This Duchess of Mine (Desperate Duchesses #5)

The Duke of Villiers walked into the watery morning sunlight, thinking about duke’s daughters named for queens.

Chapter Thirty-one

Two months later, mid-June

1784

All of London was talking about the Duchess of Beaumont’s benefit costume ball for refurbishment of the old Roman baths. It was rumored that at least four duchesses would attend, and perhaps even the King himself. Everyone, of course, would be dressed in proper Roman attire.

Mrs. Mogg and her friends were waiting outside the gate of the baths hours before the ball was due to begin.

They watched as scores of footmen carried in countless garlands of flowers.

“They’ll wrap them around the trees, I’ve no doubt,” Mrs. Mogg said importantly. “The Duchess of Beaumont did just that at a party she had in Paris.” Her friends all nodded. Mrs. Mogg was considered something of an expert on the Beaumonts. After all, she’d talked to the duke himself twice. And she seemed to know everything there was to know about the couple.

“That was when they were living apart,” she continued now. “The duchess was over in Paris, by herself, see, and the duke was here. But then she came back and they fell in love, just like a fairy tale.”

“She’s the best chess player in all England,” Mr. Mogg put in. He had discovered that if he didn’t go along with his wife’s obsession with the ducal family, they had nothing to talk about. So in his own way, he had become an expert too.

“Nay, you’re wrong there,” a bystander said. “The Duke of Villiers is the best chess player. They just had in the paper as how he is the number one ranked player in the Chess Club.”

“But that’s only because the duke and duchess refuse to play each other for a ranking,” Mrs. Mogg said. “I had a shilling and sixpence riding on the duke winning the game with the duchess, and he sent a footman to my house to tell me the match was off.”

“Cor,” the man said, looking at her again.

Mrs. Mogg drew herself up, her fox head stole shaking with excitement. “He sent that footman right to my house, to tell me that.”

“Well, why won’t they play each other?” someone asked respectfully, as befitted a conversation with someone who knew a duke personally.

“I expect because of love,” Mrs. Mogg said. “They’re in love, you know. She calls him Elijah. I heard her, clear as I hear myself. ‘Elijah,’ she called him.”

“Are they really all going to be wearing sheets?” someone asked her. He had a little notebook. “I’m reporting for the Morning Post, madam.”

Everyone looked at her with respect. “That’s what I heard,” Mrs. Mogg said, watching as the reporter wrote down sheets.

There are some people for whom the command to wear a toga is anathema. The Marquise de Perthuis, for example, received her invitation, shuddered, and dropped it in the fireplace. Wearing a shapeless white gown held no interest for her. Besides, she was packing to return to France. Having heard nothing from Henri, she had decided to shock him (and the French court) with the glory of her new chemise gowns.

Lord Corbin was similarly discomposed. How did one wear a proper wig with a toga? And what about shoes? Weren’t ancient Romans prone to wearing roughly-made sandals that displayed one’s toes? He went to the opera instead.

But most other English peers were braver than Corbin, or more curious. “It’s held up on only one shoulder,” Roberta, the Countess of Gryffyn, complained. “What was Jemma thinking of? What if my gown falls straight to the ground while I’m dancing?”

Damon, the Duchess of Beaumont’s brother, dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder. “She was thinking that you would look utterly ravishing in a toga,” her husband said huskily.

Roberta met her husband’s eyes in the glass, and unfortunately that particular couple arrived quite late at the ball.

It wasn’t until some hours later—after Mrs. Mogg, Mr. Mogg, the Morning Post reporter, and a small stalwart crowd had been standing long enough to be truly weary, and all the footmen and cooks and the rest had gone through the little gate—that Mrs. Mogg really achieved fame.

The Duke and Duchess of Beaumont were the first to arrive. That made sense, since they were hosting the affair.

The reporter started writing busily, for here was a couple for whom the very design of the toga seemed to have been invented. The duchess wore her unpowdered hair in simple curls, with a lock or two falling over her bare shoulder. She had jewels in her hair and on her slippers. The duke looked like Socrates himself, the reporter scribbled, stopping for a moment to wonder whether Socrates was Greek or Roman. Well, it hardly mattered.

“Mrs. Mogg,” the duke said, stopping with a bow.

The reporter stopped writing to stare. Did the duke just bow to Mrs. Mogg?

Sure enough, she was bobbing a curtsy and talking to him as if he were of no better rank than a dockworker. The reporter shook his head. There was no point in writing this down; no one would believe it.

A few hours later, the gardens of the Roman baths were thronged with Roman nobles—or so it seemed. The trees were festooned with flowers and strands of pearls; twinkling small lanterns lit the darkest corners.

“It’s a triumph,” Elijah whispered to Jemma.

She smiled up at him. “Did the king tell you that he’s going to undertake restoration of the baths himself? They should be a national treasure, he said.”

Elijah’s arms tightened around her. “I’m a bit sorry to have lost our secret place, but he’s right. The mosaics need to be restored.”

“I know.” And then: “Why do you have that naughty look, Elijah?”

He dropped a kiss on her nose. “After the ball is over, Duchess…” He ran a finger under the single knot that held up her toga.

She laughed. “Yes?”

“I have a surprise for you.”

A drawling voice said, “Should I return, or are you two going to continue making an exhibition of yourselves?”

“Piss off,” Elijah said, turning his back on his oldest friend to gather his wife in his arms.

“I need Jemma,” Villiers said, sounding amused.

“Or rather, I need a wife and she promised to help.”

“Oh!” Jemma said. “Do let me go, Elijah. I promised to introduce Leopold to the Montague sisters. I just saw Eleanor, dressed as Caesar’s wife.”

Elijah reluctantly let her go, just pulling her back at the last moment. “Later,” he said into her ear.

And then watched her walk off with Villiers, knowing that the high flush on his wife’s cheeks had nothing to do with face paint.

As the night wore on, the gardens gradually emptied of revelers. Some of the lanterns winked out, giving the paths the air of a wild bacchanalia. Carriages drew up continually outside the little stone wall, taking away groups of chattering noblemen. The hems of their togas were black with dirt; they themselves were replete with gossip; it was accounted a brilliant night by all.

Finally, Mr. and Mrs. Mogg were the only two people still waiting outside the gate. “But the duke and duchess haven’t come out!” she wailed.

“We’ve been here for hours, Marge,” Henry said.

“You know I love you, but I’m done with this here waiting. We must have missed them. Or they left through another gate. Look, all them servants have left, and the place is dark now.”