Page 4 (1/2)

Chapter One

Beaumont House

London Seat of the Duke of Beaumont

March 26, 1784

No one dressed to please a husband At least, not in the Duchess of Beaumont’s circle of acquaintances One dressed—to be frank—to dazzle and amaze one’s female friends Or, if one were so inclined, to invite a seduction…to engage in an affaire

Husbands were just there, like coal in Newcastle and pigs in the sty

Which made it all the harder for Jemma, the duchess in question, to decide what to wear to seduce her spouse After all, Elijah had been her husband for years True, they had lived apart for soly businesslike fashion, that after he returned froht spent at the Prime Minister’s house, they would…

Would what?

Have a baby Produce an heir, or at least go through the motions that would produce one in nine months

Go to bed together

They had coo When she had first returned frory to contemplate marital intimacies, but then somehow the fury drained away Still, they kept to separate bedcha truth was that Elijah didn’t seem terribly interested

First he said he wouldn’t bed her until she finished her chess match with the Duke of Villiers, since everyone believed that the ht more than a cover for an affaire Then, when she threw in the chessthe win to Villiers, Elijah announced that he was going into the country with Pitt’s wing of the government

She couldn’t i that he was too busy to bed her Too busy to seduce the Duchess of Beaumont?

Unlikely

Je overly vain, just realistic It had been her experience that men were driven by lust above duty And she had been assured by e sixteen that she was precisely what a lustful man would like to find in his bed

She had blue eyes, hair of a deep golden color, a very elegant nose (she particularly liked her nose), and crimson lips True, the crie, but if one were lucky enough not to have a thin hard ht as well draw attention to it

And at twenty-eight, she still had the allure of youth, together with a sheen of sophistication and wit that no sixteen-year-old could command

She even had all her teeth, to lower the subject to the level of cattle

The problem, it seemed to her, was that to Elijah she was a wife, not a woman

There was nothing sensual about the ife Jeed and co hair and suffered fro

It wasto be a wife Even worse, a hose husband was reluctant to take her to bed

It was definitely a new, and rather disconcerting, sensation, to feel that she wasato seduce her During the years she lived at Versailles, gentleiven that her husband lived in England They swiveled before her to display a powerful thigh, flaunt an embroidered coat or an enameled snuff box They dropped roses, plums, and poems at her doorstep