Not that duke, p.17
Not That Duke, page 17
“Lady Stella’s wardrobe is fine,” Silvester said. “Personally, I like the gown that you claimed made her look like Holofernes.”
The dowager rolled her eyes. “You’re looking as her friend, not her suitor. She needs to find a husband so she doesn’t have to endure another season on the marriage mart. A new wardrobe is essential, as I already informed her.”
Stella was feeling hideously embarrassed. “Your toga is quite creative, Your Grace.”
The dowager’s toga would have been a crowning achievement for a Roman modiste, made as it was of gleaming white silk that fell to a hem of thick gold embroidery.
“Personally, I feel that wearing a toga over numerous petticoats has given my mother the outline of a blancmange,” the duke remarked. “The fancy kind that has a stack of blackberries on top.”
The dowager swatted him, clearly unperturbed by his sartorial criticism. “Never listen to male comments about your apparel,” she told Merry and Stella.
“My husband never offers any,” Merry assured her.
“It’s probably just as well that he’s not here this afternoon. He might have taken it amiss that my son is in dishabille,” the dowager told her. “I assure you that Mrs. Quimby sent over a complete costume.”
“Unfortunately, the undergarment ripped when I put it on,” Silvester explained. “However, my understanding is that togas were worn without a shirt or breeches. I compromised.”
“It’s lucky that you are unchaperoned, Lady Stella,” the dowager remarked. “Mrs. Thyme wouldn’t have survived the shock.”
Stella agreed with her.
Silvester didn’t look or sound as if he’d lost weight from heartbreak, the way the Earl of Lilford had in Yasmin’s absence. In fact, he looked remarkably healthy and not haunted by regret in the least.
Though, of course, he was the last man who would reveal genuine emotion.
Stella couldn’t stop sneaking glances at him. His arm and chest made heat swirl through her blood, tingling in her fingertips. If she wasn’t careful, he would guess that she was besotted.
“I shall join the ladies’ army,” the dowager announced.
“Young Thomas informed me that he and I are two warriors fighting four bloodthirsty Amazons,” Silvester said, twirling his sword in a way that suggested years of fencing instruction.
“Death comes with two blows of a sword,” Thomas reminded them. “And no cheating, Mother! She likes to leap from behind trees and take a man down when he isn’t expecting it,” he explained to Silvester.
“Is there a rule against hiding?” Stella asked.
“It’s not manly,” Thomas said, glancing up at Silvester. “Gentlemen never attack from behind.”
“A gentleman never fires first,” Silvester agreed. “One must defeat the enemy, but that doesn’t mean you should be a boor about it.”
“Luckily, we are not men,” Stella pointed out.
“There is one other important rule,” Silvester said, raising his eyebrows. “No blows below the waist.”
“Nonsense,” Merry said. “I always aim for a whack on the bottom.”
Stella couldn’t imagine whacking anyone’s bottom, let alone Silvester’s, but she nodded. “Omne pulchrum est in amore et bello.”
Silvester’s mouth twitched. “All is fair in love and war, eh?”
“Certainly,” Stella stated.
“I shall remember that,” he said, his mouth curving into that lopsided smile Stella had never seen in a ballroom. He turned away. “Thomas, whether or not our enemies break the rules of gentlemanly combat, we shall remain true to our better instincts.”
“Right, sir! I mean, certainly, Your Grace.”
“I can’t run terribly fast,” the dowager said, suddenly appearing to be pitifully elderly. “I think you’d better concentrate on conquering the other Amazons, Master Thomas. I may not survive a blow from your sword.”
Thomas bowed. “Of course.”
“Our army will begin next to the gazebo and the other by the house,” Merry announced. “I’ll fetch my daughter.” She ran off, waving her sword.
“I’ll take your arm,” the dowager said to Stella. She cast a minatory look at her son and Thomas. “The battle doesn’t begin until I reach that structure, obviously.”
