touch made her heart race. She was too possessed by the idea of reproducing the exact movements he was showing her. And twenty minutes after that—she had it.

“Perfect!” he said, his eyes smiling at her.

Just like that, her body turned liquid, longing, female. Everything about her felt female: soft, curved, luxurious.

“What an odd expression you have on your face,” he murmured. “You don’t mind if I pull off my shirt, do you, Harry? I seem to have become quite heated with all this exercise.”

He had the kind of body that Harriet had only seen on laboring men. Not noblemen. Noblemen had slightly sagging physiques like Benjamin, the bodies of men who spent the evenings drinking copious amounts of brandy and playing chess.

Not Lord Strange.

Not Jem.

He looked as if he belonged in the golden light of a wheat field, swinging a scythe overhead. His chest looked powerful. Useful, as if a woman could throw herself there and—

Useful? Was she losing her mind?

“Harry?” Jem asked with a look of concern. “Are you all right? Let me see that hand.”

He walked over and unfortunately the effect of his naked chest near hers sucked all the air out of her lungs and Harriet couldn’t even protest as he uncurled her fingers. All right, she had a blister. But who would have thought she would be so affected by a muscled male body?

The very thought made her face burn. If she didn’t watch out, she’d end up hanging over the rail and watching her own men scythe the fields. Like a hungry old maid.

Unless, a traitorous little voice in the back of her mind said, unless you—

“This is quite a blister you have forming,” Jem said. “We need to wrap it up and keep it clean.”

“Yes, I’d better go do that,” she said with relief, skipping back a step. If she was losing her mind and turning into a bawdy widow out of a ballad, she would prefer to do it in the privacy of her bedchamber.

“No need,” he said. He went out to the corridor and bawled “Povy, water! Soap!”

“He won’t hear you,” Harriet said.

“Of course he will. You sit there and watch me while I show you the next move.”

Watch him? It was like some sort of torture, but not torture that Harriet ever dreamed of. Whatever this emotion was, it wasn’t one that belonged to Harriet. Plain, country Harriet didn’t feel surges of longing that practically brought her to her knees.

It was humiliating.

It was exhilarating.

Jem swung the rapier above his head like some sort of conquering warrior. She could see him in a Viking’s leather breeches, scarred from many a fight on his longboat, his hair blowing in the ocean wind…

Her eyes were glazing over so she pulled herself back to the move he was showing her. It was an impossibly dizzingly series of deft movements, darting forward and back.

“Are you watching, Harry?” he shouted at her. He raised those golden shoulders again, and Harriet slowly nodded her head. She was watching.

“Want to try it yourself?” he said, pausing.

“No,” she said, and her voice didn’t even sound like her own voice. It sounded lethargic and sweet, like a trickle of honey.

His eyes narrowed and his mouth opened, but thankfully the door opened and Povy bustled in. “A bowl of water, my lord, and dish of soap. May I enquire as to the injury?”

“Just a blister, Povy,” Strange said. “I can take care of it myself.”

He was still standing in the middle of the gallery floor, looking as if he didn’t even know that God had given him the kind of body that women dream of. Well, not that Harriet had ever dreamed of a man’s body, because she hadn’t.

She’d dreamed of love. Of affection and kisses. Once she’d married Benjamin, those dreams had clarified: she’d started imagining a man who would look interested when she spoke to him, who would show concern if she were ill, or sad, or just plain tired.

But she didn’t think about the bed. Well, perhaps only a little bit. If Benjamin won an important game, he was always happy and smiling, and generally he would come to her bed. They would make love, and then he would tell her the entire game, playing the moves out on her breasts as if she was a chess board. Sometimes they wouldn’t even finish consummating the act before he started recounting his triumphs.

“His development was slow,” Benjamin would say, rearing over her with a little grunt. “He couldn’t find a good square for his Queen’s Bishop”—grunt—“I made sure his bishop never got to King’s Knight Two.” Grunt.

The memory made her feel a great deal cooler.

Jem was a much prettier package than her late husband. He even seemed to listen to her—but he thought she was a man. And if he knew she was a woman, would he be teaching her fencing?

Not likely. Or, as Harry Cope might say, “Not damned likely.”