“I sent everyone away. The Graces, the guests, everyone.”
She looked at him.
“They’re tearing down the tower this week.”
He had her hands again, was kissing them and trying to tell her all the things he couldn’t put into words. “I told them to tear down the tower, and Eugenia will tell you, I found a governess. Eugenia hates her.”
For the first time, Harriet felt a gleam of hope. “What’s she like?” she asked cautiously.
“She has a remarkable figure. I can’t hardly describe it other than saying that it goes out in the front as much as it goes out in the back. She wears black in honor of her husband. He’s been gone a few years.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-six. I can’t think about anything but you, Harriet. You left, and there was no point to the Game anymore. I had no interest in riding. I found myself walking up and down that damn picture gallery four times a day. I dreamed only of you.” He pulled her close again and caught her lips in the most passionate kiss she’d ever experienced.
“I can’t be feeling this alone,” he said, voice low. “Don’t tell me that, Harriet. I never felt like this before. Sally and I—we laughed. We were like children together. She never scolded me, or noticed what my faults were. She never made love to me the way you did.”
Harriet smiled.
“I couldn’t have made love to her the way I make love to you,” he said, cupping her face in his hands. “Something happened since we made love in the barn. I can’t stop thinking about you. I meant to leave you alone. You’re a duchess, for God’s sake. My family and my reputation are equally black. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“I don’t care.”
The truth of it must have been in her voice because he said, “You don’t know the worst of it yet,” but something eased in his eyes.
She was tempted to kiss him, but she made herself pull away and sit on the sofa.
He stayed there, a bewildered-looking man, with his dear lean face and a dark glower that made him look like a gypsy king.
“What if you miss all your friends?” she asked. “The problem is that you shouldn’t have to give up all your friends just to be with me. And someday—” she wrapped her hands in her skirts so they wouldn’t tremble “—someday you’ll be tired of me and you’ll miss the Game.”
He looked at her, his eyes dark blue and clear. “Do you think that I will ever get tired of Eugenia?”
A little snort escaped her.
“Then why would you think I’d get tired of you?” He didn’t sound challenging, just interested, the way he always was when there was a question of logic involved. “I love you, Harriet. Love is not something that comes easily to me.”
Her smile was wobbling.
“I didn’t want to love you. Especially when I thought you were a man. And even more when I knew you were a duchess.” He shrugged. “But there we are. I tried to cut you out of my heart, but I love you. How can I let you go? It’s the same question I had with Eugenia, so be warned. I never could send her to school.”
“Are you going to keep me locked in the west wing?”
He walked one step and looked down at her. The look in his eyes…
“I think the west wing is too large for you. I’m thinking more about just one chamber.”
“Oh,” she whispered. It was almost too much to take in. He did love her, plain widowed Harriet. He loved her.
And she knew Jem. He would never let her go.
He reached down to her at the precise same moment she flew to him. They kissed for…Harriet didn’t know how long. They were talking to each other silently. Once she broke it off, only to whisper, “You’ll never leave me, will you?”
He knew what she was saying, and kissed her again before murmuring, “I gave up the Game and it was never that important to me. What happened to Benjamin will never happen to me. Never. I’m staying with you, wherever you are, Harriet.”
“When my nephew is old enough, he’ll take back this estate.”
“By that point, we’ll have Fonthill shaped into a perfect habitation for a duchess,” he said promptly.
“Not a duchess,” she whispered. “Lady Strange.”
He started kissing her again, and only stopped to say foolish things about how they’d be together until they were both eighty-five years old, and her hair was white as snow, and she was a toothless crone…
She had to kiss him to make him stop.
Chapter Forty-one
A Chapter of Revelations…of Fathers and Brothels
T hey had tucked Eugenia into bed together, only to discover a dismal meowing noise coming from under her covers. The kitten was rescued and taken back to his mother. Then Harriet thought to lift up the cover again and discovered an unfortunate accident involving that kitten.
After the maids had come and gone, Jem whirled her against the wall in the corridor.
“I can’t do it without you,” he said, his voice husky.
“Yes, you could, and you have,” she said, not bothering to pretend she didn’t know what he was referring to. It felt as if she might be answering his unspoken thoughts the rest of her life. “You’re a wonderful father.”
But he shook his head. “I need you. I don’t think about rats and cat piss and falling towers. I didn’t—I didn’t have much of a father, and I think that’s why I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He wouldn’t tell her anything more, and it wasn’t until the middle of the night, when he was lying on the bed, his chest still heaving, that Harriet propped herself up on one elbow and said, “I want to know why you were so angry when you found me in the stables with Nick.”
He closed his eyes, shutting her away, but she had one great fear and wanted to say it. “Did someone harm you when you were a boy?” she asked quietly.
His eyes snapped open. “Thank God, no.”
She waited.
“But it could have happened. Anyone with a story and a joke was welcome to our house. Sometimes they would stay for weeks, and my father thought it was all great fun. We were the lucky ones, he would say.”
“Did you live at Fonthill?”
“No, we lived in Lincolnshire. One of those men was a hell-hound by the name of Sattaway. My sister was thirteen. Perhaps twelve. I can’t remember.”
“Oh no!” Harriet cried.
“He left after a few weeks but it was too late. She bore a child.”
“And then?”
“The child died because he had given her syphilis. A disease.”
Harriet swallowed. Jem didn’t say anything else. “And after that she was kidnapped by a different man?”
“Yes.”
“Did she die soon after?” Harriet finally ventured.
“Oh, no. She’s not dead.”
She put her head on his chest, but he just kept stroking her hair. “You really may not wish to marry me,” he said finally. “And—”
She reared up her head. “You’d let me walk away?”
There was a smile in his eyes. “I’m a reprobate to do this to you.”
She rolled over on top of him, as if he were a mattress. “You are everything to me, Jem Strange. Don’t you dare try to send me away again. Ever.”