Interestingly, her stroll was slower than it had been when she was plowing through river water. “Silvester is back in London, as you see,” the dowager said without preamble. “I imagine you know that Lady Yasmin has agreed to marry that earl who was courting you. Perhaps she already has. I gather a special license is required.”
“There is genuine feeling between them, so I’m happy for them,” Stella said.
“Well, at least you aren’t weeping into your tea,” Her Grace said. “Silvester was so glum this morning I had to drag him along with me.”
Stella winced. She hated thinking of Silvester longing for Yasmin. Or feeling desolate because he had been jilted.
“I can’t think how I managed to raise a son with such a puling attitude toward the opposite sex,” the dowager continued. “He told me he wants to be in love with his wife! Can you imagine anything more foolish?”
“I expect he will fall in love with someone else,” Stella suggested, her heart aching at the thought. Silvester would have to be terribly lucky. Yasmin was the most exquisite woman in all England, or so people said. There weren’t many Yasmins.
“I hope not,” his mother said, somewhat surprisingly. “Love makes a fool of a person. Oh, not at first, but afterward. I wish better for my son.”
“He will recover,” Stella said. Of course, she’d known Silvester would be hurt by Yasmin’s choice. But knowing wasn’t the same as hearing from his own mother that his heart was broken. Her chest felt hollow.
The dowager flashed a look at her that was so akin to one of her son’s that Stella blinked. “It’s not possible to reason with him on the subject. I tried.”
Thankfully, they finally reached the gazebo. Stella peeked inside and found Specs lying on her back on Peter’s lap, her paws and legs stretched out blissfully as he stroked her stomach.
“Look how funny your kitty is, Lady Stella,” Peter cried. “She’s not in the least afraid, not even of George!”
George was bristled with white hair and snoring loudly as he twitched in his sleep. He didn’t look like much of a threat.
“Specs is a shrewd cat,” Stella told him. “She knows you’re a friend.”
Fanny was conferring with her mother. “Does everyone have their Latin epitaph ready to go?” she demanded. She had clearly appointed herself their general.
“The vicar gave me mine,” the dowager said enthusiastically. “Oderint, dum metuant.”
“We learned that one last year,” Fanny said. “Let them hate as long as they fear! Do you know Mr. Addison?” she asked Stella.
“I don’t.”
“He’s an American, and frightfully good at this game,” Fanny said. “He beat Thomas.”
“Sic semper tyrannis!” Fanny shouted. “Down with all tyrants.”
Stella started to correct her, and stopped herself. Precision wasn’t the point. This was a game. In fact, it was probably the first game she’d ever played, other than chess.
“Lady Stella?” Fanny asked.
“Semper primus!” Stella supplied. And then, in response to Merry’s questioning glance, “Always first.”
“Short but meaningful,” Merry said approvingly.
“Now, here’s our strategy,” Fanny said. “Remember, they can’t strike us until we strike them because they’re boys. So your first blow has to land.”
Stella tightened her grip on her sword. She could imagine swinging it through the air. She simply couldn’t imagine hitting a person with it.
“We’ll run at them in pairs,” Fanny continued. “All we have to do is poke them with both our swords, and they’ll be dead.”
“Very bloodthirsty,” her mother said approvingly. “Your Grace, may I be your comrade-in-arms?”
“Sic,” the dowager said. “That’s ‘yes’ in Latin, by the way.”
“Here’s our strategy,” Fanny said to Stella. “We’ll take on the duke. He’s old, so he won’t run as quickly as Thomas, and besides, Thomas will be afraid to hit the dowager duchess with his sword. He’s silly like that.”
“Well, she is an elderly lady,” Stella pointed out.
“But she’s fierce,” Fanny said. “Just look at the way she’s holding her sword. Mother shouts a lot, but she hardly ever hits anyone with her sword. That’s why Thomas always wins the laurel wreath, except that one time when Mr. Addison played. He swatted everyone, including Mother.”
“We must win,” Stella confirmed.
Fanny nodded. “The dowager is going to take Thomas down, and our job is to kill the duke.”
