Duchess By Night

Povy bowed. “I have not had success, Mr. Cope.”

“Have you checked every bedchamber?” Her tone was only slightly acid.

He blinked. “Naturally not. I cannot inconvenience our guests in that matter.”

“Do so,” she snapped.

“Lord Strange will be quite angry,” Povy said.

She fixed him with a look. “Lord Strange will have other things to worry about. You might wish to inform him that his daughter has been bitten by a rat.”

He stood for a moment as she gave him her best duchess stare. Then he faded backwards, closing the door quietly behind him.

“I don’t think Povy likes you, Harry,” Eugenia said, taking a huge bite of buttered eggs.

“I don’t like him very much either,” Harriet said. “If there is a rat in your room, it is Povy’s fault.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Eugenia said after a moment. “Papa told me that all old houses have mice.”

“Mice are one thing. Rats are another.”

“I expect the rat was hungry,” Eugenia said. “I went to bed without my supper because I was naughty.” She ate another large bite of egg.

“What did you do?”

“I fell into a rage,” Eugenia said. “I do that, and it is a great fault. My governess was so angry at me that she left.”

“And she didn’t come back.”

“Yes, so I didn’t get supper. But I knew I wouldn’t. I am never supposed to have supper if I am impertinent. And sometimes I just feel impertinent.”

“We all do,” Harriet said, feeling the rage bubbling inside of her. “I think you should still be given supper.”

“I know the way I ought to behave,” Eugenia explained. “But I just can’t get there. My governess wanted me to practice my French. But I very much wanted to do my calculations instead. And I couldn’t pay attention; I just couldn’t. And then I snapped at her.”

“Were you rude?” Harriet asked.

“Frightfully so,” Eugenia said cheerfully, starting on the toast. “You know, Harry, your hair is standing straight up in parts.”

Harriet put a hand to her head and discovered that her hair had fallen out of the tie at her neck and was curling wildly around her head. “It’s that sort of hair.”

“It makes you look like a girl,” Eugenia observed. “You would make a very pretty girl.”

Harriet was inordinately pleased by that compliment.

“Are you a girl?” Eugenia asked, with that remarkable straightforwardness employed by children.

Harriet nodded.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Eugenia promised. “I wish I was going to be as pretty as you are. But I’m not. I’m reconciled to it.”

“What on earth are you saying?” Harriet said. “You’re beautiful!”

“My papa says that the worst thing you can do is fib to someone just to protect his feelings,” Eugenia said, her gray eyes very earnest. “My hair is peculiar and I have a big nose.”

“You do have very curly hair,” Harriet agreed. “So do I. But your nose is not big, and you have lovely eyes.”

“I am used to it,” Eugenia said serenely. “Papa is very rich, so I shall marry whomever I wish. I shall buy him.”

“Oh,” Harriet said, rather taken aback.

“Are you rich?” Eugenia asked. “It makes things quite pleasant.”

“Yes,” Harriet said after a moment. “I suppose I am. I haven’t thought about it much.”

“Why not? You could buy yourself a husband, you know. I can tell you how to do it, as Papa told me all about it. You go to London and post how much money you have on a pillar in St. Paul’s Cathedral. That’s a very big place and you can find everything from a horse trainer to a wife there.”

“Oh,” Harriet said. “Is your father planning to buy himself a wife?”

“He loved my mama very much,” Eugenia said. She was starting to look a little sleepy. “He didn’t buy her, though. She bought him.”

“Why don’t you sleep in my bed until your father comes to find you?”

Eugenia stumbled her way to the bed and fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillows.

Harriet stood for a moment and gently touched Eugenia’s hair. It hadn’t been brushed before bed. Which made sense given that the governess had stormed from the room before supper and didn’t come back, not even to wash Eugenia’s face. But shouldn’t Jem have visited his daughter to say goodnight?

She swallowed. If life had been kind enough to give her a child…

“I could have a passion for you,” she whispered. If Eugenia were hers, she could have felt as fiercely about her as Benjamin had for chess.

It was a bleak thought, and just made her feel more tired. So she stumbled back to the armchair and sat down. She finally fell asleep thinking of calculations and children.

When she woke again, from a dream in which a very clean, intelligent rat was doing calculations on a scrap of paper, it was dawn. Her neck was stiff from sleeping in a chair. She stumbled to a standing position and then fell into her bed next to Eugenia, fully clothed.

Chapter Twenty-one

Of Rats and Their Ability to Change Their Spots

S he opened her eyes to find him there, hanging over her, such painful anxiety in his eyes that she forgave him, although his sins were unforgivable.

“Is she badly frightened?” he whispered.

It was the first time that she’d seen the almost physical glow of intelligence and confidence that surrounded Jem Strange diminished. She felt an instant wish to bring it back.

And quelled the emotion by remembering what an ass he was, sleeping God knows where.

“It could have been a fire,” she said sharply, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

He had no wig. Of course not: he and his mistress likely didn’t close their eyes for a moment.

If he ever came to her bed, she wouldn’t sleep all night.

“God,” he said, running his hands through his hair. It sounded like a prayer. Harriet felt another wash of sympathy and choked it back down.

“She would have died,” she said, her voice steely hard, chill, logical. “No governess. She’d had no supper. No one washed her face. A rat woke her from sleep and bit her on the hand. I expect he thought she smelled like a buttered crumpet. Did you know that you had rats?”

He wheeled and stared at her, his eyes huge, the shadow of his lashes falling on his cheek. “Did I know I had rats?” he said, sounding almost dazed. “No. I suppose I should have known. I thought we had mice. Eugenia told me that she heard scurrying and little squeaks and I told her that old houses have mice.”

“Rat-bite fever,” she said, bringing her worst fear to the surface, but unable to say more than just the name of the disease.

“Which hand was bitten?” He moved to the side of the bed. Eugenia was sleeping in a tangle of dark hair. She was smiling a little, the tips of her lips turned up.

“The right,” Harriet said.

He picked it up. The four puncture wounds were a little swollen. “God,” he said. Again it sounded like a prayer.

“When a man on my estate died of the fever, it came on a fortnight after the bite. You’ll have to watch her.”