When the Duke Returns

Simeon walked to the door leading to the great sitting room and stopped. Isidore knew exactly what he was looking at: the empty, stained floor where there had been two threadbare Aubussons and clusters of furniture in various states of disrepair.

“You sent away all my furniture,” Simeon stated. He ran a hand through his hair.

Isidore stared at his back. His shoulders seemed very tense. “It is presumably my furniture as well,” she told him.

“If we remain married,” he said. Then he whirled about. “You have no right to send away every stick of furniture in this house. People live here. I live here. You could have done me the nominal courtesy of asking my permission.”

“Your permission?” Isidore echoed. “Your permission for what? Would you have said that you wished to keep the rug that your father’s incontinent dog chose as his private privy, or the one with a rip down the middle?”

“Do you mock me?”

Surely there were women who would have cowered at this point. But Isidore had never cowered at anyone, including Simeon’s mother, and she wasn’t going to start now. “Absolutely,” she said. “Mock where mockery is due, I say.”

“You—” he said violently, and broke off.

“Yes?”

And then, when he didn’t answer: “Are you sure you don’t want to characterize my heinous crime? That of sending the furniture out to be repaired so that this house is livable, if not hospitable?”

“Where is my mother to eat dinner?” he asked.

Isidore opened her mouth—and paused. “In the Dower House?”

“All four of us, happily crowded in the corner?”

“Honeydew will find a larger table,” Isidore said.

“Could you please consult with me before you embark on projects such as emptying out the house?” he asked.

He had himself under control again. Isidore almost sighed. There was something magnificent about Simeon in a rage. Not that she wished to court that condition, she told herself. “Of course,” she said. “Instantly. Every time. I’ll ask you so many questions that you’ll grow tired of the very sound of my voice.”

He shot her a sardonic look, but at least his mouth relaxed.

“What on earth could have happened to this wall?” he asked, wandering over to examine a gap in the paneling.

“Your father kicked it,” she said, answering his query.

“My father—”

“Your father apparently kicked the paneling after a game of cards. The strength of his leg was such that he remained stuck with one foot in the wall and the other on the floor, until the footmen could extract him.”

Simeon turned around and ran a hand through his hair. “Isidore, have I lost my mind? Is this normal behavior for an English family?”

She smiled at that. “How would I know? I’m Italian, remember?”

“I spent the entire morning going through a most unpleasant stack of letters. They are all dated from six to eight years ago, and not only did each of them ask for money, but each had been denied by my father.”

He was a beautiful man: spare, large, wild-looking. Even his eyes were beautiful, filled with disappointment though they were.

He ran his hand through his hair again. “Am I truly mad, Isidore?”

“No,” she said promptly. “I should tell you that I had an argument with your mother this morning.”

“I apologize for my mother’s undoubted vehemence.” He leaned against the wall next to her.

“I lost my temper,” Isidore said, meeting his eyes. “I spoke in a most inappropriate manner. And I said things that I wish I hadn’t.”

“That pretty much sums up my experience of England,” he said, looking down at her.

Isidore suddenly felt as if her knees were weak. He was going to kiss her—he was—he did. His lips felt more familiar now. He licked her lips and she almost giggled, but then she put an arm around his neck and drew him close.

Thoughts fled as their bodies met. He was all hard muscle, and she melting softness. They both smelled of dust. But under the dust and faint smell of ink, she could smell the spicy cleanness that was Simeon. It made her tremble. It made her put both arms around his neck and hold on.

Chapter Nineteen

Revels House

March 1, 1784

That afternoon

Simeon was conscious of savage disappointment: in his father, every time he leafed through sheaves of rejected bills, in himself. He had returned from the Dower House the night before and retreated to the study until numbers swam before his eyes.

Yet his father wasn’t the heart of his problem. She was. He could fix the house, and pay the bills. He couldn’t fix what happened to him when he was around Isidore. He felt like a hunting animal seeing her, as if even the hairs on the back of his neck knew where she was in the room.

Finally, at this late date, he understood all the poetry of desire and lust that he had ignored before. Valamksepa used to recite the poetry of Rumi, a poet from 500 years ago; Simeon had exulted because he was free from the embarrassments described by the poet. And yet, Rumi was right: reason was powerless in the face of the lust he felt for Isidore. All he wanted to do was retreat to a bedchamber and—and rut.

Like an animal.

Not like a principled, thoughtful human being, like the kind of man he had always believed himself to be.

Except he was starting to worry about that too.

Finally he put down his quill and realized exactly what he feared: by marrying Isidore, he would be giving up himself. He would be giving in to violent tempests of emotion. His house would be shaken by screaming fights between his mother and his wife. He would be unable to withstand her, because he lusted after her to the point of being unable to think.

He felt ill—the kind of sick airy rush in his head that he used to feel when he and his men were being stalked by a tiger.

Danger…

His wife was equally worried. Isidore wanted to be a duchess. She had thought so before her husband appeared, and she thought so even more so now that Simeon turned out to be so knee-weakeningly appealing.

And yet life with him was going to be humiliating.

She could survive any amount of public embarrassment. He could go about London without a wig, and run through Hyde Park in a nappy. The problem was that he didn’t really like her very much.

She could see it in the way he fought his attraction to her, in the veiled coolness of his eyes when she described the changes she planned for the house. Simply in the way he looked at her.

A husband who didn’t like her. It wasn’t what she expected, though she couldn’t say that she ever gave it a thought. Women liked her. Men desired her. She admired some and tolerated most.

Isidore sat down on one of the few chairs left in the house. She probably merited the scorn she saw in Simeon’s eyes. After all, she wasn’t what he wanted.

But what could she do? How do you make a man like you? Like? What did husbands like about their wives? A sense of humor, a partnership—

Partnership. She could help him more.

She leaped to her feet. He kept asking the butler questions about various bills. If there was one thing Isidore was good at, it was making inquiries.

“Honeydew, I should like to visit the village,” she said a few minutes later. “If you would have a bath drawn for me, I shall change my clothing.”