“I am ready,” Stella said, practicing a few swings with her sword. If she thought about the way that Silvester stared longingly across the ballroom at Yasmin, she could definitely thwack him.
“Lieutenant general, are you ready?” Fanny shouted at her mother.
Merry took the dowager’s arm and then raised her other arm in the air, waving her sword. “Non ducor, duco!”
“Let’s go!” Stella cried, grinning at Fanny. “I’m behind you!”
With a bloodcurdling scream, Fanny sprung out of the shadow of the gazebo. Stella ran after her, sword in hand, feeling her hair streaming behind her like a Valkyrie. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the dowager tottering across the lawn, looking as if she’d lost twenty years in the last ten minutes, leaning heavily on Merry’s arm but flourishing a sword with her other.
Fanny dashed forward and tried to poke Silvester from behind with the point of her sword. He whirled around from talking to Thomas and blocked her sword.
“Noli me tangere,” Silvester growled.
“I know what that means, and I’ll tread on you if I want to!” Fanny cried, darting in to try again.
Thomas knocked her sword aside, and the siblings began energetically whacking away at each other, shouting in Latin.
“Semper primus,” Stella said, clearing her throat as she pointed her sword at Silvester.
Silvester’s eyes seemed to be intent on her toga, perhaps due to the fact that only the shortest stays worked with the design.
Her aunt’s insistence that lust unsettled male minds could be useful. Stella moved a step closer, and then another, until she was so close that she could smell snowy rain. And starched linen.
“Stella,” Silvester said, his voice deep. “I missed you in the last month.”
“You missed chess?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “So did I.” She took another careful step. She was almost close enough to poke him. “I was very sorry to hear that your heart was broken.”
“What? Oh, yes. Quite.”
She took a final step and gave him a lavish smile, swinging up her sword and poking him in one leg. “Number one!” she called, leaping out of reach.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t count on victory. As Thomas’s lieutenant general, I can’t let him down.”
Stella danced from foot to foot, realizing she was grinning like a fool and not caring. Silvester didn’t look as if he were heartbroken. Surely heartbroken men didn’t have that greedy look in their eyes.
“How in the bloody hell am I supposed to strike a woman?” he asked.
Thomas clearly had no such qualms; behind Silvester’s shoulder he scored a point against Fanny, who started screaming at him in English, not Latin.
The dowager drifted closer to the two children, held out her sword, and spanked Thomas on the legs. “Strike one!” she observed when Thomas spun about.
“Ha!” Fanny shouted, and the dowager, Merry, and Fanny surrounded Thomas, moving in a circle like the three witches in Macbeth.
Thomas managed to whack his sister on one leg. “You’re dead!” he shouted.
The dowager chortled. “You are soon to die!”
Stella looked back at Silvester. “In my opinion, Thomas will soon fall to the sword, so to speak. Your team will lose.”
“Only if I believe that as a lady, you cannot be exposed to my sword.”
Stella narrowed her eyes at him. “Was that a randy comment?”
His grin was perfectly wicked. “I will live in thy heart and die . . . in thy lap. That’s Shakespeare. As schoolboys, we memorized all the naughty parts.”
“My heart is not available, and neither is my lap,” Stella said briskly. He was circling her, holding his sword up. She couldn’t stop looking at his chest, the power and grace of it. The way those muscles seemed chunky from afar but lithe and supple up close. The inherent strength that his shoulder displayed.
Why should a shoulder be erotic?
It was like a neck. Just a body part, no more than a body part, but the blood was racing through Stella’s body as if they were back at the striped tents and she’d drunk three glasses of champagne.
Silvester was coming too close so she hastily circled to the right. He wouldn’t slap her with the sword, so he’d have to trick her into allowing him to come close.
From behind her, she heard a cacophony suggesting that Merry had taken two blows.
“You’re out, Mother!” Thomas bellowed.
“Retreat, retreat!” Merry called.
Silvester always wants to win, Stella reminded herself. That fierce light in his eyes? She wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret it, but she’d seen it any number of times when she was closing in on checkmate. Or he was.
The Duke of Huntington wanted to win, even if the weapons were wooden swords and the army led by children.
The problem was that if she didn’t let him come close, she couldn’t strike him with her sword either. So she had to lure him close enough so that he gave her a blow, which meant she could give him a blow, and then he’d be dead.
She lowered her sword and watched him prowl around her, only turning to keep her front to him. “You’ll have to come closer,” she observed. “You might hurt me otherwise.”
“Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.”
“Seize the day,” Stella said, frowning. “What’s the other half of it mean?”
“Put no trust in tomorrow.”
“What does that mean, in the context of this particular battle?”
“I will do my best to find a wife today, as I have little hope of tomorrow.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Stella asked. “Are you referring to losing Yasmin?” She had her eyes fixed on his sword. It hung loose from his hand but she was certain he could tap her with it if he lunged.
She had to welcome death in order to bring death.
Chapter Twenty-One
“It has nothing to do with Yasmin,” Silvester said, sliding sideways. He recognized the sneaky look in Stella’s eyes. She got just that expression when she was about to attack in chess.
But that wasn’t all he read in her eyes. The drumbeat of awareness between them, the way his toga was (thankfully) disguising his erection, the pink rising in Stella’s cheeks . . .
She felt it too.
His desire wasn’t one-sided.
As afternoon entertainments went, this one was proving sartorially challenging. It wasn’t a matter of keeping his toga on. Stella’s toga was the problem.
The breeze kept blowing it back, flattening silk against her bosom until he could actually see the lines of the corset she wore over her chemise. And everything else. All the generous curves and dips and valleys.
He forced himself to move to the right, his hand tightening on his sword. Sword! What in the bloody hell was he supposed to do with a blunt instrument besides make dirty jokes about it?
“Run to the tree, Stella!” a voice suddenly shrieked, bringing him back to the realization that they were silently circling each other like duelists.
Stella turned and ran away from him. Silvester was horrified to discover his muscles tightening, not wanting to let her go. This bloody craving was absurd. He never felt this for Yasmin.
But he’d been in love with Yasmin—or next best thing to in love with Yasmin. He adored her. Truly.
He didn’t adore Stella. He craved her, like water in a desert. He’d never actually tried to kiss Yasmin, whose touch-me-not air made her aversion to intimacy obvious. But Stella? The first damn time he got her in private, he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into his arms, dead mouse or no dead mouse.
The memory of their kisses was like the beat of a drum in the back of his mind. So it was a damn good thing that Yasmin had dropped him for Giles.
He tightened his grip on his sword and padded after Stella, who had dashed behind a tree to confer with Merry, Fanny, and his mother.
“Sir, sir,” Thomas said, running up out of breath. “How many times have you been struck, sir?”
“Once,” Silvester said. “You?”
“Once. They don’t play fair at all. I had to run like the blazes to get away from the dowager duchess, which is not the way someone like that is supposed to play!”
“How should she play?” Silvester asked.
“Well, she’s old. And a duchess. She should be dignified. She’s a lady.”
“My mother never believed that rule, even when she was young.”
“Oh, that’s right, she’s your mother. I apologize.”
“Your mother won’t be dignified at that age, either,” Silvester pointed out. “She’s also a duchess.”
“Look, they’ve decided something,” Thomas said, whirling around and backing close to Silvester’s chest.
Silvester could smell sweaty boy and mown grass. It was surely imagination that made him detect the faint perfume that clung to Stella’s skin as well.
The four women strolled out from behind the tree. Silvester’s body flared to life at a glance from Stella. Merely a glance.
This was a disaster.
“Careful,” Thomas warned. “Your mother may be the only one left alive, but I expect all four of them will try to ambush us. It’s cheating!”
Silvester glanced down at the small, indignant general at his side. “Lady Stella is still alive. Your sister and mother have put down their swords, so they aren’t cheating.”
